safari adventures, mice-eating fun, and dreadlocked friendships

lots of good stuff happening down here:

Blogging is hard when you are doing a lot of really cool things and even when you are not you probably don’t have internet. Catching up a little at a time & here is a picture of an elephant to start things off

do the elephant dance

~National Geographic-esque safari(s)~

We went to Liwonde National Park and went on a river safari which is basically cruising around on a boat with a really great guide who calls himself “Modern King” David*

The only thing I could think about the whole time was that it was like the riverboat cruise at Disneyland BUT SO MUCH BETTER. And we actually saw real alligators, which are my number one fear after serial killers.  And our guide was at least as funny as the Disneyland workers.
It was great

We camped that night right next to the lake after a very serious lecture about how we needed to be careful about having food in our tents/walking anywhere at night because elephants and hippos and rhinos and warthogs are known to wander through the campsite.

smiling until you have to hold your pee all night so you don't die 

I spent half the night worrying about the possibility of having to go to the bathroom because I was certain I would accidentally pee on an alligator/die if I had to leave the tent before dawn.

So I don’t think it gets any better than that.

The next day we went on a driving safari, which was unreal, and all I had to compare it to was the Indiana Jones ride BUT SO MUCH BETTER (sorrynotsorry for all the Disney references) 

We saw lots of monkeys (baboons! I was corrected many times for not using the right name) and hippos and warthogs (to which King David, would exclaim “what a BEAUTIFUL beautiful creature”) and more alligators (yaaay) and different type of deer things that I can’t remember the name of and pretty birds that I also can’t remember the name of but they were all amazing. 
King David also knew the exact appropriate time to make Lion King references, which I really appreciated.

hippo friend

We saw so many elephants and I probably got around 300 pictures and am a little bit embarrassed to show them all to anyone because how many elephant pictures are too many elephant pictures, you know?
But we got to see an elephant greeting ceremony and on our way around the corner we almost hit a huge one and it was this terrifying stand off and I thought for sure we were going to die because safari trucks are actually incredibly slow but he just ended up trumpeting at us (the coolest) and we snuck on by.  

After those experiences I realized that I am doing everything wrong with my life and should have gone to ranger school (which according to King David it is not too late!).

because seriously, look at this

Other neat-o things include eating lots of food with the bones/teeth/eyes still inserted

Which, yeah I know, most places in the world this isn’t even a little bit of a big deal but guys I was that girl who wouldn’t even eat a chicken leg because it had veins in it and now I am chowing down on fish heads (also taking silly pictures with them but c’mon LOOK AT THESE THINGS).
I wasn’t brave enough to eat the mice but a couple of the other girls were so let’s all give them a HUGE round of applause BECAUSE LOOK AT THESE THINGS (and maybe I’ll toughen up by the end of the trip but let’s not hold our breath)

kylie the rockstar 

i can't

playing with our food like immature children

My mother has always dreaded this day

I think mostly everyone knows of my love of dreadlocks and how really all I’ve ever wanted in life is to have a head full of dreads.

Well it turns out that I graduate in a year and have to be employable/need to keep my job now but I’m in Africa and how can I pass it up?!?!?!

So I compromised and just got one underneath my hair from some guys we met in the market.

It is an interesting balance that Nielle (my incredible and patient part-in-crime) and I are learning in how to be careful not to die/put ourselves in dangerous situations but also not to be so judgmental or suspicious of people that we assume the worst when really, they are awesome humans.

For example, when we were led to this weird alleyway mailbox area so that we could sit while they worked on my hair we looked at each other with suspicion and caution that our mothers would have been proud of. 

But after realizing we were still in plain sight and trusting our gut that we were safe we had an hour to chat and learned some really cool things.

