Being a huge Oprah fan (like myself) my friend decided to start an email chain and ask people what some of their favorite things are...here's my list in no particular order:

Salt Works Jeans - Style Avenue A Low Rise, expensive unless you buy them on Ebay!

iPods and Podcasts

Paper Source

Travel Scrabble

Peace Corps Calendar - www.rpcvmadison.org

Black, patent leather Naturalizer heels - comfortable and totally cute http://www.zappos.com/n/p/dp/29162287/c/904.html

MAC lipsticks - my fave colors are Twig and Amorous

Powder Eyeliner - buy a black eyeshadow (like Print from MAC) and an eyeliner brush, much softer look

Books: Everything is Illuminated, The Poisonwood Bible, The Time Traveler's Wife

Gin and Tonic with a lime (even though in the Eat This Not That book they tell me that's the worst alcoholic drink)

Crate & Barrel

Daniel Green Slippers - they also have shoes but I can't vouch for those

August to August Calendar/Organizer - good, basic planner, www.mixedroleproductions.com

Camelbak Combo Water "Bottle" and Backpack

Neutrogena Rapid Clear Acne Eliminating Gel - first sign of a pimple and this basically gets rid of it in 24 hours

Grapefruit

Nambe

Haagen Daaz flavor Belgian Chocolate

Oberweis flavor Chocolate Peanut Butter

Burdick's Hot Chocolate - it's chocolate shavings that you melt in hot milk...delish...
http://www.burdickchocolate.com/item-details.asp?I927=Hot-Chocolate&C49=Drinks%20for%20Home

Flexible Headband from Ann Taylor Loft - just got it and it is amazing...it's jellyish so that it doesn't dig into your head and has elastic that actually stays on my head! Finally, I'm cute in a headband and it's not always giving me a headache or falling off! Tried to put a link here but it wasn't online - but it's in stores in black and brown and costs $8.50.

Libraries

There are probably only a couple of you who are still checking this but just wanted to let those of you checking know that we will start updating again soon. We're leaving DC on March 20, going to visit Tyler's brother in China and then will be in Costa Rica at the beginning of April. We'll update again then...

We're finally back in the US and will be here for about nine months. We came back from Malawi via Bulgaria, Russia, and London and are now in Chicago.

For those of you who hadn't heard about our whirlwind tour of the world, let me explain how and what each place was.

Bulgaria: Went back here to see our friends and host families from Peace Corps. This went much more excellently than I expected - people remembered us and still liked us and we actually still spoke Bulgarian relatively well...alleluia.

Russia: We met Tyler's parents for a 10-day cruise on the Volga River from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Russia was totally fascinating and this was the first time I had been on a cruise so all in all it was cool. Moscow was super developed which suprised us and St. Petersburg was a beautiful European city. While I had heard how great St. Petersburg was I was totally blown away by the city's beauty and history.

London: We stopped in London for two nights to see friends of ours from Malawi (Brits who worked in Malawi and are now in London working). It was totally fun and we went on the London Eye...but mostly it was just really great to see our friends and keep up those friendships outside of Malawi.

So anyway...for those of you wondering what our future plans are...We're in Chicago now and will be in NY and California before settling in Washington DC in September.

Tyler will be working in the passport office for a few months and I will be studying Spanish. After Tyler is done with his two months at the passport office he will start Spanish training too. We are really looking forward to being in the US and hanging out with our friends in DC.

Some of our friends have already asked how we are adjusting to the US. In all honesty, it doesn't feel that different. While Malawi is a ton different than the US we actually had access to alot of US products and stuff and so we didn't feel all that removed. It's really nice to be back and be with our friends and families.

Today we officially sold our car and that makes it feel a bit more like we are leaving soon - which we are. We are leaving in less than two weeks, but it doesn't feel like we are leaving. Our packers come on Monday so perhaps then when starts to be carried out of our house it will seem more real.

For those of you who are wondering about our beloved dogs - we have found a home for them...which may even be better than our home. The people who are taking them seem to spoil them more than we do so hopefully the dogs will consider this a step up. So far, they have had two practice weekends with their new owners and they have done very well. Hopefully it will work out for the best. That is going to be the most difficult part of leaving by far. We will drop them off at their new home the day before we leave.

