Things we learned in Bali

Every restaurant has features two traditional Balinese desserts: fruit with Balinese honey, and warm mashed bananas drizzled in palm sugar, cinnamon, and coconut.

Always double check starting times of booked excursions.

Monkeys don't come out when it's raining.

You'll never have trouble finding transport.

Bali-appropriate showers are a must: you're hot when you first get in so initially the water should be cold. Once your body temperature returns to a somewhat normal level, you can turn up the heat and enjoy a regular hot shower. But make sure you go back to cold water for at least the last minute or you'll be sweating in the humidity before you can fully dry off.

Hiking up a volcano for 2 hours to watch the sunrise Christmas morning won't replace being with family but comes pretty darn close.

One way streets for cars aren't necessarily one way streets for motorbikes.

Always order dessert.

Don't pay as much for 5 pieces of fruit as you do a massage.

Internet speed sucks during convenient hours but is always great at 2am.

11:30am isn't too early for a Bintang.

When it rains, every tourist thinks a massage is a great idea.

Luwak coffee is made with beans a luwak has pooped. But it still tastes great.

Sometimes a bike's right hand break stops the front wheel.

Always bring a rain jacket.

If your 5:00 bus isn't there at 5:30, it's okay, it's probably still coming.

Every shop and door smells like incense.

You can use Nick's Pension's amazing swimming pool without being a guest.

Kafe recycles plastic water bottles but laughs at you when you pull 7 out of your bag.

Sun Sun Sun

So yesterday we went to Sanur to go the beach, because I really didn't want to leave Bali having not seen the ocean. We bought our tickets and it was about a 45 minute bus ride. There was some major confusion in Sanur, with some guests telling us we were in Sanur, some saying we were in Sanur but not the right part, and some saying we were in Denpasar. Plus the guys on the street were telling us it wasn't Sanur. We finally explained all we wanted to do was go to the beach. No, not Sanur Beach Hotel, just the beach. And they pointed down the street. Sure enough, 100 yards away, was the ocean.

Turns out we were in Sanur, exactly where we were supposed to be. Either way, we were happy to see sun, sand, and water. We ordered drinks at an open air restaurant and read at a table. Once a few clouds cleared, we laid out on our towels and soaked in the sun. The water was just the right temperature to cool you off but not so cold it was uncomfortable. And also not so hot it wasn't fun to swim in. We had lunch at another restaurant that didn't charge to use its lounge chairs. Yummy sandwiches and fruit for dessert. Elena finally got her Pina Colada, which she's been searching for for days.

We watched the surfers, who were a ways out because the big waves broke far from shore, and read and napped. It started to drizzle, then downpour, so we stayed on our covered lawn chairs and watched the surfers some more, many of whom came in when it started to rain. I went swimming again once the rain stopped. The water was the saltiest I think I've ever been in. It stung my eyes even when they were closed.

We had a 5pm bus to catch, so around 4:15 we started to head back. We got there a few minutes before the recommended 4:45 and found a few other people waiting for the same bus. 5pm came and went. 5:15 passed with no news. And had there not been a young boy telling us the bus was still coming, I probably would have called the company to make sure we hadn't missed our ride. At 5:45, the bus showed up down the block and we had to quickly walk to get on. The driver didn't check our ticket. It took a little more than an hour to get back this time because of the traffic.

But we did arrive just in time for dinner. We went back to the cafe we had breakfast at my first morning and ordered two different plates with samples of Balinese food to round out our time here. Delicious rice cooked in a banana leaf, potato fritters, banana mash, green salads, fried salads, tofu, and tomato sauce. For dessert, we ordered another Balinese sample plate with cooked bananas, plenty of fruit, chocolate rice pudding with coconut milk (still a favorite), and lots of coconut.

Today we both fly out. We have about 4 hours until the bus comes but have to leave the hotel, so we might head to the Buddha Bali one more time for lunch and a great place to hang out.

More to come from Malawi!!!

