marriage advice

My mom’s often told me that she and my dad would love whomever I choose to marry. 

It’s neat.

None of this “He must have at least been zone leader during his mission,” or “I hope he’s planning on going to medical school,” or “He’d better be a Republican” nonsense.

They’re pretty open.

In fact, my mom’s only ever given me a couple pieces of marriage advice that I can remember. Here's one of them:

Marry someone who speaks your language; some things can’t be translated.

Here’s the dirty secret to a little simple advice on marriage: life is held in a plenitude of languages, spoken in a million different frequencies. Some only sing to particular kinds of people and others can only be heard by certain sorts of souls.

Sometimes, I speak it in stars and fireflies, road trips to nowhere [and everywhere]. Other times, in flowers and simple epiphanies. I hear it in the ocean, in poetry, in heartbreaking stories, in the buzz of new places, in the muttered conversations of the hundreds of nameless faces on the streets I walk. Art-filled museum galleries, an American flag, the awe-inspiring complexity of an atom. I capture it in Christmas lights and salted caramel hot chocolate with biscotti. Occasionally, I’m unequivocally convinced I’ve discovered it in a wordless wink, that signature cologne. It hides behind the curtains of unrequited acts of kindness and unspeakable mercy. I breathe it in at a sweaty concert, in jazz, and a kiss.

My mom’s always said, “You’ve got to marry someone who speaks your language.”

Love gets complicated because

No one wants to be permanently misunderstood.

Matt & Kevin

Matt and Kevin drove us to the cave paintings and Black Rock in Kasungu National Park in the hardy Land Rover. They also happen to be heading up the Anti-Poaching Unit there. They were two of the most interesting people I’ve ever met.

They were both French and had served in the French military. They walked with us. Matt was taller, and spoke great English. He was a charmer, an easy talker and an easy smoker, in that casual way that belies any and all health risks printed on cigarette packages.

Kevin was quieter, and he never let go of his M-16, not even when we were in the Land Rover. He was intense and attractive, and every once in a while, he’d grin at something that was said—or say something himself in a thick French accent—and all of us girls would swoon. 

From left to right.
Renee, Kevin, Whitney, me, and Matt.

I remember snatches of conversation, interesting things that were said. This is not word for word, and this is not all of it--I know it isn't. I didn’t ask all of these questions, and they are definitely not in order. But I am writing what I can remember down anyways, because I find myself thinking about it sometimes. I hope that I don't entirely misquote these two fellows. 

I had asked, Why are you here? Why are you doing what you do?

And Matt said, Once you have been in the army, you miss the army. When I left, I knew I wanted to do security, but security jobs are hard to come by. I found this opportunity, and here, I get to do what I love. We use security tactics and high-tech equipment to take down poachers. Plus, I like animals. There was too much work to do here though, so I got Kevin to come down here and join me.

So that was how Kevin arrived on the scene. He’d actually arrived only two days before we had.

Do you ever miss Europe?

Matt had shaken his head. No. Europe is all the same. You can go to different countries, and people might speak different languages, but it is all the same. People have the same goals, the same desire to conform, the same measures of success. I lived in Holland for a while. They had rules on the size of your mailbox. There were rules on whether you could have a garden, what the dimensions of your garden could be, and the what the upkeep of your garden had to look like. They don’t have stupid rules like that in Africa. It is free here. You can do what you want. I have freedom here.

So out of all the places you’ve ever worked in the world, what’s been your favorite?

And Matt said, Afghanistan.

I said, I’ve never heard anybody say that before.

And he laughed. The army food was shit, but the country is beautiful. Breathtaking. You've got to see it someday.

Kevin said, It was the experience.

Matt agreed, The experience taught me a lot.

What did you do in the military?

Artillery. 

Both Kevin and Matt were artillery.

So... how do you actually catch a poacher?

They looked at us a little incredulously, with that are-you-serious kind of look. They realized that we were, indeed, serious.

So Matt said, We ambush them. We have tactics and security equipment. Night-vision goggles, GPS, radios, guns, a microflight plane. We look for fires, movement. We swoop down on them. We are fighting a war here. It is a war. We fight locals from both Malawi and Zambia, various poaching organizations, the Asian Mafia. The Asian Mafia is the hardest. They are dangerous, and well-equipped as well.

So I asked, Do you ever get afraid?

And he said, No. I don’t get afraid.

Sounds like you’re on the right career path then.