#dreadsbyOsman

These are some fun facts that I learned about Osman:
-He has 5 nieces that he trades his art for school supplies for

-He wants to be a writer; when prompted he shared that he wants to write about people and politics and Malawian culture

-He thinks education is so important and is enrolled in secondary school for the fall (he is 25 and now has money to go back). He talked to me about how important education is especially for girls (guys I didn’t even ask a leading question to get this, promise) because it gives them more opportunities and choices and they are less likely to get married young.

There were so many other things.

I think these are my favorite types of experiences, though…getting a glimpse (or the whole thing if I am lucky) of people’s stories and lives through chance interactions (or carefully created ones like dreadlock-making).

It is a beautiful thing that we are able to do as humans to share little bits of our souls here and there and teach and learn and grow from and because of each other.

  

Lots more to catch up on so fingers crossed for more time/internet someday soon.

missing our favorite Chels, but sunset group picture at the lake/towel skirt  

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

 *and just because I don’t want to forget how amazing he was he spent almost an hour that night chatting with us around the fire about religion and Malawi and America and let me wear his really sweet poncho and told us all the tricks on how to become a park ranger. So if anybody every comes to Malawi make sure you get this guy.

hard things & good lessons

“give me pen” “give me shoes”  “give me money” 

“give me bottle”

every time we pass by we are bombarded with requests 
i think I have talked enough about how much I love it here, and I truly do, but the first couple days brought an onslaught of upturned hands and expectations that I didn’t know how to fulfill and i have finally had some time to reflect and write about it 

a good number of people out where we stay during the week, outside of the staff and families enrolled in the school, have only interacted with white people who are working for NGOs and non-profits and who are there to distribute aid.

the city gets a little tourism but still not that much 

and even though I had been prepared it was all still a lot to handle.

As anyone who has ever encountered poverty knows, the difficulty isn’t in the giving, but in the withholding.

I would love to be the one giving away free stuff and seeing the excitement and joy and probably feeling pretty good about myself.

But that’s selfish and I know it.

So instead I have tried my very best to focus on developing relationships and giving out high fives and creating secret handshakes and playing games (as you have also already heard about, sorry)

I think that’s why it feels even harder when things like this happen.

Like when we are talking to some teenage girls down by the pump and laughing and joking and they are teaching me how to dance and translating for the little ones and then I have to start walking back and when I am about a 100 yards down the road I hear

“MACIE MACIE WAIT FOR ME! I NEED YOUR HELP”

and I turn and it is one of the girls, about 14 years old, running towards me and I turn back and she says, “Macie. I want to go to school. I want an education. I need you to help me. Will you pay for my school?”

and my heart just breaks because OF COURSE I want to pay for her school and every other girl in the world’s education

but I can’t

I think it was so much harder because it was specific and personal

an individualized plea made specifically to me by someone who I had a relationship with.

& it jarred me

a lot

that was my second day in the country. 

~i wanna cheer this post up with a memory of learning how to dance which was the happiest thing~

About a week later 

I was walking down the one dirt road that passes through the surrounding villages with a fellow intern and an SUV comes ripping around the bend scattering the children we were with; the smallest, a 20 month old little boy, barely getting out of the way

I glared at the driver, frustrated by their lack of caution only to realize as they slowed down and rolled the window down that it was JOYCE BANDA THE PRESIDENT OF MALAWI and her driver

The children started chanting and dancing and clapping and swarming the car and the driver kept apologizing and smiling and I was so confused because why was the president of Malawi racing through the bush, 100 kilometers from any real city?

