Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Time fo some Q&A

I’ve received so many emails with so many questions regarding my new life that I thought I would take the time to answer some of the most common ones. The next few posts will attempt to address some of your more burning issues.

Required Vocabulary:

Chim: The latrine or bathroom. Its a hole dug in the ground usually around 3-5 meters, but no more than 7 because you can enter the water table. Of course, one of the first things I was told about my site has a chim 30ft deep…. There is absolutely no way I’m not polluting my water source.

Bafa: This is the grass/reed structure, almost always built outside with just three walls and no roof, with rocks and pebbles lining the ground. This is where one bathes using just a cup and two buckets of water, one boiling hot and one cold, mix and enjoy! My bafa is perhaps the only indoor bafa in the country. Since the house was designed by a Peace Corps volunteer she opted place it indoors. Therefore, I have a small room, with a small hole where the wall meets the floor. All I do is stand there and dump water all over myself, and the floor, it makes me laugh.

Nsima: This is the staple food in Malawi. It is made from corn flour that is processed, dried, refined and reground until completely void of all nutrients. They add it to boiling water until it forms a very, very thick paste and molded into patties. They eat these patties, which are roughly the size of my face, for every single meal; often without anything else.

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