"Give me my snaps!"

A little Thanksgiving treat for you! Enjoy these few pictures from training and first arriving at site up in Chitipa (in the far NW corner of the country, in case you've forgotten. I certainly would have if I wasn't reminded how far out it is every time I want to leave my district...). Oh, and "snaps" are what Malawians call photos :)

Climbing mountains near my site

Getting ready to leave for our swearing in ceremony. (Amy, Ian, Kelsey, Kelly)

Off to the Ambassador's house to become official PCVs! 

My homestay family. My amayi (mom) Daina, asisi (sister) Jackie (look at that face!) and abambo (dad) James

One of my fellow Washingtonians. 

Your newly minted Malawi PCVs

Moving to site. If you look, you'll see my two other Chitipa vols in the back. Buried beneath our survival gear

Killing time during training

Lake Malawi!!!

My bedroom (pre bed-frame) 

Living room

"Kitchen," basically a glorified pantry

My back yard. My real kitchen is on the left

You won't see this on Google street view...

I had to throw in a selfie for good measure

Nyumba wane nymba wako (My house is your house). The door is always open.

There is a Beauty in This

Hey all!

I'm not sure who even checks this thing any more since I haven't found the time, energy, and ability to upload a blog entry in a few months. Finding all three at the same time often proves as elusive as Sasquatch, which, being a Washingtonian, I am well acquainted with. So sorry for the long delay. In order to show you how truly sorry I am, here is a brand new blog post from me to you. Enjoy!

Looking over my last blog post, it seems I have a TON of catching up to do. So I'll cover some of the day-to-day things that my life dances around, as well as the few outings I make into the more pell-mell world of cities, trainings, parties, and modernity.

A few months ago I had a two week training in Lilongwe, which was the first time our cohort had been together since we were sworn in as PCVs back in May. There are now 34 of us remaining in Malawi, having lost three PCVs in the intervening months (you guys will be missed!). It was great to see everybody and share our experiences, advice, and laugh at all our silly shenanigans we've gotten into since moving to site. There were countless conversations concerning the most embarrassing thing that has happened to us in village, as well as numerous stories involving chims (outhouses), goats, iwes (literally "you," but the term we use to refer to kids), food, and transport. Some of the more unfortunate stories included at least two of the above topics. The more unfortunate the story, the more excited we were to share it with one another and the more laughter and tears it unleashed. Because the majority of these stories are either not exactly in keeping with what I'd like my blog to represent, I won't repeat them here. But suffice it to say that we all have had our fair share of babies urinating on us or our luggage during transport, animals in the house (goats, monkeys, rats, etc.), or unfortunate chim accidents (see my previous blog entry for one such example). And then there was the infamous story of a scorpion in someone's underwear. Most definitely one of those stories that is ONLY funny in retrospect.

But back to the training. We learned a lot about conservation agriculture, permaculture, and intercropping. All three topics are interrelated, but given to the tendency for villages to be slow to embrace new techniques/ideas, we tackle these three subjects as independent projects. Ideally, by the time we COS (finish service) these projects will have merged, but we've got to start small while thinking big. One of the most beneficial sessions we had was with an American couple who have been working in Malawi since they finished their stint as PCVs here 17 years ago. They promote permaculture and food security/diversity which is a HUGE challenge in an agricultural climate centered around maize. Many of the traditional crops such as sorghum, millet, and local fruits and vegetables have become stigmatized in the past century. Sorghum and millet, once the main crops cultivated in Malawi, are now thought of as a poor man's food even though they require much fewer artificial inputs and are more drought resistant. I am working with my counterpart, a wonderful woman named Tuse, on starting a demonstration garden near my village which we'll use in permaculture trainings. In a nutshell, permaculture is a method of farming/gardening which requires no artificial inputs, little weeding, minimum tilling, crop rotation, and planting complementary crops together. I'll keep you posted on our progress. We are currently awaiting the rainy season which should start in a few weeks.

I'm slowly getting a few other programs started, though most of these are still in the organizing stage of development. Women in my village and the surrounding area are interested in starting a bakery group and there are at least a few folks in my trading center interested in starting a mushroom IGA (Income Generating Activity) so they can sell mushrooms when they are out of season. Mango season is also starting to take off and with the sheer number of mango trees we have, there is no way they will all get eaten. Which means there is a huge potential for food preservation trainings to teach Malawians how to sun dry mangoes as well as other fruits such as bananas, oranges, and tomatoes to name a few. I'm excited to see where these projects go!

