Just hanging around

This is one of the trees by my house. Hey, what's that in the tree? Is it a bird? Is it a snake? Hmmm...

Oh, it's Nowelo! He's climbing the avocado tree just outside my house.

There aren't any avocados on the tree this time of year. He just wanted me to take a picture of him climbing it. Then all the other kids started climbing trees in the hopes I would take pictures of them, so it was time to put the camera away.

Compost Happens

When I first moved here, there was a small trash pit in my yard. A trash pit is a hole in the ground where you throw all your trash, and then burn it periodically. Everyone has one here. So the first thing I did was to only throw food, plants and other decomposable stuff there, and make it into a compost pile.

I've had some challenges with the compost pile, like other people burning it, and then having to burn it myself because it was infested with linthumbu (red driver ants). Another problem is people trying to throw plastic and other non-organic material into it, because composting food waste is not really a thing here. But it's been going a good six months now without any major issues.

I talk to the kids about the compost a lot (or composti, as they call it here), and how it is important to feed it organic matter. I tell them, "Ali ndi njala. Akufuna kudya masamba, zipatso, maudzu ndi zomera zambiri!" (It is hungry. It wants to eat many leaves/vegetables, fruits, grasses and plants!) That always cracks them up. Then they run, laughing, all the way to the compost pile with their leaves, orange peels and sugarcane fibers to "feed" it.

Today my landlord was repairing my fence, and as he left he took a whole wheelbarrow full of the compost for his garden. He said it was very good material. I was so proud! It showed me that he saw the value in what I was doing, which means a lot. He is a dedicated farmer with a lot of farmland around us, so I'm glad he will be making good use of it. Hopefully he will start his own compost pile now too.

My Iwes

There are a lot of iwes* (kids) that live near me, mostly between the ages of 3-10. They come over everyday, sometimes several times in a day. Often when I am napping or working on a lesson plan and don't want to be disturbed. They knock and knock and knock on my gate until I answer. Then they say, "Tikufuna kuwerenga" or "Tikifuna kuphunzira English." (That's, we want to read and we want to learn English, respectively). Even if I am tired or busy, how can I refuse them?

We have a whole routine now. They come in and sit on the porch. I take out my little box of books and games and art supplies that I keep for them to play with. (Kinda like a "kid kit" from The Babysitter's Club, if you ever read those books). They take out what they want, and put it away when they are done. Sometimes I read with them or we use my flashcards to practice English. Sometimes they read while I work on my lesson plans. If I have power I might make them a cup of tea or give them some of my bread. It's a good time.

They love when I take pictures. They know I like to photograph the wildlife in my yard, so now when they see a bug they grab it and say, "Kujumbula!" which is Chichewa for take a photo. The other day they found a snakeskin near my lemongrass plant. They immediately picked it up and said "kujumbula". So I went and got my camera, and somehow we ended up doing a photoshoot.

For the record, I did not tell them how to pose. This is all their own idea. I just suggested the backgrounds. The fruits and faces are all them.. 

This girl is the happiest girl in Malawi. Her name is Aisha and I have known her since she could barely walk. Even then she always had a smile on her face. Now she knows my name and says "Hi" and "Bye" to me when she sees me. She always brings a smile to my face.

Those are my iwes. They keep me company, they drive me crazy, we laugh together, and my service would not be the same without them!

*Note: the Chichewa word for kids is "ana". "Iwes" is PCV slang for kids, since when mothers call for their kids here they always add "-iwe" to the ends of their names, like "Stesi-iwe!" Iwe translates to you, informally. So we PCVs call all the kids "iwes". It's funny to us, but maybe you have to live here to appreciate the humour.

A brief detour to Moz

Did I ever tell you about the time I went to Mozambique? I went with three of my PCV friends (Shamie, Sheila and Steph—we confused everyone with our similar names) a few months ago. We were supposed to go to Tofo in the southern part of the country, which is supposed to be a really fun tourist spot, but to get there you have to pass through this district where people are randomly shooting at cars, so Peace Corps told us we couldn’t go that way, which was a good call on their part. So we stayed in the North and ended up at Pemba instead.

Beach in Pemba, Mozambique

Since this was only the second country I have visited on this continent, I couldn’t help but compare it to the first one, my host country Malawi. Here are my thoughts:

• Size: Mozambique is huge! It completely surrounds the southern part of Malawi, and goes on all the way to the ocean. We met a PCV there and he said that when PCVs need to travel to their capital in Maputo for trainings, they actually have to fly because it takes so long to travel there. Crazy!