Puppet shows and shopping

So Christmas night we had dinner at a wonderful restaurant called Bali Buddha. It's all local/organic/natural/everything great. And it's delicious. Plus it was only a 3 minute walk away from the hotel with a puppet show we wanted to see.

We walked into the room where the puppet show would be. It was in an art museum/gallery so the walls were all white and there were paintings all around us. There were about 20 chairs set up in rows facing a sheet with a single candle flickering behind it. Almost all the chairs filled up, too, with older married couples, a mom and her daughter, and a small group of traveling college students.

So at 8(ish) the puppet show began. It started off with a huge sound from a gong behind the sheet. There was about 10 minutes of beautiful music played on traditional xylophones and some instrument that made a whirring noise. It was loud.

Balinese puppet shows themselves are called Wayang and they use shadow puppets. They're put on by a Dalang, who is essentially the puppet master. The art of being a Dalang is passed down in a family, according to the little handout we were given. The Dalang who put on the show we went to was 80 years old. The story he presented was originally from India. I couldn't believe how fast he moved. He also had two assistants who handed him the correct puppets, although he did everything that was visible to us himself. The show was put on mostly in Indonesian so we couldn't understand much of the dialogue, although there were two short sections in English that were insignificant to the plot. The basic story, again outlined in a handout, was that a demon was threatening to kill a king's entire kingdom. To appease the demon, a human sacrifice would have to be made. A man, knowing he had strength beyond any normal human, volunteered to be the sacrifice. He ended up killing all the demons so everyone was able to live happily ever after.

The puppets themselves were incredibly intricate. Their body positions were individual and spoke to their character's qualities. most had moveable hands and arms, and a few had jaws that would move when they spoke. If they didn't, the Dalang vibrated the character to know who was doing the talking. The Dalang also had used a different voice and inflection for each character. He moved between personalities so fluently during dialogues it was incredible.

My favorite puppet wasn't a person but rather anything that it needed to be. In this play, it was wind, water, thought, and movement (if I remember correctly). It was in the shape of a leaf and danced around the stage many times. With that puppet and the others, the Dalang had incredible skill moving them closer and farther from the screen to show overall outlines or the intricate details. The xylophones continued to play throughout the performance. Whenever a character walked, two wooden blocks were hit together, and the timing of this sound and the Dalang's movements was perfect.

The entire show took an hour, which was a little on the long side for uncomfortable plastic chairs, but it was beautiful nonetheless. On our walk back to the hotel, we bought some gelato. Elena said the cold almost made it feel like Christmas.

Yesterday we had a slow day. I was up early and went for a run before many people in Ubud were awake. It was great to be able to run in the road instead of on the sidewalk that has so many dips, cracks, and missing planks. When I ran by Monkey Forest, a few monkeys eyed me wearily, but none chased. I'm really not sure what I would have done.

I had breakfast at Kafe and caught up on recent world news online. Funny how a week without reading a newspaper can make one get so behind. I window shopped for the rest of the morning, looking at clothing stores and souvenir shops. And I had one of my most successful bargaining experiences ever! A lady selling paintings started at 150,000rupia for one, but I got her down to 100,000 for two. So I'm now the happy owner of two 12'x12' paintings of people working in rice fields.

Elena and I had lunch in the room and did work and relaxed on the porch until dinner. At dinner, I tried my first Bintang, the Indonesian subsidiary of Heineken, which was pretty nice. But the dessert Elena and I both had was the best part of the day. They had warmed up bananas and then mashed them up. Then they sprinkled it with cinnamon, palm sugar, and coconut shavings. It was like dessert baby food. So yummy.

We had another early night, which gets us to today. It was pouring rain at 6am, so I sat on the porch with a book. There are some incredible birds that live in and around this hotel so I've been listening to them all morning. I had breakfast: a bowl of fruit and a warm banana sandwich. Again, yum. In half an hour, Elena and I will take the bus to a beach for the day. And that's about it!

