12 - Distributions

The mornings started early since the sun rises at 4:30 and sets at 5:30, which makes it feel like this place could be in a different time zone. The mornings were by far the most pleasant time of the day since they were cool and bugs weren't bad unlike the plagues of insects that came every evening. One night was particularly bad when the cleaning lady had left the windows open and light switches on in my room with the power out, Whig then lit up when the power returned later. Since our lodge was pretty deep into the mountains and there was no light to be seen anywhere else, it seemed like every flying bug from Malawi made it to my room. Literally thousands of bugs on the floor that one dustpan could not hold if all were swept up, and hundreds in my bed and flying around aimlessly bouncing off the light bulbs. The girls room wasn't exactly bug free either and after helping them tuck their net in I heard a couple shrieks that made clear we didn't get them all out before the laid their heads down. I actually considered sleeping in my hammock in their bathroom that night to escape the jungle, but there wasn't anything string enough to anchor it to. Besides the bugs, the muggy hot conditions didn't help with making sleeping easy either and after 2 nights of torture Jen made clear that she would be needing a fan. The tone and look said this wasn't negotiable. Luckily everything else here is negotiable. So I talked to the lodge manager about it who was a young local girl who clearly obtained her job for being prettier and better educated than most. I didn't have much luck at first since you were supposed to pay another $14 USD per night for the luxury suite with a fan. Luckily after buying her a drink, promising to become facebook friends and giving her a tip for the help she had previously provided us with she finally gave in. I at first questioned if it was worth the massive effort, but then soon remembered keeping the girls happy kept me happy since they would actually get more than a couple hours of sleep at night and not be reminding me of it throughout the day. Win win.

Every distribution day was a bit different since Jen, Alecia and I would split up among the 4 teams and head to two villages each per day. It was a but challenging to get used to the schedule since working in a social aid capacity here is much different than the comfortable office environment we are so used to, a good reality check really though. We ate a big breakfast since we would not be taking a break for lunch during the day and really didn't have access to much to pack either. Basically we would leave in the morning and for the majority of the day not have access to a bathroom or food, and not sit down for a meal again til it was dark. This was normal for the local guys. When we did stop for a refreshment it was typically orange Fanta which is the most popular beverage here. The one time we stopped for an actual snack we walked up to a street vender that had a half butchered goat on the table with flies all over it. Senard bought a half a goat liver chopped in cubes seasoned with pepper and stuffed onto a thin plastic bag. The guys passed the greasy stinky bag around in the car until it was all gone, and one bite to remain culturally polite was enough for me. The guys were fun to hang out with and they asked just as many questions about the U.S. As I did about Malawi. Some of the most entertaining was when Senard asked why the US was in so much debt and why none of the 3 of us were married yet. I told him how people generally take more time during the dating phase in the US, explaining that at least 2 years of dating is normal before proposing, which they thought was an extremely long time and just ridiculous. We then discussed what the man's role in the household is, since over here men are not expected to take as much responsibility in a traditional sense as compared to a mother. They were curious about why over 50% of marriages in the US end in divorce, and absolutely dying when I told them about how when that happens that all money and assets are divided equally, given no prenup exists. Their response was a simple one that I couldn't answer, "if the woman gets half your money and stuff why wouldn't you do everything possible to not get divorced?".

The next 3 days went fast since we had a lot of work to do and a set schedule distributing nets, documenting amounts distributed, photographing the distributions and sorting the photos by location. We did have a mishap where a package of 40 nets had bounced out of the back of one of the pickup trucks when driving off road to one of the villages. One of the CU guys, Dyson, was responsible for that car and also kind of known to not follow protocol to a T like the rest of the guys. When having our end of day meeting that afternoon his explanation was absolutely histarical. He was trying to explain so professionally and detailed when he realized the package was lost and what thy had done to try to find it with no success - i.e. It was stolen. Then, the most shocking news of the week came the next day when somehow the police hunted down who had taken the package, and collected all of the nets from the numerous people they had given them to. I mean to recover all 40 nets in less than 24 hours after it was reported, with no technology and no bribes, may have been the most incredible thing I heard of while here. So that was good. Dyson was the girls' favorite by far, which said a lot about their taste in men for any reading this who are interested. He was the only guy that broke the rules and had more fun at work then was probably acceptable to the rest, blasting Chris Rock's comedy tour on the way to villages, and paying random locals to drive them to the next location instead of waiting for CU drivers as was the plan. On another occasion we were reviewing a bunch of the photos from the villages he had been responsible for and William, another local CU guy, noticed that the Fight Against Malaria banner with the sponsor names was not in any of the photos. He asked Dyson why that was since hanging the banner was past of the program, and again Dyson went into a 5 minute explanation of how he loaned it to someone that was supposed to return it and didn't etc. It's even funnier since English is these guys' second language, so everything they say in the office is so proper sounding. Dyson: "So when I loaned the banner to my colleagues, I did not foresee the returning of the banner to become a problem at that given time. When we were not successful in collecting the banner we determined it was best to proceed with the distributions without it...". I was almost in tears.