Well I have been back in Malawi for a full week now, and I am finally getting back into the rhythms of life in Africa. Here we wake up with the sun, and the noises of animals alerting us it's time to start the day (crows are the most annoying alarm clock). The Temwa staff then slowly trickles into the office around 8 and take turns boiling water for tea and stepping into my front office to greet me good morning. 'mawuka uli' (how did you wake).

Then we all get into the project of the day.

Beatrice is busy typing in the data her extension workers collected regarding the level of famine occurring in our catchment area. The questions add up to show communities of people seeing their food access decline and asking for new ways to plant in a world without consistent rain. One of our projects distributed seeds a few months ago, but the seeds arrived too late and the people were so hungry that instead of waiting to plant - they ate the seeds.

Fishani is trying to get his health projects scheduled out- AIDS support groups, AIDS education clubs, Peer Educators ... He is helping the communities understand what spreads HIV and that those with the virus should not be discriminated against. People in the villages continue to think that it can be cured with witchcraft and herbs, they think that you can get HIV from sharing food with someone who is positive, and yet continue to carry traditions like 'hyenas' where young girls are told to sleep with a selected village elder who will 'bring her into adulthood'.

Around noon we all share in a communal meal- usually nsmia and greens. For days when we want to add protein to the menu we all put in about 1 USD for goat or chicken. In this time we sit outside in the sun, chat about the world outside of work, and get energy for the second half of the day. This is the first time I have worked full-time in Malawi... and it is almost exactly like I was in an office in the states. True, the lunch is a bit different and I keep by brain busy translating conversations from chewa to English but for the most part it is a normal life.

Then, on some days staff go into the field- remote villages including the one I used to call home (Usisya). Even in the rain, on precarious roads - they take turns using the motorbikes to do work- education sessions, HIV testing, seed distributions... I am amazed by the people who I get to work with in the next year. I am also excited to help them grow. While budgeting last week they began to learn new ways to tabulate numbers in excel. I am helping by laying-out evaluation tools they can apply to their projects so that they can record change and impact. I hope that through my time here I can build Tenwa's capacity to create lasting impacts on Nkhata Bay.