A Rose By Any Other Name..

You may know me as Amy, Ame, Burke, or the bee's knees..

But in my beloved home district of Karonga, Chilumba city, and my overall area of "the  jetty," within the general village of Chifyu, though more specifically my area within Chifyu, Dambiro (yeah, took me about a hundred years to understand where the hell I live let alone explain it to others.) 

I'm known as the following:

Emily

Emmie

Annie

Emma

Ilana (my Peace Corps predecessor)

Naomi (also my predecessor)

Chikwegza (my village name--my land lady and essentially my village mother's surname.)

And most popularly of course, AZUNGU often followed by "give me peanut butter!"

Depending on my mood and perspective I find this lightheartedly delightful, or disheartening that people still don't "know" me. Either way, whenever I'm not being called azungu, my heart strings are tugged just a little by the knowledge that people are trying.

Grace period

So, my 3 months of "site lock down, go make friends, integrate, assess my community's needs, come up with some rockin' project ideas, identify people to work with, and try my damnedest to figure out Malawi" are officially over. IST, (Peace Corps training,) wraps up our generous 3ish month grace period of no expectations and suddenly demands qualitative results and concrete work efforts.

Welp, I am intimitated. 

It's no secret nor will it come as a surprise that many Peace corps projects fail. Hard. 

Crash and burn, baby. 

And while I'm sure that is incredibly frustrating, and will be slightly embarrassing, I don't find failure particularly scary. There is so much I still don't understand culturally, which will lead to the success or downfall of my efforts. There's so much to learn about need, and priority--and honestly I expect I'll fail a few times, and I've already accepted that. 

It's also not about looking or feeling stupid or out of place, (that's my everyday life as an azungu in Malawi) or even unsuccessful.. It's something about initiating projects in my community that scares me. 

It's like I recognize all of this incredible potential and this seemingly infinite possibility in Malawi and my immediate community but I am my own mental and physical roadblock in achieving successful development work. It's about finding a starting point, diving in, making real change. Faking it until we are making it, as they say; but, Im suddenly feeling unskilled and unprepared to lead. It scares the hell out of me. 

In PST I learned that all of the things I was scared of or anxious about were totally attainable, or not so bad. (Not even the man eating spiders or inevitable diarrhea) So, I know that I am capable, I know I'm strong. I don't know why jumping full force into this whole Peace Corps thing is wigging me out.

I guess for the first time in my life I'm  doing something that I really believe in, and something that I feel really matters and it's all completely self-initiated. What I make of my time and my service is all on me.. And it all starts now.