god save the queen!

and we're back...

it seems that my year-long blogging hiatus is up. i am returning to malawi once again, this time for a 9 month consultant contract with unicef and again i will do my best to keep updates

with all goings ons. so, let's get to it.

my travel route this time took me through the city of london. i was lucky enough to have a solid 10 hours in this lovely place where even the f-bomb sounds sophisticated and it's strongly advised to look left when crossing the street. my dear friend laura currently lives there and so i was blessed with a fantastic guide for this short visit. first

off, the underground (also known as the tube) was discovered to be quite literally UNDER-ground. i came to the full realization of this when i decided to take the stairs at the covent garde

ns stop. little did i know that my preference for

physical activity would end up with screaming thighs and an alice-in-wonderland-style-never-ending-winding-staircase-moment. about half-way up a wonderfully british, pre-recorded voice came over the loud speaker stating that this

staircase was 193 stairs to street level, the equivalent of 15 floors and it was "kindly advised to take the lift." bollocks, well at least i got in my workout for the week...

a walk to meet laura's boyfriend for lunch resulted in numerous relevant sights to be seen:

fuzzy hatted soldiers (of course)

changing of the guards at buckingham palace, a daily ritual that involves a fuzzy hatted band,

soldiers with guns, horses, and closing down traffic for a solid 10 minutes. all so her royal highness can sleep soundly (and eat, read, and whatever else she might do in that ridiculously large home...)

snarky americans paying their genuine respects to the queen bee.

big ben.

westminster abbey (complete with hunger strikers on the lawn, protesting all sorts of grievances)

and finish it off with a pint at a classic london pub. this one located inside the old headquarters for the former colonial power headquarters, back when britain ruled a large portion of our great earth. i found it fitting that i happened to stumble in to this particular pub as i am making my way to malawi, once apparently led from this very aptly titled building...

and now, as i sit jet-lagged and stinky in the international transfers waiting area at johannesburg international airport i am excited and ready for the challenges that await following my final short flight to malawi. i have been notified that i will be needed in the office this afternoon for a quick briefing and then will be heading out into the field on friday... whew, guess i'll be hitting that red earth running!

much appreciation for your attention, i will do my best to be slightly more consistent with my updates this time around but, in the words of my new, very polite londoner friends, PLEASE

a journey within a journey (or, an ethiopian holiday while living in malawi)

Seeing as how I'm absolutely terrible at this whole blog thing I have the impression that most of you do not know where I was last week. Well, to keep you updated, I was in ETHIOPIA!!! that's right, as if being in Malawi wasn't lucky enough, I was able to take a break from work and visit my friend Roger in Addis Ababa for a little over a week. So much to talk about...


I arrived in Addis with my friends Anne and Carl on the 19th. We spent the weekend eating really good food, staying out way too late with Roger's new friend Tedy, shopping at nice shops, drinking phenomenal coffee, and all around enjoying the busy city that is Addis. Highlights from the weekend:

• An intense night of shoulder shaking on Saturday night. Just when I thought I had semi-mastered the Malawi hip-shake I go to Ethiopia where the object of dancing is to keep your lower body still and move you shoulders in ways that make you wonder if they're really attached. As you may guess, I'm not so good... Roger has befriended a movie producer named Tedy and he was kind enough to take us out to all of the happening clubs in Addis. We ended up eating injera and meat at 3:30 am and going to bed around 6:30 am. whew!


• Drinking at least a liter of machiatos in cafes. Ethiopia is not only the original home of the coffee bean but it also used to be occupied (though not colonized) by Italy, the result: a fantastic assortment of really tasty coffee drinks served at charming cafes. The going price of a machiato? about 3 birr which equals about 35cents, why not have 2 or 3 in one sitting?



• Shopping shopping shopping. While I adore Lilongwe, there is something to be said about going into a store and the owners having more than one pair of those shoes that you want in stock. The odds of finding my size in Addis were much, much better :)


• Enjoying traditional Ethiopian food and honey wine in a fantastic restaurant with live music and dancers! Not to offend my regular Ethiopian restaurant in Boston but this was honestly the best Ethiopian food I've ever had. I'm already craving injera... (watch for a video posting of the amazing dancing soon)
• And shopping for beautiful handwoven cotten fabrics outside of town. I ended up with 5 new scarves to add to my wardrobe. Now seeing as how I don't really wear scarves, owning 5 of them seems a bit silly but perhaps they'll be making an entry into my daily wear soon!

