Ndapita

Our last few days in Malawi were jammed packed with activities. After our last day of camp, we got back to the house, had a celebration party (Jaren's cheesecake included) and said our very sad goodbyes to the field staff. We then packed the bus back up and ventured out towards Lake Malawi to Cool Runnings. We got there just as the sun was setting and looked out on a beautiful view of the lake, the third largest in all of Africa. After dinner, we all passed out after our long and tiring last day of camp.
We woke up the next morning, bright and early, and hit the beach to attempt to rid ourselves of our farmer's tans. Caitlin obviously is now bronzed, and Riss is resembling more of a tomato despite her 70spf. After a long day relaxing on the beach, we sat down for a dinner of chambo, the fish that is found in abundance in Lake Malawi, and as Jaren put it, "you haven't been to Malawi if you haven't had chombo". It was absolutely delicious, and it was very cool knowing that the fish had been caught a few hours before by one of the many fisherman we could see out on the lake. The next morning we woke up at 5am to watch the sunrise over the lake which was absolutely stunning. A little while later we packed up, and hit the road to go to the craft market. After some impeccable bargaining and bartering we hopped back in the van with crafts in hand headed towards Lilongwe. Our last day was a whirlwind of activities from dinner at Michael and Amanda's (two people very close with World Camp who are fantastic cooks and dinner was unreal) whose family welcomed us in as their own and couldn't have made Malawi feel like more of a home.
36 hours later, we landed in New York. Needless to say, the cold was a shock and the snow is ridiculous. This month has been a fantastic experience and so much fun, it's too much to put into words how great of a place Malawi is. We've never met so many people who can sing and dance (we'll be bringing our new moves to the dance floor of the mods...) but most importantly who are happy. These people face unimaginable hardships yet they manage survive with a smile on their face. Malawi couldn't have welcomed us more into their homes, schools, and hearts and we hope that we have left as much of an impact on Malawi as it has on us.
Until the next time we get to cross the Atlantic, ndapita and tionana.

Camp 3, Homestay, Camp 4 Remixed

This week we had our third camp at Chilinda Full Primary school, which is about one hour away from Lilongwe...seemed like nothing after our eight our trek to Zambia! The camp ran pretty smoothly, by this point we are all very comfortable with the curriculum and dealing with the students, etc. I (Caitlin) was working with the teachers all week. I was very excited going into the week, and though it was a great experience, it was a little frustrating because I felt like the teachers weren't really opening up as much as I would have liked them to, which really restricts how much you can talk about and do with them. Overall, I'd say it was a success, but it's just so hard to imagine how much work these teachers do. There are 1,108 students at Chilinda and only nine teachers. That is over 100 students per teacher! I can't even imagine teaching 150 first graders, but that's what some of these teachers do every day from 7am to 4 pm. Riss got get another marriage proposal, this time in the form of a written anonymous question, most likely from a fourteen year old boy. I'm beginning to doubt whether she'll be returning to the US, or if she'll just stay here and get married. The girls in her class tried to teach her how to dance like them, i.e. booty pop like it's nobody's business, but none of us have really caught on no matter how many times we stand in awe and watch them. 