Otherwise things are in order for leaving - we've organized a party for Tyler's birthday on Friday which will also serve as our last party in Malawi so we are hoping to get the chance to see lots of our friends then.

Work is settled, we are trying to get a new person in quickly before I leave next week so I can hand over my communications responsibilities.

The weather here is FREEZING (well maybe not freezing but relatively cold). It is absolutely the coldest it has been in our entire time in Malawi. It is a bit overcast and leaves are turning colors and falling off the trees now, so it seems very fally. I think we are going to suprised when we arrive in Bulgaria and find that it is actually hot there...of course then we will head on to Russia for a short trip where it supposed to be about 70...

If you don't hear from us before we leave, we'll talk to many of you when we get back to the States.

I know this is a bit late, but I'm finally writing about the First Lady's death. The Malawian First Lady, Ethel Mutharika, died on May 30 of cancer. There were rumors that she had been sick for awhile so it was no huge surprise. In fact, there was a rumor at end of March/beginning of April that she had already died. Radio was reporting it and the President’s Office had to put out a statement saying that she was not dead. She died of colon cancer that had spread to other parts of her body and there were rumors (which are probably true) that she went to South Africa and Europe for treatment but to no avail.

When the First Lady died, the Government declared one month of official mourning. No one was exactly sure what that meant, but we flew our flags at half mast and thought we would go about our business…wrong. Different people have interpreted this differently, but the US Embassy cancelled a party for American Independence Day (one of the biggest events the Embassy does every year) and the British High Commission cancelled a culinary festival they were going to do. Parliament has decided not to meet again until the month of mourning is over. (It’s budget season here so this is putting a wrench in the schedule.) However, Parliament is in a unique situation because they meet in the President’s house and there are all kinds of cultural rules here about what can or cannot be done in a house where a person has recently died…I’m pretty sure there is no cultural rule about Parliament meeting because there is only one person in the whole country whose house that applies to…but you get my point.

The two weeks after the death were very interesting. They scheduled the funeral for almost two weeks after her death to allow viewing of the body – something like an extended wake. Very interestingly, everyone was invited to the President’s house to view the body – I mean everyone. There were truckloads (literally) of people being transported to the State House (President’s residence and location of Parliament meetings). The lines were hugely long and I heard of people waiting hours and hours for their chance to pay their respects. This happened in Lilongwe (the capital, where the President lives), then they flew the body to Mzuzu – the biggest city in the North, and did the same thing and then to Blantyre – biggest city in the country and the hub of the South. Then the funeral was about 30 minutes outside of Blantyre. The weekend of the funeral (it was on a Saturday) everything in Blantyre closed – restaurants, shops, grocery stores, even the largest store here that’s even open on Sundays (not much is open on Sundays).

Unfortunately we had planned to go to Blantyre for the weekend that exact weekend. Needless to say that trip was cancelled….

Parties, golf tournaments, etc have been cancelled until after the mourning period is over. However, we know a couple of people who planned their weddings during this and it appears that those are going along as normal.

Today I was at a meeting at the Malawi Police Service. In their conference room they had a sign posted on the wall that said "Smoke Carefully." Not "no smoking" or "smoking is bad for your health." Apparently it was placed there to discourgage people from ashing on the carpet and starting a fire.

Never seen that kind of sign before.

Last weekend Tyler and I headed out to Kang’oma village which is one of the villages outside of Lilongwe and where our Peace Corps Volunteer friends David and Lauren live. Since we arrived we have been meaning to “travel like Peace Corps Volunteers” which is MUCH different than the way we get around Malawi.

As most of you know, we have a big SUV like you see the white people in Africa drive in the movies. This means that we cruise around Lilongwe and the country on relatively comfortable roads and if they are dirt, our car can handle it. It also means that we travel with music, air conditioning, comfortable seats, seat belts, and otherwise in safety.

The rest of the country does not enjoy this luxury. About 99% of the country travels by minibus if they travel at all. These minibuses look like old Toyota minivans in the US and usually have a bench seat in the front and four bench seats in the back. These four bench seats are MEANT TO seat three people each.