I would bet that you're wondering what it is I've been doing these past eight months if I'm still talking about projects that I'm hoping to get off the ground. I have struggled with this myself the past few months. The first four months at site (from May until the training in September) was designated as time to get to know our communities, surroundings, making personal connections, and integrating. I held a few meetings during these months and attended a few others, but I mainly spend my time forming connections and relationships with the people in my village and catchment area.

Though not often, I have certainly found myself wondering why the heck I'm here and what impact I could possibly have in helping develop a country such as Malawi. Opening this mental can of worms used to send me into a bit of an existential crisis as I would wrestle with the very realistic fears that any programs I got started (such as a bakery or mushroom IGA) will likely collapse as soon as I COS in 2016. Any trainings or meetings I hold usually start in a thick fog of folks asking for money, supplies, or, at the very least, some sodas and snacks. There's not much more demoralizing than trying to work with people when their only motivation for showing up in the first place was to get some money or food. But if there is one think you learn in Peace Corps, it's how to take this huge challenge and work with it, shaping your desires to it and shaping it to your desires. There is a beauty in this that cannot be described, like the beauty in a poem or a painting or the turning of a phrase. Finding this beauty is what makes continuing service worthwhile. Otherwise the days become tedious with the daily chores of sweeping, drawing water, chasing goats out of the garden, and starting fires.

 I struggle with the desire to start huge, sweeping programs that will benefit the whole communities and the knowledge that the most successful programs will be the ones for which I am sought out in my community. Unless the people I'm working with are motivated and ready to implement these ideas into their daily lives and farming techniques, my projects will have an extremely limited impact. So I wait, searching for the few individuals in my catchment that are ready and willing to take the leap. The day I came to terms with this, the day I scaled my ambitions to my environment, was the day I knew without a doubt that I could finish my service as a PCV and be content in what I had accomplished. There is a reason PC is still promoting the same projects and interventions that we were 50 years ago. Change is slow. It happens one person at a time, and we tend to lose sight of that in America where change can happen in one breaking news story, one discovery, one idea. If I leave Malawi having impacted just one person, I will be extremely happy. Make an impact on just one person, and when others in the community are ready, they will have the knowledge at hand.

I'm sorry for the rambling, scatter-brained couple of paragraphs. I'm still struggling with how to put these thoughts and feelings into words that translate beyond the PCV community. There are knowing looks, black-humor jokes, and frustrations which encompass these struggles, but it hard to put these in a blog post.

I'm gonna sign off for now, but I'll hopefully get another post uploaded soon. I'm going to try a new strategy where I write the posts offline, and then upload them later. We'll see how that goes.

In the mean time, happy Thanksgiving! I'll be sending you all warm thoughts on T-day from Dedza, just south of Lilongwe where I'll be living it up in a hostel and, wait for it, using charcoal! A huge improvement from smokey 3-stone  fire. There is also some ancient rock art in the area, so I'll be on the hunt for that.

Miss you all.

D.

Ah ha ha ha Stayin' Alive!

Hey all!

I know you had probably given up hope of ever hearing from me, or had written me off for dead, or thought I was lost in the wilds of Africa. Some of you may even have felt no small relief at the thought. But worry not! I'm safe and sound in Malawi, enjoying the "cool" season (though the days are still getting up to the mid 80s) and my village is great! Although I certainly miss everyone back home, I'm having a great time here and have made some FANTASTIC friends, both Malawian (shout out to William and Tuse) and American (that's you, Ian, Kelsey, Anna, and Amy!).

A lot has happened in the past three months, so I'll try to just cover some of the highlights.

My staging in Philly was great and I felt at home right away with my cohort. I was just reading over my last post, where I mentioned I was more nervous to meet my cohort than to fly to Malawi. I couldn't have been more spot on! Once I met everyone, I was overcome with a feeling of "I can do this!" There are 37 of us, 16 health volunteers and 21 environment volunteers. We all got really close during PST (Pre-Service Training) and not one of us has returned stateside yet! From what I've gathered, that doesn't happen all that frequently.