The driver starts gathering a large stack of bills, trying to hand them to me through the open window and I am caught off guard and just keep saying no no no 

but by this time all of the children have seen them and the driver is telling me to take them and distribute them and I keep saying no no please no but the kids are jumping and fighting and looking at me and trying to push me toward the open window so I take them and they drive off without a backward glance 

& now I have a stack of bills and a huge group of starving kids who are looking at me to give them money and I am in the exact position that I had been working so very hard to avoid

but before I had time to really think about it even more kids starting running over from villages close by and they all started grabbing the money  and screaming and pushing and my efforts to get them to line up only worked for a couple seconds before all hell broke loose 

& before I knew it my hands were empty and I watched an impressively old woman run from her hut, grab some bills from a couple of children, laugh gleefully and run back down the road

I looked around and felt heat and anger and frustration at everything that had happened

These were children who had been playing and skipping and having fun just 5 minutes earlier and they were now fighting and screaming and pushing for 20kwacha

That is the equivalent of 5 cents in USD

I know that they are in need and hungry and maybe it will buy them food for the day or chip in for their families or help with a huge number of things that they really need

And maybe kids in America would have reacted the same way if a treat was up for grabs

But everything inside me screamed that THIS WAS NOT THE ANSWER

Aid is good and important, but throwing money out a window solves nothing

Maybe President Banda’s actions were well-intentioned and she just wanted to help out a couple of kids

But it was only a week before the election and I really don’t know that much about Malawian politics but I can’t imagine that driving through the bush throwing money out the window is a sustainable or transparent way to further a platform of development

And they didn’t have to stick around to see the chaos that occurred once the bills settled

& maybe there was no ill intention 

Maybe they were just being nice and trying to help out the kids that they almost hit or just wanted to make them happy or whatever else they were thinking

Maybe this really is a good idea and I just don’t know enough yet

I KNOW similar events happen all over the world every day so maybe I should just count my blessings that it was money being thrown out the window instead of something far graver and more dangerous happening

I don’t know

But I do know that I hated it

I hated being a part of causing contention and fighting and unrest

It doesn’t matter that no one was seriously hurt or that no one died or was kidnapped etc

and yeah they probably all got to have a treat that day

but something inside my still cringes at the memory

I don’t know what I would do differently if I could go back.

I guess I could have just kept refusing and walked away but it was the president of the country for crying out loud

Maybe I would have worked harder to make sure that everyone stayed calm and got an even amount

I don’t know

  

I think that the only answer I have right now is the reminder to see every one I meet as a person not an object

More specifically as a brother or sister from the same creator

Because if you see poverty only as a problem to be solved, then yeah it becomes easy to see hand outs of money or resources as the solution

But it is not just a problem to be solved

& maybe that is backwards because it is so hard to not want to literally take the clothes off your back and give everything you have and wouldn’t that be a way to see others as people? 

Loving them enough to want to help?

But I think that really seeing people and not objects comes from being aware of sustainable agents for change and aid

And maybe that’s just because sustainability is one of the latest buzzwords in development and that is what I have been taught by my professors and development articles

I don’t know 

I don't know what the solution is or how to distribute it yet, but I know it is not just temporary handouts

Especially not by the president just mere days before an election

Maybe it is education, more equal rights of women, economic opportunities ETC ETC ETC

But probably it is a mix between all of the above and more

I know that millions of other people have thought about these things a million times over.

People that have more experience and are smarter and more qualified

BUT WE STILL DON’T HAVE AN ANSWER/SOLUTION/WORLD PEACE 

so obviously something is missing

I don’t know what it is, but every day I hope to become more committed to trying to do whatever is within my abilities and opportunities to help

I’m glad I’m not popular enough for this go viral because I know that I have so much to learn and am really truly trying and am probably wrong about so many things

If you have advice or knowledge or an opinion to share please do

Comment or email or facebook me

Or we can go to lunch when I get home and work on a solution together

I would love that

I am fully aware that my experience and scope and understanding is limited

I thirst for more and for now that gives me peace and hope

& that’s enough, for now

p.s. we haven’t had internet in a while and while it has been hard for mostly everyone else because they have boyfriends/lovers back home who they need to talk to, but I have kind of loved it 
(but sorry to all of my pining boyfriends back in the states)

I love my whole world being right here in Malawi and I love that we are all pretty much forced to pay attention to each other because there are no distractions