The minibuses are in a terrible state of repair and the drivers are not always the most cautious. Most minibuses have not only a driver, but also a “call boy.” (Not be confused with a “call girl”!) The call boy has the job responsibility of hanging out of the window or door of the minibus and yelling at every person passed on the street telling them how much is costs and asking if they want a ride.

So…this leads me to our story. So we decided that instead of driving our nice, cushy vehicle out to see David and Lauren we would instead travel the way they do when they travel to see us. For us this meant, taking a minibus from my office (in city center for those of you who have been to Lilongwe you know where it is), to the bus station in Old Town, then switching minibuses to go to the end of Area 23, getting off in Area 23 and then finding a bike taxi to David and Lauren’s village. Those of you who haven’t been to Malawi may be immensely confused as to what all of this means.

We caught a minibus to the bus station in Old Town. The bus was broken down and the seats were not attached to the floor – this made turns very difficult for the passengers as we were not only trying to balance ourselves but also keep the seats upright. When we got on the bus there were about five other people on but by the time we reached the bus station there were about 25 and each seat had at least four people on it and sometimes extra if there were kids.

We got out at the bus station – which is actually just a bit of dirt in the midst of the city – and asked our driver how to find a minibus to Area 23. Luckily, he took us over to one quickly where we (strategically, although we didn’t know it at the time) sat in the back corner of the bus together. Again we were some of the first few on the bus. Our back seat got packed with five people and we were smooshed. However, the seat in front of us was even more packed and two different people tried to squeeze their butts into a very tight spot and it didn’t work at all. The minibus drivers won’t go if there aren’t at least four people to a seat…Eventually a smaller women was able to jam her hips into the seat.

Through Area 23 we didn’t stop much because our minibus was already full. We got all the way to the end of the line and got off the minibus. Lauren had instructed us to look for the bike taxis. While this is a common mode of transportation, we had never ridden on a bike taxi before so we were quite nervous. Let me tell you what a bike taxi is – It’s essentially a regular bike with a padded flat piece of wood over the back wheel. It’s about big enough for someone’s butt. Women usually sit “sidesaddle” and men straddle the seat like a horse. The bike taxi drivers did not speak any English which created a bit of confusion when I tried to get on the bike taxi. I thought I was supposed to sit sidesaddle but the bike taxi driver though that was a bad idea (and he was right). So he mimed to me to straddle the seat which I did. We started riding and I was scared to death that I would fall off. The road was dirt and bumpy and there were still some cars passing. This in combination with sitting behind a guy who hadn’t showered in awhile was enough for me…

As we were riding into the village a whole bunch of kids starting yelling out “lala.” This is what they call Lauren because they cannot distinguish between Ls and Rs. (You may remember this from my story about naming the guard’s baby.) So Lauren has been called Rolen, Roleen, Lalen, Rara, and anything else besides Lauren…smart of her to go with her childhood nickname of Lala. I’m not sure if they though I was Lala or they just knew I was Lala’s friend because normally white people don’t ride into their town on bike taxis. You may ask if Lauren and I look similar – not really. We’re about the same age, height and weight but otherwise not much. Some white people will tell you that they find it difficult to distinguish between black Africans. Many people have the same haircut, all have almost the same color of skin and eyes, and most don’t have piercings or glasses that would make someone distinguishable using our normally developed perceptions. Malawians say the same about us – they think that whites look generally the same and there are often times when two white women run into a Malawian and a rural Malawian can’t really distinguish the two. This is just normal. So anyway, for that ride into town I may have been Lala.

We stayed at David and Lauren’s house which is one of three brick houses built for the staff of their local health center. The house is wired for electricity and has pipes and faucets for running water but the village has never been connected to either. The only place in the village that has electricity is the bar – not the health center, school or churches.

So we bathed using a pot of water that was warmed over the fire, we used a hole in the ground in the back as a toilet (called a chim here in Malawi), and we watched David cook us dinner over the fire. In the evening we lit candles, talked and played cards. David and Lauren do have a radio but there’s not a ton to be heard on the radio in Malawi – only at certain times.

In the morning, we went to church with them – a basic cement building which stayed remarkably cool during the whole service. There was an aisle and about twenty wooden benches on either side. The women and children sat on one side and the men on the other. No mixing is allowed so when David and Lauren go to church they have to sit separately. I sat with Lauren and Tyler sat with David.

