new perspectives

hey all, sorry for the delayed post.
i was actually at lake malawi with our team for the past three days where we had our orientation.
i'll posting up entries for all the days that i missed for you avid readers.

1/4/09

well, i finally arrived at lilongwe, malawi after a grueling two days of travel. i arrived at 1 am and since one of my coordinators couldnt pick me up at that time, i had to wait until 8 am in lilongwe airport to get picked up.

at that point, i cannot lie, but i wasnt in the happiest moods. i had just taken 4 flights to get to my final destination, the status of my hygeine was being compromised, my checked baggage did not arrive at the airport, and i had to spend the night in the airport with all of the festering vermin that were crawling all over the floor. it was then when i realized my selfish attitude. i started to regret my decision to even come to malawi in the first place. i was so bitter about my current condition that i failed to recognize the original puprose of which this organization exists: to help.

needless to say, i was happy to be picked up in the morning. and what turned my mood upside down was the sight of the house that i will be staying at this january. it is a huge house with a pool in the front, a porch with a ping pong and foosball table, huge kitchen, huge living room, huge quarters, each bed with mosquito nets, and best of all, showers.

after taking a long shower and nap, i went out on the pool with the members of my team. unfortunately, i couldnt swim because my luggage hasn't arrived yet. but i was there, enjoying the sunlight, playing the house guitar, and living the dream of my retired vacation. i knew that this month was going to be great.

later that day, we starter our orientation, reviewing the material that we were given. i had looked over the material a couple of times, but i was slowly starting to realize that the people that we are teaching about HIV/AIDS are children. they are the equivalent of 5th, 6th, and 7th graders in the states. i dont even think that i knew what HIV or AIDS was when i was that age, and these children have already been expose to the idea of sex and are already using it to their advantage.

14% of malawi's population is HIV positive, and for a country the size of michigan with 14 million people, this means that about 1 million people have AIDS in malawi. what is even more tragic is that a baby born to parents with HIV has a 25% chance of acquiring the virus themselves. talk about sins of the father.

anyways, tomorrow our team will be heading out to lake malawi for three days to finish our orientation, and its going to be awesome


1/5/09

today we left for lake malawi to continue our orientation. during the two hour drive there i saw a lot of beautiful things as well as a lot of sad things.

the villages that we passed seemed really amazing and beautiful to me. when i talked to our translators, admired the shoddy construction of each home within the village, i was overwhelmed with a sense of community. i learned that each village has a village head, and that the villages are usually comprised of members of the same extended family. what another person may see this to be primitive, i look at this as sensibility. each member of the village has a job to do, such as getting the water, or the wood, cooking, etc. it seems that if a person does not complete his job, the community does not function as well. these villages give purpose to people, and instill in them a sense of responsibility, something that i myself need to learn someday soon.

on the other hand, a child working the field may be a common sight in malawi, but for me it was astonishing. we passed many agricultural fields on the way there and most of them were either being worked by an entire family, or children.

it was then that i realized that what our team is doing in malawi may put jealousy in the minds of the malawians. we are walking into their schools with clean clothes, shoes, sunglasses, teach whatever we know about HIV/AIDS, deforestation, and gender issues, and in a month, take ourselves out of the picture. when i think about this, i wonder if i am doing more harm, than good. i mean, obviously our purpose there is to only produce positive effects for the country, but is it a bad thing to say that ignorance is bliss in this case?

another thing that has been on my mind is elicited from a discussion we had today. to give a little background, in malawi, it is a taboo to talk about HIV/AIDS, sex, and anything along those lines. yet, we are going to schools, talking openly about a topic that they may or may not feel uncomfortable about. does it not feel like we are imposing western culture on them? or where do we draw that line of what "culture" entails? do attitudes toward HIV count as culture?

what is most difficult about teaching such a difficult topic is that there are so many gray areas.

1/6/09

today, the second day of our orientation at lake malawi.

i am starting to feel more knowledgable about the material that we need to teach, but i'm still nervous about presenting the material in an understandable, yet fun, manner.

during one of our breaks, a few of our members went into lake malawi for a swim. we could see where they were from the backside of the lodge that we stayed at. there were some malawian kids swimming around the water and our team members invited them to come and play with them. their mothers were right behind them, and they still encouraged the kids to go on and have fun. the kids swam towards them, and for about half an hour, our team members were singing songs and dances that we have been learning during orientation with the malawian kids.

this was really a important moment for me during my orientation. i realized that malawian kids are so carefree, shameless (not in a negative connotation), and are excited to learn new things. i was so surprised when the mothers on the beach encouraged their kids to go and play with our team members. i find that in the states, starting from day 1, we are told to never talk to strangers, let alone approach them to have fun. i wonder, what is so wrong with the way that we americans raise our kids that they are not that free-spirited as the malawian kids? when we pass them on our bus ride to the lake, they wave and smile to us with welcoming eyes, and when we wave back, they giggle and smile even more amongst themselves. if we were to raise our kids that way, perhaps there wouldnt exist kidnappers and child molesters so that we would have to instill fear in our children.

on a side note, today was my 21st birthday, and i spent it at lake malawi, and i could not imagine being with our team of 15 volunteers and 5 coordinators on this day. they baked a cake for me, made a card for me, (bought a few drinks for me). we didnt do much, but i don't remember the last time that i was this happy, or the last time i laughed this hard. i don't regret turning 21 in malawi. to be honest, to me, its just another birthday. but it felt even better that it was in the heart of africa.

1/7/09

we traveled back to our volunteer house today. the highlight of this day was that we met the rest of the translators that we will be working with over the next 4 weeks. we got a chance to get to know them so that when we're working together for the first time, things wouldnt be as difficult. as i was asking them questions about malawi, and its culture, i realized that these translators are a great resource to us. they are willing to answer any question that we may have, even those regarding HIV/AIDS in malawi, a subject that we are all aware to be a taboo in malawi.

we had a time of reflection today, where we had to discuss a high time and a low time while we were in malawi. my low time would have to be staying in lilongwe airport for 7 hours from 1am to 8am waiting to get picked up. my flight arrived at 1am, but the airport is so small that it closes at night, and it is extremely dangerous driving around lilongwe at night because of the sheer amount of potholes in the ground, so i agreed to wait until the morning without knowing what i was getting myself into. my high time would have to be my birthday. enough said.



thanks for reading 4 days worth of blog. i'll post up pics later.