Update of mid 2010

Long time no blog!

There are alot of things that happen here from day to day but when it comes time to sit down at a computer screen and type a blog my mind draws a blank. It's like I get slight writers block or something. Anyways, instead I try to write them on paper ahead of time while I'm at my house or somewhere then type them when I have internet access for a long period of time.

Let's see...

In April for Earth Day (a holiday that does not exist here) I decided I wanted some students at my closest CDSS to plant trees around their campus. I bought 5 moringa oleifera trees and my counterpart donated like 15 of his own trees from his nursery. The actual planting went well. It's afterwards that killed. I found out one month later that soon after planting majority of the trees were attacked by termites and that the remaining ones were dug up by children...wow...

Soon after that planting event i headed to lilongwe for the swearing in ceremony for the new Environment kids and our MST (mid service training). I would say that MST was a bit motivating. We got to all talk about projects we worked with on within the last year. It was cool to hear about people's prior activities and those that they plan to do.

One other wonderful thing that happened at MST is that I was convinced to go to Mozambique...on a vacation that would start a few days after MST ended...It was a whirl wind but I got my stuff together in time.

So as for Mozam, it was pretty awesome! We started our journey in Tete where we stayed the first night in what I would affectionately call an overpriced roach motel. Somehow the second night we lucked upon a couchsurfer (the only one inTete according to him) who was quite nice and hospitable. Veeeery early the next morning (4:30) we caught a bus to Chimoyo en route to Vilankulos. The entire trip was about 14 hours long via coack bus, asian labled coaster, mini-bus, and a hitch. The place we stayed was awesome however the beach was littered with glass. We remained in Vilankulos for a day or two waiting for 2 of our other travel buds to join us from Malawi. Once they arrived we went snorkeling on one of the archipelago islands. Then after Vilankulos we moved on to Tofo which was amazing. Wonderful beach (with no glass) and cool town. Didn't want to leave but had to after spending one week in Tofo.

So...after that shortly we had 4th of July at the Ambassador's house. Then we had something even more exciting...lunch with the president of Malawi the Ngwazi Professor Bingu wa Mtalika.



Then I helped at two girls camps in August. The first was camp GLOW which was cool in itself because the vice president of Malawi came to talk to the girls. There are some girls from my group I won't forget because of there awesomeness and/or courage.


In between the camps I had a training for the poultry group i'm working with in a nearby village. It went well and i hope they are successfull when they do start rearing the birds in a few weeks.



The second camp in August was a Women 2 Women camp held in Karonga planned by Monica. She worked her butt off planning that camp and it showed. Everything went smoothly and we had the best group of girls and PCV's there.


So that's really the latest skinny on my life here. More of a photo log than anything.

I'm just trying to keep as busy as possible for the next few months. I have a camp or two coming up that i want to help at...coupled with the project i have going at my site I should hopefully be busy enough.

In the meantime my pals and I will continue our greatest job of showing Malawians the diversity of America one day at a time.


Peace