まだまだ

市場での買い物。アフリカのチテンジという布は現地の女性がスカートとして腰に巻いたり、男性もその生地でシャツを作ったりする。私は布フェチなので色々買って、それでマラウイの伝統衣装を何着も作った。私は自分で言うのもなんだが、友達や現地の人にもチテンジのデザインに目がきく＝趣味が良いと言われた。職場に着ていくと、やはり現地人は外国人が着ていると嬉しいのかいいねーいいねーと言ってくれて、こちらが気恥ずかしくなる。私の課の秘書の人が頼んでいるテイラーの人が教育省まで来てくれて、仕事中にサイズを測ったり部屋の鍵をかけて試着したり。自分でもデザインしてスカートやらも作った。夏にカナダで仕事にも着ていったけどなかなか好評だった。でも生地の質もそんなに良くないし、ジッパーが安物ですぐ壊れるので、あんまりもたないのが難点である。

他の何とも比べられない程最高のことはやはり、仕事と出会った人達だと思う。2人のルームメイトがいなければ乗り越えられないことがたくさんあった。

派遣元の上司と揉めて、いい加減文句を言うのは止めて仕事をしてくれなどとひどいことをメールで言われた時、レイチェルが私はすごく一生懸命働いていて職場の同僚達もそう思っていることを保証できると弁護するメールを送ってくれた。嫌なことがいっぱいあったけど仕事のことで泣いたのはそのメールを読んだ時だけだった。しかもそれは、どちらかと言うと嬉し感激の涙だった。後は泣いたと言うより怒っていたことの方が多かったから。

私達3人は歳がみんな１こづつ違い近いので、悩みは似たようなもの、将来のことや恋愛関係のことをお互い相談して励ましたりもした。カナダに住んでいても友人のほとんどは移民や典型的な白人カナダ人じゃない人なので、2人のカナダ的なPerspectiveはある意味新鮮だった。

3人で替わりばんこに夕食を作って、メキシコ料理の好きな二人の為に私はトルティア代わりのチャパティをよく焼いてあげた。レイチェルは途中で帰ってしまったけど、その後もヘレンと私は仲良く暮らしていた。仕事帰り間際にテキストメッセージを送り合い、今日の晩御飯やスーパーで何を買ってきて欲しいのかやり取りしていたので、お互いをMy　Wifeと冗談で呼んでいた。

職場でも良い同僚に恵まれた。さよならを言うときは悲しくて涙が出た。ジェンダー委員会のメンバーに帰る前にメールでお礼を言ってくれた。ほめる文化じゃないマラウイで、よくやってくれてありがとうと言われることはとても嬉しかった。外国人としてなるべく上から物を見た言い方をしないように参加型開発を身を持って実践して良かったと思った。

続き

生活面全般

街がすごく小さいくてあまり行くところがない。首都と言ってもリロングウェは本当に人工的に政治の中心を移しただけなので、南部にあるブランタイアと比べるとガランとしている。買い物できるところもあまりないし、週末に遊びに行けるのはホテルのプールぐらい。車がないと遠出もできない。文化的な公演とか音楽のコンサート等はほとんどなかったので、美術館に行ったりするのが好きな私にはきつかった。

もう一つの問題は交通。マラウイはタクシーがあまり発達していない。ガイアナには電話すれば来てくれるディスパッチの番号があったが、マラウイは、まともな運転手がいれば電話番号を聞いておいて、そのストックの中から根気良く順ぐりに電話しなきゃいけない。電話すると、え、今日は僕働いてないからとか言われたり、今すぐ行くと言われても30分以上待つことも。なので夜に車のある友人なしで出かけるのはリスキー。帰る手段の保証がないから。

これはガイアナでも少し感じたけど、友達のサークルが狭く息苦しくなるときがある。カナダや日本だと友達がたくさんいるし、一人で趣味のクラスを取ったりできる。でも、途上国だと仲良くできる人のプールが小さいし、いつも団体行動。たまには違うコミュニティの人と会いたいなあと思ったこともある。

良かったこと

外食できるところがたくさんあったこと。毎週末、ルームメイトや友人とレストランに行っていた。特に好きだったのは、旧市街に（当時）あったインド料理屋。ここはいつも空いていて内装が笑えるくらい“ダサい”でも味はよくてメニューがすごく分厚く値段もお手ごろ。一人15ドルほど出せば食べきれないほどカレーやビリヤニライスやガーリックナンが食べられる。他にも外国人向けのブティク（！）やバーがあるコンプレックス内にあったレストランもかなり通った。ここの敷地内にスタジオがあり、私とヘレンはエアロビのクラスに週2回行っていた。

日本人がいたこと！日本の某政府系援助機関はマラウイのプログラムが大きいので、日本人の職員、専門家やボランティアの人がたくさんいた。中でも同じ教育省に派遣されていた日本人の専門家の方にはとてもよくしてもらって、職場でお茶を飲んだり、自家栽培の野菜を頂いたり、仕事の悩みなどを聞いてもらいました。他にも数人仲良くさせて頂いた方があり、イベントに招待してもらったりして楽しかった。日本語で話せるのと、違うグループとの付き合いというのが世界が広がってとても良かった。

続く．．．

City

Lilongwe is small and there isn’t much to do. It is a capital city of the country but only the political centre has been moved. Compared to Blantyre which is in the South, Lilongwe feels like just an extended village. There are not many stores, and without a car only choice of activity for weekends is going to a swimming pool in a hotel. I really like cultural activities, such as seeing a live performance or going to a concert, so it was boring not to have these opportunities in town.

