Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
The regular irregularity of life in Malawi
Life is settling into a continuous stream of abnormally normal events that I think I just have to tell you guys and explain a little bit.
Several weeks ago I turned on my phone in the middle of the day I turned on my phone to make a call. After completing my own call I left my phone on and was suddenly bobbarded by an unknown numbers electromagnetic radiation. The voice on the end of the phone was that of an English woman's, strange and unexpected. She claimed to be Fiona Melville of the BBC World News and that just left me thinking she'd gotten the wrong number. What could she want with a lowly Peace Corps Volunteer like myself? As it turned out she didn't really know either! There is some sort of contest for different technological applications in the third world and an application had been written for a peanut sheller that my predessesor had brought to the village. She told me how the project has been such a success in Ghana but the entry had been written about Malawi. I retorted with the reality that they are different places and things haven't been to successful here. There aren't any commercial markets that are readily available for shelled peanuts here in Malawi. Thus the village never uses that machine, but if they had an oil press maybe they would. We agreed to spin the story and talk about how the peanut sheller is a piece of a larger puzzle and arrange to have her come to the village and meet with me.
The day before she came, she explained in greater detail that the application had been written because the sheller had been used to sell peanuts and raise money for a borehole that stopped a chronic cholera problem in my area. This didn't really help because my villagers told me that no one had ever used the machine excet for the three times they used our defunct oil press. I thus went on a mad search for those that new about the use of the sheller. Everyone knew about getting money through selling hoe handles, but not shelling nuts. On my way the next morning to meet Ms. Melville I bumped into a friend of mine and I he knew that the machine had been carted off to neighboring areas to shell nuts for a company that has since closed shop. So because a small amount of money was raised with a currently idle machine the story was infact substantiated (of course this was glossed over in our filming).
The filming was a ton of fun! She filmed the chairwoman of the borehole commity talk about how great the borehole was. The kids got super excited and she filmed them singing some song in their classroom. We had a slightly more honest segment that was done with the lady from my oil pressing group on how we need a press to make the machine useful. They filmed the use of a pump that they donated (thus reiforcing the idea that white people bring money and objects). We filmed lots of charcoal related stuff and then she filmed yourstruly talking about the need to generate income or they will have no option but to tear down the forest and make charcoal. Really the best thing to come out of it was that I got a free ride into the capital and was taken out to Chinese food.
Oh, you thought that I was only going to regail you with my tales of stardom, oh no. I also have to tell you about my journey to the land of Sara Lane. Sara Lane is another volunteer from my group and we wanted to have a little party at her site. She said that the directions to get to her site would be in my e-mail and so I trusted that they would be there. When I checked the e-mail, there were no instructions on how to get to my destination. Luckily, one person sitting around the office happened to have been to the site. I got some directions, that were very good, but I still ende up walking for five hours becuase I missed the last flatbed truck that was going to her site. I arrived right before sundown (darn those Malawians and their sense of everything being close) and surprised everyone. They didn't think that I was coming by that late in the day and, frankly, I didn't think that I would make it either. That night was awesome! We ate psuedo-mexican food and had our own rave. The rave consisted of techno music being played at very low volume from the 90s and leftover glowsticks from the last volunteer. It was really funny how we were jumping up and down and shuffling about at such volumes that you really couldn't hear the music. It was good times and we need that sort of relief. I love you fellow volunteers. Ok, all of you out in internet land, love you and take care! Read this now and read something else latter! Peace.
I also read the botany of desire and that was a good book. More or less. bye.
Several weeks ago I turned on my phone in the middle of the day I turned on my phone to make a call. After completing my own call I left my phone on and was suddenly bobbarded by an unknown numbers electromagnetic radiation. The voice on the end of the phone was that of an English woman's, strange and unexpected. She claimed to be Fiona Melville of the BBC World News and that just left me thinking she'd gotten the wrong number. What could she want with a lowly Peace Corps Volunteer like myself? As it turned out she didn't really know either! There is some sort of contest for different technological applications in the third world and an application had been written for a peanut sheller that my predessesor had brought to the village. She told me how the project has been such a success in Ghana but the entry had been written about Malawi. I retorted with the reality that they are different places and things haven't been to successful here. There aren't any commercial markets that are readily available for shelled peanuts here in Malawi. Thus the village never uses that machine, but if they had an oil press maybe they would. We agreed to spin the story and talk about how the peanut sheller is a piece of a larger puzzle and arrange to have her come to the village and meet with me.
The day before she came, she explained in greater detail that the application had been written because the sheller had been used to sell peanuts and raise money for a borehole that stopped a chronic cholera problem in my area. This didn't really help because my villagers told me that no one had ever used the machine excet for the three times they used our defunct oil press. I thus went on a mad search for those that new about the use of the sheller. Everyone knew about getting money through selling hoe handles, but not shelling nuts. On my way the next morning to meet Ms. Melville I bumped into a friend of mine and I he knew that the machine had been carted off to neighboring areas to shell nuts for a company that has since closed shop. So because a small amount of money was raised with a currently idle machine the story was infact substantiated (of course this was glossed over in our filming).
The filming was a ton of fun! She filmed the chairwoman of the borehole commity talk about how great the borehole was. The kids got super excited and she filmed them singing some song in their classroom. We had a slightly more honest segment that was done with the lady from my oil pressing group on how we need a press to make the machine useful. They filmed the use of a pump that they donated (thus reiforcing the idea that white people bring money and objects). We filmed lots of charcoal related stuff and then she filmed yourstruly talking about the need to generate income or they will have no option but to tear down the forest and make charcoal. Really the best thing to come out of it was that I got a free ride into the capital and was taken out to Chinese food.
Oh, you thought that I was only going to regail you with my tales of stardom, oh no. I also have to tell you about my journey to the land of Sara Lane. Sara Lane is another volunteer from my group and we wanted to have a little party at her site. She said that the directions to get to her site would be in my e-mail and so I trusted that they would be there. When I checked the e-mail, there were no instructions on how to get to my destination. Luckily, one person sitting around the office happened to have been to the site. I got some directions, that were very good, but I still ende up walking for five hours becuase I missed the last flatbed truck that was going to her site. I arrived right before sundown (darn those Malawians and their sense of everything being close) and surprised everyone. They didn't think that I was coming by that late in the day and, frankly, I didn't think that I would make it either. That night was awesome! We ate psuedo-mexican food and had our own rave. The rave consisted of techno music being played at very low volume from the 90s and leftover glowsticks from the last volunteer. It was really funny how we were jumping up and down and shuffling about at such volumes that you really couldn't hear the music. It was good times and we need that sort of relief. I love you fellow volunteers. Ok, all of you out in internet land, love you and take care! Read this now and read something else latter! Peace.
I also read the botany of desire and that was a good book. More or less. bye.
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