i am sitting in my favorite little internet cafe in downtown blantyre. let me start by saying that the language is not chichew. that was a typo. it is chichewa. i'm learning the language slowly and loving it.
also, to those of you (family and close friends) who expressed an interest in sending a package to me, please explore another postal carrier, besides DHL. It costs $35 just to send a sheet of paper from here to the states using DHL. also, if it ends up being too expensive to send anything, just enjoy the m & m's that you bought for me while responding to my emails. maybe the chocolate will reach me through the internet...
i've only got 16 minutes before the cafe closes, so let me just say happy thanksgiving to all of you. i missed you and your cooking. i was all set for being terribly homesick on the 22nd, but then i realized that i was going to be with 25 field officers participating in a 'soya training.' they were divided into teams of 5, and each team was responsible for 5 different recipes which incorporated soy. so i got to work with all of the teams, helping to hand out ingredients and to prep different items for different dishes. it was from 9 in the morning until 5 at night. which is 7 hours ahead of you east-coasters and 10 hours ahead of all of you in California. the day was full of laughter and celebration, as each team worked over open fires. they set up three big bricks, facing each other like third dividers in a pie chart, and in the middle, they lit small fires with the ends of slow burning wood. then they put the pots on top of the center of the bricks--and cooked. they baked bread, made crackers, made sweet potato baby food, made soya chunk stew, and spicy minced soy carrot curry. it was amazing to watch them all working these recipes as a team. and to be a part of it on the very first holiday i missed while being away from home felt like an absolute miracle. after all the cooking was complete, each of the participating teams had to taste the dishes one at a time and rate the appearance, texture and taste of each. most of everything was off the charts good, but there was one dish in particular that looked partially digested, and myself and a field officer named Martha literally couldn't stop laughing as we looked at it sitting there on our plates.
i'll be getting a cell phone this week. i'll send out the number next weekend. it will be free for me to accept calls, so again, family, and close friends, go buy those Africa calling cards.
it looked as though i'd be online more often during the week, but once a weekend is the only sure thing for now.
please respond. your words fill me with what i need to be sustained here...
to those of you who responded this week. thank-you! thank-you! thank-you!
i miss you and love you!
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Malawi Update No. 2
i'm not gonna mess with the capitalization in the emails sent from this particular keyboard, since there is only one shift key, and i find it slows me down. and while this is a cheap internet cafe, it still costs money.
where to begin. well, let's start with the surreal expenses. an imported chocolate bar costs more then a u.s. dollar, but a soda costs 25 cents. a bus trip is never more than 75 cents and is usually around a quarter. local produce is abundant and wildly inexpensive.
jong soh (my volunteer cohort for the whole year) and myself both receive about 45 bucks per week. this is way more than enough money to sustain us. it is kind of surreal to be getting this amount of money, when the field officers on staff with the organization we are volunteering with get a little bit more than that 45 in the entire span of a month. we are volunteers, though, right? weird reality checks all over the place, i tell you. the internet cafe i'm writing you from costs 4 kwacha an hour. there are roughly 140 kwacha in a u.s. dollar. but when we took our weekly allowance to a local grocery store, we plowed through nearly all of our money right away, because we hadn't yet seen the local markets.
the program we are working with is called TCE. this stands for total control of the epidemic. in this program, we are considered a special force accountable for the ever-evolving needs of a troop of 50 field officers. each of these field officers is working with a community of around 2000 people in a given area in a 3 year period. they do outreach and study themselves to gain a counselour and health workers perspective when approaching individuals who are often skeptical at best regarding an HIV/AIDS social awareness endeavour.
jong soh and myself are living very close to blantyre city. blantyre is also a province/state and jong soh will be working with a 50 field officer troop in the southern part of blantyre, while i will be working with a troop in the northern part of blantyre. what we do, is largely up to our own design, but will primarily involve a balancing act of assisting at the offices in the urban area, and hearing/meeting the needs of field officers in the rural areas. so far it has been very easy, but i can sense how momentum will quickly build, and different initiatives will leave me very tired at the end of unfathomably long days. but that is for later. for now i am getting used to the public transport system--crazy minibusses that fit between 16 and 18 people like sardines. the food--nsima primarily (a mix of cornmeal and water, cooked down into the thickest of porridges) but also pizza, when you want to spend a little extra and have a treat. the people--very kind poor. they look at me with a stern stare, and as soon as i wave or smile (95% of the time) their faces light up with the biggest smiles. they have clothes from all over. the funniest so far have been a south park shirt, and a shirt that reads--pale is the new tan.
we have no t.v. and we share a room. most of our time is spent quietly when we are not talking--which makes sense, since we have no radio either. but we keep busy. he with language training, and reading, me with reading and writing. i'm also starting to work on my chichew--the predominant tribal language--and everytime i speak something new to a stranger, their face totally lights up.
i've met some neighbour boys who are as smart and well-educated as the smartest kids i've met in the u.s. one is a writer named jeremiah who is working on a play and writes lots of poetry. he is in a gap year between high school(?) and college. another is named blessings, and he is going to show us around a big local market this afternoon provided our plans don't wash out with the rain. then there is daniel, who is a guitarist and gospel singer. church, jesus, god, worship, religion are all around me in the place. i'm thankful that the TCE program doesn't get undermined by a platform of abstinence education. they distribute condoms even as they pray together. i'm going to go to church on sundays regularly--not because i have to, but because i want to--weird...
i'm reading love in the time of cholera, by marquez, and i'm jealous of all of you in the states who can go see the film version at the theatres. i hear we have a movie theatre in blantyre, but i haven't had the chance to check it out yet.
well, i guess that is it for now.
as they say here when it is time to leave from work, or a task--
time to knock off.
