A St. Paddy's Day Like No Other

This week was a week to mourn death and a week to celebrate life while discovering everything in between.  I am feeling less and less like an outsider in a foreign place and more and more like a member of the Dzaleka community.  It is gratifying to wander about camp and see familiar faces light up when they see you coming.   The bonds I am creating and the relationships I am forming make me feel very connected to these people and this place. 

This week during my women’s support group I asked them to draw a specific moment in their lives when they were the most scared.  These drawings depicted horrific moments and traumatic events emblazoned on the memories of these women.  The stories shared in the discussion were unspeakable.  Unspeakable because the memories and flashbacks were things so terrifying the women could not bring themselves to speak them out loud before today.  One of the women had just finished breaking her silence when another one of our group members walked through the door.  She was physically shaken and was walking in slow motion as if in a dream.  As soon as she sat down you could visibly see all the life rush out of her body.  Her head lowered and rested on the table as tears rolled down her cheeks.  She shared the news that her one-week-old infant daughter had passed away.  Complications from malaria compounded by an understaffed clinic brought the babies life to an end before it had a chance to get started.  The stories of the past were now being highlighted by a woman experiencing real pain and suffering right here and now.  She gathered herself, stood up and walked out of the room with all the strength she could muster. 

The group made a decision to travel to the woman’s home after our group.  Together we walked through the rows of small mud brick homes, past children playing sporadic games of futbol and amongst the roving chickens until we arrived at the small one room house.  Eleven women and a sprinkling of young children huddled inside the dark, dank room. We sat together, to mourn together and to carry the heavy weight of her burden and loss together.  It was a very powerful moment.  Our support group was digging in and embodying the very thing it was put in place to do.  The silence stirred many sad emotions inside of me but I also felt honored and privileged to be a part of something larger than myself.

The loss of life was balanced by the celebration of a new life.  The wife of one of the counselors I work with just had a baby boy and I traveled to camp on Saturday to greet him and celebrate his life.  Six hundred Kwacha, three over crowded mini buses and a ramshackle, prehistoric Toyota later, we arrived.   Camp on Saturday has a laid back feeling to it.  JRS, UN and government services are not available so the hum of official business has died down and people go about other dealings and trades.  We came bearing gifts and left with stomachs full of hot chapatti, home-grown maize and a new love for Daniel Hope.  The hours spent with the family were wonderful and though the prayer before we left might have been the longest ever recorded, its meaning was genuine and brought tears to my eyes. 

I realized I have not made contact since St. Patrick’s Day so I believe a brief update on that matter is necessary.  

Don’t fear…I found the only celebration in town, danced a bit of freestyle jig with an Irish band flown in by the Irish Embassy, drank multiple beers and made a large roast beef dinner.  I don't think corned beef exists in this hemisphere.  

  

The real celebration however came when I had the opportunity to accompany a refugee I was working with to the airport.  He was being resettled to Australia after four years of living in Dzaleka.  To give you an idea of the fortune this man has, he represents one of 100 or so refugees that will be granted resettlement this year out of approximately 11,000 refugee and asylum seekers.  I was invited to see him off so I took my seat or rather my section of a seat large enough for half a cheek.  Laughter and singing erupted in the packed vehicle amongst uncertainty and apprehension.  All were excited for their brother but the expressions on the faces of the five young foster children told another story.  Legal circumstances will not allow the children to travel with him so they will be left behind in camp to live on their own. 

We parked the Land Cruiser and unloaded along with two other vehicles including an open bed truck full of people.  Photos, hugs, photos, goodbyes, more photos and then we walked inside.  In absence of a passport the man had a single page document with his picture and an official seal.  ‘Good for one-way travel to Australia only’.  Permanent.  This was it.  We arrived at the airline counter and he was not aware of the personal space rule so he proceeded to pull within inches of the man in front of him despite the ample space provided.  I found the act so innocent and charming that I choose not to say anything.  Just as soon as he was through immigration I turned to leave only to realize the group sat waiting on a viewing platform that overlooked the single runway of the small international airport in Lilongwe.  This was not just a simple flight, it was a life-changing journey and we were going to watch it from start to finish. 

