What Makes a Good Volunteer?

Peace Corps has three goals:

1. To help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2. To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the people served.
3. To help promote a better understanding of other peoples in the part of all Americans.

I like reflecting on these goals from time to time because it helps me realize that I’m doing my job when I spend time writing this blog post or chatting with a Malawian about life in America. It is easy to start thinking that I’m not doing enough with my time here. I now only have a year and a half left in my service and I feel like I haven’t done much to help my village. I constantly question what makes a good volunteer and then I go back to the goals and see that maybe I am doing this right?

Living in Malawi is a constant game of trial and error. In the first months living in my village, I tried to keep things the way the last volunteer had arranged them. I had a gardener and I ate every meal with the neighbors. The guy who fetched water never came around so I learned to draw water for myself. Now, I have changed all of these things. I am cooking for myself except for a couple meals a week at the neighbors’ house. I fired the gardener so I could enjoy gardening myself and I just hired a woman to help me get water and wash my clothes. I must say the rearrangement of these tasks has changed my life for the better. For instance, it feels like such a luxury to have someone bring me water every day. I’m really glad that I know and the villagers know that I can draw water plus I’m sure I appreciate her hard work so much more because I have done it for myself.

But, I feel like I’m always weighing my options and trying to find the best ways to integrate with my community. I didn’t want to stop getting water because this is something women in Malawi do and I want them to see that I can do it too. The other day I went to a meeting with a group where I’m working on a library project. I went around and greeted the village headmen by kneeling in front of them and shaking their hands, just like a Malawian women. My Malawian friend laughed at me as I did this and said, “You know how to greet like a Malawian women!” It is in times like this that I have to wonder whether I should be sticking to an American way of greeting or if I am showing the greatest amount of respect by doing it the Malawian way. And, these questions arise every day. I am always worried about standing out and being the strange white girl who exercises in her house or sleeps late (until 8am). Sometimes, I realize that I’ve stopped doing things that are important to me because I’m worried that someone will think I’m too strange. Yet, I am one of two white people that live on this road. There is no way I’ll ever blend in!

This is also what makes our work possible. Because we stand out it is easier for us to show people how to wash their hands properly or provide condoms. We are able to be an authority that can introduce healthier behaviors and create the beginnings of change… at least that is my hope. This month I began my projects and so far all are going well. Here’s what I plan to spend the remainder of my service working on:

1. Girl’s Group: I have arranged for Secondary School (High School) girls to meet at the Community Based Organization once a week to engage in various girl empowerment activities. My counterpart and best friend in the village is helping me facilitate the program. We are incorporating everything from nutrition to HIV and pregnancy prevention to Income Generating Activities and maybe even movie nights. We are trying to create a safe space where girls can learn skills and gain knowledge to make them successful throughout their lives. So far, this is my favorite project.  

2. Garden Project: With the help of my counterpart’s husband who is an agriculture extension officer, I am planning two demonstration gardens. We will grow plants that can help improve health and nutrition, especially for HIV positive living groups. We will also hold several trainings for the community about how to use the plants in the demonstration gardens.

3. Library Project: I am facilitating the creation of a library project at Kompomo Primary School (elementary school). We are applying to African Library Project and if approved, they will send us 1,000 books to help start the library. This community is so wonderful to work with. Every meeting starts on-time and has over 15 participants. It is really encouraging to work with such a motivated group.

4. Borehole Project: A village near me doesn’t have access to safe water. People get water from a shallow well or go to the Mwanza River (which is currently dry) and dig holes in the sand to get their drinking and bathing water. I’ve just started a water committee in the village and hope to raise funds to install a borehole sometime next year.

5. Hand Washing Stations: It may be surprising to find out that most people in the villages here do not wash their hands with soap. Well, most people cannot afford soap. If everyone washed their hands after using the latrines, we could cut diarrhea cases in half! So, using buckets provided by Peace Corps, I have done two hand washing talks and demonstrations, one at the Health Clinic and one at the Primary School.