So Thursday night we were all scheduled to stay over in the village on a home stay. During the day at camp Riss started feeling a wee bit under the weather, most likely due to real bad dehydration. (Even when we don't realize it, we are all real dehydrated 95% of the time, so when we get sick from dehydration here it means we're screwed). She sat in the bus for most of the day drinking rehydration packs, basically lots and lots of salt that you mix with your water that are supposed to taste like fruit. Erroneous. After trying to eat and feeling nauseous, she decided to go home and spend the night at the house instead of doing home stay. Quite a shitty situation, but it was definitely for the best. After camp, we trekked on over to the village to meet our home stay families. Me and Catherine were staying pretty close to the school in a house with a family whose names I do not remember and could not pronounce after four attempts. It was a husband and wife with their two children, Limbani and Cholani. After dropping everyone else off with their families, we went back to our house. Once we arrived they showed us to where we would be sleeping, a small room with a straw mat on the floor, and then we went outside to play with the children. Everyone in the village was there dancing and singing and having a grand old time. Each dance is done to a song that all the kids know and sounds kind of like a chant with clapping. For each dance, we all stood in a circle while different people would go into the middle and do the said dance. It's kind of like a game. African kiddos are amazing dancers, we actually can't figure out how they move they way they do. Even my host family's son, who is four years old, could shake his little booty like a pro. Needless to say, when I was pushed into the middle of the circle I looked like an idiot and all the villagers died laughing. Oh well. After a lot of dancing, we went to go make dinner with our family. The staple food here is nsima, which is basically boiled corn flour that has the consistency of polenta. Nsima is always eaten with some kind of relish, whether it's pumpkin leaves or cabbage or beans or whatever you want really. You eat nsima with your hands by picking off a piece of nsima, forming it into a little ball, and then scooping up some relish. We've all gotten relatively mediocre at it and can at least make it through a meal without getting everything everywhere. It looks like it would taste gross, but to be honest it's really not that bad. We eat it most days for lunch (I do anyways..). So we sat by the fire watching Virginia, our host mother's mom, make nsima and a relish of pumpkin leaves. She cooked outside over a fire set under some bricks, which were holding up the pot. After having eaten nsima a lot here, it was cool to see how it's made traditionally in the villages. I also do not understand how the women here do not die from respiratory problems. The smoke was blowing everywhere and Virginia was unphased by it. After making nsima, our family ate (we didn't eat any, as the nsima and relish were made with water from the village borehole which probably would have made us sick). Then we headed inside where our host dad sat with us, asking us to spell lots of words in english and then telling us how to say them all in Chichewa, the local language. It was really fun at first, and then I started getting veeeeery tired. We figured that once the sun went down and it got dark, people would go to sleep because there isn't any electricity...erroneous once again. After our little spelling bee/language lesson (I can now say lips, chicken, leg, road, goat, and cow in Chichewa), we were sent back outside for some more dancing. I can honestly say I've never been so overwhelmed and tired at the same time. After doing literally two hours of dances, the village kids wanted us to do some World Camp songs. We do morning songs every morning of camp, so the kids remembered some of the ones we did and wanted Catherine and I to show them to everyone. We agreed, and did every World Camp song probably five times each. Somehow we were rescued by our host mom and rushed inside to finally go to sleep. But first, Catherine and I figured we should go to the bathroom so we wouldn't have to go in the middle of the night.

The bathrooms here are basically holes in the ground in a little shed. We were told by our coordinator to "not look down" when we used the bathroom at night on homestay, probably because of all the bugs crawling around. So when Catherine went to go into the bathroom shed, I said, "Oh, Catherine, don't look down!" and she went inside, only to return two seconds later. She told me that looking down wasn't the issue, and that there were at least seven huge spiders on each wall. The bathrooms are about the size of a five by five box, so the walls are real close. We stood there (with an audience, of course), and tried to figure out what to do. Probably thinking we didn't know how to use the toilet (read: hole in the ground), our host mom came over and took Catherine by the hand, leading her into the bathroom. Apparently, she showed Catherine the correct way to squat over the hole and go to the bathroom. She then proceeded to stand there as Catherine peed. I was standing outside the bathroom and suddenly heard, "Oh my god I'm so sorry!!" Read that as you will. Then it was my turn. I bravely walked into the bathroom, only to see my hell. Huge spiders on each and every wall, waiting to attack me. Quickly I ran out of the bathroom, and was then ushered in by my host mom. She kindly showed me how to use the toilet, and then stood there while I went to the bathroom. Thankfully, I had better luck than Catherine, and had nothing to apologize for. 