An hour and half later he was visible on the tarmac waving both hands side to side.  In return thirty of us stood up and waved both hands.  Again, when the bus took him to the plane and he began ascending the stairs he paused in the distance and waved a final goodbye.  When the plane finally took off and was visible over the forest of trees lining the runway everyone clapped and waved one last time.   ‘Safe travels my friend’, ‘God bless you’, and ‘Goodbye’ could be heard in multiple languages.  A great moment.  Never before had I watched a plane off the ground and shared such an experience with a group.  It was a St. Patrick’s Day celebration unlike any other.  My Irish pin and green attire come out every year for the holiday but the Malawian twist on my tradition made it that much more special.  May the luck of the Irish be with you always Claude*. 

Dome’s Favorites:  Made in Malawi: ‘Garlic Nali’ might be the best hot sauces ever produced.  The flavor beats that of Saracha, a former favorite, and the heat is just right.  I am generous with the liquid delight, so much so that I am asked it I would like food with my Nali? Thank you, I shant.

      

A Typical Sunday

8:15-Wake up and remove mosquito net from around my bed while humming ‘Danny Boy’ song stuck in my head from the Irish festival concert last night. St. Patrick’s Day is a comin’! 

8:20-Eat a bowl of corn flakes with sliced banana & soy milk (some things never change).

8:47-Read and prepare for upcoming support group.  Remembrance & Mourning this week means the women will share the most traumatic stories affecting their lives.  Note to self: Remember Kleenex.

9:15-Tea time.  Raab’s Classic, Malawian grown tea.

9:30-Move six cases of empty Carlsburg beer bottles into the pantry for refill discount.  Birthday bash last weekend=successful.

9:35-Climb rickety ladder up avocado tree in backyard to harvest fruit.  Why is it that the best avocados are always just out of reach?

10:00-Bleach shower and tub until they sparkle.

10:45-Hand wash clothes with warm water and detergent in large green bucket.  Rinse in clean tub.

11:40-Ring wet clothes and hang to dry on line outside. 

12:15-Dance around empty living room to Outkast, Atliens album while eating straight from the peanut butter jar.

12:17-Protasia joins in on the dancing.

12:48-Boil pot of water for drinking. Mimi once said a watched pot never boils so I removed a dirt termite tunnel being constructed on the cement wall as I waited.  Dear hollow headed termites, don’t you eat wood?  

1:30-Eat boiled green beans and carrots with onion and tomato for lunch. More peanut butter. More tea.

2:51-Watch swallows dive through the afternoon sky from my patio. 

3:17-Stare at the branches of the palm trees as they sway in the breeze. 

3:33-Imagine what funny animals and objects the clouds in the sky resemble. Listen to the slow relaxed beat of my heart.

4:01-Walk 2.5 miles to the store for freshly baked bread.

5:40-Iron dried clothes to rid them of the larvae the flies may have laid on them.  Apply bug spray.

6:15-Consider eating cookies for dinner.

6:16- Wait for a stove burner to become available.  With three burners on simultaneously the fuse box will begin to buzz as warning of impending shut off.

6:20-Use my better judgment, decide against cookies and boil rice and vegetables for dinner.

7:30-Throw kernels of corn into hot oil for popcorn and episodes of ‘The Wire’, season 1, episode 5.

9:30-Read finale of Steig Larson trilogy by the light of a small Mag Light.   

9:59-Lay head on silky pillow. Sleepy time.

Heaps of Sardines

Malawi is what you would call a sunset lovers paradise. The brilliantly colored skies that say goodbye to the day and hello to the night cast warm hues over the landscape and fill my heart up with all things good.  Since I was small I have always had an affinity for watching the sun slip into sleep and give rise to the moon.  I have honed my sunset watching skills on the beaches of San Diego and from the waters of the Pacific.  With all of this diligent practice I might even consider myself amongst the best viewers and oohers and aahers of sunsets.  

Tonight’s sunset was no exception to the sunset greatness Malawi has to offer.  It was as if Rumpelstiltskin had thrown golden bricks into the sky that stretched out over the horizon.  The billowing clouds were so fluffy I wished I could curl up in one for what I would have imagined to be the best night sleep ever.  On my journey home from the store I had to stop and admire how all the colors of the rainbow were soaked up in the clouds that were then reflecting colorful happiness back at me.   I took some deep breaths and took stock of just how fortunate I was, and am, to be here under the Malawian sky. 