A Very Bali Christmas

Merry Christmas!!

Days 3 and 4 were a blast.

I’ll start with today. Since it’s Christmas, we decided to do something special: we were up at 1:15am to get ready for our 2am departure for a sunrise trek (the hike was the special activity, not the hour of departure). At approximate 2:12 we were met outside our hotel by a very nice driver and two Australian girls who were the other half of our trekking group. They just graduated from high school, had been in Bali for 3 weeks, and were really nice. We drove for about an hour to a coffee plantation where we were served coffee and banana pancakes with chocolate. yum. Then off to the starting point where we met our guide, MyYoung. There were probably thirty other tourists with their guides as well..

It was also my first time using a hole-in-the-ground-toilet.

It took us about two hours to get up the active volcano. The hike reminded me a lot of Mt. Nkhoma in Malawi because it started off on a gradually inclining path that wasn’t hard at all. Then we hit a point and it got steep. When we started it was pitch black outside so we each carried a flashlight. The stars were great but not the best I’ve seen. Elena and I each saw a shooting star.

Then we started to climb up rocks. Eventually they turned to gravel which was tougher. I came my closest to falling, of course, when I was standing still and the rocks shifted under my feet. As it slowly got lighter, the sky turned red behind two huge mountains. Between the mountains and us was Bali’s biggest lake, with small fish farms scattered around its perimeter. Once the train turned to hairpin turns, the views got better with each curve.

Only once did we stop, and it was so our guide could put incense and a floral offering to a statue of the god of the mountain. There were at least ten sticks of incense burning and it smelled delicious.

We finally made it to “sunrise point” where we were offered soda and water from vendors. We took a ton of pictures and then went fifteen minutes further where MyYoung promised the view would be better. And it was. From above, you could still see the two mountains with the rising sun but the lake was much more visible. In addition, to the left there were green fields of rice.

We also had our breakfast cooked there: banana sandwiches and hardboiled eggs, all cooked in steam vents from the volcano. delicious.

Instead of heading back down the volcano, we hiked the rim. At its widest, the path was 2.5 feet; at its narrowest, less than 6 inches. And both sides went pretty much straight down. Last month there was a super poisonous snake at a certain point, so our guide made sure he went first so he could hit the grass with his walking stick. Luckily we didn’t run into it. He also only checked within ten feet of where it had been seen, so I’m not sure what we would have done had the snake moved.

We made it around the rim and then went down “the back way” by young crater. This trail had lots of volcanic sand which was both fun to try to slide down and also painful once it got into tennis shoes. So with many stops to dump piles of rocks out of our shoes, we made it down the volcano in about as long as it took us to get up. On the way, we saw three more craters that had each erupted within the last 100 years. One of the craters had spewed red lava, one had spewed black lava, and one had just released steam. The most recent eruption killed two Germans when they got too close the day after the major eruption and the heat killed them.

We walked through a village on our way back that we’d apparently walked through at 4am but hadn’t seen since we our lights had been so focused on the ground in front of us in the pitch black.

It took about 1.5 hours to drive back, which we all used to catch up on sleep.

We got back to the hotel at 11am exhausted but with the whole day ahead of us. So we packed a quick day bag and walked 20 minutes to our hotel’s sister but much, much nicer counterpart to relax by the pool. I enjoyed the pool and sun while Elena slept in the shade, and once it started to rain, we ran into the restaurant for lunch. Now, an hour later, it’s still raining too hard for us to walk back to our room. Tonight, we’re planning on a dinner at the Jazz Club and then heading to a traditional Balinese puppet show just down the road… never thought I’d say that on Christmas!!

So, that’s today. Yesterday was great too. We woke up early enough to get to our 9:30am Balinese cooking class only to realize at 9:10 that it had actually started at 9 and was a 20 minute walk away. oops. So we arrived a little late but met the rest of our group in the market where we saw every vegetable, fruit, and meat imaginable laid out for sale. We didn’t get to buy our own ingredients though, because they’d been prepared at the restaurant already.

