1.5 weeks.

Africa. That word. It's surrounded by so much feeling and emotion and I want to write about it, because there's so much to say that's so close to my heart. So I'm working on that. In the meantime, here's an update on what I've been up to the past week and a half!

For family that might not know, I'm the student facilitator of the Malawi International Development Internship, so that's why I'm in Malawi this summer. Basically, I'm the in-country director of the program. I oversee the research that happens with the interns, manage the budget, and plan all the excursions. Basically, I just make sure that the program runs smoothly and doesn't fall apart. 

The group I'm with is wonderful. I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity I have to live in Malawi for three months--and get paid for it! It's great, and I love being here. That being said, it can be stressful at times. I tend to be a rather happy-go-lucky traveller at times, which doesn't always work as well when you're supposed to know what you're doing at all (or even most) times. 

Like today. Our driver dropped us off at Korea Garden Lodge, which is where we were spending the night. I knew where the general direction of the town center lay, but I had no idea of the exact roads to take to get there. So I asked the guard which road would point me in the right direction and started walking. I wasn't really worried about whether I'd get there or not because I knew I'd find it eventually, even if I had to backtrack a couple times. Then I realized that I was with a group of people who might not be quite as happy to find our way to Lilongwe's town center via trial and error. So I stopped and got some better directions from some people alongside the road and we arrived in Lilongwe with no backtracking necessary (even though we still got there the long, err, scenic route).

Another example: I've never been super concerned with reservations. I figure I can sleep anywhere, and before, I only had my own bank account to contend with. Anyways, we got here to KGL this afternoon, and I realized that I had messed up big time. I had sent a couple emails to the hotel owner, informing him of our summer plans and that we would like to stay here over the weekends from __period of time to ___period of time. I never made "official" reservations over the website though, so what we'd planned never got marked down. Anyways, KGL didn't have enough of the rooms we wanted for us. That was stressful because instead of just me trying to figure it out on my own time (which would not have been that stressful), I was thinking about the six tired, hot people waiting outside for me to fix this. We came up with something, although it was way more expensive than I had originally been planning. Dang it. I'm going to have to do some finagling with the budget after this. Anyways, lesson learned. Today is the last time I plan on winging it to actually work with this many people. Can't afford to do that wishy washy nonsense no more. 

Anyways, during the week we live in Mtalimanja on the SAFI campus. We love it there. Mtalimanja is in a stunning location. The first couple days I was there felt almost unreal. We live in dorm style accommodations We all have our own rooms with our own beds. The bed is the only piece of furniture in the cement room, but I suppose that's all you really need. I stole a desk and chair from another room (shh jk)--I don't use it much though. There's toilets and showers in the back. They work 50% of the time--whenever the water happens to be working. We take cold showers. It's shocking for about the first two minutes, and then it's fine. Almost refreshing, in fact. On the weekends, we're staying in Lilongwe, Malawi's capitol. 

Anyways, as interns, we're primarily working with these two organizations: SAFI, which stands for School of Agriculture for Family Independence, and BFI, which stands for Brighter Future Initiative. SAFI is such a wonderful organization. It's basically a campus. Farmers live there for a year and are taught new farming techniques, nutrition, food preservation and preparation, livestock, rotational gardening, and so many other things. Although SAFI is great, it's also extremely expensive to run and as it only teaches up to 30-35 families a year (I believe?), its expanse appears to be rather small in the grand scheme of things. That's where BFI comes in. Using SAFI resources and partnering with the Malawian government and Bunda College, BFI is trying to spread the knowledge that SAFI is giving farmers on a much larger scale using a pre-determined network of farmers. This year is its pilot year and even in the short time we've been here, we've seen so much progress. It's exciting stuff. The food science interns are working primarily with SAFI (and helping out with some BFI projects). The sociology/anthropology interns are working primarily with BFI.

The work we're doing is extremely fulfilling. I'm not sure how much you all know about Malawi, but a large portion of the population survives via subsistence farming. They often go hungry those last final months before harvest. That's why these programs are so important. Once farmers learn these simple techniques and life lessons, they have more crops. They and their children are healthier. They survive. They can start to sell extra produce. They have a plan. They become self-reliant. 

Yesterday, we went to a lead farmer training for BFI in Kasungu. It was all in Chichewa, but it was so neat to see the excitement that was there both in the teachers and the farmers that were learning. On the way back, one of the SAFI farmers jumped in the back of the truck with us. We asked him how he liked SAFI, and he said "Oh, I love it." He was so excited about how much he had just harvested and how it was so much more than what he had harvested in previous years. Knowledge is empowering, and it's so easy to see that here. 

I will also be involved with a lot of food science/nutrition research here at Mtalimanja. I am working on my Honors thesis here, which has to do with solar drying and food preservation. I'm stoked about it, and will be writing more about it in the future. The food science interns will be helping so much with my project and I'm so grateful for their help. I feel extremely lucky with how things are shaping up in regards to my project.

I'm also helping the other food science interns to help teach the nutrition class here with the help of the nutritionist. We'll be teaching about sixty people--husband and wife couples. We taught a class last week on food safety and it was awesome. We have to have a translator, but the farmers listen so closely. It's touching to see how closely knit the families are and how eager they are to learn in order to better their situation. 

We're working closely with the nutritionist at SAFI and will be helping to take anthropometric measurements and 24-hr. food recalls of the parents and children. There are a number of other things we'd like to learn from her as well. 

In terms of BFI projects, we will most likely be helping to administer baseline surveys, as well as helping to further develop their curriculum.

If we have any free time, the food science interns and I have so many other plans. We'd like to do some product development and sensory evaluation, especially utilizing the solar dryer/solar dried products. We'll be doing some sociological work as well with solar drying and will be helping to distribute a survey measuring a wide arrange of things to do with people's perceptions towards food preservation and solar drying here. We will also most likely spend a week or so in the Vitameal plant, learning how to produce and process it. We'll also follow the Vitameal post-production into the distribution process. I'm so excited to see how everything works and to learn as much as I possibly can. 

In a nutshell, I am doing well. I'm sorry this post is rather rambling and disconnected--I'm trying to beat the battery life on my laptop. I guess to sum it all up, Africa's still in that "Oh my goodness, I still can't believe I'm really here" stage. That'll change in the future, I'm sure of it.

P.S. Just a quick afterthought. Probably the coolest thing I've done so far was to have lunch with the former first lady of Malawi, Callista, and her close friends. Super interesting conversation.