Damn Casual Friday

I went to work today in my new most dressy outfit and what do you know…..they have causal fridays in Malawi!! Dammit. Oh don't you worry, I can beat them in casual friday any day of the week. I have 25kg of casual clothes. Bare with me here as I have a lot of time on my hands in the evenings and have been thoroughly entertaining myself with my new camera and laptop. I will get to more of the stories of what I have seen and experienced (as opposed to how I am deciding to pick out my outfits) later. I have time. I figured I would post another outfit due to the overwhelming requests….or maybe it was just one email from my sister. Potatoes Patatos....whatever.

Is this what you thought you would get from my blog from Africa? :-P

One step closer to blending in (as if my skin does not shout it)....

So day 1 in the office. I was sitting there talking to the two women saying that enough is enough. I need to go shopping. I have been being feeling really uncomfortable about how casual my outfits have been when they all look so nice. They take such pride in how they dress and we (I am talking about any white person here) look like park rangers. I met the ex-vice president of Malawi yesterday and I was not cool with the casualness of my dress while he was dressed to the nines.

So Miriam and I took a mini-bus (an amazingly efficient mini-van that packs people in) to some shops. For any of you that have shopped in a foreign country, you know how it feels to lose your own sense of what you see as normal. I continued to fight the "ok this is cool" by thinking…..european vacation…..i kept repeating this….european vacation, european vacation every time i thought….this is cool.

So I thought about putting up some thumbnails of all of my new outfits. If not for anything other than a good laugh, but I think I did pretty good. I kept thinking….would I wear this at home? I definitely pushed that limit, but feel I am in better shape than my khaki's, tank-top and flip-flops. You be the judge.

When I came back to the office bragging that I am going to look like them they said to each other "have your camera batteries charged tomorrow" . I am screwed from either continent. For me, a laugh is worth more than my pride…..I guess :-)

So today in my new outfit my friend Mike said the girls where we ate lunch were asking him where I go my outfit. They wanted to know if it was American or if I got it here. They could not figure it out. Bingo Bango. Mission accomplished. I am in!!

An Area

A few more pictures to give you an idea of what an Area is.

The top picture is the new office for Cedor Orphan Care (one of the projects that PP supports). I was shocked to hear that they do not even have one pen or a piece of paper to conduct business. This is what I mean by extreme poverty. It is hard to imagine that an organization that takes care of 300+ orphans cannot even afford a piece of paper. This is so far from my reality it is hard to understand sometimes.

One of the shops (Hardware) in an Area just outside of city center.

I figured before I got into some of the heart wrenching things I have seen and experienced, I will start from the beginning. Let's start from the top. Malawi. Malawi is located on the SE border of Africa. It is landlocked but interestingly enough, it feels like a tropical island. Right now, it is so lush and green. It is the size of Pennsylvania (ironically enough) and has about 12mm people.

It is one of the poorest countries in the world. I have never experienced anything like this. Some of the most interesting things I have found is that the Malawians are very warm, kind and they dress with such pride. They always look so nice, and they have timeless patience. Something I am not in touch with at all!!!

I am staying in the city of Liliongwe. I will post pictures when I move into my place on Friday. Right outside "city center" are Areas. I do not even know how to describe them. All dirt roads, with tiny tiny little shops lining the streets. See the hardware store! I still have not been able to wrap my brain around this part. Traveling a little farther out are the villages. This is where a village like Kang'oma is. It is about a forty minute drive from city center. Each part has its own feeling and issues and I am sure I will touch on all of them throughout my experiences.

Although it is such a foreign place, I do not feel as out of place as I probably should. :-)