Our group was both sweet and interesting. A nice woman from Germany who was travlieng on her own and seemed to be spending no more than 2 days anywhere she stopped – Thailand, the northern part of Bali, Ubud (where we were), and Australia for two days was her next stop. And there was a family of three from San Diego: a mother who lived in Korean and loved cooking and loved talking about it even more, and her two sons. The class itself was set up different than I’d expected as well. We were seated in the dining area of an open-air restaurant with one teacher. We prepared six dishes, so each one of us got to make a single dish that everyone ate. I decided to eat meat for the day and loved the pork dish. It had amazing spices and was balled up onto a stick and then pulled down to make a sort of meat-lollipop.

The chicken wasn’t so great though. But the rest of the food was delicious and the spices were incredible. One of the sons made Basa Gede, the staple spice dish that was used in everything else. Elena made seared tuna that was also incredible. And it’s the first fish she’s eaten and not gagged on! My dish was a peanut sauce with Basa Gede and cooked but still crunchy vegetables: sprouts, carrots, and spinach. The sprouts and peanuts were my favorite parts.

The meal was finished off with dessert: fresh fruit drizzled in Balinese honey. yum. We were sent home with a book of recipes and a black and white checkered apron.

Once the cooking class was over at 3pm (that’s right, 6 hours of straight cooking) we visited an old palace that’s been opened to the public. Parts were still marked as private and entry was forbidden, so I think what we saw was just the courtyard. The plants were overgrown but it gave the buildings a very real feel. The stonework was as ornate as anything we’ve seen so far. There was one doorway that was painted red with gold details that was absolutely beautiful. We spent a few minutes wandering around the market and went back to our room.

I went to bed at 4pm and slept through until 1am when we were up for our hike this morning. I’m still not sure if my sleeping schedule is out of whack from traveling or if I’m still recovering from finals & a long semester.

The rain has just about stopped so I think we’re going to slowly walk back to our hotel and get ready for our Christmas night full of jazz and puppets!

(and hopefully pictures will be up on facebook soon!)

Revived!

Welcome to Bali!!!

I decided to revive my blog! If only for Bali, hopefully it’ll save a few experiences and memories for me. But internet at our guesthouse is kind of slow, so I probably won't upload many pictures here.

So today is December 24. It’s a 13 hour difference to the east coast and 15 hours to the west coast. I’ll start from the beginning because it took me two days to get here. But I guess the real story starts months ago when Elena tried to leave Australia to spend a few months in New Zealand and was told she couldn’t return to Australia in December, where her and I had planned to spend the holiday break together and she already had her return ticket booked to. So in a mad rush to buy a non-Australian ticket before her plane departed, she chose Bali!

So I booked a flight and, four days ago, left freezing Maine for hot-and-humid Bali! But it wasn’t quite that simple. Door to door, it took more than 48 hours to get here. The trip started with a very yummy #roommatelunch at Flatbreads in Portland followed by a trip to Whole Foods for some gelato and shopping. Then the flying started. Portland → 1-hour plane ride to JFK → 9 hour layover → 13-hour plane ride to Doha, Qatar → 9-hour layover → 7-hour flight to Singapore → 1-hour layover → 3-hour flight to Denpasar, Bali! I met Elena at the guesthouse at about 9pm that night. Too tired to eat dinner, we were both asleep by 10.

The next day we were up early. We walked down the road to a cute café and had breakfast. Toast and eggs for me, banana “faffles” for Elena. It was a kind of breakfast twist on a banana and honey panini. And we both had some of the best juice I’ve ever tasted: banana and mango.

