From: Abigail Stamm

Date: 26 April 2001

Subject: Easter

Dad, enclosed are my w-2's from the Peace Corps. As my power of attorney, please fill out my taxes for me. I have a two-month grace period. Also, hello to Lisa's other foster family. Pleaqse tell me about them. I have asked Bryn to mail this letter from St. Louis, MO when she goes to visit her parents. She will also mail a letter for the Kuzawski's (forgive my uncertain spelling) with it. Training is okay. Some sessions are good and others dull. When I told Sheila (my doctor) today about Lisa, she prescribed that I skip the next session and go for a walk. That was fine with me, so I missed the official from the Ministry of Education extolling its virtues and evading criticism and questions of its priorities. How unfortunate. I am in Chitedze now, at the natural resources college. Chitedze is a … suburb from lack of a better word…south of Lilongwe. It is pretty and for the most part the weather is cool. And we are fed well, and paid MK140 a day for being here (just under $2). Considering there is nowhere around here to spend it, they could give us no money just as effectively. I was not happy when some of my fellow PCV's were concerned only that there is no bar or bottle store nearby, as if alcohol were necessary for survival. Unfortunately, very many volunteers here and throughout Africa become alcoholics and smokers during their service, enough that it has become the stereotype, along with the belief that all volunteers are 20-something white females, and in countries where women are second-class citizens, such women are loose. Malawi is such a country. Given that I look like the stereotype, I am too often treated that way as well and it's annoying. I have friends in the Peace Corps community, though not many. Some of the volunteers here I can't stand at all. Others I like, I am just not close to them.

I have been running scandisk on my computer for literally the last 60 or so hours. It finally reached the surface scan and has been slowly working through it. It would go faster if I could tell the computer to automatically move info in bad clusters, as confirming every chance I get means a lot of wasted time. Almost 70 bad clusters so far, most of them in one place. I am hoping that is the only corrupted part of the disk. I did reach windows setup (format failed), but it would not continue until I disabled the anti-virus program, which I did. In the attempt to reach the setup program again, I ended up doing a surface scan (finally), which started Monday morning. It's Wednesday now.

To reiterate where I went and when for break, I crashed the AIDS conference Thursday after spending the morning at the Malawi Children's Village (MCV) started by Kevin, Malawi RPCV from the Rochester, NY rotary club. I hung out with the Hunts (Bob and Cindy?) of the RC who have relatives at the Oswego power plants, also named Hunt. I stayed at the MCV for lunch and returned there to stay that night. The next morning, I hung out with the Hunts, Jerry (a physician from Alaska who was volunteering there for a month), and Jodi (the Crisis Corps volunteer based in MCV). If I did Crisis Corps, I could not return to Malawi, because Malawi does not have a Crisis Corps education program. Friday (my birthday), I went to Monkey Bay (boring), then to Cape Maclear (also boring, except when I mingled with the local women while they shucked corn. I camped there overnight). Next morning, I left for Mua. Transport was a nightmare, but at last I arrived safely. It cost $10 a night to stay there - expensive when I make only $100 a month - so they let me pay a fraction of that. I attended Easter Vigil and Easter Mass there. The music, dancing, and costumes were wonderful, even if I could not understand the words (it was in Chichewa). From Mua, I traveled north to Chipoka and got lost looking for Bryn's school. When I arrived, I was told she had left for Senga Bay an hour ago, after promising she would be there. So I went to Salima. Once in Salima, I asked around for the Baptist mission. I've met the missionary there and decided to visit while I was in the area. The boys at the bus depot told me that I would have to go to Senga Bay to reach the mission. At least everyone was in one place. So I went to Senga Bay and after wandering all over the beach (several kilometers). I found Bryn and her friends and learned where the missionary lived. I introduced Bryn to his family the next day, then we went to Lizard Island in a fishing boat. I saw a huge lizard. They called it an iguana, but it looked more like a monitor to me. Cormorants all over the place. A fish eagle swooped around our boat, dived, and caught a fish only a few yards from us. It was beautiful. The island was full of strangler figs, which were full of cobwebs, so the whole effect was of being on a mystical isle. The island was apparently a pile of rocks, so I could easily imagine hidden caves full of dragons. On one side was a small tower with a light on top: a lighthouse by function, but I am not sure it still functions. We got to climb up it. Then back to the beach, where the boys who had brought us to the island cooked us dinner on the beach. It was so much fun. The next day, we left for Chipoka. The matola (pick-up truck that doubled as public transport) ran out of gas, so we had to hitchhike to Salima. Back at Chipoka, we rested and worked on grading papers. The next day, we came to Lilongwe. I was supposed to participate in a workshop Thursday, but it was canceled. If I have forgotten to tell you, Michelle, my site-mate, is being replaced by a girl named Erin. Erin moves in this weekend. School is not starting until Wednesday now, but Sheila thinks it's best if I spend a couple days in Lilongwe before returning to my site anyway. We do have a certified doctor in-country now. He was just hired. Granted Sheila knows enough to be a doctor, kind of like mom, qualified without the qualifications. I have only met the new doctor once, but he seems nice.

Signing out.

Abby