We headed inside, lied out our sleeping bags and got comfortable. This turned out to be impossible. It was a long long night of tossing and turning, and it seemed that each time I was on the verge of sleeping I heard a bug buzzing in my ear. Between that and my constant fear of whatever was rummaging around in the roof, I slept maybe two hours the whole night. I'm sure from reading this it seems like I hated it, but it was really a great experience. Seeing how people live in the villages of Africa isn't an opportunity that many people get in their lifetime, so being able to sleep in someone's home was really cool. We woke up around 6 the next morning, danced some more, and then headed to school for our last day of camp!

Riss returned from her night at the house, rehydration packs in hand, and proceeded to watch and document our soccer game we had against the kids that we were teaching that week. Caitlin has developed a new love for her soccer glory days, and it was amusing to watch and play in a skirt. Needless to say, it is significantly more difficult than playing in cleats, on a grass field, and in shorts. The ball kept getting lost in our skirts and would reappear when some kid would kick it out. Paul, our bus driver, basically won the game for us when he showed up fully dressed in a soccer jersey, shorts, and knee high neon yellow socks. We didn't even know he knew that we were playing a game. Also, we discovered he could do a standing roundoff into a flip post-goal. By far the best celebration dance we've ever seen. We finished the game up (p.s. we won) and proceeded to begin day four. 

So this week, our last week of teaching, Riss and I are teaching together! We're teaching the standard 7 class, who's ages range from 12-16. On the first day of every camp, we choose a team name, which is usually something like the Lions, the Hares, the Elephants, the Monkeys, etc. This week, our class decided to be "the loving team." We were a bit disappointed to have our last camp team be called something so lame, but we had to go along with it. We started the first day out a little slow because our class was very quiet. They weren't answering many questions, but we gave them the benefit of the doubt and hoped that they would open up. Since then, we've been having a blast. We dance around with them before each day, and then it is so so so fun to teach together. Since we're friends (kind of?) it's easy to just bounce off of each other and figure out who should say what in class. 

Today was "Day THREE camp FOUR!" (Lauren Seagraves...) and morning songs were by far the best they've been out of all the camps and days. The kids came up with a remix for our first song. The way it works is that the World Camp people say "And we're marching" and everyone else responds "to the beach, to the beach" and then World Camp says "I said, let me see you [insert shake your booty, stir that nsima, robot style, funky chicken, etc.]" then everyone else says "what's that you say?" and repeat. Then we break out in whatever dance was mentioned, Caitlin is particularly fond of the robot, Riss thoroughly enjoys stirring the nsima. So today, when we started dancing, all the kids were dancing in a very non-violent way (unlike the usual mosh pit that is created surrounding us, verrrry uncomfortable, and elbows generally get thrown) they began to remix the song, saying "to the beach ah ah to the beach ah ah". It was awesome, and is now going to be a World Camp remix, soon be recorded. 

Tomorrow is our last day of camp (AH!), we can't believe that it's gone so fast. Tomorrow night we are going to Lake Malawi for 2 nights, which we are super excited for. We're technically not supposed to swim in the lake says our travel doctors... but we'll see what happens. It gets super hot under the African sun... 

All Aboarddddd, the Safari Express

 Elton John once sang, "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight. In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight. A weeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeee oh wee om omma way." Well maybe we improvised on that last part but Elton's words are very fitting for our past weekend's trip to ZAMBIA! World Camp does safari. Early Friday morning we piled into the mini bus and took off for a weekend full of fun, relaxation, and lots and lots of animals. The ride took about eight hours in total (including customs and pit stops), and the majority was spent crawling down a windy, unpaved road through Zambia until we reached our final destination, Wildlife Camp.

Our past two weeks with World Camp have been a whirlwind of activity. Our days are chalk full of teaching, dancing, singing, prep work for the week, cooking, journaling, reflecting and nightly evaluations. So when we got to Wildlife Camp, I think most of us were excited to get the chance to relax, see some animals, and soak in our beautiful surroundings. As Zambia is a neighboring country to Malawi, we were all astounded at how different the countries were, though just hours apart. Seemingly seconds after crossing the border and entering Zambia, someone commented at just how forested the country is. There are trees EVERYWHERE, something that Malawi definitely lacks. Deforestation is a huge problem not just in Malawi but all over the world, yet I got a feeling for just how big of a problem it is when seeing the stark differences between Malawi and Zambia. Not only that, but the lack of trees in Malawi has left the country virtually empty of the animals that roam the national parks of Zambia. 