We’re staying in the village Ubud, which is beautiful. We’re staying on the main street, but behind the shops that line the sidewalks so we can’t hear the busy traffic. We have a queen sized bed for the two of us, a flush toilet, hot and cold water in our showers, and a porch where tea is delivered at 6am everyday. The street itself is one way for cars but two ways for mopeds and bikes. The sidewalks are elevated about a foot and a half with big dips for every driveway. There are tons of massage shops and spas advertising stone massages and reflexology. The stores that sell clothes have everything ranging from dresses made from Balinese fabric to yoga wear. There are also beautiful shops that sell every kind of artwork imaginable: kids’ toys, modern paintings, traditional stone sculptures, kites, glass dishes, and jewelry. There are also way more organic and natural shops that I anticipated that sell soaps, herbal remedies, other natural remedies, incense, and clothes. There are stands everywhere advertising for tour companies. And men sit on the sides of the street and offer taxi rides to every passing foreigner.

That afternoon I headed to a spa for a traditional Balinese massage. It was really great and less than $10. That night we had dinner at Kafe and went to bed early. Kafe has really latched onto the Bali Go Green initiative. They don’t serve plastic straws unless you request one, they collect plastic water bottles from customers and people on the street to recycle them, and all of their food is organic and most is local.

Yesterday, we took a bike tour of “The Real Bali” with a green Balinese company. They picked us up at 7:30am along with 9 other people and we drove first to a restaurant overlooking an active volcano and Bali’s largest lake, Danau Batur. In addition to banana pancakes, amazing fruit, local coffee, and rice, we had chocolate rice pudding with coconut milk, which was surprisingly delicious and has since been spotted on many dessert menus.

Then we drove to a green coffee company where we were shown over 20 species of plants and learned a little about Bali’s coffee industry. We tried the Luwak coffee., which I’m pretty sure only comes from Indonesia. The Luwak is a really cute raccoon-like animal that eats coffee beans, ferments them in its stomach, and poops them out. Then the beans are roasted and brewed for coffee! It was yummy but not all that strong. They also gave us 3 types of tea and 3 other types of coffee to try, which were all delicious. I hadn’t realized there was a difference between male and female coffee beans, but apparently male beans are stronger and therefore more popular but female beans are needed to grow next year’s crop. They also gave us a few types of fresh fruit to try, and that’s the best mango I’ve ever tasted. So sweet and juicy.

After that stop, we went to a traditional Balinese compound. I’m not sure I’ll ever be comfortable walking into someone else’s house without knowing them or talking to them although they walk by, but there were a few other tours in the same compound. We learned about the plastic plaques put in front of the compound that list the families in each compound and the number of males and females in each compound. In Balinese culture, the wife follows her husband to live with his family. So if a couple has three boys and three girls (as one of the families in the compound we visited did) and all six of their kids are married, the three girls will move out and the three boys will bring their own families. So the compounds must grow super fast. I think they just build new houses to accommodate the new families. And each family always has their own kitchen.

Every compound also has its own temple. We didn’t go in, but the roofs that stuck above the fence were really ornate. There wasn’t too much color, although it looked like the stone had been painted at one point. Every village also has at least three temples. One at the north (which is always to the mountain in the middle of the island) to signify birth and creation, one in the middle to signify life, and one at the south end of the village (always nearer to the sea) to signify death and the end of life. Houses and beds always face to the north or west but the dead are carried to the cemetery with their heads pointing toward the south or east.

One room had huge sticker letters on it that said: MY ROOM. My favorite part was seeing the barbells outside someone’s room. There was a metal pole with cement weights on either side, with various sized weights nearby. There were pigs that our guide referred to as traditional ATMs. There were roosters in individual cages that are used for cockfighting. They’re left by themselves in the sun everyday to increase their anger.

We were told about cremation rituals and all of the ceremonies a baby goes through when they’re born. I think there are 4 ceremonies and they aren’t allowed to touch the ground for the first 6 months of life. When a girl gets her first period or a boy’s voice changes, they go through a ceremony where six of their teeth are filed. They’re given some numbing herbs, but the thought is that six negative characteristics (including alcoholism, envy, and anger) can be avoided by filing the teeth, although the individual can still possess any of these characteristics and it is up to him or her to avoid them.

