Goat manure, tarantulas, and other sundry items

The first hours at site started off a little shaky. The house didn’t seem to be ready when I arrived; door and window locks weren’t fixed as promised, the few pieces of requisite furniture were absent, and when the bedframe did come, it was evident it had functioned most recently as a bat’s toilet. As it got dark, a few cockroaches, as big as the Australian ones in our Sydney flat, began to crawl around in the kitchen. Of course, there are never only a few cockroaches. The kitchen itself is filthy, dark gray with a three-foot layer of smoky grime extending from the ceiling down the walls. In the back of the house, the kitchen, toilet, and bathing area are walled with gaping unscreened holes, presumably for ventilation, but also convenient entry points for mosquitoes or any other critters that might want to come in. The toilet and sink were leaking, and the electricity wasn’t working properly. The second night, sweating and huddled under my mosquito net with a dimming headlamp, I listened to things scuttling around in the dark. Above the bed, from a hole in the ceiling that had been repaired with cardboard and plastic bags cobbled together, a giant hairy tarantula jumped and landed on my net, inches from my face. That was a low point. I opened a bulk-size bag of Starbursts I had brought from America and ate them all—probably not the healthiest coping mechanism for stress, but I felt much better afterward.

So, it’s been a week now. I’ve scrubbed the bedframe, initated a roach holocaust, spent the whole month’s budget on food storage containers, and come to accept that I have ants, lizards, and spiders as housemates. They have a balanced little ecosystem going on, and I won’t interfere too much with them if they leave me alone. I invested in three cans of Olympic oil paint and am just now waiting for a painter to come and cover up the kitchen’s many flaws with a thick coat of Bermuda Blue, a shade I am told will facilitate roach visibility in the dark.

My first week at school was slow, but promising. The teachers spend the entirety of their out-of-classroom hours sitting and chatting and marking papers under the shade of a big tree in the school yard, occasionally moving as the sun shifts. So, I chatted with them, and learned about their classes, took notes on a few technical manuals, visited the library and the District Education Office, and came up with an action plan for my first few months here. Next week, which is shortened because of the holiday, I’m going to bike to some other local schools and introduce myself and distribute a teacher survey.

A few of the local schoolgirls have taken to stopping by in the afternoon and chatting on my stoop. Around town, everyone stops and asks me what I am doing and where I am going. Sometimes I am very happy for the company and a chance to talk, but it occasionally requires a lot of patience to be under a microscope when I am just shopping for vegetables or attempting to dismount a bike gracefully in a skirt. Yesterday, I wandered around the school grounds with a red bucket gathering materials for a compost pile; I scooped up a lot of goat manure, abundant here, to the sheer delight of passersby.

A PCV neighbor invited me to the lake for a party held by the health organization where he works. There were hammocks and barbeque, children dancing, bare feet and sand, and everything was wonderful. I had been in the dumps after a (second) failed attempt to make butter toffee with margarine, and because of the dirty infested house and the perpetual heat and all that; so, the lake party was just the pick-me-up I needed. Things will get better, and settling in is always a challenge.
Next week I’m headed up the lakeshore to spend Christmas with a few friends. Malawians don’t seem to make a big thing of it, except that we have a week’s holiday from school. So I will be thinking of everyone at home, and hoping your festivities are very merry, and sending you lots of love in the new year. Miss you all! Loo