We were all scheduled for two drives on Saturday, one morning drive and one night drive through South Luangwa National Park. For many of us, these would be our first safari experiences. Waking up around 5 am Saturday morning, we excitedly met our guide, Billy, packed into his Land Rover, and headed to the park. On the way, we brainstormed what animals we wanted to see: zebras, giraffes, monkeys, elephants, and of course, lions. Billy informed us that because it is the rainy season, it would be a bit difficult to spot some animals (as there is more vegetation), but he assured us that he would try his best, and we were not one bit disappointed. Although we didn't see any lions in the morning, we were all very content with our drive and eager to return later that night. 

We spent the rest of the day lounging around by the pool, watching baboons run through camp, and reading. Before we all knew it, it was time to load onto Billy's Land Rover and head back into the park. We were ready to spot some leopards and lions. Eventually we did come across a leopard, but it was rather short lived, and sort of far away. We left the park that night after a beautiful sun set feeling content with our drive, but wanting more. So, we decided to sign up for a night drive the next day. That's when things got interesting.

All day Sunday, after an extremely gluttonous breakfast, we lounged by the pool. Riss loaded up on the 100 spf sunblock, while I tried as hard as I could to blend in with the locals. Needless to say, Riss is still the same color, though slightly tinted with a reddish hue, and I am about as red as a tomato...hopefully it turns into a tan? That night we loaded back into the land rover and set out to find some lions. This time, it was just us, Lauren and Kayla. Catherine had been sick all day, and Nick also decided to stay back and just relax. About an hour into the drive before the sun went down, we spotted our first lions! Four lions were sleeping by a tree and Billy spotted them, and, risking losing his guiding license, drove right off the road and up next to them. Surprisingly, they didn't even flinch! We were all so excited with our first lion sighting, and as we drove off Billy reassured us that we'd be returning tonight to see if we could spot them hunting. We continued on our drive, passing through an open field teeming with baboons, zebras, antelopes, and elephants. Seeing all the different animals together, peacefully eating and walking around was a beautiful sight and made this area one of our favorites. We drove up onto the beach by the river, surrounded by hippos bellowing in the water (they sound like they are laughing at you...) to watch the sunset yet again. Post sundown beer... (a Mosi, and apparently as the bottle stated, "A Truely Zambian Experience", well, when in Rome!), we took off again in the Land Rover for a lion hunt. The sun set, and it became so dark that we needed a spotter, Isaac, to shine a spotlight on the surrounding brush to see any of the animals Driving down the road that we originally saw the lions on, anticipation built, and although we were hopeful, we mostly thought that we'd never see those lions again. We slowed down as we approached their tree and the were met with four pairs of gleeming eyes against the spotlight. As Billy zoomed over towards the lions, we noticed that they seemed to be significantly drunker than we were. In fact, the noticed a rather large zebra positioned in the middle of the 4 lions. Clearly, it was dinner time. Billy, fearless and ignoring all safari-ing laws, pulled us right up to the lion's dinner table. We watched in awe as the 2 lions directly in front of the car attempted to break through the skin of the zebra, and the 2 lions about 5 feet to the left of the car, carefully watched us watching their good ol' friends. Billy eventually backed away from the lions to the road, we guess fear of losing his license finally got into his head, and we watched for about 15 more minutes from the road. Needless to say, we were speechless and we still are. Even Billy, who has been guiding in the park for 10 years, told us that he has never seen the lions feasting during the rainy season (jackpot!!). As we drove away, we didn't think the night could possibly improve, since after all we felt like this was fake life. Then we rounded the corner, only to spot a leopard. We pulled off onto a smaller dirt road and watched in awe as this leopard slunk around and climbed on top of a fallen tree. All of sudden, Caitlin, hearing a sound similar to a person walking on gravel, asked Billy what the noise was. Isaac swung the spotlight around, and low and behold, a hyena was a mere 5 feet from the Land Rover, munching, er crunching, away on a freshly killed Impala and it's bones, courtesy of the Leopard. As we all sat in shock and awe, switching back and forth from the Leopard and the Hyena, we were sure that this night was actually a dream courtesy of the Malarone, and none of this was really occurring. But of course, Billy brought us back to reality by narrating the events that had transpired while we were transfixed by the lions. "Oh but of course, the hyena is eating the impala that has been killed by the leopard, and now the leopard is mad so he's walking away angrily" ... Oh, duh! Why didn't we think of that, Eliza Thornberry? 

