Letter #2

Started 18 Nov 2000

Moni Abambo ndi Amayi, (That's hello dad and mom)

I am often asked here about my family and many people want to know my father's name. People can tell each other's ethnic origin by their name and I sometimes wonder if they expect me to give a Malawian name. I have one, Anabiyeni, and it is Ngoni in origin, but I usually answer Stamm and explain that it is German in origin. Here, people are "judged" (from lack of a better word) partly by their name, their birth and married family, their children, and their level of education. I think I am the first azungu (non-African) to ever live in Ulongwe, and the people here are frustrated because they cannot categorize me as they do everyone else, often they cannot communicate with me. I do not have a family of my own and do not want one (but I will invent a fiancee if necessary), and many of my habits are strange. I drink more water than they can imagine, often I would rather write than socialize, I am still learning how to cook and wash my clothes, I must put on sunscreen (they anly accept it if I say it is to prevent cancer), and I am very private.

By the time you receive this letter, I will hopefully have e-mailed the basics to you. My site is Ulongwe Community Day Secondary School in Ulongwe in Machinga District. It is approximately due south of the lake below Lake Malawi, between Mangochi and Zomba. It is very warm here, which I am still adjusting to, and will be worse in the dry season. But the storms are wonderful and you can see the lightning for many miles. Bugs are everywhere and cannot be avoided. Most of them don't hurt, but they are annoying. I have electricity and a reliable bore hole is nearby for water. The electricity is not so reliable, but it works more than it doesn't. My house is still being repaired, but when it is finished, it will look very nice. It is only one room with two doors and windows on all four sides. I have a metal roof and cement floor. Outside I have a fence, a porch, and a gazebo. I still need to install screens on the windows and will look into an electric fan. Wind-up radios are common here (random note).

A week later, I am back in Dedza. I got very sick this week and spent a few days in Lilongwe recovering. We think it was some kind of food poisoning. The first night I roomed with Kit, another trainee, at the MRS Clinic in Lilongwe. Due to Thanksgiving, there was no room in the Peace Corps transit house. Power went out before dinner and the generator died too. Welcome to Lilongwe health facilities. The power come on again about two hours later, but the television still didn't work. That's okay, we hadn't seen a TV in so long at that point that we hardly remembered what they were.

By mid-week I was feeling well enough to explore Lilongwe with a couple PCV's who were around for either in-service training or Thanksgiving. We spent Thanksgiving at the ambassador's house, which he described as a bit of American soil in Malawi - so technically I was in America for Thanksgiving. It was fun. We ate traditional Thanksgiving food, complete with turkeys imported from Brazil. We heard the latest news on the radio about the US presidential elections. We listened to the more musically inclined members of the Peace Corps play the piano and the guitar. We celebrated Rob's birthday (he's in my training group). I met some members of Crisis Corps, Peace Corps Kenya, and an international Catholic volunteer organization. Then much later than planned, as is typical of the Peace Corps, we made the 1 1/2 hour drive to Dedza. I like my homestay in Katsekaminga, but not the forestry college, where I feel like I'm back in a college dorm with screaming in the hall and loud music from various rooms, and a chronic shortange of toilet paper. But soon I will leave, and in just over three weeks, on 15 December, we are sworn in as volunteers. We lost one other girl a couple weeks ago, Shauna from Arkansas who may or may not e-mail dad, so now we are down to 20.