Sadly Anne and Carl had to return to Lilongwe on Tuesday so I was left to roam the streets of Addis while Rog was at work. I think I did okay. Roger's taxi driver, Mulugeta was kind enough to take me to Mt. Entoto for a day. This mountain lies right outside of the city and has some really old Ethiopian Orthodox churches on top in addition to Emperor Menelik's 'palace.' The countryside was beautiful and green and the road was covered with mules and women carrying extremely heavy loads up and down, to and from town. A majority of Ethiopians are Orthodox Christian and very religious, touring the churches is one of the main activies. I became facinated with the artistic depictions of Bible stories painted on the walls inside (painted around the 16th century). A bit graphic for church don't you think?

Mulugeta then took me to Mercato. The largest market in Eastern/Southern Africa. We all know how much I love markets and this one was no exception, but due to the enormous size it was very helpful to have a guide. It is said that you can buy anything at this market, from AK-47s to potatoes and goats. I myself stuck to incense, spices, raw coffee and jewelry. Thanks to Mulugeta I got some pretty good deals and learned a ton about what that white powdery stuff is and what the many uses are for berebery spice.

I also visited a few museums while in Addis, one of which contains the skeleton of Lucy (the oldest skeleton every found). These museums were extremely interesting as Ethiopia is not only the cradle of human existence but also home to some 87 tribes, each with distinct cultural practices and ways of life. The only thing better would have been to travel out to each tribe and spend a few weeks learning how to stretch my lip around a lip plug or grind up tef to make injera. Now I've got a plan for my next visit!


On Friday Rog and I traveled up north to do a bit of touristy sight-seeing. First we flew to Bahir Dar on Lake Tana, home to tons of monestaries and really devout monks. We took a tour of a few of the monestaries (at least the ones I was allowed in to, some don't allow women to even set foot on the island so as not to "tempt" the monks). Most of the monestaries are located on islands or peninsulas around the lake so our transport consisted of a boat and a few bumps. Lake Tana is the source of the Blue Nile so after a few churches we took a car and a short hike to the Blue Nile Falls where we marveled at the amount of water pouring over the edge (and of course the surrounding wildlife).
Sadly we discovered that the falls don't always appear so grand. The recent installation of an electric power plant next to the river usually diverts the water to produce electricity for the surrounding towns, diminishing the great falls to a mere trickle on most days (we just happened to be lucky enough to come on a day where the falls were "switched on"). Of course the environmentalist in me is mourning the loss of rare ecosystems and animal life below the falls, but the development dork in me has witnessed the enormous benefits that electricity can bring to human lives. Hmmm, a bit of a conundrum I'd say. Anywho, now that I've seen the Nile, my next task is to float down it!


From Bahir Dar we flew to beautiful Lalibela, a town located high in the hills of Ethiopia that happens to be home to amazing feats of architectural genious. a.k.a the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela. We spent the majority of our day climbing around rocks that doubled as churches. According to our guide, most of the churches were believed to have been carved in the 13th century, around 800 years ago. And all of them are carved out of a single rock, some are free-standing, others attached to walls like caves, all of them are absolutely stunning. It was crazy to wonder around among ancient buildings that must have taken millions of man-hours to construct, some with intensely intricate carving detail and decoration. Most of the churches were dug down from ground level and go some 12 meters under ground, connected by super dark secret passage ways and tunnels. Incredible! My favorite was St. George's church but they all were immensly impressive. Equally impressive is the fact that service is still held at these churches and priests and monks were constantly wandering about. Within the compound there are also baptism pools and a fertility pool, which apparently works "a bit too well" for the women who are brave enough to be lowered into the green murky (and grassy) water...
Of a different but still impressive architectural scope are the two story huts found scattered throughout Lalibela.

And lastly, Lalibela is seen as a kind of Orthodox Christian Mecca and remenants of some pilgrims were found in caves carved into the walls around the churches. Oddly the burial within a wall is not that uncommon, this one just happened to be open...