The total cost of the trip was about 220 kwacha or around $1.75. The most expensive portion was the bike taxi ride which was 100 kwacha one way. (This is about 75 cents.)

On our way home (bike taxi and two minibuses later) Tyler and I commented that we should have done this long ago. It was a great experience and helped us to understand Malawi much better. I often have the feeling that it is better to live in a country as a Peace Corps Volunteer than as a diplomat. Maybe not better per se for everyone, but it is incredibly different – the PCVs have no clue as to some things that exist in Malawi just as we diplomats have no clue as to some things that exist in Malawi.

Today we had the memorial service for our friend and colleague John Peyton. It was much more emotional than I would have expected...don't know why. I just keep wondering about his wife Eileen. They were childhood sweethearts and had traveled the world together. What in the world can you say or do to make her feel better?

Hope to have some happy news for the next posting....

This weekend we rented our condo! This takes a lot of money pressure off of us and makes our plans and where we will live when we are in DC much more certain!

There was a an earthquake here on Thursday night! Small, but I felt it. It rattled the walls a bit and sounded like a big rumble. This is the second time I've felt an earthquake. The other time was in Bulgaria. Tyler's from California and he's never felt one! (He wasn't with me on Thursday night so didn't feel it where he was.)

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=257111176291093716/l=247200383/g=14649302/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

More pictures from awhile ago...when we went to Cape MacClear in February.

Here's a link to our pictures from Mozambique:

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=704111176286036057/l=247198349/g=14649302/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

A friend and fellow American diplomat here was killed in a car accident in Zambia on Thursday, April 5, 2007. He and his wife Eileen were traveling to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, when the car blew a tire and flipped. They think he was killed instantly. His wife has a broken shoulder. Luckily, some people from Lusaka were passing by (going to Lake Malawi) and picked her up to take her back to Lilongwe. Another car was heading to Lusaka and picked up John to take him to the morgue in Lusaka. The American Embassy in Lusaka is taking care of his body there. Eileen has gone back to her home of New York for medical support and to be with her family. They are about 60 years old and John had planned to retire after finishing his assignment in Malawi. He worked for the US Department of Treasury.

This is a very difficult time for us here since this is the first person we’ve lost in the American diplomatic community here in a long time. It’s also very tragic because it was such a freak accident and surprise.

John was a technical advisor on the project I am managing and a key person in the project. He interacted with tons of Malawian government officials and had a lot of relationships here. While most of the American diplomatic community here knows, it was take a while to get a message out to our government counterparts.

My heart goes out to Eileen and her family as they deal with this extremely difficult loss.

We took a road trip to Mozambique last week and it was pretty cool. Tyler kept telling me that the trip was about the journey not the destination and I think he was quite right. The trip took about 20 hours (from Lilongwe to Mozambican coast) and it was through all sorts of crazy roads.

We had wanted to visit Mozambique, one of Malawi’s neighbors, but flying there would have been quite expensive and long. It would cost $800 per person and we would fly Lilongwe – South Africa- Mozambique. So we decided to drive…we had friend who had done it and said it was reasonable. For the most part, it was.

We first drove to Ilha de Mozambique (pronounced ee-lee-uh day Mozambique and translated as Mozambique Island). This place is Mozambique version of Zanzibar and an UNESCO World Heritage site (know what UNESCO means, by the way? United Nations Education, Science, and Cultural Organization…just learned that.). It is where the Portuguese first settled in Mozambique. The Portuguese later colonized Mozambique at the same time the British were colonizing many other parts of Southern Africa including Malawi. On this island there is a fort built by the Portuguese and the mansion that the “Governor” (or Portuguese guy who ran the island) lived in. There are a ton of artifacts and very unique architecture.

The architecture is actually pretty interesting because Ilha is divided into two very distinct sections – Stone Town (built by the Portuguese) and Makuti Town (built by the locals). Stone Town has since been abandoned by the Portuguese settlers and now squatters live in many of the once-ornate and unique buildings. Most buildings are now very run down and there doesn’t appear to be any motivation by the locals to keep them up. There are several projects attempting to rehab these buildings, but it’s a lot of work and a lot of money if no one is willing to keep them up. The island is tiny – only ½ a kilometer wide and 3 k long. There are not a ton of buildings, but enough to make this a big project.