He shrugged, I’ve always know it’s what I wanted to do.

Where do you get most of the support for your work? The Malawian government?

He just laughed at that. The Malawian government? No. We get support from various organizations.

What’s one of the biggest problems here?

Dealing with corruption. Everything is corrupt here. The more corrupt you are, the higher up you tend to go. The last head of this park was found poaching himself, and he simply got moved to another park. Also, the punishments aren’t harsh enough. For poaching, you get a measly two years in jail.

Do you see Malawi taking on the anti-poaching effort?

He laughed again. Independently? No. It’s too corrupt,and they don't care enough. I don’t see it happening. But we do what we can anyways.

We drove into the scout camp. What do these scouts do?

They go on patrols.

Are the patrols effective?

It is better than nothing, but the park is so large. Also, the system is flawed. The patrols should be unannounced. We should be able to just radio them and tell them, “Patrol this area right now.” These scouts, they have friends and families in both Zambia and Malawi who are most likely connected to poaching somehow. It is possible for them to communicate the times and locations of the patrols so that the poachers can work around them. We can make these suggestions, but we can do nothing to enforce them though. In fact, we lost two elephants last week. But at least we caught the poachers.

How much can you make from killing an elephant?

Millions, he said. Rhinos, too. There aren’t any more rhinos in this park though. They’ve all been poached already. That’s why the punishments are too lax.

How many poachers have you caught?

Since the beginning of this year? 40.

The anti-poaching effort is key to an entire ecosystem, which I hadn’t realized till after I had talked to Matt and Kevin and stayed at Lifupa Lodge. There used to be 2000 elephants in this park. Now people think there are less than 100. It affects the entire ecosystem. For example, elephants usually knock down trees. There aren’t enough trees getting knocked down now, so smaller plants and foliage isn’t growing in the forest, which affects the smaller animals in the park.

We talked for a while more, and later that night, I realized I envied them a little—living with the taste of freedom continually on their tongue, fighting a fight with quantifiable progress. Part of me vaguely admires the way that they buck society, disdain an easy life, seek that continual adrenaline rush. They carry around M-16s, plan ambushes, outsmart poachers. They’re tough and not afraid, and they love what they do.

I also envy the fact that their enemy is so visible, so obviously bad. They’ve caught 40 poachers since January. They’re good at what they do.

How does one attack Vitamin A deficiency? Take down food insecurity? Obliterate illiteracy? Restore never-realized dreams? Is it possible to ambush underdevelopment, to shoot it? Nobody knows how to accomplish this, and so we all just try to do our best, with the vague hope that we are doing something good and sustainable and that it’ll all come together in the end.

I’ve romanticized their life. I realize that, but I couldn’t help it, and it wasn’t on purpose. It was a fascinating glimpse into a lifestyle that I could never live, but admire. It’s a harsher life, a harder life—but in a way, a less complicated life. They shoot and get shot at, but they don't have to worry about their mailboxes and gardens. It’s one they actively choose to live, and I respect that.

black rock [kasungu national park]

After we had seen the cave paintings, we drove to Black Rock. We climbed it (you can only see part of the climb from the pictures--I stopped taking pictures after the first half, as it got a lot trickier and I wanted to be able to use both hands), and once we got to the top, we were rewarded with a beautiful view. If we'd had a cave behind us, it could have been pride rock. We could see for miles and miles--even Zambia was visible on the horizon. 

The manager of Lifupa had packed us a lunch, so we had drinks and falafel, cucumber salad, and spiced potatoes to celebrate the moment. It was delicious.

The trusty land rover and Black Rock.

Looking up at the backside of Black Rock.

Partway up Black Rock. 

Part way up Black Rock.
That's Kevin in the background on the left, and part of Matt on the right.
I put my camera away after this until I got to the top. I didn't want to smash it on anything or fall
 because I wasn't using both hands.

The view from the top of Black Rock.

We made it!

A most marvelous view.
We could see Zambia in the distance.

Eating a lunch.

Whitney relaxing after lunch.

Making our way back down Black Rock to the land rover. 

Eventually, we made it back to the land rover and returned to Lifupa. Once we got back, we packed up and made our way to Lilongwe, stopping by SAFI on the way.

Kasungu was a marvelous, marvelous place to spend two days. I'd do it again in a heartbeat!

cave paintings [kasungu national park]

We woke up that second day in Kasungu National Park to a delicious breakfast and a beautiful sunrise. I had worked out a trip for that morning/early afternoon with the manager the day before. We would be going to see some ancient cave paintings (about 1.5 hours out) and then hit up Black Rock on the way back.