Finally we got to the starting point where we all chose a bike and a helmet. Our guide told us to make sure the gears worked. And to make sure we knew which break, front of back, went with which hand. As he warned, these bikes are held to international standards so sometimes the front brake is on the left, sometimes it’s on the right. And we were off. It was about 24k downhill bike ride and took close to 3 hours. By downhill, they actually meant you won’t have to pedal. But it certainly was beautiful.

About an hour in, it started to rain and then downpour. I literally couldn’t see in front of me and had to hope the swells of water weren’t covering potholes. Luckily, no one in our group fell. At some points the water would cover our feet as we rode. When mopeds or cars passed our whole bodies were splashed. There were small rapids at some points that were caused by water rushing from the homes on the side.

Sometimes we’d ride through villages with homes on either side of the road. The fences were beautiful with ornate roofs and temples poking up. There was one staircase that was unreal. It first came down facing the street and then broke into two that went down parallel to the street. Between the two newer staircases was an alcove with a stone statue. The water rushed down the stairs and was beyond words.

At other times we rode through rice paddies that were flooded from the rain. You can tell where one family’s land ends and another begins by the small temples on the borders.

At the halfway point, we stopped under a huge tree for bananas. A young girl from the house across the road ran out in the rain with the bananas and a bag for our trash. I think her job was to wait for every passing tour and bring them their snack of fruit.

Once we made it to our end point, a van picked us up and drove us 8km uphill to our lunch spot. Overlooking more flooded rice paddies, we had a buffet style feast.

Although we’d planned to go to Monkey Forest after, the rain kept the monkeys out of sight. So we came back to our homestay but the lock to our room was broken. We walked around town where I got hugely ripped off buying fruit. We decided to find a spa with reflexology to pass the time and get out of the rain, but apparently every other tourist had the same idea because every spa was full. So we walked around in the rain, which was warm and not uncomfortable at all for 2 hours before heading back to our room and showering to warm up.

For dinner, we ate at another café where we sat on mats and pillows on raised platforms with very low tables instead of tables with chairs.

So far Bali has been enchanting. People are very friendly, mostly the man who runs our guesthouse who has helped us booked our tours, lent us books on Bali, and given us advice on what to do. The food is delicious and the streets are really fun to walk around on. Today we’re going to take a Balinese cooking course from 9:30am-4pm. Tomorrow we figured we’d do something special for Christmas, so we’re doing a sunrise trek up a volcano, probably followed with some afternoon facials. For the next two days we’ll probably visit a beach and do some shopping in town. Then on the 28th, I leave for Malawi and Elena heads off to Thailand!

More updates to come….

One Last Blog

Wow have I been horrible at updating in Malawi. The session ended pretty typically. Homestay was fun – I got to stay in a house with two volunteers. The three houses we used were really far apart, so I spent the majority of my time walking between them making sure everyone was alright. Then we spent hours outside dancing. I was so tired and finally got tired of being stared at. I’ve never been annoyed like I was that night. We went to Lake Malawi which was wonderful. The water’s so warm and Cool Runnings, the place we stay, is incredible. Sam, the owner, talked to us for awhile our first night. She went over all of her projects in “her villages.” They’re all completely sustainable and effective. She’s had the local potter teach at risk youth how to build pots. The kids have a hobby, earn an income, and the potter is able to sell his stuff at her lodge. She gives wheelchairs to handicapped people on a few conditions, including that they must go to work. They’re checked up on and warned if they’re not following the rules. She’s only had to take away one wheelchair in ten years. She had the local primary school collect plastic to return for money to build a library. Then she and her clients donated all of the books. She’s got about ten projects total, what an incredible woman. Then I flew back to the States, was picked up by two friends at the airport and came back to Colby. Classes have started, I’ve gone to crew practice every day and the snow bank is huge.