The flights to Malawi went smoothly (apart from a power outage at Johannesburg Int'l Airport), though they are all a blur. Getting on a plane has never been easier (thanks to the folks I was getting on with) or harder (thanks to the folks I was leaving behind for the next two years). After a few days in the capital, Lilongwe, it was north to Kasungu District for our two month homestay and training.

My homestay family was great, and I was lucky in that they spoke a few words in English. Between that, my few words in Chichewa, and olypmic-level charades, we were able to get by. My abambo (dad) was 24, my amayi (mom) was 21, and my asisi (sister) was 11 months. There was a 9 year old girl (my cousin? I was never clear on who she was) also lived with us and helped out around the house. Though she was nine, she was only in standard one, the equivalent of first grade. I lived in a little annex (I was later informed by my abambo that it was to be called the "boys quarters") which was maybe 6' x 6' and just big enough for my bed, duffel, water filter, and a little room for standing. I had a thatch roof, mud floor, and white-washed walls so the fact that my house now has cement floors and a tin room means I'm living in STYLE!

Training was pretty uneventful, though the days were packed (up at 5:30, in class till 5pm with hardly a break). We learned about compost, conservation agriculture, agroforestry, improved cookstoves, tree nurseries, and bee keeping, among other things. As an environment PCV my job is to promote these and other activities as a low/no-cost intervention to reduce poverty and promote conservation in my village and the surrounding area. We all swore in as official PCVs in early May at the US Ambassador's house in Lilongwe. And so began the next 24 months as a PCV in Malawi. What a rush!

My site is in NW Malawi in Chitipa District. I am located just east of Chitipa (the district capital) and about 10-15km from the one (and only) paved road in the entire district. My house is pretty big and surprisingly nice - all the walls are plastered, I have a porch, and and tin roof. Boo ya! Chitipa is sandwiched between Zambia to the west and south and Tanzania to the north. I can see Tanzania from my house and am pretty close to Zambia too (maybe just 20 miles?).

These first three months at site (June-August) I am not starting any projects but will just be focusing on integration and learning Chilambya, the language spoken in my village. My language is improving "panandi panandi" (lambya for "little by little") and though I still can't speak much, I can notice my comprehension improving on a daily basis. This has the downside that I can now understand what the villagers are saying about me (while I'm in the room, mind you) but I am unable to correct any of their (many) misconceptions. Ah well. I guess it's ok if they think I'm related to Bill Gates for just a while longer. But the idea that Justin Bieber is my brother needs to be corrected ASAP.


My village is pretty small, consisting of just a handful of houses, a bar, and a primary school (K-8). The surrounding area is full of farms though, so there are a number of folks in and out of the village every day. Meru is too small for a market, so I make the 10-15km trek once a week to buy my fruits and veggies for the week. Right now passion fruit, avocados, bananas, and grapefruits are in season and papayas are just about ready!

Which brings me to the food. The staple crop in Malawi is corn and the main dish (ie 2x per day) is nsima (water and corn flour) which is eaten by hand with a side of greens, eggs, beans, or meat. The sides are all drenched in oil (during homestay we were going through 20 fl oz of oil every week!) and super salty. Though at first I wasn't a fan, it has begun to grow on me. I'm still wondering at how that can be, as the meal is devoid of nearly all flavor except for salt, which is sometimes so much that I can hardly hold down a salt-induced cough. Good stuff. I'm sure you're all super excited to come visit me now! On the upside, I've gotten pretty good at cooking over an open fire, so I can treat you to a good, low oil/low sodium/high flavor meal!

And now for a few fun stories! I know that's what you've all been wanting, and I aim not to disappoint.

Story #1: Adventures in the Chim

"Chim," or bathroom, disguises the horror of these nasty little pit latrines. First, they are home to all sorts of nasty/unwanted critters. Like cockroaches (no surprise, but still). I once made the mistake of shining my headlamp into the hole and saw a nasty squirming mess of worms. Gross! That really made me appreciate flush toilets, that's for sure. But now for the best one of all! There are bats which sometimes fly into the pit (or live there? I'm unsure) and feed on the various flying insects that can be found there. My first night at my house I was suffering from an upset stomach (among other things) and as I was squatting over the pit I heard a fluttering sound followed by something furry brushing my, er, bottom. That is as close as I ever want to get to a bat (or any other animal). Actually, that was much closer than I ever had a desire to be, and I hope never to repeat it. Again, thank goodness for flush toilet! [Note: There is more to that story, but it's as far as I'll take it without risking an over-share!]