siku la bweenu
where to begin. well, let's start with the surreal expenses. an imported chocolate bar costs more then a u.s. dollar, but a soda costs 25 cents. a bus trip is never more than 75 cents and is usually around a quarter. local produce is abundant and wildly inexpensive.
jong soh (my volunteer cohort for the whole year) and myself both receive about 45 bucks per week. this is way more than enough money to sustain us. it is kind of surreal to be getting this amount of money, when the field officers on staff with the organization we are volunteering with get a little bit more than that 45 in the entire span of a month. we are volunteers, though, right? weird reality checks all over the place, i tell you. the internet cafe i'm writing you from costs 4 kwacha an hour. there are roughly 140 kwacha in a u.s. dollar. but when we took our weekly allowance to a local grocery store, we plowed through nearly all of our money right away, because we hadn't yet seen the local markets.
the program we are working with is called TCE. this stands for total control of the epidemic. in this program, we are considered a special force accountable for the ever-evolving needs of a troop of 50 field officers. each of these field officers is working with a community of around 2000 people in a given area in a 3 year period. they do outreach and study themselves to gain a counselour and health workers perspective when approaching individuals who are often skeptical at best regarding an HIV/AIDS social awareness endeavour.
jong soh and myself are living very close to blantyre city. blantyre is also a province/state and jong soh will be working with a 50 field officer troop in the southern part of blantyre, while i will be working with a troop in the northern part of blantyre. what we do, is largely up to our own design, but will primarily involve a balancing act of assisting at the offices in the urban area, and hearing/meeting the needs of field officers in the rural areas. so far it has been very easy, but i can sense how momentum will quickly build, and different initiatives will leave me very tired at the end of unfathomably long days. but that is for later. for now i am getting used to the public transport system--crazy minibusses that fit between 16 and 18 people like sardines. the food--nsima primarily (a mix of cornmeal and water, cooked down into the thickest of porridges) but also pizza, when you want to spend a little extra and have a treat. the people--very kind poor. they look at me with a stern stare, and as soon as i wave or smile (95% of the time) their faces light up with the biggest smiles. they have clothes from all over. the funniest so far have been a south park shirt, and a shirt that reads--pale is the new tan.
we have no t.v. and we share a room. most of our time is spent quietly when we are not talking--which makes sense, since we have no radio either. but we keep busy. he with language training, and reading, me with reading and writing. i'm also starting to work on my chichew--the predominant tribal language--and everytime i speak something new to a stranger, their face totally lights up.
i've met some neighbour boys who are as smart and well-educated as the smartest kids i've met in the u.s. one is a writer named jeremiah who is working on a play and writes lots of poetry. he is in a gap year between high school(?) and college. another is named blessings, and he is going to show us around a big local market this afternoon provided our plans don't wash out with the rain. then there is daniel, who is a guitarist and gospel singer. church, jesus, god, worship, religion are all around me in the place. i'm thankful that the TCE program doesn't get undermined by a platform of abstinence education. they distribute condoms even as they pray together. i'm going to go to church on sundays regularly--not because i have to, but because i want to--weird...
i'm reading love in the time of cholera, by marquez, and i'm jealous of all of you in the states who can go see the film version at the theatres. i hear we have a movie theatre in blantyre, but i haven't had the chance to check it out yet.
well, i guess that is it for now.
as they say here when it is time to leave from work, or a task--
time to knock off.
siku la bweenu
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Malawi Update No. 1
i'm writing you from an internet cafe in blantyre, malawi. blantyre is where myself and my cohort jong-soh will be living for the next 12 months. i'm sorry to leave you all hanging for the past couple of days. we didn't have internet access until just now. we will be coming into the heart of the city at least once a week, so you can count on more consistent communications from me as time goes on. i'm truly in love with this magical place. everything is new and alive and profoundly sad and exciting all at the same time. trust that i am taking every precaution that i can to boost my immune system and to hinder the malaria bugs. i will stay sober and you all will remain in my heart and in my thoughts and in my prayers. please send me all the love and positive energy you can muster. i will take lots of pictures and i can't wait to share them with you and exchange stories about our year apart. i miss each of you already so very much!
my snail mail address is --
Benjamin Mielenz
D.I. of TCE Blantyre
Plantation House
DAPP Malawi
P.O. Box 2732
Blantyre
Malawi
Please only use DHL as a postal service. We will gladly accept any and all amenities which will remind us of home. oreos...lucky charms...entertainment weekly...even the new york times. get creative. and keep in touch, even if it is only via email.
oh yeah...if you are getting this email from my yahoo account, please respond back to my gmail address, as yahoo is a very slow loader here for one reason or another-- benmielenz@gmail.com
in fact...yahoo is such a pain, that noone is going to get anything from that email address today. please forward this to the people who should be receiving it. (mom to ronnie, payten, austin, and wayne. zach to josh. you know who to send it to...thanks)
Thank you for all of your love and support.
I love you, miss you, and am safe, happy, and well!
my snail mail address is --
Benjamin Mielenz
D.I. of TCE Blantyre
Plantation House
DAPP Malawi
P.O. Box 2732
Blantyre
Malawi
Please only use DHL as a postal service. We will gladly accept any and all amenities which will remind us of home. oreos...lucky charms...entertainment weekly...even the new york times. get creative. and keep in touch, even if it is only via email.
oh yeah...if you are getting this email from my yahoo account, please respond back to my gmail address, as yahoo is a very slow loader here for one reason or another-- benmielenz@gmail.com
in fact...yahoo is such a pain, that noone is going to get anything from that email address today. please forward this to the people who should be receiving it. (mom to ronnie, payten, austin, and wayne. zach to josh. you know who to send it to...thanks)
Thank you for all of your love and support.
I love you, miss you, and am safe, happy, and well!
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