The adjustment’s rough. Crossing the street is difficult – I always look the wrong way. Getting into the passenger’s side requires planning. I’m constantly overwhelmed in the dining hall, there’re too many people and they’re so loud. Plus they’re eating so much. And I miss nsima. I miss John, Ngoni and Mr. Vitto. I miss morning bus rides and I really miss morning songs. I miss kids. I miss the feeling that I’m doing some sort of good. What does my schoolwork at Colby do for the rest of the world?

In other news: my plan for the future: head back to Malawi, still working with World Camp, in May. After this semester, I’ll be working both summer sessions again in Lilongwe! No official date to leave yet, but it’s only three months away! Elena will hopefully be coming too! Plus I’ve got a few friends at Colby and Pitzer really interested!

pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2075576&id=1036350539&l=b6b9f37001

the worst feeling in the world

is giving people less than a fistfull of nsima with even less beans.

Safari

Just got back yesterday from a short 4 day trip to Zambia. We stayed at Wildlife again, which was nice as always. I still think it has by far the best sunset view. The sun goes down beyond the tree line on the opposite side of the slowly flowing but massive river, filled with hippos. Unfortunately it was too cloudy Friday night, our first night, to see a sunset. But we had a yummy, yummy dinner. I went on the night drive Saturday and saw the sunset from the top of a hill in the park, standing next to impala and overlooking buffalo bathing in a small pond. Epic much? We also saw giraffes, elephants, zebras, impala, bush and water buck, hundreds of beautiful birds, lots of rodents, plus a leopard.

I did get to watch the sunset Sunday night from the restaurant. It was small but incredible. I couldn’t see the sun itself but it streaked that side of the sky pink and orange. The clouds were in horizontal lines that reflected in the river. It was only Jaren, Nick, Catherine and I who had stayed back that night. The other four volunteers found a pride of lions munching on a zebra they had killed 5 minutes before. Then they drove five minutes down the road and found a hyena eating an impala it had just stolen from the leopard they saw walking away from its kill.

We drove back Monday and had John’s incredible enchiladas and fruit salad for dinner. Today I’m staying back from camp to get some work done. This week’s homestay!

Hair

I love looking at hair. Botswana had incredible hair everywhere and Lilongwe is just the same; little girls and women everywhere you look with beautiful braids that swirl and cross. Sometimes they wear extensions, the longest of which extend way past the waist. Sometime they show off colored streaks – red and blue are my favorite. What’s incredible to me is how hair in Botswana and Lilongwe differs from that in rural villages. You can’t find braids decorating the heads of girls at primary schools where World Camp works. The time and money to dedicate to weekly or monthly trips to the salon just aren’t available. Instead, girls have their hair cut uniformly short.

Catch up - Malawi style

So much has happened; I’m not quite sure where to start. My last real post was about Christmas. World Camp certainly keeps me busy and away from my blog. I’ll maybe tell a few stories and not outline everything, because I certainly don’t remember a lot of it and most of it’s work.

All six volunteers were supposed to arrive on Dec. 30. On the 29th, we got two emails from the office in the States saying two volunteers were stuck in airports and wouldn’t get in until the 31st. So the next day I headed to the airport with Cyrus, one of our drivers, and waited for the other four volunteers. The plane emptied and no college-aged azungu girls got off the plane. A security guard bent the rules and let me look back into the baggage claim area but no one fitting the volunteer’s look was there. So I had Cyrus wait in case they walked by really late and went to the South African office. Not to go into details, but the lady helping me wasn’t all that helpful. Turns out only one of the girls was on the manifest, but apparently that doesn’t mean she’s necessarily on the plane. So convinced none of the girls were in Malawi, I headed home. 0 for 4. Luckily, about an hour after I got home, we got an email from one of the girls saying they were all in Joburg together and would be flying in the next morning. Although I’d spent about four hours at the airport, I was glad I hadn’t left anyone behind.