Story #2: Injokas - No laughing matter

A few weeks ago I walked into my bafa (shower, which means 3 walls, and a cement disk for me to stand on as I bucket bathe) I turned the corner and saw a long gray thing slithering on the ground. "Oh! It's a snake!" was my fist thought, followed quickly by "I'd better leave. There are lots of dangerous snakes in these parts." No sooner had I thought that and begun to back up than the snake raised up a good 3' off the ground and flared its hood. "Oh %*#@! A cobra!" was all I could think as I hightailed it back to my house. I then proceeded to sit in my house for about an hour, trying to determine if it really happened or if I was beginning to have daytime hallucinations (courtesy of my anti-malarial meds). I saw one again a few days later as I was chatting with my village friends, and was informed that it was a black mamba. Definitely not a snake to mess with! Oh yeah, "injoka" is chichewa for "snake." The title probably makes a bit more sense now :)

I think that's about it for now, but I'll hopefully be able to write more soon! One fun final image to leave you with: Picture 26 people plus two babies cramming into a 15 passenger van and then beginning a 5 hour road trip. That's Malawian travel in a nutshell (quite literally!). But if you are planning on visiting, rest assured knowing that there are actual buses to take.

PS - Thanks to all of you who have written me letters! They have been (and continue to be) a great escape back to America and my friends and family. They've certainly helped me through some tough days. Keep 'em coming! And Dave and Diane, I just got your letter today (though I haven't read it yet). Our letters must have crossed paths in the mail! Keep your eyes posted these next few weeks.

PPS - I have a NEW mailing address!

          Dylan Cottrell, PCV
          Box 51
          Chitipa
           Malawi
          Africa
    (It's also been updated on my "Talk to me!!" page)

Love,
Dylan

Last Days Stateside

It’s hard to believe that in less than 24 hours I will be in Philadelphia, meeting my other cohort members and getting ready to begin staging on Tuesday. Tomorrow morning I fly out of Seattle, leaving my family and friends for 27 months (unless some of you decide to visit me. Hint hint wink wink). If I thought the past few weeks have been a blur, this last week went at light speed. It was filled with flickers of packing, cleaning, coffees, and goodbyes.

Just this morning I said goodbye to the ‘burg, wondering what it will be like when I return and I can’t help but feel that majoring in Geography was a fitting choice. As I heard repeatedly during my college career, geography is the study of how people and things interact with/in space. So the fact that I said farewell to so many places seems oddly appropriate. I know that when I return to the ‘burg these places will be distant memories and my interactions with (and interpretations of) them will be new. Perhaps drastically, perhaps just subtly. But that’s no small reason why I’m headed off with the PC tomorrow. If I wasn’t wanting to alter my world view or my interactions with places or people I wouldn’t be doing this. I’m not feeling nostalgic per se, more like projecting the sense of nostalgia and alienation I will have with these places when I return.

Anyway.

I got packed yesterday in a flurry of activity. I’m guessing I have about 70 lb in my checked bags, plus a full carry on. Considering the fact that this is what I’m taking for two years, I’d say that’s not bad! And a fairly sizable portion of that is books, journals, and paper. If only you could have seen my bed in the weeks leading up to my departure. Piles of clothes, stacks of books, camping gear, cameras, and other random items on my packing list. To give you an idea, it looked something like this (but A LOT messier):

You’re probably wondering how nervous I am (perhaps on a scale of 1 to 10?). I would probably rank it at about a 4. And I think the majority of that will go away once I meet all my fellow PCVs during staging in two days. They are the ones I’m going to be living and working with for the next three months (and, to a lesser extent, the next 27 months), and I just hope I don’t make too bad of an impression. Fingers crossed! It’s not that I’m not nervous about Malawi, but my fernweh has gotten the better of me.  

On a slightly unrelated note, I happened this quote yesterday, and it seemed pretty fitting for the next few years. “It’s your experience. Discover your own wisdom.” I’ll do my best to do just this while I’m abroad.