Needless to say, World Camp does Safari was incredibly successful, and in the words of Jaren, "you guys had by far the best drive in World Camp history... and I hate you for it." 

Azungu... Givea me money

Today was our first official day off from working. We drove about an hour out of Lilongwe to Mt. Nkhoma for a casual stroll up the mountain. Well, needless to say, hiking in Malawi is not like hiking up Snake Mountain. It was raining all morning and had started to clear up a little bit when we left for the mountain. When we got there it was still raining, but not as badly as before. We started on the trail that quickly became an over grown, rock covered trail, if you could even call it a trail. After about an hour or so we reached a house that was situated at about the mid point of the mountain. The views, besides the clouds we were in, were absolutely stunning as we could see the entire valley below us. After a short break, we departed for the more strenuous portion of our 'hike'. This is where our hike turned into more of a 'climb'. We basically bush-wacked our way up into a crevice, tripping, slipping, and falling on rocks and vegetation as we climbed. Our climb became almost vertical as we climbed over rocks and pulled ourselves up, battle wounds included. We finally reached the summit, legitimately in a cloud, and some serious wind gusts. Just as we thought that we were finished, Jaren, mountain man extraordinaire, (he's hiking Kilimanjaro sometime in February), decided since we were already up there that we had to go to the actual summit. We climbed over and down a bunch of rocks (cliffs on either side...) and slid down a little rock slope and reached a little green haven in the middle of the summit. We then climbed up one last rock face and reached the highest peak of the mountain. Standing on the top was, not gonna lie, a little scary considering it was really windy. Apparently the view is incredible, however seeing as we were standing in a cloud, we couldn't see anything below us (maybe for the better?). As much as we would have loved to see the view of Malawi below us, it still felt great to be standing on the top of this mountain, with the wind whipping around us, knowing what we had just gone through to get there. We ate lunch up there and then started our descent. Getting down the crevice was easier, but not easy by any means. On the way down just about everyone in the group ended up tripping, slipping, or falling over at one point or another. About one third down the mountain, the rain started to dry up and the sun started to come out. Slowly but surely the amazing view we had been told about was appearing before us. It was awesome to see the mountain we had hiked up in a different, more beautiful light than we had seen it on the way up, and seeing the views on the way down was almost more satisfying than seeing them from the top. At the end of our hike, we strolled by a few houses. Outside of one was a small boy who yelled to us, "Give me money! Azungu, give me money!" We've all gotten used to such requests by now and have learned to just wave and smile, saying "Muli bwangi!" a greeting in Chichewa. 