The next day we started orientation a full 24 hours late. Luckily, the volunteers are great and although we were rushed we never missed important points because we didn’t have enough time. We started camp bright and early Monday morning. The school we were at was wonderful. They already had an HIV/AIDS awareness club in place and two tree planting clubs. The teachers and students came to Day 1 on a public holiday – what dedication! The teachers were committed to improving their community and the students were obviously eager to learn.

When we were leaving on Day 3, we passed about ten students walking home on the road. A few of them ran after the bus for a few seconds, but one stayed with us for about five minutes, singing one of our morning songs into the window “Peel Bananas! Peel! Peel Bananas! Eat Bananas! Eat! Eat Bananas!”

Our first outreach project of the session was at Dzaleka refugee camp. again, a truly trying experience. Friday morning we worked with about 30 people. We did a condom demonstration and answered a whole lot of questions. In the afternoon we were given a tour by a few church leaders. It was incredible to see the living situations in the camp. The UN and Red Cross give out monthly rations of ufa (what you use to make nsima) and rice that people use to trade for other food, since they both nsima and rice are eaten with a relish (typically veggies or beans; meat is a special treat).

We saw the camp’s clinic was appeared much nicer than most of the rural clinics we see. The doctor described a wonderful clinic that helped the refugees as much if not more than the Malawians it treated. The refugees described it differently.

We saw the camp’s primary and secondary schools. We saw where the teaching college is being built for Malawians only. We walked through people’s fields of maize and small community gardens. We saw the only preschool in the camp, a single red brick building that accommodates more than 500 preschoolers. We saw the hall where refugees in transfer stay in tents. We saw the notice board where a number of refugees were reading the latest updates. We walked by a bar where we saw and said hi to a teacher from the last school. We passed the office where refugees go to get permits to leave the camp since they can’t do so without permission.

We were stopped Saturday morning in a trading center and told to pull onto a side street with about thirty other cars. Turns out a really important person was driving by and they were clearing the roads. We sat in the car for a few minutes and then heard it was President Bingu who would be passing by. So all eight azungus plus our three Field Staff piled out of the van and walked to the road. I saw the President of Malawi! it was through tinted windows and he was going ridiculously fast, but I saw him!

We made it to the camp a little late and started off talking about stigma. We quickly transferred into questions which turned into refugees asking World Camp for resources. They teach people in the villages about HIV but no one will come because they have no sugar or soap to hand out. When they teach in the camp people come and don’t ask for anything. They wanted shirts. They wanted food. They asked for money. They have ARVs but need more food to take them with. It was heartbreaking to know that WC can’t supply any of this. Is the information we come with any good if the people we’re talking to can’t make the changes they want to?

Sunday we were up early to hike Mt. Nkhoma. We left the house about a half hour after when we’d originally planned because it’d been raining all morning. We got to the mountain and the top was completely covered in clouds. The cloud cover made it cool enough but also completely erased the beautiful view. We scrambled up together in the densest vegetation I’ve ever walked through. It was incredible. The view from the top was absolutely horrible. You couldn’t see twenty feet away. We had lunch at the peak and then headed back down.

Today I stayed back from camp to plan our last outreach project and get some work done. I’m really excited to go to this last CBO. Chris, who I met with today, sounds like he’s put so much into his ten year old organization and they do truly great work.

Since I’m obviously really bad at posting in Malawi, feel free to check out World Camp’s blog since it’s updated weekly by volunteers: worldcampforkids@blogspot.com.

Two Faces

As we drive by, kids always have one of two looks on their faces. The first is pure joy. They seem to love waving at the full bus of azungus driving on the bumpy, muddy road. They run from every corner of the village when they hear the rumble of the approaching car, standing, waiting, on the side of the road for the chance to wave and give a huge thumbs up. Their smiles reach from corner to corner as they lose their balance waving their arms trying to grab our attention.

The second look is complete concern; concern that their wave will go unanswered; concern that they will go unnoticed in the sea of kids; concern that we won’t return the next day for one final wave. Eyes widen as mouths turn downward to form frowns and all concentration is poured into ensuring the azungus notice their frantic waves.