I stand approximately 5’5” tall.  As we come to the close of the rainy season here in Malawi the maize stalks are inches over head and the grasses used for thatched roofs have grown feet above my head, although now they are bowing under the their own weight.  The termite hills are waist high, as are the tobacco leaves that will soon be hung to dry and sold at auction for export.  The chickens that were hatched months ago in back of the JRS office are now shin high and eat the grasshoppers that can jump as high as my thigh.  I am working with many school-aged children who are mostly shorter than me but if you were to measure their spirit and curiosity it would reach higher than all the peaks in Africa. 

The support group I am facilitating with the youth in camp has continued to be a highlight in my week.  Even at fourteen and fifteen many of the kids are well beyond their years.  Most of them have been forced to grow up and take on adult roles and responsibilities due to circumstances beyond their control.  I believe there are a few kids in our group who, in their past lives, lived to be old and grey and now their young bodies carry around old souls that are all too wise.  My inner self feels about twelve years old so this clash of internal ages always makes for a dynamic out of the ordinary.  I am working toward pulling out the inner voice in some of the introverted girls in the group but we are moving in the right direction and the conversations are always interesting.     

As for the women’s group, today we worked on ways in which to cope with the symptoms of trauma.  The visualization exercise went over pretty well until I had a woman admit that when she closes her eyes all she can think about is dying and death. Next.  The deep breathing exercise was all right.  I felt as if most of the women were holding their breath.  That may or may not have been due to the smell of gasoline that was wafting into the room.  The termites burrowing into the support group room door apparently warranted a gasoline bath.  Next.  “Let’s move outside to the fresh air.”  As soon as I pulled out some music from a famous Congolese artist faces started to perk up and hips started to sway.  The next thing you know we were all dancing in a circle in a half way finished brick building, throwing our arms side to side.  High-pitched sounds of excitement coming from the women’s mouths let me know they were enjoying themselves and focusing on things beyond their trauma memories.  Done.  No one ever said dancing was not a way to release stress.  Afterward, I got a chance to walk to the Tuesday market in camp before our afternoon awareness training. 

The market is a wide-open dirt area where people have laid down blankets in order to display their produce for sale.  Towers of tomatoes, stacks of potatoes, bunches of bananas, piles of green lemons and swarms of flies hovering around the small heaps of sardines.  Women hold umbrellas to block the hot sun and sit over buckets full of Mandazi balls (fried dough), while men roast large maize over open fires.  People scramble about sorting through loads of used clothes, buying bars of soap for bathing and measuring cups full of cowpeas to take home.   I wandered about carrying on as usual as if this was a normal occurrence when all of a sudden I looked up and realized where I was and how foreign my surroundings were.  A small crooked smile crept up in the corner of my mouth.  Amazing! 

Afterward I was invited into the home of a woman in camp for a waffle.  A waffle?  It was my first experience inside a home in camp and I felt honored to be invited.  The house consisted of two very small rooms with walls constructed of mud brick.  A wooden table with bench seating pushed against the walls of the small room making it hard to stretch my legs under the table.  This particular woman has a job within camp and her husband and her are single so they are able to afford some material items that most families cannot.  We had a conversation about music, fashion and culture.  Then we spoke about hope, or perhaps the lack there of.  With all the waiting and hoping, hoping and waiting for resettlement many people are tired of hoping and have lost faith.  It reminded me of a quote that a good friend always shared with me, “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things and no good thing ever dies.” –SR.  I can only hope the refugees here in camp hold on to that hope until they can begin anew. 

Dome’s favorites: Who knew a game of thumb war could be so fun. Thank you JP.

The Wrinkles In My Brain

The ten of us sat together in silence in the back of the Landcruiser.  The story telling and sporadic laughter during our drive home from camp had ceased.  Our ears were intent on listening to the BBC radio broadcaster interviewing Liberian citizens pleading for help from the international community.  From what we understand now, President Gadafi has been sanctioning government air strikes on peaceful Liberian protesters.   Government sanctioned murder?!   

Since I arrived here in Malawi the BBC has been a constant murmur in the background of most conversations at work, in the car and at home, always keeping us up to date on happenings around the world.  It seems the latest news to report from around the world has been about revolutions, government overthrows, mass protests and the sick and dying.  Has the news since my arrival been of more epic proportions or is it just that I am making a conscious choice to listen and be more aware? 

A dear friend of mine just said to me, “the more I learn, the less I realize I know about the world.” Well put.  Her words sum up my sentiments exactly.  I feel I am gaining a unique understanding about far corners of the globe while adopting a new perspective on life, yet despite this knowledge or maybe because of it, I feel so very naïve. 