I’m not sure when I’ll be able to update this blog again (remember, I likely won’t internet again until June) but keep checking back! In the meantime, I’d love letters from y’all!!!! My address during PST is under the “Talk to me!!” page. Letters take 1-2 months to arrive, so start writing now! I’ll start as soon as I have downtime/the energy (I’m anticipating a bit of a gut biota revolt against my new diet).

 I’m looking forward to hearing from you!

Farewell for now,

Dylan

In the Beginning

Hello all!

Seeing as this is my first blog entry, I would like to thank you guys for checking this out. That means you are the hipsters of this blog. Which means, in a short while, you will have bragging rights. How great is that?!

Right, so on to the business at hand: my PC service. I'm sure you guys have questions about where I will be living, what my living conditions will be like, what I will be doing, how safe Malawi is, and why I chose to become a PCV (Peace Corps volunteer... the PC LOVES acronyms). I also have these questions. Below is my best attempt to answer them. I will certainly get more information once I arrive in country (on March 7th!!) but this is what I've got as of now.

It all started back in the 1980s when my dad was a PCV in Niger in west Africa. Of course, I wasn't around then, but bear with me. I have many memories of looking at a coffee table book of Niger and falling in love with the idea of learning another culture as only living in it will allow. When I was still a fresh graduate from first grade, my parents, sister, and I went to west Africa for three weeks during which time we visited the village my dad had been posted in. I don't remember a whole lot from that trip, but I remember that visit clearly.

Fast forward to the present, through several other short international trips as well as a few extended ones. These experiences made me determined to join the Peace Corps and underscored the importance of international experiences. As college graduation began to become a reality, I decided to apply to the PC. My thinking was that I was at a good spot in my life to apply. Sure, graduate school will happen someday, but that can wait. Plus, if I can act like my school loans don't exist for a few years longer, they'll go away right?

Student loans? Come at me bro!

As for what I will be doing as a PCV, I'm not exactly clear. Broadly, my "sector" is the environment. More specifically, I will be working in forestry management through the "community-based natural resource management" program (or CBNRM, because why wouldn't  you make that an acronym?). As far as I know, this means I will be working with communities that border protected areas (game preserves, protected forests, or forest reserves) in an effort to find ways for them to harvest natural resources in a sustainable manner. Sounds pretty neat! It also sounds pretty daunting. My degrees are in Marine Biology and Geography... So my knowledge of forestry management basically stops at knowing how to pronounce the words. And even that is shaky.

I don't have any idea where I will be living (called a "site" or a "post") for the next 27 months, though I have been told that a mud brick hut with a tin roof is upscale. Bring on the surprises! And then there are these little beauties:

Say hello to my little friend!

These guys may be my roommates for part of the next two years. Or not. TBD. But the possibility is there. Apparently my dreams of cockroaches crawling all over me while I sleep may be good training. But I'm taking heart in the thought that these guys may also be my roommates:

How could you say no to this?

Clearly the housing (and the roommate) situation is very different from in the States. I will also have limited internet access, so communication will mostly be via post. Check out my "Talk to me!!" page for the deats. 

The Peace Corps is a 27 month commitment, and I will fly off to Philly on March 3rd for staging along with my cohort (about 30 people all told). On March 6th we begin our journey, taking a bus to the Big Apple before flying to Johannesburg, South Africa and then to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. I will then begin three months of pre-service training (PST), including a home-stay, language classes, and cultural and professional training. During this time I will be sans internet, so letters would be best. Unless you're ok with a reply three months later.

After PST I will find out my site location and learn more specifics about my project and job description. Just to give you a flavor of where I might end up, here are some photos of Malawi:

As far as I know, any one of these photos could be similar to what I will be seeing for the next few years. Who knows? 

A final note on Malawi's stability and safety. The PC monitors safety risks and stability in all countries where PCVs are serving. If the PC determines the situation to be risky, all volunteers will be recalled and either brought back to the US or placed in a different site/country. So no worries. They've got my back. Some of you may have heard of the corruption scandal in Malawi (dubbed "cashgate"). This is a serious issue but poses no threat to me as a volunteer. Boo-ya!

Stay tuned for a few more updates before I go off the grid until June!