So, sorry that I haven’t responded to lotsa you (shout out to my mama) but responses are a’coming

p.p.s I was serious about advice and knowledge-sharing

hit a sister up 

lakes that look like the ocean and that one time I attended a political rally as an almost-special guest

~lake salima/paradise~ 

lakes that look like the ocean and that one time I attended a political rally as an almost-special guest

Lots of good things happened last weekend

Lake Malawi/Salima

we spent Saturday at the lake and it was everything I could have ever wanted & more.

the sand was beautiful and the water was warm and clear-ish and there is only a small chance that I got some weird worm from swimming and there weren’t even any alligators in sight.

we went to this really beautiful resort place that looked like paradise and I was just so happy to be in the water and even though it wasn’t the ocean it looked like it so I just pretended like it was

our car battery died and we had to wait around for forever but i was like whatevers we're at this beautiful resort so things could be much worse

~kind of my worst nightmare~

we also went to this fish farm that was cool in the sense that we got to see tons of different fish that they catch and sell to aquariums all throughout the world but no so cool in the sense that it kind of really freaked me out and felt too much like a factory farm for me to love

like I saw three fish float up to the top DEAD just while we were there walking around and yeah call me a wimp but that is not what I am about

i entertained many thoughts of organizing a coup and rescuing all the fish by smuggling them out/breaking their tanks but it turns out fish are pretty hard to rally

but mostly i loved it and everything was real pretty and there were smiles all around

~so many smiles and happiness~

but speaking of rallies

coolest experience of Africa/maybe my life:

Malawian presidential elections were yesterday & everyone is anxiously awaiting the results/causing a ruckus/burning down polling stations (seriously, the embassy just sent us an email to stay far away from the cities) while votes are counted but on Saturday we got to go to a party rally

One of our contacts here in Malawi is the president of party organization (I am thinking that means like campaign manager, yeah?) for the Malawi Congress Party and invited us to attend a rally/SIT UP ON THE STAGE BEHIND THE CANDIDATE AND ALL THE IMPORTANT PEOPLE

Part of me felt really bad because it was so hot and people (thousands of them) had been there for 6 hours and I wanted everyone to be able to have chairs and shade

Another part of me felt super wary considering how little I actually know about the candidate/Malawian politics in general but yeah having nine white people on the stage maybe doesn’t hurt publicity and what if we were helping a really corrupt man gain power?

but after talking with a dozen or so people that I really respect and trust he really does seem like a good option (or at least the least corrupt of all the options).

I still feel a little anxious about it but we were pretty far back on the stage and let’s be honest the other part of me was just like OMG THIS IS AWESOME

I understood about 7 words throughout the 1.5 hours of speeches that we listened to but I was high on political science love and interest

There was so much music and dancing before and after and there was a musician singing Bob Marley and sometimes when people really agreed with what the speaker was saying they would start yelling and chanting and dancing and he would have to stop for a couple of minutes while everyone celebrated.  At least that’s what it looked like was happening.

 The dancing and singing was led by a group of really cool women up at the front and I promise that if i ever have good enough internet i will upload the video of everyone dancing and blow your mind

Campaigning here is so interesting because no one really has a television (there is only one, state-owned channel anyways) and even radio channels are limited so for the last couple weeks I have been here (and I’m sure way before) whenever we go into the city we will see big trucks PACKED with people blasting way loud music and dancing and sometimes throwing out flyers and everyone will be wearing shirts and wraps and headscarves with their candidate all over everything

~putting Obama shirts to shame~ 

I have studied international political systems throughout my undergraduate studies and it has been so interesting and exciting to finally get to experience it first hand

Don’t get me wrong.

It is certainly not all butterflies and rainbow colored party trucks and reggae love.

Corruption is obvious and rampant and so frustrating to see.  This is already long so I’m ending here but thoughts and some first hand experiences about corruption to come

cheers to democracy and Malawi and a good weekend.

~trying not to draw attention to ourselves but "everyone jump in to the picture with the Azungas!"~