By the time we returned home from the hike, we were all exhausted. There's little to no resting time here so many of us were excited to get the chance to sit around and do nothing. Karen, one of our coordinators, mentioned going to the Crisis Nursery that we visited on our first weekend here, and Marissa and some others went while I stayed behind. When we got back from the hike the power was out (a common occurrence here), so we just sat around in the dark for a bit. Eventually we had to make dinner, and the power had yet to come on, so we all sat around the table in our headlamps chopping vegetables and listening to music. Finally at around 8 the power came on, and although Lauren (who was heading cook group) had started cooking on the gas stove outside, we moved the whole operation inside and finished up quickly. We had a breakfast feast for dinner (rivaling MIdd's B for D) of french toast, eggs, hash browns, and fruit salad with mango, bananas, and pineapple, delish. After stuffing our faces Riss and I tried to write a bit of the blog but weren't feeling too hot and decided to call it a night. After such a long day and night, our exhaustion kind of caught up to us. Plus, we aren't 100% adjusted to the time change/food/busy schedule here so some nights can be a bit rough.

Today was our first day of camp number two. This school, Mchema, is a bit farther away than Chamwala was, though personally, I think it's in a more scenic area, surrounded by mountains on both sides. It was very very hot out today, and Riss and I weren't feeling very well, so the heat just sucked whatever energy we had out of us. At least for me, it was a struggle. I'm teaching this week while RissChichewa. Riss said that she is having a ball with the teachers and really learning a lot. At this school, which seems to be a very good establishment, the teachers are all very passionate and experienced in their field- something that not many schools can say. In Malawi, and many other parts of Africa, primary school (standards 1-8) is essentially free, and to pass on to secondary school, which is not free, students have to pass an examination. Most schools send a very small number of standard 8 students on to secondary school. At Mchema, their numbers are extremely impressive. In past years they've sent as many as 11 out of 26 students to secondary. Although that seems like nothing since the majority of American students move on to high school, at these schools the numbers decrease substantially after standard six. Some boys leave to take care of their families or to work on the family farm, and girls end up getting pregnant or married at a young age. Here, education just isn't really as big of a priority as it is in the states. Parents are more worried about their children's ability to build a house and survive off the land once they are on their own. Something I think all of us here are struggling with a bit is how we can make a difference in changing this trend. At least to me, it's frustrating because the lack of priority given to education is something really ingrained in their culture- and is a culture something you can even change? 

Once we finished camp and started loading our truck, we started to hear some thunder rumbling in the distance. Upon hitting the highway dark clouds loomed in the distance. We drove right into a gigantic rain storm. Apparently in Malawi, when it rains, it POURS like nothing we've ever seen. We got home, jumped out of the truck and made a run for the house without unpacking anything. Lusungu's birthday was yesterday so John (basically our dad for the month/ king of the world camp house) had baked a delicious chocolate cake for all of us to enjoy. We all stood on the porch watching the rain pour down when Jaren decided to take a quick dip in the pool, running and cannonballing in- and of course we all followed. As Karen told us all to be careful because it was very slippery, Riss's feet came out from under her and she took a huge spill (typical). Somehow we all made it into the pool, swimming around in the pouring rain. It was fun for about ten minutes until the cold started to set in and we hopped out to eat cake and sing happy birthday to Lusungu. It was delicious, and I plan to get the recipe from John, although Karen told me he will only give out recipes if you trade one of your own with him. I wonder if Malawi is ready for carmelitas...

Of course, the power went out because of the storm and I'm currently sitting on the couch while Riss is in the kitchen preparing dinner for tonight. She's making pizza, rolling dough and chopping veggies with her headlamp. If the power doesn't come back we're eating raw dough and vegetables for dinner. The power never came on, so Riss, cooked the pizza on the outside gas burners... admittedly it was quite impressive and the pizzas actually were really good. It's only 9:20 and we're already so tired we're heading to bed... 

Our first week...

We just finished our first week of camp! On Monday, we started our HIV/AIDS/Environment education at the Chamwala Full Primary School, which is about an hour and a half from our base in Lilongwe. Driving through the countryside is much different than driving in the US. There is really only one paved road, and the rest of the trip is spent on windy, bumpy, rugged, narrow dirt roads. However, the scenery that we pass by is unforgettable and indescribable. As it is the rainy season, we are surrounded by miles and miles of rolling hills, green vegetation, and row after row of green, budding crops. After being stopped a few times by the Malawian police (apparently it's very normal here to get pulled over, as the police here do not have patrol cars), we finally rolled up to the school. 