Every day I learn more and more, so much so that I feel like my brain might just double over with wrinkles yet I still have so much to discover.  This past week the kids in my Standard 7 (7^th grade) support group taught me a thing or two about our cultural differences and similarities and although my jokes may fly straight over their heads and my intention may get lost somewhere in translation, a smile seems to be universal.  One such example that made me giggle in bed last night: 

Me: “Hello, hello!  I’de like for you to introduce yourselves and tell us an animal that best represents you and why.  I’ll start…My name is Lauren and I think a dog best represents me because a dogs is a loyal pet and I believe I am a loyal friend” (This was simple enough right?)

Messy: “My name is Messy. I am a refugee.  A goat because the meat is delicious.”

Perfect!  Goat. Yes.  I was having fun already.  I knew the group was destined to go well after the kids generated their very first ground rule, which was, “Love each other.”  Simple, yet profound.  Again, perfect.  Note to self: 1) Convince the kids that there is so much more to them than being a refugee and although it is a part of who they are it is not what they are.  2) Ask rain gods to hold off on the down pours during our group sessions because it is impossible to hear each other when the rain echoes off of the corrugated tin roofs of the classrooms.

Speaking of classrooms, one classroom lesson from Boston College that will be forever emblazoned on my brain is that of sustainability, sustainability, sustainability.  Well Professor Lombe and Professor Brennan sustainability is when JRS starts an initiative to train eight men and women, refugees, in the basics of counseling.  Armed with the power of their own experience and some central therapy skills they will take on their own clients, run support groups and maintain the psychosocial program in Dzaleka Camp far beyond the existence of JRS.  If I had a dime for every time one of my BC professors said the word “sustainability” in class I would probably be able to fund a new counseling center.  If only… 

I have been here in Malawi just about one month.  It was two short months ago I left Boston, yet the snow and sound of bells ringing on the Heights of the BC campus seem almost foreign.  The pace at school was similar to that of the Cooper in the fast lane of Highway 5.  Life here is slow yet I feel it is still challenging to catch up with all of the new stimuli.  Its as if my life has been accelerated to a crawl.  The circumstances are hard to explain but living it is easy and I am finding so much pleasure in the work I am doing.  Now to find some good friends to satisfy my social thirst, I mean calendar.        

And the moment you have all been waiting for…

Dome’s Favorites:  Coming so close to scoring a goal surrounded by nine little boys playing defense.  Had it not been for the three inch circumference of the ball made out of rolled plastic bags and some rubber bands I might have gotten a real foot on it and sent it through the uprights.  It is hard to pick between that moment on the pitch and another moment outside of the primary school buildings so let the official record show there has been a tie.  I was waiting for a colleague when a young boy, no more than nine or ten years old approached me.  I was expecting the usual greeting I receive from younger students whose English is limited. “Hello, how are you?” or “How are you?” or even the unusual“ How are you?” So I was prepared with my automatic response of "Well, thank you. How are you?"  

What I got:   Boy: “Madam, madam!  I would like to ask you a question.”

Me: “Yes hello, please do.”

Boy: “I would like to know the importance of polysaccharides?”

You never know what you’re going to get around here but laughter is a definite. 

All my love…     

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, a splendid and fitting name, is about a 40-minute walk from our house so we set out early to arrive on time. The warm morning sun beat down and gave warning that the day would be hot, a nice reprieve from the balmy and wet mornings we had during the week.  When we arrived I estimated the congregation to have been around 250, all of which were dressed in their Sunday best.  Sunday best amongst Lilongwe citizens falls on a wide spectrum, ranging from satin pink dress shirts and matching skirt ensembles to warn thin t-shirts and chitenjes, ironed to look their finest.  As the service went on, I think I was able to decipher three words the priest said: Jesus, Christ and Amen.  The other proclamation I understood was about taking responsibility for our actions and that was only because it was expressed in English and not Chechewa, the official language of the 8:30 mass.    

I may not have understood the words but there was a great sense of community and faith in the church as the young girls, dressed in brightly colored matching dresses, danced and sang down the aisles and past the pews of local Malawians.  I was definitely the only pale person in the church but I felt welcomed, especially by the smiles I received from the children.  I didn’t take the offering of the body of Christ but I have never been a deeply religious person just someone looking for a way to connect with the people and to celebrate the small things we are granted every day. Never mind if the way I normally do that is at the pub. 