Matt and Kevin (who head up the Anti-poaching unit here in Kasungu) drove us in the land rover, and we picked up a scout (also involved with anti-poaching) who could show us exactly where the cave paintings were. Matt and Kevin were both such interesting people, but I'll write about them more in another post. We took the land rover over some of the bumpiest roads I have ever been on in Africa for an hour and a half. Sometimes I wasn't even sure if there was a road because it was so hidden by grass. We stopped when trees and logs made it impossible to go further. Then we got out and started hiking to the caves.

This hike--it was incredible! We hiked up mountains and down mountains, over huge slants of black rock, through enormous boulders, beautiful fields of waving grass. You know that scene in Lord of the Rings when Pippin and Merry are kidnapped by orcs? And then Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli start running to catch up with them and they run through the most incredible landscapes? I felt like I was in that scene of Lord of the Rings. The scenery was entirely different, but it was still so epic.

Post breakfast. Enjoying the sunshine.
Repping BYU!

In the land rover, on one of the smoother stretches of road. 

Making our way up to the first set of cave paintings.

The cave paintings themselves.
Crazy that they've lasted for so long!

The incredible landscape. 

More land. 

Making our way to the second set of paintings.

Hiking up rocks to get to the second set of paintings.

Second set of paintings. 

The view from where the second set of cave paintings were. 

Making our way back.

 The paintings were cool, even though they were faded. Thinking about it, it's really neat that they've survived so many rainy seasons. Here's what's really obnoxious though. Poachers don't want tourists around the area, since anytime there are tourists, there are increased patrols and activity close to where they might want to do their business. So they built fires close to the paintings, hoping that it would ruin them. It's really quite sad, but they were unsuccessful.

After we made it back to the land rover, we took off to Black Rock. I'll write about that in another post, as this one is quite long enough already.

The manager of Lifupa talked to me about going camping in the area. Not too long ago, she took a group of people to Miwonde (area where the paintings are) for the night. If we've got time, we'd love to go back and do that! Fingers are crossed.

a walking safari [kasungu national park]

We went to Kasungu National Park a couple weeks ago, and stayed there for just one night. It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. The first night we were there, we went on a walking safari. The park is huge, and it's never a sure bet that you'll see any animals. We saw hippos and antelope, but that was about it. We saw lots of elephant feces though (Dr. Johnston and Akim saw a herd of elephants playing in the water the next day) and leopard tracks. Even though we didn't see many animals, the walking safari was one of my favorite things that we did, if only because it was so serene, so untouched. Here are a couple pictures from the walking safari.

We took a lot longer with the walking safari than the usual time, due to our walking pace. I kept looking at the sun and thinking, We've got to start walking faster. The sun went down entirely, and we made the last part of our hike in darkness. Thankfully, the moon was out, so we could see what was in front of us. We made it back safely! 

We ate dinner directly afterwards, which was great, as we were starving. 

We stayed at Lifupa Lodge, which I highly recommend. The food was delicious, the beds comfortable, and profits go to support anti-poaching efforts! The manager was wonderful as well, and helped to arrange our activities for an extremely reasonable price. 

Worship

It was a fundraiser Sunday for that church in Madesi, an ever-ongoing effort to raise money to finish their new church building.

And so we watched lines and lines of women and children and men dancing their way up to the front to the collection plate, where they would dance and sing and drop 20 kwacha notes in one by one, rejoicing in the Lord. Women would carry up buckets of peanuts, men would shoulder bags of corn.

I want to see you dance for the Lord, the preacher said later in the service.

And so we all danced and clapped and turned for the Lord.

Our driver, Akim, later told us, They will give until they have nothing more to give. They will change a 1000 kwacha note (about $3) into 20K notes so that they can feel like they are giving more. Giving is an act of rejoicing; we give and we are so happy to give.

It was one of the happiest church services I have ever been to.

I feel like it is so easy to bear your testimony on trials. The Lord helps us through trials, and it is true, we often gain faith and strength in the hardest of moments. But I want to try bearing my testimony more on the happiness that the gospel brings. On the fact that we can be oppressed by temptation and trials on every side, and Christ can still bring peace into our lives. On the miracle of hope, the magic of a smile. On the inexpressible joy that comes from testimony and truth.