When walking from Stone Town to Makuti Town you can tell EXACTLY where Makuti Town starts. By crossing one street, you leave the big, ornate, concrete buildings, and enter a neighborhood of thatched roofs and mud (sometimes concrete) houses. The contrast is fascinating.

The other interesting thing about Ilha is that although it is an island, you really can’t swim off of it. The local people thrown everything into the water (bath water, toilet water, etc.) and the concentration of “bad stuff” makes is dangerous to swim right off its shores.

Off Ilha are a couple of uninhabited islands. We traveled to Goa Island for a day to check it out. Only two people live on this island – the lighthouse keeper and his assistant. We were the only people on a huge white sand beach with tons of shells. The water was very cool – which was a blessing since Mozambique was experiencing a heat wave while we were there and for the days we were on Ilha, the temps were around 100 C.

We stayed there for three nights and then traveled about five hours north to Pemba – a town on the Indian Ocean. The drive there was mostly uneventful except for on very scary bit. We were navigating lots of potholes and ditches our entire trip….driving consisted of serious concentration at all times and lots of swerving. It was a two lane road that could barely fit two cars. As we were driving to Pemba (I was driving) we saw some dirt up ahead. I started to slow down but we were going pretty fast. There were bits of the road that were washed out or had dirt washed over them from recent rains so I wasn’t super concerned – wrong. As we got up to it and I was still going about 90 k (just under 60 mph) and we flew into a five foot deep ditch…to make matters worse, there were three in a row. In true Dukes of Hazzard style, we flew out of the first ditch, into the second, out of the second, into the third, and finally out on the pavement. It was scary and didn’t cause any damage to our car – MIRACULOUSLY. I cannot believe it. Our axel should have broken completely in half.

Funnily, as we were going through the ditch, there was a motorcycle behind us. When we got through, we pulled off to the side to check the car and contents. The motorcycle guy was an old Mozambican and he only spoke Portuguese. Anyway, I got enough of the conversation to realize that he was asking me “this is your first time on this road, right?” (Translation into Portuguese – “primera vez”) and “there are more coming” (“otra vez”).
We drove on and didn’t encounter anything like this for the rest of the trip. The casualties were a wine bottled – shattered inside a bag thank goodness, a plastic tub – cracked, a huge transformer – looked like it got punched, our cooler – which flipped over and started spilling water everywhere. Holy mackerel.

Pemba was okay but our hotel was crap so that sort of made it not so great. But I did get to see dolphins in the ocean which swam up to our boat. There were a group of about 60 of them. It was so cool.

A few weeks ago, our gardener cut part of his finger off in our lawnmower. It was a bit of a debacle not only because he cut his finger off but because the cell phone network here had gone down so there weren’t easy ways to communicate this message to me. (The main network hub here burned down and CONVENINETLY they don’t have a backup site. So we had to wait about 1.5 weeks for the cell phones to be up and running again. There is one other smaller provider so when the network went down a lot of people went out and bought new sim cards for the other network. This meant that the other network was overloaded and you could only complete about 25% of your calls. Either way, you were screwed.) So, our housekeeper tried to get a hold of me at work but I was out of the office for a meeting. They tried to call Tyler but he wasn’t in the office. So then the housekeeper ran down the street to our American neighbors house and told them. Then the neighbor was trying to call me. Yikes so when I came back to the office, the phone was ringing off the hook, I finally got the message and I ran home in the car. (We only have one car here and I had it that day.) I picked up the gardener who had his finger wrapped in white paper (for some reason) and asked if he was in pain.

Our gardener is the happiest guy you will ever meet. He smiles all the time. Even when he has terrible news such as “my daughter was raped” (true story) or “my finger got cut off” (obviously another true story) he is always smiling when he says it. So when I asked him if he was in pain he said “a little bit.” Meanwhile, I am thinking to myself that I would be screaming my head off at this point had I cut my finger off.