The past week in Dzaleka was very busy.  One of the men, a refugee in camp, reminded me how lucky I was to be busy, “You deserve to be busy” he insisted.  “Most of us in camp don’t have purposeful things to do and therefore are only here to be called refugees.”  Amongst an eventful morning it was a comment I tucked away, remembered and thought about later.  We held individual interviews for over 100 male and female adult candidates interested in joining the weekly support groups.  The groups were selected and it was agreed that I would facilitate a group of young Congolese women to be interpreted from English to Kiswahili.  The language barrier will have to be yet another obstacle for the women to overcome and for me to get used to, but I have faith we will rise above it.  In addition, I was able to sit in on a support group among the high school kids. I look forward to starting another group within the school so that I may be surrounded by all of the youthful energy and shenanigans.  Just in a little over an hour of participation in the school group I came to observe that the youth here in Malawi are a very respectful bunch.  They refer to one another as friend and have been disciplined to stand up when they respond to a question or have a comment.  I find it an endearing gesture.  Lastly, I was able to meet up with my two clients and hear more about the lemons they have been dealt.  I hope there can be lemonade in the near future.

As far as the connections are going, I am optimistic yet still unsure how the community counselors, comprised of refugees, have taken to my presence in camp.  I am attempting to build rapport and understand the world they live in but I don’t know if they are ready to let me in or reciprocate the feelings quite yet.  This could be a misjudgment due to my insecurity in a completely new environment, still not completely confidant with my clinical skills, but my experience and knowledge are slowly persuading me otherwise.  These things can take time.

On Friday afternoon after the all staff meeting and weekly chocolate fix, I had the opportunity to visit some inmates seeking refugee status in the Maula prison within area 15 of Lilongwe.  We walked through a rod iron gate encircled with tangled barbed wire and had no problem entering upon registering as JRS staff members.  We spoke briefly with the man third in charge of the facility and passed through a crowded prison yard packed with inmates.  Some wore all white uniforms that were of great contrast to the men wearing dingy street clothes.  The difference was that the prison, as overcrowded as it was, did not have the funds to outfit everyone.  We were able to visit with five prisoners serving time for various misdemeanors and what seemed like offenses unworthy of jail time.  This was my perspective anyway until I came to understand that in most African countries, people are ‘guilty until proven innocent’.  Hmmm?! We heard about the struggles one faces within the confines of the prison and it was difficult to walk out of there seemingly helpless to offer them any answers to their problems.  We were however able to provide them with support, recognition and accompaniment which can sometimes provide hope in a hopeless environment.     

At the end of the day it’s almost nice to feel my eyelids grow heavy, knowing I am exhausted and have worked hard.  It gives me reason to justify the Coke per day I am drinking. You can’t beat a Coca-Cola from a glass bottle in the heat of the day.  When Coke advertisements say, “Open Happiness”, I believe them.  The Coke is one way I am rewarding myself and the frosting on the cake is the gratification I get from wearing flip flop sandals every day. “I love you black rainbow sandals, my feet feel so at home in your company”.  Hopefully soon I will also be able to indulge in cereal as another way to self-care but the hunt for soymilk continues.  Few shops carry it but they are “out of stock” and have been for two weeks now.  Maybe I will find soymilk in the same place I may find a variety of food besides the Malawian staples of rice, tomatoes, green beans, bread and peanut butter.  Don’t worry about me though because they offer chunky peanut butter and I don’t miss meals.  A girl just wishes that some Mexican people would wander into Lilongwe and set up shop, that’s all.     

This week’s DF (Dome Favorite) runner up was the brilliant rainbow I saw peek out from behind the papaya tree in our backyard and gleam across the sky. It would have been my first choice had I found the pot of gold and dancing leprechaun at the end but for now it takes second place to my first sighting of a 49er jersey.  A man was wearing it just outside the old town market where every item from the American 1970s kitschy era can be found and sold. I celebrated inside, let out a faint “Sweet” and smiled to see the 49ers being repped in Malawi even if they have no idea who the 49ers are. The jersey looked to be from the late 80s or early 90s. Number 51.  No name on the back but I suspect it might have been a Ken Norton Jr. jersey.  I was at the last game Kenny played at Candlestick Park but it just so happened it was Jerry Rice’s last game in a 49er uniform as well.  Kenny Norton was left in the shadow of the all time great but not today though, as I send a shout out to Kenny Norton and the cowboy, smash mouth linebacker that he was.

