Turkey day without the turkey...

Well, it's Thanksgiving in "the warm heart of Africa" and it's actually kind of weird to be thinking about Thanksgiving. I have never experienced hot weather and the opportunity of swimming at the US Ambassador's house on Thanksgiving. The funny thing is that we are NOT having turkey, but have instead decided to roast a gianormous pig. It is kind of disturbing to me to have to go through this...oh well. So, I baked ALL day yesterday at the country director's house. Let's just say they have it a little bit better than us volunteers! The country director's wife was definately a firecracker. She was very nice and entertaining. Since it took a lot longer than we expected, their housekeeper/cook made dinner for all of us. We made lots of desserts from apple cobbler, pound cake, pecan pie, chocolate chip cookies, and snickerdoodle cookies. We ate lots of cookie dough and everyone loved the cookies that I made! I have been in town since Friday because it is pouring at my site...the rainy season has definately begun! I wanted to make sure that I would be able to get out of my site with all the rain and mud. The first rains began 2 Saturdays ago. It was the most unbelievable storm I have ever experienced...it was so rainy and windy that when I was standing on my porch all I saw was sheets of white. I put out an 18 litre bucket to catch rain from my roof and it was filled in about 1/2hr! Due to the rain, my fence has completely fallen down and looks pathetic! Oh well...Three power line poles also fell down, so it was fun watching them put it back up on Sunday! On to other things...I have talked with the Traditional Birth Attendant Coordinator at the District Hospital and it sounds like alot of work...she wants me to set up trainings for the entire district! I hope she can help me fight the district on gettting funding for this! I also spoke with the Malaria Coordinator and they are going to get mosquito nets for the maternity ward! I just have to find funding so that we can give the women leaving the maternity ward a mosquito net to use at home! If you have any ideas of where to get this funding...LET ME KNOW!!! Well, I love and miss you all and wish that I could be eating some turkey and pumpkin pie in the rain with the rest of you! Keep me posted on all the fantastic things you are up to in the US!

Made it through the first 3 months!

Hello everyone!
So, I have made it through the first 3 months at site and to celebrate/conclude that little benchmark, Peace Corps has a 2 week training in Dedza, where we had our Pre-Service training. It went pretty good. We went over ALOT of stuff including: natural medicine, proposal and grant writing, how to start income generating activities for groups like women's groups and People Living With AIDS groups, field trip to an awesome cultural center, learning that we can get into good grad schools, and how to come up with project ideas. It was weird having the counterparts (people we work with at the health center that we had to bring) for the second week of training. The only thing about my counterpart was that he is the boss of the other HSAs (health surveillance assistant) and is really smart and motivated. So, we had to come up with a 3-6 month "action plan" and I think we came up with some pretty good ideas...so, I will try to start both a women's and girls' groups for empowerment, get mosquito net incentive program in the maternity ward where the women get to take the mosquito nets home with them, and try to find out how to get untrained traditional birth attendants trained so that baby delivery is better in the rural villages. It sounds like a lot, but hey, I'm here for 2 years and that leaves alot of time to get a lot of things accomplished. I am very excited about trying to get the TBAs trained and how to improve the health status of women and children. I am excited to see my kitten, Mauwa, and to see if any chicks have hatched and how many there are! I will finally get to check snail mail at the end of the week in Zomba! I will be back the week of Thanksgiving for some oh-so-fun physical therapy for my torn ligament in my ankle and for some good food and then I head north to help teach biology at a Peace Corps summer school program! I have alot of stuff going on and if you have questions, feel free to ask! Hope all is well for you! I love and miss you all LOTS!!

Some random pictures from last 2 weeks at training

Here's a pic of me and Kris kissing a Malawian mask at Mua Mission.

Here's a picture of a boy attending a wedding and decided to watch us for a while and a woman wrapping a baby to her back like normal...I can't wait to do this in the US when I have my own babies!


Here's how we celebrate Halloween in Malawi...throw our own party and dress up from "Napolean Dynamite." I'm "Deb", Brent is "Kip", and Annie is "LaFonda." It was different celebrating here than in the U.S., but its how I have to do it for the next 2 years...