“You’re welcome to Malawi!!!”

After five weeks of frenetic preparation, 1000 pounds of goods shipped, and 48 hours of transit, I’ve arrived in Malawi – my home for the next two years. For those of you who do not know, I’m the new Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Assistant at Lighthouse Trust – Malawi’s only integrated center for HIV prevention, treatment, and care. Although I will actually be employed at the University of Washington through their Global Health Department’s NGO, I-TECH (International Training and Education Center for Health), I’ll be working with a team of 9 members of the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) unit, reporting jointly to the Lighthouse director and the I-TECH Country Director. It is a pretty ideal position for me – finally able to put all those years of sterile academic prep to use in the field. Plus, considering that the estimated HIV prevalence in Malawi ranges from about 4% in some rural areas to over 30% in some urban pockets, I should be able to truly make a difference. I’m excited! I might be a little scared too.

A few quick glimpses into my first few days:

• Photograph: a "typical" vegetarian meal at a restaurant. Hmmm. That's ketchup in that bowl, not soup (and, no, I did not ask for it).
  

• My temporary lodging at the guest house is fine (with terrible internet access); my coworkers are eager (almost desperate) for me to begin work; and, in the 2 years since I was here, there’ve been all sorts of important developments like the arrival of soy milk, green curry, and tahini! Oh happy days!
  
• Thursday, I woke at 6am to the loud knocking of the guesthouse caretaker. I crawled to the door, only a few hours after I finally managed to fall asleep, to hear that my ride was here – 3 hours early. As I walked out the driveway towards the waiting car, the driver saw me and called out, “Not that one! A different white one.” Nice. Let’s hope the dawn parade of expatriate women will not continue.
• On my first full day in the office, Friday, the entire 60-member clinic staff held a special introduction meeting. There are several dozen major linguistic groups in Malawi, but English is spoken almost everywhere, and my work will be conducted entirely in English. All the Lighthouse staff also speak Chichewa -- the predominant language of the central region of Malawi. Although the meeting was conducted in English, the concluding remarks were in Chichewa, punctuated with an English warning, “SO BE CAREFUL,” followed by a communal gasp. From the language change, I assumed the comments had something to do with me. Luckily or not, the Director believed that the closing comments merited English translation and calmly repeated, “A black, Puff adder snake has been spotted several times in the building and in the garden. It is highly venomous, SO BE CAREFUL.” Then, he turned with a smile and said to me, “You’re welcome to Malawi!”
  

And that’s week 1 in Malawi.