Because I’ve been watching too much Grey’s Anatomy I asked him if he had the piece of his finger that got cut off so that we might take it to the hospital and maybe they could reattach it. He looked at me like I was a nutcase and said “no, please go to the hospital now.” I didn’t ask again. I didn’t want to take him to the Government hospital, because I had heard horror stories so I decided to take him to one of the missionary clinics. This was in the afternoon and when we got there at 4:30 a nurse told me it was closed and the doctor had already gone home. (Nice work hours.) So I wanted to go to another missionary clinic, but it was across town and if we got there and it wasn’t open, we would be stuck in serious traffic to get back to the Government hospital, so we went straight to the Government hospital.

When we got there, no one could tell us where we were supposed to go. There was a guy sitting at “reception” (an outdoor/indoor area with something like a desk). When I asked him where we should go, he looked at me like I was crazy. Then I asked him if he worked there and he again looked at me as if I was crazy and said “no.” You see a theme here….generally, people here think I’m crazy.

So we went inside and I just followed voices down the hall until I found a room where there were two guys who appeared like they worked there and one young girl with her mom and sister. The young girl had a broken ankle, or something like that. So I walk in with our gardener Moses who clearly has a problem since his whole hand is wrapped in white paper and no one looks up. The two guys are chatting to each other. Finally, I go up to one of the guys and say, “Can you please look at him? He’s in pain?” The guy says, “What’s the problem?” “He cut his finger off.” This seems to cause a flicker across his eyes instead of the generally blank and disinterested stare I’ve been getting up to this point. So he takes off the white paper and proceeds to wrap the finger and the rest of the hand with about 18,000 pounds of gauze and scribbles something on the paper and tells us to go to orthopedic. We go to orthopedic where the guy tells us that we are idiots and we are supposed to get an x-ray first. (This is all while a person’s finger is cut off.) So we go to get an x-ray. These guys are SHOCKINGLY professional, although I don’t know if they are just treating me more nicely because I’m an angry white lady (didn’t see any other white people at the hospital while we were there.)

We get the x-rays and go back to the orthopedic guy. He has Moses lay down and takes about 30 minutes to put on gloves, get the appropriate equipment, sit down, forget something, take off the gloves, go get some other medicine, wraps, whatever, sit down, put on gloves, start working on Moses’ hand, forget something else, take off gloves throw them away, go get forgotten thing…etc. you get my point.

This is the only time I have seen Moses express any pain. Before the orthopedic guy (I call him this because there are only 96 doctors in all of Malawi for 12 million people so I can’t imagine that this guy is a doctor, but I don’t know what he is exactly) cleans the wound and stitches Moses’ finger up, he gives him a shot of a pain killer. This is apparently very painful as Moses shows serious pain on his face. I have never seen this face before on him.

Then he cleans the wound. Moses cut off the tip (just below his fingernail) on his left ring finger and had cuts on his pinky and middle finger. What he does (stop reading if you don’t like gory, because this is a bit gory) is he cuts off all the hanging skin around the bone and then he takes these big pliers thing and snaps the remaining bone off….yuck. He cleans the other fingers and wraps everything in gauze (they apparently love gauze.)

I look at all the fingers and the wrapping job because since I’ve been watching Grey’s Anatomy I consider myself a health professional (just kidding) and it seems like some of the bleeding hasn’t stopped and I’m concerned about that. The orthopedic guy just wraps more gauze and sends us on our way with two prescriptions, one for an antibiotic (to prevent infection) and one for a pain killer (clearly needed.) He says that we can get these filled at the hospital if we go back to the first place where we were.

By now it is about 6:30 and there are not many people in the hospital. We cannot find anyone that works that that’s not otherwise engaged. An operation is happening in one of the rooms that we walk by which has the door wide open. No chance for infection there.

Anyway, we keep walking down the hall until I run into some kind of Asian doctor. I ask him what I should do. He pulls a nurse out of the operating room and she comes to tell me that the pharmacy opens in the morning so we can’t get drugs until then. I tell her that that is ridiculous since if Moses doesn’t get his prescriptions #1 he will be in pain and #2 he has a good chance of his serious wound becoming infected. The nurse does not think this is important. I tell her that we don’t need free drugs from the hospital, that we can go and buy them from a pharmacy. However, I know that almost everything in Lilongwe closes at 5 sharp and I have no idea if there is a pharmacy open, so I ask her. She can’t recall but yells at a guy walking down the hallway if he knows…he thinks one across town is open…fine.