And now I am back in HOT Lilongwe, planning a few trips to the field, keeping plenty busy with the scheme and savoring my final months at UNICEF/Malawi. Cheers!

working in paradise, sigh...

So I'm behind on this blog thing again, what’s new? Well, actually, a lot! Bullet points seem like the most fitting method here…

• I’ve moved to a new house in Lilongwe. Anne returned from home leave with her husband Carl in tow. And so I have taken up an offer to move in with my friend Roger. This move was actually quite convenient as his house is located MUCH closer to City Center where I work and the minibus stops directly outside of his house (I can even walk sometimes if it’s not too hot). Roger is a ‘local’ of sorts as he has been in Malawi for at least 4 years and so his house is quite nice, it’s also a farm. In his lengthy stay here Roger has acquired all sorts of animals: goats, chickens, turkeys, guinea fowl, rabbits, turtles, cats, a dog and a HUGE garden! All this activity makes for a lovely wake up call in the morning… Unfortunately Roger has gone to Ethiopia on a two month loan agreement with UNICEF and so I thought it would just be myself and the animals. Luckily an Irish girl named Laura needed somewhere to stay for a few months so I am not lonely. Life at the farm is good…

• Prior to his leaving, I traveled with Roger to Blantyre to build a tombstone for his old housekeeper, the mother of the children that live on his property. Blantyre is very different from Lilongwe as it is very busy and the city has a proper central area (a downtown if you will) where you can walk from place to place. (I think I’ve already mentioned the spread out nature of Lilongwe and the complications that arise from lack of a car…). We ate some nice food, did a bit of shopping at Game (kind of like Target) and visited the township outside of Blantyre where the mother is buried. Now I must say, the cement and sparkly stone tombstones are lovely but I was a much bigger fan of the headstones used by the locals with much more limited funding. The cactuses were so beautiful scattered around the graves and I find something very peaceful in their natural place in the ground. All in all Blantyre was very nice, oh, aside from being ‘Bingu-ed’ 3 TIMES in one weekend! *side-note: Bingu is the president, and to be Bingu-ed means to be stuck in traffic somewhere for 10-30 minutes while his procession of SUVs and trucks with men wielding AK-47s strapped to the back of the car pass by. Some might take this as a lucky opportunity to witness the leader of a country en route to somewhere important, I take it as downright horrible odds when it occurs 3 times in under 48 hours.
**side-side-note: this has in fact occurred again in Lilongwe, bringing my running Bingu tally to 4

• Christmas came in August when I finally received the package that my brother Jonathan and his family sent to me several weeks ago. It was so exciting to open it to find new flip flops, shampoo and conditioner, dried fruit from Trader Joes, and TOYS!!! My nieces and nephew Andrew, Ali and Avery generously donated pens and markers, shoes, and toys to the children in Malawi. I must say that the toy galimoto (cars) are disappearing fast and generating smiles bigger than I thought possible! On behalf of the Malawian children I’ve met so far, Zikomo Kwambili Andrew and Ali!

• During the past few weeks I have filled my time with numerous athletic activities, football is back in session after a severe ankle sprain on my part and numerous absent players due to home leave and holidays. I have also started running the “hash” which is an activity comprised of a bunch of ex-pats running around a mystery course (set by the host), confusing the locals and arming ourselves with rocks when we run by that one particular house with all the wild dogs… quite fun, apparently this activity is taking place all over the world and they self-title the group as “drinkers with a running problem”, probably due to the crates of beer available at the host’s house after each hour-long run. Hmmm, beer and running… And, as of last week, I am taking Congolese dance lessons from a nice woman named Kaye and a Congolese musician named Gigi who are extremely patient and refrain from laughing at the mzungu-lack-of-hip- shaking-abilities. I’m excited to potentially improve as the musician said we could maybe perform at one of his shows! I’m always on the look-out for opportunities to make a fool out of myself, this seems like an inevitable chance for such an opportunity.