Before we get into the curriculum and what we actually did at school, we wanted to tell everyone about the fantastic field assistants we will be working with for the month. The official language of Malawi is Chichewa. Since we do not speak more than three words of Chichewa, we teach in English, and our field assistants translate for the students, and then translate the students' questions or comments or answers back to english for us. There are three field assistants: Lusungu, Peter, and Chikabachi. Lusungu is a 19 year old, who has recently graduated from university and is applying to continue on in journalism school, hoping to become a radio host. Peter is a university professor and Chikabachi is awesome and hilarious (we don't know what he does, but he does eventually want to go back to school to study political science). 

Each morning we gather all the students who will be participating in the workshop in a circle and begin the day with morning songs and icebreakers. We all get the chance to lead the songs, and always have a field assistant with us helping. We do traditional American camp songs like "Boom Chicka Boom," and "Go Bananas." We also do kind of a "head, shoulders, knees and toes" in Chichewa and some song that's basically in gibberish. The kids really love the songs and get into them, which is fun to see, and we all love making fools of ourselves in public. After morning songs, we split into our classes. Part of the World Camp Curriculum stresses teaching the importance of a team and building team morale. So we do a lot of activities like trust falls, the human knot (which is basically impossible to do with kids who don't speak English), and Ultimate Frisbee. 

Once we start teaching, we tell the kids how HIV can be transmitted, how they can protect themselves, and the four fluids that can carry the virus. With this school in particular, we were very impressed with the amount of information our classes already knew. Within the curriculum are a lot of games and activities to teach and show them the different concepts we taught. Just like any other class, a lot of the kids get a bit restless sometimes so the games each day help to keep them awake and involved. One of the funnier things to teach the kids is how to use a condom. We show them the proper way to put on and remove and dispose of condoms using bananas. Definitely not something either of us ever thought we'd be teaching to 16 and 17 year old students. After that we had a contest to see who could blow up a condom the fastest. Needless to say, neither of us won,  and were beat out by African school boys (btws they get significantly bigger then we ever thought....). Finally we created skits to show the friends and family they invited to come watch about HIV and to educate the community. The kids got really into their skits and they were really well received by the village. A lot happened at camp this week and it's really hard to sum up in one blog post without being overly exhausting. 

This weekend we traveled to a Refugee camp to teach about HIV and AIDS. Refugees from the DRC, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia, and many other African countries are all living in the camp. Many of the people living there will never leave and most can only leave the camp with permission which most will never receive. But surprisingly throughout the camp there is a sense of community, there are schools, a health clinic, and a community center. What we learned from many of the people that we talked to is that the camp is severely lacking in resources for example we spoke to them about getting tested for HIV and getting ARVs if they were HIV positive. However what we learned was without a sufficient supply of food ARVs are rendered useless so many people never get tested because they can't take the ARVs anyways. It was frustrating to hear to such information because we felt as if there really was nothing that we could do to help. The most we can offer is education but education only goes so far if there are no resources to apply that education to. Many of the refugees we spoke to were very frustrated as well and asked us repeatedly to send money and resources to the camp. When we spoke to the hospital they said that ARVs 

On a lighter note... Riss got proposed to in the refugee camp by one of the translators who lived there. She has a standing offer to move in whenever she comes back to Malawi and the refugee camp... 

Tonight was our night off! Usually each night someone is assigned to cook dinner for the group, but on Saturday nights we get to hit the town and go out to dinner. Tonight we ate at an Indian restaurant called Huts. Caitlin thought it was delicious, but Riss was dying with her VERY plain but semi-spicy chicken. Afterwards, we walked over to Diplomats, a popular bar in Lilongwe, the city that never sleeps. Seeing as it was only 8:30 the bar was not bumpin. We broke out the dance moves for a bit, Riss created the dance floor self defense moves, which she will soon be teaching to the entire house. After that we walked back and now we need to get some sleep because we are hiking a mountain tomorrow and are super excited.

