First of all, the nights--I've never experienced such full and total darkness before. This blackness creeps in each afternoon around 6 and slowly consumes everything. Sometimes it feels almost shameful to use my head lamp and disturb it. Seriously even in the most deserted places, I've never experienced anything this complete, and I've never seen the sky so littered with stars. I can see the Milky Way. It's incredible.
This whole experience seems so big that it's hard to know where to start.
I guess it's important to say that this has been amazing and at times so incredibly disheartening. It really is something I have to take one day at a time and not think about long term or I freak out. Sometimes when I truly acknowledge that this is my life for two years I feel so lucky and infinitely happy, other times, it makes me panicky and I struggle with that reality. There is so much work that goes into this, so much initiation, so much room for failure, so much learning I need to take on, and so many aspects of Malawian culture that really challenge all of my big anxieties-and on the flip side so many amazing things that can come out of this, it's really limitless. That gives me hope, and slowly I begin to believe in what we are doing.
Literally every single thing about Peace Corps makes this a total crap shoot.
Right now I live with the most incredible host family known to man and spend 6 days a week going to Peace Corps training from 8-5. I study the language, get tech trainings, go to medical sessions, get approximately a billion shots, visit rural health facilities, hang out with/ check little Malawian babies (feel free to be jealous) for malnutrition, learn about nutrition/ how to cook indigenous foods (YUM!) plant gardens, learn about gender equality, HIV, gender equality, visit traditional community healers, way more than I care to think about with rape, and that's only the first 3 weeks.
There is so much to say about the other volunteers and what an incredible godsend they are, what it's like to live with poor sanitation, no running water or electricity, and with my host family. So much that I'll have to save it for another post!
A few quick stories for context:
A chicken flew into my bedroom through my window today.
Deodorant, toilet paper, and diapers aren't really done by the locals- it's more of a westernized thing.
A fellow volunteer stepped on a mouse in her room.
Every weekend night there's a dance circle with the girls in the village, and lord they can wooork it.
Peace Corps dedicated an entire session to the types of diarrhea we would encounter over the next two years. Among the volunteers using the chimbuzi is talked about at least twice a day. Often more. Fiber pills for the win.
Singing, dancing, and eating Nsema is a way of life here.
Smart volunteers have pee buckets in their bedrooms to avoid night time runs to the "chim"
We talk about the foods we miss way too much. (Red wine, pizza, cheese, chocolate! UGH!)
I do dishes with chicken and ducks every morning.
5:30 am is wake up time.
I bathe twice a day here but have resolved myself to knowing that I'll never really be clean for the next two years of my life. More to come on that subject later.
Lastly, the mail I've gotten is incredible and has been such a joy for me. Thank you so much!!! Please keep it coming!
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