So we drive across town and alleluia, the pharmacy is open. I get the medicine (which is under $5) and we head home. Moses’ finger is now healed although it took four trips to the hospital and about three weeks of gauze.

Interestingly, when comparing it to health care in the US, it wasn’t all that bad and it was free. We were there for 1.5 hours and I’m pretty sure that the same situation in the US would have taken at least 3 hours and we would have had to fill out forms for 30 minutes before they would even look at the cut off finger. In addition, to fill the prescriptions would have cost at least $30 and we would have had to pay something to the hospital too, even if we had insurance.

Again, haven’t written because there’s not much to write about.

We have a few friends who are leaving this week so we went away for the weekend with them which was lots of fun. However, we almost didn’t go do to a cyclone that hit Mozambique and had some after-effects on Malawi – especially on the Lake where we were. We knew it was going to storm over the weekend and actually it wouldn’t have been too bad had we been a bit smarter.

We had dinner on Saturday night and decided to go to a bar about a 20 minute walk down the beach to watch a rugby game. (Most of our young friends here are Brits so they like weird sports like rugby. :)) So just as we were leaving we could tell there was a storm coming in but we were trying to beat it. We ended up about 5 minutes from our place when it started downpouring. We ran into a little hut on the beach which had some rain coverage but not totally, we were still getting dripped on. There was one lightbulb in it but no one around so we thought we would just wait it out. But then a guy came running in and asked if anyone wanted something to drink. Most people ordered a beer which the guy promptly brought back. We waited there for about 45 minutes hoping for it to clear up and finally decided to send back three drivers to get the cars and come down and pick us up. The three drivers stripped to their underwear to keep their clothes dry and ran back to the house, got the cars and picked us up. They drove on the road behind the huts (so not ont eh beach) but almost the whole way was flooded. We were driving through about 12 inches of water the whole time.

We went and came back and pretty much the whole time it was raining. It rained the whole night and was still drizzling in the AM which was really disconcerting because the roads from this spot on the Lake back to Lilongwe are crap. They are bumpy, dirty, uneven, and full of potholes. Not to mention that we had three cars there and two were four wheel drives but one was a compact car – not so good for theses types of roads.

Tyler and I had to leave early the next morning and were pretty sure we would make it home in our 4x4 but didn’t know how long it would take us and how bad the roads would be after the storm. Luckily we didn’t have any major issues, aside from driving through a few lakes which came up to the middle of the doors (and our car is pretty high off the ground) and slipping in a bit of mud.

However, the compact car – or saloon car as the Brits call them – had a few more difficulties – luckily they made it home but it took them about 1.5 hours longer than it took us. The roads are just terrible.

Which is actually funny because most of the time when we go away the roads are quite good. In fact, people have told me that the roads in Costa Rica will be much worse than here. It just happened to be that that place we went to was on a bad route. In fact this is the first time that we've really felt like we needed four wheel drive.

Our car was covered in mud when we got home, but otherwise, all good. We haven’t noticed anything broken or leaking yet. :)

When we were home, there seemed to a be a lot of confusion as to what I do here. Lots of people thought that I worked with AIDS which I don't. Maybe a rumor got started. Anyway, thought I would write about what I do do for anyone who cares.

I manage a large governance program for the US Agency for International Development (USAID). USAID is the arm of the US Federal Government which gives money from the US to developing countries. The USAID model essentially provides grants to organizations who implement projects per USAID's wishes. For example, here in Malawi we find projects on health, education, economic growth and agriculture, and governance. We also channel food aid and humanitarian assistance (money after disasters) through us and to the organizations and thus the people who need it.

For my job in particular I manage a $20.9 million, tow-year program that is meant to help the Government of Malawi decrease corruption and improve financial management and accounting skills. This means working with four organizations who have been given grants to do these projects. These partners are working with over twenty Malawian government departments and institutions as well as non-profit organizations and the media. I monitor what they do and strategize about where we can be most helpful.

In addition, there are many other countries who run programs in Malawi - for example: Norway, the UK, France, Taiwan, Japan, Germany, the European Union, and the UN. This means that I represent the US at the table when we are talking about how to support Malawi in its efforts to improve government here. There is a lot of interaction on this level since there is so much money flowing into Malawi at this time. It's important for everyone to coordinate efforts.