Malaweeee finally made it

       After almost four days of travel, we finally made it to Malawi! The flight from Joburg to Lilongwe was real easy compared to the fifteen hour flight (and night spent) in Joburg. At the airport, we were picked up by our group coordinators, Jaren and Karen. Karen's a junior at Colby and had just spent a semester studying in Botswana, and Jaren is graduated from college and is Canadian. The other members of our group arrived with us as well, the first time the program has ever gone 0-6 for arrivals (we were all supposed to arrive Thursday, but didn't make it until Friday). Our group is made of five girls: us two, Catherine from Kentucky, Lauren from Virginia, and Kayla from Connecticut, and one boy- Nick from Canada. We're staying in a house in "area 3" of Lilongwe (the city is made up of a number of areas that are located in a random order...doesn't make much sense). The house is much larger and nicer than both of us had expected. We've spent almost the entire time that we have been here so far doing orientation activities and learning the curriculum. It's a lot of practice activities and working in teaching partners, as well as with the translators that will be coming with us to the schools. It's a lot each day, but it's important that we had orientation to make sure that we're ready to teach the students.

Yesterday we had a few hours off (finally!) and Karen brought us to the Ministry of Hope Crisis Center. It's a nursery where parents can drop their newborn babies to be cared for during the first two years of their lives. What we learned was that the majority of children are never picked up by their parents and end up going to orphanages after their second birthdays. However, we can confidently say that every baby in the crisis center is a happy and healthy baby, and is well cared for by the many women working in the center. As baby-lovers, we had a ball. The kids were so excited to have visitors, and were some of the cutest babies we had ever seen. We even got the chance to feed them. We're really excited to get to go back later in the session, and maybe even take a baby home with us. (Sorry mom, we're only kind of kidding.)

Today we finished up orientation, and went into town for some grocery shopping. Caitlin didn't think she'd buy any food while here, but the diet of oatmeal and peanut butter and jelly sammies supplied by World Camp got old in about one day. So we ventured into the outdoor vegetable market to buy some fruit and a very interesting looking avocado. While at these markets, us azungu are a sight to be seen by the locals. A lot of people know what world camp is so they come over to introduce themselves and meet the new group. It's really cool to know that World Camp has a such a good reputation here and that the people are excited to meet each group of volunteers. Tomorrow is our first day of camp and although we're a bit nervous, it's exciting to finally get to work with the kids. Each night we start getting tired around 7, so the full camps days will do wonders for our sleep.

      We're really enjoying the city and the people and are super excited for our first camp tomorrow. 

The time we didn't make it to Malawi...

Surprise surprise, our flight was delayed out of JFK and we missed our connection to Malawi. Surprisingly there is only one flight a day from Johannesburg (lovingly nicknamed Joburg) to Malawi, who would have thought since SO many people want to go there! We are now checked into the Intercontinental, located right across the street (if you can even call it a street) from the airport. We were told on the plane that we would receive vouchers for a hotel and meals since we missed our flight, and of course, South African Airlines did not pull through, and we are stuck in this, sorry not sorry, super nice hotel (hence the wireless). Not exactly how we thought we'd start off our trip, but hey, we'll take it. Good thing we've been told by at least 5 people, who we didn't ask or know for that matter, that Joburg is super dangerous and full of crime. Thanks guys glad to know we're super safe here! We're scheduled to get into Lilongwe tomorrow at 12:30, if all goes according to plan, but based on our previous 3 days of traveling (delays out of Colorado, delays on Amtrak, delays at JFK) we probably won't. Good thing the next flight is not for 3 days... Keep your fingers crossed.

Hopefully everyone can see this since Grace already told us oh so nicely that we have embarrassed ourselves in front of the entire facebook world (apparently it's a faulty link? We beg to differ).

p.s. African granola doesn't hold a candle to Midd granola