Getting "Washed" on my Birthday!

Everything is going well for me here. Please keep checking my blog because it means a lot & is a great way to keep up with me.

Malawi is absolutely beautiful! Palm trees line the sides of the road, women carry baskets of fresh fruit around on top of their heads, and we get lots of sunshine and blue skies (even during rainy season, as it typically only rains in the evenings). Roadside stands sell roasted corn on-the-cob, mangos, avocados, apples, and bananas. It feels a lot like California. Malawi may not touch a coastline, but Lake Malawi is huge and there are lots of beaches (which I plan to visit in the near future). I haven't done any hiking because Malawi is pretty flat, but I go on jogs and ride our organization's bicycle (called a "Kabaza" in Chichewa, the language here). Riding the kabaza is really fun, but the breaks don't work very well so I have to be careful. Since there aren't really any hills in Lilongwe, it hasn't been too much of a problem.

Malawi is very charming and warm, but it is by far the most rural capital city I have ever experienced (Lilongwe, Malawi). The capital only has one movie theater in the entire city and there are cornfields right next to downtown! Isn't that strange?! On the other hand, the US dollar goes so far here! The unemployment rate here is quite high (so sad), but the silver lining is when we decided to hire more Malawians we had many highly qualified (and currently unemployed) candidates to select from. 

The rate of sexual assaults is high in this country because there are less resources for women (no shelters for battered women) and girls are taught from a very young age to be very polite to adults and they are not supposed to look boys in the eyes. It is heartbreaking to meet so many 9 year old girls who have been raped, but I am glad we are doing something to help girls to know what to do in uncomfortable situations and know how best to defend themselves.

The organization I work for here goes by 2 names: "No Means No Malawi" (a branch of No Means No Worldwide), and/or "Ujamaa Pamodzi Africa" [Ujamaa means "togetherness" in Swahili (from Kenya) and "Pamodzi" means "togetherness" in Chichewa (from Malawi)]. It is a rape-prevention after-school program for girls that teaches a curriculum called "IMpower Defense" to empower and help protect them from any kind of assaults they may face.

Much of what we teach is verbal skills, as 85% of different assaults can be resolved by use of voice (negotiating, lying, yelling "no", naming the behavior, making a scene, threatening to report them, acting crazy, etc.) All the same, we also teach some physical skills (not to be confused with martial arts, as our IMpower Defense skills can be learned by anyone in a short amount of time) so that the girls we train know how to break free of different holds and disable their attacker so that they can get away.

Pretty neat, huh?! I certainly think so. (But admittedly, I am biased). I think I have found my niche. This organization is a much better fit for me. I spend some of my time teaching in schools and I also get to contribute on reports, management committee meetings, and conducting research on our intervention. 

My birthday was interesting & mostly fun (although I got the news of my grandmother’s death on the evening I was going to go out dancing to celebrate, so I decided to stay in and take the time to mourn instead.) There is a popular African tradition where your friends "wash" you on your birthday. When I first learned of this, I assumed they would get out sponges and wash my arms or something... but in reality, "washing" you means waiting until you least expect it and then ambushing you and pouring buckets upon buckets of water on your head (and not necessarily clean water either-- they often put ashes and dirt in it). 








I escaped relatively unscathed (but soaking wet), as they mostly used tap water on me and it happened to be a particularly warm sunny day. 









We had birthday cake in the evening (I paid one of my friends who has a small personal bakery business to make it) and I was given a few presents that all 16 of my housemates chipped in to get for me. All in all, it was nice. I didn't start missing family until everyone went out dancing that evening (I had convinced them to go and bailed at the last moment due to the sad news), and I had time alone. I don't regret my decision to stay in that night. I needed some time to myself (which isn't easy to come by when you share a bedroom with 5 other girls).

I’m happy and healthy. Thanks for reading, I’ll post more soon!

~Stacy