This week, I went to one of the villages to interview one of the orphans living there. This is how things work here. After sitting down to talk to the girl, a bunch of kids just came and sat around us listening quietly. It was hard not to get distracted by them - they are so cute. The only challenge is once I smile at one, I have to make sure I look at and smile at each one as I do not want any of them to feel left out. It is hard work here. :-) I love these moments. Interviewing kids about their life has been a very eye-opening, emotionally challenging and rewarding experience. I feel so lucky to have this opportunity.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
The Good Life
One of my favorite things about Malawi is that there is always someone to tend to your needs. If you have a job in Malawi, you have to have a "house boy/girl" to do all of your chores. The cooking, the cleaning, the laundry. It has been such a nice luxury for me. I just hand over my clothes to the house boy and they come back clean and pressed. I just tell him what I want for dinner, he sets the table, serves me and then I just get up when done and he cleans the dishes. It is awesome! I have really been enjoying this. When watching TV, I just ask for tea and a scone and bam! look what I get. I could really get used to this. The reasons things are like this is two-fold. First of all, labor is cheap. From what I understand, these guys make about $35/month. But more interestingly, it is because everything is so labor intensive; you cannot have a job and accomplish these things. Laundry has to be hand-washed and pressed. They have a certain bug that can lay eggs in your wet clothes so they HAVE to be pressed to kill the eggs. As for preparing meals - forget about it. It can take forever as everything is made from scratch. Not to mention the time spent walking to the market to purchase these things. Cleaning - forget a dishwasher.
Being a house wife has a whole new meaning here. I could handle it in the US, but here, no way. It is way too much work. I cannot even take care of myself here.