I love 2 Corinthians 4 because of its undying optimism, its courage, and the faith in Christ that it expresses. Paul exclaims, “We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken, cast down, but not destroyed” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9).

I want to stop complaining and wake up and smell the coffee (figuratively speaking, of course). I want to be able to see past the troubles and perplexities. To rejoice in what I have, to give with all my heart, and to smile, because even in the midst of poverty—even in a Chichewan church service in Madesi—one can feel the spirit of Christ. It is everywhere—in our hymns, but also in their dancing. In our tithing envelopes, and also their collection plates. In our crinkled green bills, and their bags of corn. There is no one right way to worship, no one way to express how your relationship with Christ makes you feel, no one way to give back to the Lord.

The gospel of Jesus Christ brings joy.

So yes, I will dance for the Lord, and I will glory in my Redeemer one Sunday.

And I will sing “Lead Kindly Light” and bear my testimony the next, and I will glory in my Redeemer that Sunday too.

The spirit that's there, it is the same.

And David danced before the Lord with all his might.

2 Samuel 6:14

All in a Day's Work

Just thought I'd walk you through some of the moments we've had at SAFI while we've been attempting to do research over here.

In case you're wondering where we are, we've refunctioned one of the empty classrooms at SAFI into our research lab. Hence the equations on the chalk board. This room also happens to be where we work out to Jillian Michaels and Rodney Yee after dinner.

The solar dryer needed a bit of fixing up when we arrived, so we had Adam take a look and buy supplies for us (he's quite the handyman). We had to caulk up all the cracks, but we didn't have anything to spread it with. So Whitney and I used our fingers. After a number of other repairs, the solar dryer was good to go!

The hours of research we've put into this project in this conference room are innumerable.

So one of the things we're testing is the effect of osmotically dehydrating the sweet potatoes before we put them into the solar dryer. We do that through using salt and sugar to create brines of various concentrations.
We usually make the brines the night before we start a run. 

Then we peel the sweet potatoes, using the awesome potato peelers that Dr. Lloyd sent to us.
These peelers beat using a pocketknife by a landslide, which is what we had to do the first time around.

After they're peeled, we use the mandoline (that Dr. Lloyd also sent us, what an angel)
to slice the sweet potatoes into even 4 mm slices.

Then we use the scale and a knife to make sure that each 4 mm slice is only 6-8 g each to limit variability in drying times. After all the slices are of the same weight, we dump 1000g worth of slices into each of the four brines we're using where they soak for 120 minutes. 

After the slices are done soaking, we weigh each slice and place them into a prearranged position on either the drying mat or the solar dryer rack. That allows us to take the weight as we take water activity, so we can see how the osmotic dehydration affected moisture loss as opposed to actual water activity. 

After the slices have been weighed and placed onto the solar dryer racks or on the drying mat, we take them outside, and  let the sun do its thing. This is the solar dryer that we're using. 

Three times a day, we take three slices of each pretreatment from both the solar and air-dried samples and take the water activity. Before we can take the water activity though, we have to rerecord its weight to measure water loss. 

The smaller the pieces are, the more accurate the water activity reading will be.
So we chop up all the samples into pretty small pieces. 

Sometimes the electricity goes out, so I take water activity  by flashlight.

If the water activity reading of any one pretreatment is below .8, we record all the weights of the slices of that particular pretreatment and bag them into whirlpak bags. We plan on vacuum-packing them in the future as well.
We're saving them for further sensory and nutritional analysis.

And here's the entire grupo of food science interns. In the back, that's John and Whitney. And then me and Renee in the front. We have a good time, and overall, the research is going well. We just had two successful runs, and are starting our third tomorrow (our first couple runs were busts, although they were certainly learning experiences haha). We usually do water activity right after dinner, which is also when we work out, so hence, why we're all in workout clothes.

Welp, that's what we do when we're not teaching nutrition lessons, interviewing families, taking anthropometric measurements, and traveling around Malawi. Or sitting in our rooms. Or eating. Or just talking. Not everything that we do here is super exciting haha.

We're in a race against time right now, as our calibration liquid for the water activity meter is starting to go bad, and we only have one more tube left. Fingers are crossed. It will be crazy. But afterwards, we'll get to play, more or less. We've got some more projects we've got to finish up, but it won't be nearly as busy.

