Weekly Update

The past week has been fairly calm. There was another nutrition training planning meetiing last Friday where we made some more definite plans. We decided to postpone the training until the end of January since two of the trainers will be taking leave in December and the beginning of January. Also World AIDS Day and Christmas would make it difficult to plan a training in December. We've also created a detailed budget and come up with a venue. So, things are slowly falling into place.

The first World AIDS Day planning meeting will be held this Thursday. I asked the DAC who was supposed to organize the meetings and he said our office. He seemed surprised that I would even ask. I guess I'm just confused as to what he really does and what the office is supposed to do. Hopefully I'll figure it out before I leave.

I went to a traditional dancing event this past Sunday. To be honest, I really just went to see my friend Immaculate who was down from college in Mzuzu. I haven't seen her since the end of September when she left for the new trimester. Unfortunately I wasn't able to run into her since there were so many people there and there was not cell phone reception. But, the Lomwe tribe, of which the current president is a member, created a group last year to preserve their cultural heritage. I was told that the Lomwe people are from the south but with the creation of the tea estates a lot of people from the northern part of the country moved south to work. Many people spoke Chichewa and eventually the Lomwe language started to die out. Now only grandparents speak the language. So, the cultural preservation group decided to start a school where they would teach the Lomwe language and customs. The event on Sunday was a celebration of the anniversary of the formation of the group.

I now have a Chichewa language teacher. I asked my friend Blessings who used to be a teacher at Thyolo Secondary School to recommend a Chichewa teacher for me (they teach Chichewa and English in the schools here). It was a very quick turnaround since I only asked him yesterday and the teacher stopped by my office today. Hopefully we can start lessons this week. I tried just learning by talking to people but that's not the way that I learn. Also my new teacher was thrilled to learn that I was a Peace Corps Volunteer because he has already worked with three other volunteers in the past.