Always love. Love always.

Giant Snails and Fast Ants

As we passed over the uneven dirt road that led to the Dzaleka Refugee Camp I tried to subdue any preconceived notions of how the camp might look.  I wanted to go in without judgment or assumption but my rowdy imagination wouldn’t allow it as it drew pictures of permanent and transient housing structures surrounded by a definitive border and people waiting around for the hours to pass.  When my knees bumped hard against those of my colleague in the back of the JRS four-wheel drive vehicle, I was startled out of my daydream and back into reality.  In fact, there was no perimeter around the camp and to an inexperienced eye one would not know where camp ends and the local villages of Katubza and Besera begin.  Brick and cement buildings with corrugated metal roofs spread out across the land and no temporary structures exist. 

The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) is located near to the JRS offices and to the primary and secondary school buildings.  In 2002 JRS became an implementing partner (IP) in the Dzaleka Refugee Camp alongside the Red Cross, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Malawi.  The four IPs coordinate services under direction from the UNHCR and collaborate together to help refugees realize their inherent rights and gain resettlement.  In an ideal world this is always the case but nothing or no one is perfect. The white and blue UNHCR flag flies high above the small rectangular yard that is surrounded by a barbed wire fence.  Indeed people are waiting around busying themselves with small talk of family and the day’s happenings.

My first week in camp brought about many new experiences for me, including being introduced to two of my future school-aged clients, tasting Nsima, a corn meal and staple of the Malawian diet and planting acacia trees alongside 2,500 school children.  Most importantly, I had the opportunity to meet the newly selected community counselors, made up of all refugee volunteers.  I will learn from their rich experiences and in return try to impart as much of my clinical knowledge and training to them to make the work sustainable beyond my departure. 

In only a few short days I have listened to bits and pieces of people’s stories describing the burdens they carry and the pain they feel in their hearts.  It helps me to bring to life all of the research and reporting I have done about international genocide and war.  The true destruction of war tears apart the social fabric and in its wake leaves death and emotional wounds that are all too real in the lives of the Dzaleka refugees.  Despite the intensity and the difficulty the therapeutic work will continue to bring, I find myself eagerly awaiting the real work to start. 

The JRS team has been supportive. They seem to be torn in all directions with work to be done but the mission is clear and the energy positive.  I hesitate to form a complete idea or opinion about the happenings in camp as I have yet to complete my second week in country but I am hopeful that I can contribute to the already strong and able team who continue to do good work.  I am also hoping that the refugees will allow me to work alongside them, listen to their stories and support them through their pain toward a place full of hope and faith.  Time will tell. 

There does not seem to be an appropriate transition from that emotionally loaded topic so I will just dive right into a much lighter subject.  The black house ants here in Malawi are faster than those in North America.  They look the same in size and color and in all intent and purpose they are the same but these ones are so damn fast. I am not kidding.  You can't try to smoosh them under your finger without planning a stealth attack and striking with calculated accuracy. No plotting and they will get away.  That and the snails here live inside much more ornate shells as compared to their North American counterparts and they are about 10 times larger. Ball up your fist and imagine that is the size of a snail here, a manly fist at that.  Now stick out your pinky finger and imagine that is the size of the turds they leave behind.  Not only can you slip on the bodies of these babies but you have to be on high alert not to slip on the poop they leave behind in their sluggy tracks.  Exciting stuff!  So much to see here in Malawi and I’m just getting started.

Over the weekend I accepted an invitation to Lake Malawi for a nights stay on the shores of Salema.  It would have been hard to pass up my first look and first dip in the worlds 9th largest lake that was described by some of the first explorers as a lake that is as far-reaching as the sea.  The locals now know it fondly as the lake of stars for its brilliant reflections of the sparkling stars above.  A hike, a nice view, a meal by the shore, a stare down with an owl, a skip with some monkeys, a float in the fresh water, some long conversations and some new friends.

And now, in closing I would like to start a little segment to my blog that I will call Dome’s Favorites (DFs).  It will be my favorite thing or part about the day.  Large or small, seemingly meaningless or outrageously significant, Dome’s Favorites will document it all.  So…Today’s DF is the random hug I received from an innocent kid that was simply curious what my skin felt like to the touch. It reminds me just how wonderfully naïve children can be and how they lack inhibition and the ability to hold back their impulses. Refreshing!