Hope that makes sense. Let me know if you have questions.

1. We were at a restaurant on Tuesday night and the waiter called me princess all night. I wasn't wearing a tiara or anything. Funny.

2. I cried for the first time on Tuesday night about leaving the dogs when we leave Malawi. It's certainly not the last time I'll cry about it.

Finally, I’m have the time to sit down and write something. Hopefully I can finish what I start.

Probably since I last wrote a long entry a lot has happened…let’s see what I can remember.

Let’s see – first and foremost – we had a great trip to the States over the holidays. We did have the WORST jet lag of our whole lives – it took us a week and a half to get over it. But otherwise we got to see lots of family and friends which was really fantastic. We celebrated Christmas with my family in Chicago and were in NYC for New Year’s Eve.

On our way back we made a stop in DC where both Tyler and I did some work stuff – meetings, etc. However, we also looked at condos and ended up buying one! Well, actually maybe I shouldn’t write that yet since we have not yet actually closed and with the way the mortgage company is behaving I’m not sure that it will even happen this century!  But we hope it will. It’s a two bedroom, two bathroom place just off U Street in DC. It’s a rapidly developing area and we hope it will prove to be a good investment. We are trying to get renters now and although we had some intentions of living there when we’re back in DC in September, we’ve now decided that if we can get renters in it makes much more sense for them to live there for a full year instead of us kicking them out for the six months that we are in DC.

Also, some of you may have remembered a previous post where I wrote about the girl Phemia who is living with us. We offered to pay for her University education and since she didn’t have any place to go after she finished at the boarding school where she was for high school we took her in. To put it kindly, she is not a bad kid, but she is incredibly difficult to get along with and interact with. She is your typical rich kid (although she’s not rich) who thinks that she deserves everything – never says please or thank you or shows any appreciation for anyone or anything. So that’s been a trial and we are trying to figure out an alternative place for her to live. It’s difficult to have someone in your house that makes you not want to be there. However, there aren’t many alternatives in Malawi – you either have a family and you live with them or you don’t and I’m not willing to put her out on the street. So, we’re working on alternatives but the future looks pretty bleak.

On to happier things…we’re making plans on what to do after we leave Malawi. I’m very excited to say that we have sorted out our plans and we are heading to Russia with Tyler’s parents for a cruise from Moscow to St. Petersburg! I think it will be lots of fun and am so excited about the opportunity to visit Russia. Because of the timing of when we have to leave Malawi and when this cruise is, we have about six days between Malawi and Russia. We’ve decided to go back to Bulgaria for a visit which will be really cool. Unfortunately, it will mean one night in each place we lived – each of our host families, plus each of our sites, but it will be good to check in with people. I realized that I will have been out of Peace Corps for five years so that seems really weird.

My job is insanely busy which is great. My boss left for a position with USAID/Cairo which left me in charge of a $20.9 million program – woo hoo! No, actually, it really is an excellent opportunity for me and I’m liking the challenges that go with it. It’s looking like I will be acting team leader until just before we leave in July so it will be a real learning experience. Plus, I got a promotion and more money so life can’t be all that bad- right?

I turned 29 earlier this month and I have to say, it’s not much different than 28. I don’t know about this turning 30 stuff, but I do know that Tyler is taking me to Vegas for my 30th birthday so that one can’t be all that bad either – right?

The jewelry business which I wrote about earlier is really taking off. The other weekend we were at the beach and I had just finished making a necklace for a friend who was there with me when some other friends walked up to us. One girl commented on the necklace my friend was wearing and the next thing I knew I had four orders! I made over $200 just by sitting on the beach making jewelry. What a life! I think I’ll try to keep it going when we come back to the States and maybe sell a bit at Eastern Market – have to do a bit of investigating about how much that costs, etc.

Anyway, that should be about it for now. Everyone around here is sick and I’m just coming off the tail end of some cough/headache thing. Hope everyone is well!

Pictures from when we were home - mostly of new babies :)

http://www1.snapfish.com/share/p=93221169467883147/l=225432489/g=14649302/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB