We've arrived in Zomba!

Hi everyone! Danielle here:

Just wanted to write quickly and let you know that we are here in Zomba safe and sound! We arrived here Wednesday Oct 25th and are in good hands here with my team at LEAD (which stands for Leadership for Environment and Development). They have given us a house to live in (which includes a caretaker and security!) and Josh has slid easily into the role of "bug killer". We are trying to adjust to the idea of having 'help'. This is something we are really not used to. Steven, our caretaker comes every morning at 8am and washes the floors etc. And our security is actually the family who lives in the house opposite us. They don't have electricity, and they cook on a wood fire that they make every night outside. It's hard for us to look out our kitchen window everyday and see them there, and not feel just so ridiculously privileged..because we are..

We have learnt a bit of Chichewa (the local dialect) and we have these super funny daily exchanges of "hi, how are you? good? and you? good, and you? good? and you? good. Thank you, thank you." and we all just end up laughing because that is all we can say. So we are super eager to learn more so we can communicate with them.

So Zomba is pretty small but is actually quite green and lush. It sits right below the Zomba Plateau so when you look up all you see is green. We have been told to go hike the Plateau so one of these weekends we will have to do so. My boss gave me Thursday and Friday off so Josh and I spent the past 4 days adjusting to life here and setting small goals for ourselves, like today we will go to 'Tasty Bites' (one of 2 restaurants in Zomba), today we will go to Shoprite (their grocery store) etc. We haven't yet gone to the market where apparently there is tons of fresh fruit and veggies, so this is next on our list. So we are doing well- culture shock hasn't been too bad, but it has been super hot here.. but at least at the moment it's a dry heat. Luckily we were given a fan, but the power goes out for about 3 hours every night and sometimes in the morning as well. We now understand that the power will go out around 6pm everynight, so dinner has to be made before that.. one night we got caught offguard and ended up making peanut butter and jam sandwhiches by candlelight.. haha.. I do love that we have hot water though (for those who were in the Philippines with me I think of our time there often as similarly we shower with a bucket.. but we didn't have hot water!) so we are very fortunate.

I have been learning so much about Malawi, and all their local papers are in English, so it's a great way to become familiar with what's going on. There are a lot of issues here, one of the major ones is that they have a fuel shortage and people line up for 7 hours sometimes just so they can get gas. It's incredible. Yesterday we saw the line of cars extend from the gas station almost all the way back to our house (maybe about a 100 car line up). So everyone is frustrated with this. Because of this lack of fuel people can't go to Blantyre (the nearest major city) to get goods and often places will run out of stock very quickly. This also hurts the farmers and businesses who want to export because moving these goods around becomes very expensive as well.. so it's a mess. Just over the summer some of the major foreign aid donors pulled out of Malawi (one reason being the lack of good governance by the president) so this is hurting the country big time.. But besides all of this, the people remain upbeat and positive. I am beginning to understand that complaining isn't something people do here..

So Josh and I are just taking it all in.. enjoying all the new sights, tastes and sounds.. not feeling too overwhelmed yet.. but i am happy to have started work today so that I can start contributing to some of the really neat things this organization is doing here.