Update

The nutrition training preparation is going well. Four of the nurses from both the hospital and MSF came for a planning meeting on Friday. We decided on tentative dates for the training (the 1st and 3rd weeks of December - which could be a problem because of World AIDS Day). Two of the nurses are also certified trainers of nutrition education so that means that we already have trainers as well as a curriculum. Preparing the budget has been a little difficult since in theory the community should contribute to at least 10% of the total cost, but this isn't necessary. So I'm sure we can work around it. We also have a venue (a Catholic church with a reception hall) and there are about 24 nurses who will be trained in all. I've been working on the application form and trying to get some statistics from both the hospital and MSF. So many people have left this week though, which makes me glad that we were able to have the meeting last week.

In other news, at least in Europe and Africa Mother's Day will be this Thursday. So that will be a holiday from work. I'll be visiting my friend Lisa in Ntcheu and then we'll be going to a music festival in Mangochi. It's called Lake of Stars (because it's always on Lake Malawi and there are famous (?) musicians). I'm really excited to go and listen to some great music. There will be at least one group from Malawi (Black Missionaries), hopefully more.

I've named my cat Lucy after "I Love Lucy". She is hilarious, just like the actress and plus I love the name. She's still crazy - sometimes she just runs laps around the house for no reason. She's getting fatter though, which is good because she was really small when I got her 2 weeks ago.

There was a District AIDS Coordination Committee (DACC) metting yesterday with the main objective of planning World AIDS Day. We decided to create a planning committee and wanted to only have 10 people. But then some people decided that representatives from departments like police and monitoring and evaluation should be included. Oddly, no one mentioned the District AIDS Coordinator's office. Maybe I there's something I don't understand (i.e. the office might not be good at planning or securing funding ) but I thought that would be the first department named. So I did and I think I'm the representative. I'm actually really glad to be on the committee because one of the tasks is securing funding. So maybe we can research grants or use some of the ones that Peace Corps can provide. In any case, the DACC decided to stop sitting around waiting for funding from the National AIDS Commission because it usually doesn't come on time if at all.

It rained for the first time last week. It was really nice to smell the wet dirt here in Africa again. I don't know what it is, but there's a certain post-rain smell here that I've never experienced anywhere else. I guess the rainy season might have started, or it might have just been a freak storm.

Oh, I attended an interesting meeting on climate change last week. For at least half of the meeting we debated whether or not there was climate change. Then someone said that if we agreed that climate change did not exist then there was no point to having the meeting and we should just leave. Finally, people agreed that there was, indeed, climate change and that someone should make some laws about it. Then the meeting ended. I asked the meeting facilitator afterwards what he would do with the notes from the meeting. He said that he would send them to the national environmental office (or something like that) and that they would compile them and maybe make some decisions or laws.