• Transportation: Another reason it takes so long to travel in Mozambique is because the roads in are not so good. We’re talking massive amounts of unpaved dirt roads that are no fun to ride on, and would be almost impossible to cross in the rain. It got to the point where we cheered when we reached a paved road. We did see lots of new roads being built, so things will probably improve in 5-10 years. They have minibuses there, but I didn’t see as many big buses like we have here for longer journeys. Of course, this was just the bit we saw on our trip, so other parts of Mozambique might be different.

• People: The people there were definitely not as friendly as in Malawi. I felt like people there were almost a little bit hostile to foreigners. Compare that to Malawi, where people go out of their way to greet and help foreigners. Don’t get me wrong, we met lots of nice people and had a good time. But I just didn’t feel as welcomed as I did in Malawi.

• Language - Portuguese is the official language of Mozambique, as it was once a colony of Portugal. This is the language for all government business and the language that is taught in schools. But in the rural areas, many people only know the local tribal language. So it’s similar to English in Malawi. None of us had ever studied Portuguese, but by learning a few key phrases and relying on our high school and college Spanish, we were able to get by in the urban areas.

• Currency – The currency in Mozambique is called Meticals (pronounced “metacash” which is kinda funny). The exchange rate was something like 10 Malawian Kwacha to 1 Mozambiquan Metical, which made it kind of easy to do the conversions. Since their currency isn’t as inflated as Malawi, they had a lot more bills and the ATMs gave a variety of bills, instead of just 500s and 1000s like here in Malawi.

• Food: We were on vacation, so we didn’t really try the local fare. But we did try lots of fresh seafood. I am still kind of getting my “sea legs” when it comes to meat, so I haven’t had much seafood since I was a teenager except sushi and salmon in the States and a little chambo (a native Malawian fish) here. But Shamie took me under her culinary wing and introduced me to fresh shrimp, fresh tuna, cod, lobster and more. So good!

• Recreation – In Malawi we have the lake, but in Mozambique they have—the Indian Ocean! It was off-season so it wasn’t very crowded where we went. We mostly had the beaches to ourselves. The water was really turquoise and pretty in the sun. We saw little sandcrabs on the beach, and lots of jellyfish in the water. But they weren’t the kind that were poisonous, according to a few of the locals. I was so excited to put my feet in the Indian Ocean! It was nice and warm.

 

The 4 S's, enjoying a day at the beach!

Connecting to where my food comes from...

So, i decided i need to take part in connecting to where my food comes from...if i can eat it, i should be able to do whatever's necessary to prepare it...hence the chicken head and axe. I killed a chicken while Mama-G laughed uncontrollably. I prayed beforehand and told the chicken i was sorry. The worse part was definitely the actual killing (except for Mama-G's laughter). Everything else was fun - feathering, gutting, and eating! 

They use EVERY part of the chicken, which is really great. Whatever is not eaten is given to the dog and cat to eat. Even the stomach contents were used for some kind of compost/fertilization.

Wildlife in Moldova: broască (frog)

OK, my wildlife encounters in Moldova has increased somewhat...YAY! The current score is multiple birds,  4 squirrels (but i think i saw one of them twice), 4 hedgehogs, 2 frogs, 1 fox (i think...it was running really fast, and was definitely not a dog), 1 dead rat.

This frog was on the stairs to our beci (cellar). I picked it up and it sqirted (peed?) on me. Mama-G was shocked, disgusted, and amused, all at the same time about me picking up the frog (she didn't know about the squirting). Then we went to a late night masa and she told everyone that i picked up a frog and everyone had pretty much the same disgusted/amused reaction as Mama-G. :op

Kayaking on the Nistru!

I went on a 4 day kayaking trip with fellow PCVs (13 of us total) with the Moldovan tour group: Hai la țară. The tour guide, Alex, is from Transnistria and he started this tour guide business over a year ago and is doing really well! He's tapping into a pretty much untapped potential gold mine of tourism in Moldova. 

The trip is usually 5 days, but he condensed it into 4 days for us (some of the other PCVs couldn't commit to the full 5 days). The tour included 4 days (about 6ish hours per day) of kayaking down the Nistru River, with stops for lunch, hiking around, waterfalls, monasteries - all with very interesting history lessons from Alex (he speaks Romanian, Russian, and English...maybe more). 

Two of the three nights we stayed with host families who prepared traditional Moldovan mese (feasts) with us. The last night we stayed in a dorm-style hotel with more traditional food served.

It was a really great time and definitely something to do if ever in Moldova!