• And where am I now? I just happen to be working in paradise... Literally. I have just traveled to Likoma Island with a colleague from the Ministry of Women and Child Development to provide some technical support to the district team implementing the scheme here. Wow. Likoma is a small island in Lake Malawi, closer to Mozambique (I’m actually looking at the hills of Mozambique across the water as I write this!) We traveled here by ferry, which was both the best method of traveling and also the absolute worst deboarding process in Malawi. We drove up to Nkhata Bay on Monday and boarded the ship around 6pm. Our 1st class ticket bought us rights to a space on the top deck, luckily we grabbed a bench and were able to rent a mattress for the night. There is definitely something about sleeping under the stars of Africa on top of the lake that makes me the luckiest girl alive. Now the journey was a bit long I’ll admit, due to a 7 hr stopover on another island our total water-trip took roughly 13 hours… whew, was I happy when we arrived to Likoma! Except, well we didn’t actually pull up to Likoma but out in the water somewhere near Likoma. So that means that de-boarding and unloading all the cargo that was brought on required the use of small boats to ferry people back and forth between land and the ferry. Um, let’s just say it’s quite crowded down on the lower deck, and everyone wants off the boat, like NOW! So the 15 minutes that it took us to work our way to the door to board a small boat was crowded, and pushy, and smelly, and hot. And people with bags of maize flour or stereo equipment or huge bags of who-knows-what kept pushing their way through non-existent corridors. Also, anyone coming off of the small boat had to get through the mess somehow to get on the ferry. Needless to say it was the most cursing that I’ve done in Malawi and definitely the most irritated I have been with my physical situation since I’ve been here. Regardless of my discomfort we somehow made it off the ferry and on to dry land. Likoma is absolutely lovely and I honestly feel like I’m on a bit of holiday here as the lake and the sky and the people are just breathtaking (and you get used to that lingering aroma of fish that seems to permeate from every object on the island).

As far as activities in Likoma, when I wasn't camped out at the District Assembly office I was 1)swimming in the lake, 2) eating at my new favorite restaurant 'hunger clinic', 3)wandering around the island trying not to sweat through my clothes, 4)distributing galimotos, 5)visiting beneficiaries, 6)marveling at the recycling of surgical gloves at the hospital and 7) visiting my first traditional healer... (that story will just have to wait for another session as I have definitely already challenged your patience this time)

Okay, I’m sure I lost most of you a few bullet points back, but thanks tor those tough individuals that stuck it out. until next time!

cannibalism! sort of....

Last time I wrote I was heading to the lake for Independence Day celebrations (both American and Malawian). And celebrations we did have, I should thank my fellow expats for throwing an authentic 4th of July celebration, complete with cheap beer (Chibuku, like drinking fermented sand soaked in sour milk...), camping, BBQs and FIREWORKS! I never imagined celebrating the independence of my homeland with a rainbow of countries who (some dressed in American flag shorts purchased at the used clothing market in Lilongwe) made the weekend a truly fantastic one. After a loooonng Friday night at Senga Bay, Carla, myself, Carla's roomate Jessie, and the two Norwegian vacationers that we talked into coming, headed up to the Chinteche Strip of Lake Malawi, the furthest north I have been as of yet.

Now the beach at Chinteche is absolutely beautiful and the sand much finer than Senga Bay (and therefore more prone to sticking to stuff). There I met up with some fellow interns from UNHCR at a place called Kande Beach and we made good use of our long weekend snorkelling, swimming, and riding horses. Our two hour horse ride through the forest had great potential to make a very relaxing Sunday morning, but Glenn had other ideas. I still believe we could have been great friends had it not been for his constant need to kick at the horse behind us or bite the rump of those in front, and when not trying to pick a fight he was diving into the grass to eat. Whew, as a very amateur equestrian I definitely came away from that weekend extremely sore in my own rump area. Now I must mention a significant point of interest here, horses swim. Like paddle around like dogs swim. This is a fact that I was not aware of until I rode Glenn into the lake, I expected a bit of splashing in the shallow part and then a graceful exit still perched high on his bare back (very epic-movie-esque like) But horses literally swim! So we get out to deeper water, and I am submerged up to my shoulders as Glenn paddles around making a funny groaning sound. Had he not been a huge ex-racehorse I would have thought I was riding a dog.