Lots of love to all of you and I dare you all to give hugs without reserve or inhibition. 

L      

As the rain pours down...

Heavy snow in New York delayed our flight into Johannesburg, translating into an unexpected stay in the capital city for a night.  Finally, Friday morning, four days after my original departure from San Francisco I was landing in Malawi.  The hilly landscape was spotted with trees, rigid crags of outstanding rock and lush green fields of corn and tobacco.  My first deep breath of Malawian air was balmy and warm.  I felt like the sky appeared closer and the clouds whiter.  Perhaps the jet lag or perhaps the truth?  A man by the name of Christopher stood waiting with a smile and a sign that read "Loren, JRS".  

We stopped by the JRS (Jesuit Refugee Service) office and I was introduced to the employees that remained on Friday afternoon.  Sister Michelle, our country director, informed me that there would be a house warming party the following day and I would have the opportunity to meet the entire staff over a large meal. There was even rumors there would be a goat roast.  Quite a welcoming indeed!  Afterward we headed on to area 14, house 178, my new residence.  The neighborhoods in Lilongwe are assigned area numbers, none of which are in any numerical or logistical order for that matter.  I figure if I remember the giant green glass building close to my street I will be okay.

House 178 is surrounded by a large brick wall with electric fencing atop it.  The red metal gate is guarded by a man named Paul who has a friendly smile and four or five english words in his vocabulary.    For this reason I am trying hard to learn the local language of Chechewa, which seems to be moving at a snail's pace.  Once inside the walls there is a large courtyard and patio off the brilliantly white house.  It is a simple, sparsely furnished three bedroom place with a guest house in the back.  I share my living space with Persy, a Malawian man who works in the education sector, Tom, a Brit who is a special needs consultant and Protussia, a Kenyan woman who has vast experience and who will be my immediate supervisor at JRS.   On the weekends two volunteers from England will also be staying with us, while during the week they are busy teaching within the camp.  I am happy to report that the house does come equipped with hot water, an avocado tree and a refrigerator plus I have already managed to find soy milk and $10 boxes of cereal in a local grocery. Score BIG. Enough of the logistics of the place, I want to talk about the house warming party details.

The goat was escorted in at around 10:30 a.m. Two men, well versed in animal husbandry slaughtered the goat and worked side by side, meticulously trimming the fur, cleaning its bowels, separating the meat and preserving any edible parts.  Quite a scene to observe if you have never done so.  I stuck around for a while, thinking it was good to see every aspect of where and how my food was to arrive at my plate.  Something I will probably never do again, seeing as I'm not too keen on disemboweling animals.  Just a thought.  No sooner had the meat began to simmer on the stove, had thousands of flies descended into the kitchen to buzz around in a most annoying fashion.  This was my queue to leave the kitchen and make new friends.

Guests arrived , beers aka. greens aka. Carlsberg original "green labeled"beers were opened , wood burquets were lite on the bry (BBQ) and introductions were made.  The company that surrounded me that day brought a smile to my face.  The goat a bit chewy but the sima (corn meal), salad, potatoes and pineapple were all tip top.  As I stood on the porch and glared off into the distance of rooftops and tropical trees I thought to myself, "I am going to like this place."  

Sunday arrived and a group of people extended an invite to go on a hike.  I don't believe I have ever passed up an opportunity to hike and I was not about to start.  I was introduced to nine strangers and away we went to climb Nykoma peak.  We passed through a quaint village of brick houses with vined flowers overtaking windows and green pastures stretching for miles (kilometers now).  From the bottom, the tallest peak looked a bit intimidating as it shot out from an otherwise flat valley.  From the top it was amazing.  360* views of Malawi.  Peanut M&Ms never tasted so good sitting on that peak.  Not 3 days in country and I have already reached one mountain top. Not too shabby.

Sleep came easily and the 7:30 start time this morning was just right.  Going to bed at 8:30 p.m. is apparently not frowned upon here especially when the power goes off most evenings.  Every aspect of life and culture here is so new that I find myself exhausted at the end of every day and ready to climb under my mosquito net and into bed.  I fear my giant dome will soon become my behemoth dome with the the influx of new thoughts, information and questions I have.  In a good way though.  I think I thrive on it.

I write this as the rain pours down over Lilongwe and now I am off to my first official meeting of business. Step one, learn...