It's good stuff. It's a good time.

anyone

anyone lived in a pretty how town 

(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more 

when by now and tree by leaf 
she laughed his joy she cried his grief 
bird by snow and stir by still 
anyone's any was all to her 

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side 
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

-ee cummings


The first time I came across ee cummings was in the 10th grade.

It was in my English class at Hillcrest High School. I always finished my assignments early, so I would read the class textbook to kill time. It was full of short stories and poetry, written by all sorts of American authors.

I stumbled across “anyone lived in a pretty how town” quite by accident.

I read it and I thought it was so funny and weird that I took the textbook home with me that night to read it again in my free time. What a strange man ee cummings must have been to write such a nonsensical poem, to use indefinite pronouns to such an excessive extent. I read it again and shook my head, in the same way that many people shake their head at modern art.

I came across ee cummings for the second time in my junior year of high school. I reread “anyone lived in a pretty how town” and when I closed my eyes, for a moment, I could see the fleeting outlines of a town, a person, fleeting forms in a fog that seemed so familiar, so foreign. It fascinated me, and I would read through the poem at least once every time we would use our textbooks that trimester.

My senior year, once again, “anyone lived in a pretty how town,” entered my life. This time around though, I actively sought it out. And I would read it again and again, unable to understand my fascination with this poem, knowing only that the words had wrapped me around their finger and I possessed no desire to resist them.

It is now one of my most favorite poems, and when I read it, I see something beautiful. All the jagged edges and pieces have come together and I see a story that speaks to me like not many do. It’s brilliant. It’s multifaceted. It’s poignant. It’s poetry at its finest.

I hate it when people tell me how or why I should appreciate certain poetry, so I'll spare you all that. Some things are beautiful just because they exist. I could try and try to explain why and perhaps succeed, but somehow words are so limiting, when you're trying to write about other beautiful words. For now, I appreciate it best the way it is. The way it just sits there and is and doesn't try to be anything more than what it is. The way it means what it does for me [and just me], the way it can mean what it does for you [and just you].

Salima

We went to Salima two weekends in a row back in the beginning of June. Salima is about 1.5-2 hours from Lilongwe, and it's a town right on the edge of Lake Malawi. 

I'd heard about how great Lake Malawi was, but I'd also heard things about weird creatures in the water...creatures like parasites and amoebas, so I had my doubts. Salima converted me to the good gospel of Lake Malawi. The water was so incredibly clear, and its temperature was so perfect that I wasn't on the beach for two seconds before I jumped into the water. Who cares about amoebas and there's medicine for the parasites. Right? Plus, everybody does it, so it must be okay. Right?

The first weekend we were in Salima, we spent most of the day at Livingstonia Beach, which is an extremely clean and pristine beach that's located by Sunbird Salima. I haven't seen water that clear and blue except for maybe when I was in Zanzibar. That day we spent quite a bit of time just laying out and enjoying the sunshine (a couple of the girls got super burned). We also swam and played around in the water. It was just lovely. Around 2:00, we got a guy to take us out to the island on his boat, where we snorkeled with the fish, swam, and hiked to the top of the island (where we got an incredible view). It was a great day.

Lake Malawi! Me and Renee on the water's edge. Photo courtesy of Camille.
That island in the distance is the one that we got to hike and where we went snorkeling.

Nicolle, Camille, and Whitney catching some rays on the beach.

Running into the water.
Photo courtesy of Camille.

 The second weekend we were there, we did a bit more moving around as opposed to just lounging on the beach. We went to a fish farm where we saw the exotic fish of Lake Malawi and went to two different beaches. It was as beautiful as the first time, but everybody was so incredibly tired from the dance party that we'd had the night before. We finished the day off with a boat tour on the lake. It was great fun, and super relaxing as I love being on boats.

A really cool dock.

Look at how clear that water is! In terms of depth, that water was about waist high.
Beautiful.

Lake Malawi.

Lake Malawi.

Some ornamental Malawian fish at the fish farm.

The fish farm.

Check out that view. Apparently the water is shallow enough to walk from here to that mountain in the background. Pretty cool, eh?

Boating around an island. 

Headed back home into the sunset.

A vocational school. The students are learning how to build boats.

I'm on a boat.

Salima is a beautiful, beautiful place. We've already spent two weekends there, and I wouldn't mind going back for a third. If only we didn't have so many other places to see. And if only we weren't in the dead of winter. It's been cold enough for me to keep my sweatshirt on lately. I'm not complaining though--Utah should take lessons.