After the long weekend I return to Lilongwe and the very busy weeks ahead. My supervisor Mayke is on vacation and so I kept busy with a list of tasks that included attending a child protection workshop, generating a presentation and poster for the 2008 International Aids Conference, tirelessly trying to organize the SCT Secretariat at the Ministry of Women (I must constantly remind myself to be happy with baby steps), preparing for my second long trip into the field and then subsequently going on my said long trip into the field...

So, I have just returned from a week in Liwonde, facilitating the establishment of linkages in Machinga District. As the only unicef rep present, I was looked to as the expert (I did my absolute best to not let on the fact that I am merely the cheap grunt labor). So we held a meeting with the District Executive Committee (all the government big shots on District level) and then went out into one of the district areas (called a Traditional Authority) to train Govt. Extension Workers and Community Social Protection Committees on linking existing social services to beneficiaries of the scheme. The training was a huge success, with a lot of people and great participation.
Now the short and skinny of linkages: cash is great but not necessarily the end-all-be-all to social protection, the beneficiaries have a new found access to services that they were unable to receive prior to cash, but many do now know this fact. so the point of linkages is to bring the beneficiaries the appropriate information and contacts to access existing services that could better their lives (for example fertilizer subsidies, health care, cropping techniques, bank accounts, etc.). As much as I enjoy my time in the office, I find myself much more content with work when I'm actually out seeing it happen. Overall the trip was a great success and I'm anxious to return and see how our program took hold.

Now to fun non-work things from Machinga!
1) one of the community development extension workers introduced me to a womens group that has recently begun a new income generating activity (IGA), and it just so happens to be DELICIOUS! banana wine, a wonderful idea that combines bananas and alcohol, mmmmmm... and the best part is that i get to help support local women!

2) mzungu dancing is entertaining to most malawians and they're usually trying to pair me up with a woman that can show me how to properly move my hips (somehow they miraculously move so that the top half of their body stays still while the lower half goes to town), i tend to disagree on the necessity of such dance lessons and think my mzungu dancing is quite nice! (though i wouldn't mind being able to move like that)

and now for an explanation of the title...

3) now many of you may know that a few years back i made a promise to myself that i would try everything and anything that is offered to me. kind of a commitment to experience life without the ability to make excuses and say no. it was this promise that had me eating termites in kenya and it is also this promise that turned me into a cannibal (but not really, but sort of, depending on your beliefs about the origin of man...) yes folks, i tried monkey meat for the first and (most likely) only time in my life. one of my new friends in machinga invited me over to his house for lunch on saturday. his wife made a lovely meal of chambo and nsima and i was fully satisfied with i was out back helping the children to do the dishes... then i come in to find a plate of mysterious meat sitting in the middle of the table. monkey. now it's not common at all to eat monkey here (it's actually sort of illegal) and my friends in lilongwe were appalled and surprised as many native malawians have never even tried it themselves. but i did. it tastes kind of like a cross between beef and antelope but is really chewy and kind of tough at the same time, in the end pretty good, (perhaps bush meat is making a comeback?) i will admit though i felt like i had just taken a bite out of my great-great-great -great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. so there, sorry ancestors, but you're just so tasty (i justify it as revenge for prior physical attacks as mentioned in a previous entry)

until next time!

baobab! my new favorite word/tree

so, it seems that i have fallen a bit behind in my correspondence (as was made clear by a few semi-concerned emails from family and friends) and i apologize. (p.s. this one is really long, feel free to break it up into a few separate segments if needed)
life has been so busy! here's why:

1) i finally got my nails dirty (and face, toes, ears, pretty much anywhere dust can go...) helping to implement the roll out of the scheme in mangochi district. now first i must tell you, this was one of the better places to be stationed in malawi: it's right by the lake, the weather is fantastically pleasant, and the fish (called chambo) is pulled directly out of the water and onto your plate. so to the scheme, my job involved assisting in training the community social protection committees and helping them to get started targeting and ranking needy households. it begins with a community meeting of a group of villages, where they learn about the scheme and then elect a committee that will serve to target, list, rank and help implement the payments to the beneficiaries. voting in a rural, illiterate community consists of lining up behind the candidates and then counting how many are in line, pretty efficient and no need for those silly booths with the curtains.next the committee goes through a training for 2 days to learn who to target (ultra-poor and labour constrained), how to interview and fill out the appropriate form, and then list everyone in their village who they think might be eligible. it's amazing how much these communities know about each other and i was really impressed with how quickly this process is. i was able to go to a few of the households to observe the interviews, some of these stories are so tragic, it's hard not to get emotional but all the more reason to work even harder to make the scheme the best it can be.
one story of note is about an old woman, estimated around 74ish who is caring for 4 grandchildren whose mother has already died of, and father is very ill with AIDS. the children were all very dirty and dressed in rags and had the token bloated round bellies (an indication of both worms and malnutrition), they are not in school as they were all there sitting in dirt the giggling at me when we came to visit in the middle of the day. the grandmother was continually coughing and we could barely hear her speak as she had been chronically sick for quite some time...

this household, like most of the qualifying households, is just barely surviving (literally) on less than one meal per day with no way to make money or break out of the cycle of poverty, ah social protection. so, after all the potential households are interviewed, the committee meets again to list all of the households and then rank them in order of neediness (though it's hard to tell who's needier, a 107 grandmother caring for 6 kids or an HIV+ single mother of 5 who can't get to the hospital for her ARVs). this process is very difficult and it took the committee all day to complete it, it's amazing how hard they all worked at it. unfortunately i had to come back to lilongwe before the 2nd community meeting and approval process but i hope to return after the scheme is in place and see how the beneficiaries are doing.

2) our hotel, located right by the lake, meant early morning kayak trips and swims and endless searching for hippo tracks. sadly no hippos (though i would probably have actually preferred NOT to see one) but the hotel did have other wildlife! when i arrived my room had an entire tribe of ants residing in the bathroom in addition to a roach that lived behind the closet, a few geckos and whatever that squeaking thing was in the ceiling (later figured out it was a family of bats indicated by the guano plops left outside my door each morning). i also was able to watch these funny little rabbit/guinea pig creatures crawl all over the cliffs and hear the monkeys running on the roof of the restaurant during breakfast. speaking of monkeys...

my final day in the field i was running to the restaurant to grab a bite before we headed out into the village. there was a monkey sitting in a planter outside of the restaurant and i made the mistake of thinking, "awww cute little monkey, let me stare you in the face!" bit of a bad decision on my part, next thing i know that cute little face was baring a mouth of teeny sharp teeth and lunging at me! i can still feel the brush of his tiny little hand/paw swiping the back of my calf. i turn around to see him chasing after me with those little teeth shining and all i was thinking about was how long i would have to wait at the district hospital to get a rabies shot... after the 15 foot chase the monkey gave up and i thought that my shrieking and whooping was kept to myself as i didn't see any visible witnesses of my national-geographic-style when-animals-attack. but then i heard dr. bernd schubert, (the german consultant for the scheme) laughing hysterically and knew that my embarrassing display was indeed public knowledge. needless to say i came out sans any need for additional vaccinations and a real-life lesson on how to challenge a primate without making a sound.

3) as the hotel was 30 minutes outside of mangochi town, and the village was an additional 2.5 hours down a dusty and bumpy road, i spent a good 5 hours in the car each day. ample time to sub-consciously soak in every last word to each song on the music genious that is celine dion (our driver gerald's, favorite cassette tape). i knew i was in trouble when i started humming "my heart will go on" while in the shower, curses to gerald! note: aside from the questionable music choices gerald is a very nice person and an excellent dodger of bikes/people/potholes/goats/whatever else you may find on the road in front of you...

4) baobabs, these monstrous trees that are fantastically ugly and grow for thousands of years, have become my new favorite project for long car rides, try to find the oldest/biggest/gnarliest looking one and then climb it of course!

5) carla (the other unicef intern) and i made a weekend trip up to cape maclear while we were in mangochi. this place was absolutely incredible! we kayaked out to one of the islands and snorkeled around looking at fish in colors you didn't know possible, led a parade of 30-something children making animal noises through the village (they just started following i swear it), ate the best chicken curry ever!, and practiced my bawo (a malawian board game that everyone seems to play) with the security guard at the hotel, i'm getting really good, might start hustling bawo games soon...