6. Health Clinic Housing: The goal of Peace Corps is to build capacity, not to build buildings. However, I am training the Medical Assistant (MA) at my Health Clinic to write a grant so we can try to build two new houses to increase the staff at the Health Clinic. Right now, we only have one MA and one nurse. This means they are on-call every hour of every day. And because of the heat in Chikhwawa, no one wants to move here for work unless they have housing. We will also be asking for a guardian house where families of sick patients can sleep if they live a long distance from the Clinic.

7. Cultural Village/Center: This project is still very much in the brainstorming phase. My village is located near Majete Wildlife Reserve and our Community Based Organization is in a partnership with 18 other CBO’s who surround the reserve. We are talking about building a cultural village and center just outside the reserve where tourists can stay the night in a Malawian mud house, eat nsima (the traditional fare) and visit a cultural center where they can learn about the traditional practices of Southern Malawi. The main goal of the project would be to create jobs and increase tourism but the project would also help to teach people about Malawian culture and create a sense of pride in Malawians about their own culture. 

Home is When I'm with You

How does a place become home? Is it where you sleep at night or where you store your belongings? Is it where there’s friends and family? Is it where you were born or where you have the most memories? In a recent training, we had to agree or disagree that Malawi felt like home. I immediately chose agree but the discussion that followed made me consider the question more deeply.  

I have always had a strong connection with my original home in Louisville. It is so beautiful with its rolling hills, fluffy green grass in the summer, firey red and orange trees in the fall, and great parks for sledding in the winter. There are places that always stand out in my mind when I think of Louisville. My parents’ house with the ivy creeping up the white pillars that invite guests into a home filled with my father’s intricate artwork and smells of my mother baking cinnamon-swirl cake. I think of the dance studio where I performed my first pirouette. I think of the El Mundo, where the enchiladas are too good to describe and there is always great company.  

In Malawi, some things have become surprisingly comfortable enough to consider it home. As I walk down the dirt road in my village, I feel like I fit in almost as much as I stand out. The shopkeepers know my name and chat with me as I drink a cold Fanta on a hot day. The children wave at me and greet me and sometimes even know my name but I can’t help laughing when I see them riding a fallen palm branch like they are driving a car. And, my house is my own private haven with teal window frames and purple curtains that are constantly blowing in the Chikhwawa breeze. My Malawian house is filled with the beauties and necessities of Malawi and some of my favorite memories of America.  

I wouldn’t have thought that I would adapt so quickly to village life but at times I have to remind myself that some of the things I’m doing just aren’t normal at my home in America. I can’t imagine life without buckets now. I use them for bathing, drinking water, washing clothes, washing dishes, storage, transporting things, and gardening. When I helped at Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World), I realized that some girls had never taken a shower; they only knew how to use a bucket to bathe. 

Matolas are now commonplace for me. On a recent matola ride to Blantyre, I covered my head with a chitenje (a traditional fabric used for various purposes but mainly seen covering women’s skirts to keep them from getting dirty) to keep the dust from getting in my hair and eyes. A man leaned over and asked we had these in America. “Chitenjes? No, we don’t have these in America.” But that wasn’t what he was asking about. “Matolas? No, we don’t usually ride in the back of trucks in America.” “No,” he said. “Roads like these.” “Yeah, we don’t have many dirt roads like these either.” Does the normalcy of my life here mean that this has become my home?  

Home for me is baking with my mother. Home is watching a movie with my Malawian neighbors. It’s going to the Farmer’s Market with Kirby. Laying in hammocks with Jake. Starting a fire with Katie. Eating a hot dog with Sarah. Emailing Eric. Dancing with Natasha. Dancing with Angie. Dancing with Nicole. Dancing with Amber. Dancing with Duncan, Shelly, Mocha, Lady J, and Kara. Home is a day reading by myself and it is philosophizing with my brother. If home is where the heart is, my heart is in two places at once and I think I’m learning that it’s possible to have more than one home.