week 3

When we got back from the lake I had no hot water in the cottage…Monday I had no water. James came over after painting all day and took the cover down from my hot water heater (no longer the problem if it ever was) then listened to me when I said I had NO water. He then blamed me for letting him take the cover off when that wasn’t the problem. It was back on Tuesday so I don’t know what happened or how it got fixed.
Started Chichewa lessons…my intensive training will be for the first two weeks of may but I figured that I could get started and then maybe I’d pick up even more in my two weeks. So I headed to Dr Barbara Nagy’s house to use her book and to talk with her housekeeper, Beria. I’ve started copying the book (as it is out of print) which is also a learning tool for me. Barbara keeps telling me that it isn’t expensive to get copied in town but I’m afraid I’ll copy it and then not open it. Now I have to write it, read it and study it…because I go back to talk with beria every day that I’m in nkhoma for the morning…the first two lessons were easy breezy all about hoes and bows which really isn’t going to be too useful but I’m getting some of the grammar and the verbs are good—take, leave, go, cut. So now I can tell you to take the basket over there (tengani dengu uko) or leave the bow outside (seyani uta pa khomo). I haven’t yet put those phrases into conversation but I’m sure that it’s coming.
In some of my free time (between being overloaded in Chichewa and typing and helping with youth work) I’ve taken to help with renovations…I’ve helped put up some ceilings boards in the eye dr’s house and done some painting at the Guest house. I do find it quite rewarding as there is the definite end product when you’re done.
Friday I went to a Chilangizo (advice in Chichewa). I stayed with Abusa (Rev) and Amai (Mrs.) Thuya in Ndzobwe which is between Lilongwe and Mchinji (north of Lilongwe toward the border of Zambia). The chilangizo meetings are kind of the rite of passage—teaching how to be a woman and things you should know…