6) upon my return to lilongwe i have been non-stop (mayke, my supervisor is leaving for holiday on saturday which means 10-11 hour work days this past week...). but exciting! mayke was super busy on tuesday so she asked me to try my hand at speech writing. sure why not! didn't actually think she was serious, but as it turns out i sat in a conference room last night, listening to my words coming out of the Honourable Minister of Women and Child Development's mouth! incredible! yesterday was Malawi's 1st National Social Protection Awareness Day and involved a morning of testimonials from various beneficiaries of social protection programs (including our social cash transfer scheme!), traditional dances and drumming, getting mobbed by people wanting copies of handouts (they get crazy excited about ANYTHING you may be giving away, even fliers about social cash transfers) and then last night a banquet full of important people, documentary screenings, presentations, and of course, speeches! (i might just drop obama an email, see if he has any need for a new speech writer in his campaign).

7) hours and hours of sex and the city screenings with my friend roger, he has just been introduced to the show and addiction is honestly and truly an understatement! the best part is, roger's a nutritionist at unicef but keeps an incredible variety of candy on his coffee table, so i can keep chipping away at the enamel on my teeth uniterrupted...

and finally, 4th of july just happens to fall on a long weekend in malawi so tomorrow i will be heading back to the lake for a good ol fashioned american bbq (just with norwegians, danes and canadians) camping weekend. happy independence to all of my american comrades and i will attempt to keep up better with my blogging (might make for shorter reading next time too!)

cheers!

football + clumsy feet = big ankles.

So, I have managed to remain extremely busy and completely lose track of the fact that I have been here for 3 weeks already! Some events to share from the past week and a half...
First I just have to share a picture of Lake Malawi that I didn't get in last time, it's absolutely beautiful (as you can see) and that's the hills of Mozambique in the distance, more on that country in a moment...

I have joined a football team (soccer to you American folk) and am impressed with the organization and commitment of the team. Practice twice a week mixed with sprinting drills caused various muscles in my legs to reappear after years of hibernation and I was anxiously anticipating our big game against a team traveling all the way from Mozambique on Saturday. As I was just realizing my full potential as a striker my complete lack of grace caught up with me. The short story, I sprained my ankle pretty badly, and was subsequently benched by coach. Bummer. But no worries, I documented the damage:I was still happy to be a cheerleader and help document the 5-0 loss with my camera. Even with the defeat, we had a really good time and the Mozambicans have happily invited us to their turf for our next butt kicking which we will be sure to take them up on their offer.
And no they did not beat us with 7 players, many of them (the big tough ones of course) were missing from this picture.
Prior to my 'sports injury' I was going for a jog in the neighborhood when I turned to find that I had acquired 4 new running buddies. Children find it very entertaining to sprint after me barefoot and I am happy for the company.

Off of sport related activities. Work is business as usual and super busy with mid-year reviews in UNICEF and UNDAF in addition to receiving the results of the external evaluation of the cash transfer scheme. The impact that the scheme is having on peoples lives is just amazing and it is incredible to see research numbers able to back up the results that can be seen so clearly. A handful of the findings: increased school enrollment, better health seeking behavior, increased food security, more diversified diets (including more meats), and better asset acquisition. Mind you these are people who live on less that 27 kwacha (around 22 CENTS) per day and were surviving off of one meal (or less) per day. These outcomes are HUGE!

So the evaluation of the design of the scheme had a lot more recommendations that need to be chewed over and integrated to make the scheme the best that it can be. This area is a bit more controversial and definitely requires ample time for debate, which began at 10am yesterday in a meeting that included UNICEF, the consultant who designed the scheme, government officials who are responsible for running the scheme (at least they will be eventually), and the research team (which just happened to include my advisor and a surprise visit from Jon Simon, the director of CIHD at BU!). The meeting concluded at 6pm and then evolved into dinner and then a fascinating discussion (with wine of course) about the failures and missteps of international development and why we haven't seemed to be able to get it right yet. This night was, by far, my favorite in Malawi. Surrounded by an economist, a social policy chief, a social epidemiologist and Jon Simon I was engaged in a fascinating conversation with some of the most extremely experienced and innovative minds in the business of making peoples lives better. I will spare you the transcript, but wow, just blown away...

And so, those are some (definitely not all) of the highlights of my last week. Also included in there was a live rendition of Roxettes' "joyride" by my nordic friends, some trip planning for Mangochi, discovery of some new favorite spots in Lilongwe (I'm a huge fan of the local hangouts): and of course lots and lots of learning. Until next time, tsala bwino!

first week, come and gone (already?!?)

So I have arrived in Malawi! After drifting in and out of a jet-lag coma over the weekend I started work at UNICEF on Monday and haven't sat down since! I loved my first week and never imagined that I would love working for free so much. By Wednesday I had already sat in on a meeting with the Social Protection Policy technical staff, made a day trip to Mchinji in a van of 15 or so news journalists, met the Minister of Woman and Child Development and the Minister of Economic Planning and Development, visited the first beneficiaries of the pilot cash transfer scheme, and had drank about 10 bottles of pineapple fanta (i'm absolutely addicted to that stuff).

So. First off. I am living in a neighborhood of Lilongwe that is occupied mostly by ex-pats. It's a very strange feeling to be here to work with the poorest people in one of the poorest countries in the world but living behind a 10 foot tall fence with rolled razor wire on top. Most ambassadors, diplomats, and foreign workers live in this area and the nice cars and big houses definitely take a bit of getting used to. I share a house with a Finnish woman named Anne (pronounced Ann-uhh) who is a lawyer working for UNHCR (the UN refugee organization). Anne is super nice and has been kind enough to adopt me into her group of predominantly Nordic friends. I now know about 10x the Scandinavians than I did before I came here (I am the only non-blonde in the bunch) and am being introduced to things like Finnish vodka (which is pitch black) and Scandinavian magazines. We have had a few dinners together, taken a day trip to Lake Malawi (which was gorgeous and no schisto to report yet), attended what can only be described as an ex-pat talent show (just picture lots of live renditions of bad 90s American pop music set to a live Malawian band), and as of Saturday night, partook in the late-night local bar/club scene in Lilongwe (they're called "bottle stores" and are located in an interesting part of town with various forms of income generation - just use your imagination a bit). I have also been navigating the huge area of land that is called Lilongwe and trying my hand an negotiating the best price for a bag of tomatoes at the markets.

As far as work goes, I absolutely love my supervisor Mayke, she is the chief officer of Social Policy at UNICEF Malawi and amazing to watch in action. Her commitment to her work and determination to get a social protection policy in place is astounding and I am so lucky to be in a position to learn from her. She has been keeping me very busy and I am already appreciating the diplomacy that is required to work with government officials (she is REALLY good at her job to say the least). My work thus far has entailed designing documents/charts that illustrate the social protection policy and can be used in meetings with govt officials, donors, etc to get the main ideas across and putting together a presentation for UNICEFs mid-year review. This week I am helping to organize a meeting for our sections mid-year review and also attending meetings with the World Food Program and the European Union. Next Sunday I leave for a two week trip to Mangochi district to help with training and implementation of the cash transfer scheme which is planned to start there at the end of the month. Busy busy busy but loving loving loving it!

Here are some pictures from my visit to Mchinji, it was a really big deal as three Ministers came out to see the beneficiaries and learn more about the scheme (hopefully if all goes well the social protection policy will be passed by the Cabinet and then Parliament and the cash transfer scheme can be rolled out to universal coverage). Their support is super important... This was the Africa that I was expecting and it was such an amazing experience to see how so many people's lives are being affected by this scheme (by the way, tears are hard to hide when they mix with the red dust that seems to be everywhere)

So of course my favorite part was the children, everyone was dressed in their best clothes and it was so powerful to see how much these people are benefiting from the scheme, if there is any doubt about social protection, you just have to see the faces and you understand how important it is.
One of the beneficiaries addressing the Ministers.
Regina (right), one of the first child-headed households to receive the cash transfers. She is doing very well and as a result of the scheme is able to not only send her siblings to school but is also attending school herself.
And a mobbing by children, I swear they have a 6th sense, once a camera comes out you get swarmed. Love it!
So, as I look at my full calendar for next week I say farewell and look forward to sharing more...