Transportation

The taxi system is not as developed in Malawi. In Guyana, I could call a dispatch number, but such thing doesn’t exist in Malawi. If I meet an OK driver, I take down his number. When I need a taxi, I have to patiently call each driver on my reserve list. Drivers would sometimes tell me “I am not working today”, or in some cases they will take more than 30 mins to come pick me up. It’s risky to go out at night without a friend with a vehicle. No guarantee for a means to get home…

Small circle of friends

I felt more or less a same way in Guyana. In Canada or Japan, I have different groups of friends. However, groups of ex-pats are often small in these countries, and you hang out with the same people all the time. This gets stuffy.

What I liked:

Relatively many options for eating out

I would go to restaurants every weekend with my roommates and friends. I particularly liked one Indian restaurant in the old town. This place was always empty and the decors were just so tacky. But, they had a great selection of curries and I could eat as much curries, appetizers, Biriyani rice and garlic Nan bread as I want for about 15$. There was also another restaurant in a complex which had boutiques for ex pats. Helen and I were taking aerobics classes in the studio in this complex.

Japanese people!

Certain Japanese aid agency has a large program in Malawi, hence many Japanese people. I got very well aquatinted with a specialist placed in the MOE. I would visit him in his office and he would offer me a cup of tea. He kindly listened to my problems and gave some insight. He even brought me vegetables from his kitchen garden. I had a few other people that I saw regularly. It was great to be able to speak Japanese and have a different group of friends.

Why was it was so..?

Looking at last year’s entries, I was surprised how little I wrote. In Guyana, I was home before 4, and I had an internet access at home. I didn’t have a TV, so there was lots of free time to read and write diaries. On the other hand, in Malawi the (official) work hours was from 7:30 to 5, and I come home exhausted. I cook, eat and chill out in front of TV for a couple of hours, and it’s already a bed time. On top of that, I had some difficulties at work, and I wasn’t too keen on writing.

In Guyana, I had a tough time also at work, but I had some time to reflect on the experience and write about it. It’s been a while since I returned from Malawi, but I would like to reflect a bit.

As the saying(?) goes All’s well that ends well, I was happy with my placement at the end despite all the problems that I encountered. There were several reasons why it was so hard.

Life in General

Security

The general security of the country is better than Guyana, but we almost got broken into twice. If dogs bark at night, I would wake up and peek through the window thinking that some people may be trying to break-in.

Employees
We had house employees. We were paying more than the local average salaries, but they are still around 50-60$ a month. Felt like we are exploiting them. Then again, they would ask to borrow money for fertilizers at the time of planting maize, ask for a raise and tell us to buy new equipments to replace broken ones. It felt like we were constantly spending money. Once, our gardener was neglecting his job. We considered letting him go after discussions and discussions. Finally, we got scared and kept him.

Living with other people

I have to say there were more positives than negatives for this, but off course there were some drawbacks. I always had to make financial decisions jointly with people who may not have exactly a same value about different purchases etc. For example, I had no intention of getting a TV and a satellite, which I considered too much of a luxury. However, I gave in, going with the majority. (I have to admit that I enjoyed having a TV, though!) We never fought over house chores since we had a housekeeper person.

去年のブログを見ていたら、ガイアナの時と比べてエントリーが少ないのに驚いた。ガイアナではほぼ毎日4時には家に帰っていたし、家でネットができた。しかもテレビがないので本を読んだり、日記を書く時間が多くあった。その反対にマラウイでは朝7時半から5時まで（一応）の勤務時間で、毎日ヘトヘトになって帰ってくる。家で夕食を作り、テレビを放心状態で2時間も見るともう就寝時間。あと上司と揉めたりなんなりとゴタゴタが多かったので、ブログを書く気になれなかったというのもある。

ガイアナでは派遣先で苦労して、経験のまとめみたいなものを書いていたが、マラウイではその機会がなかった。その辺、帰国してもう随分経ってしまったけどReflectするためにも少し書いていこうと思う。

マラウイは、終わりよければすべて良しと言うけど、正にそうですっごくしんどかったのに良い経験だったと思えるように終わった。なんでそんなにしんどかったと言うと色々と理由がある。

生活面　

治安はマラウイはそこまで悪くはないが、2度も強盗に入られそうになった。毎晩、寝ている間に犬がほえていると、あー今入られようとしているのかなと気になり窓の外をそっと覗いたりすることも度々。

家に従業員がいたこと。人を雇うと言うのは気を使う。しかも現地基準以上の給料を支払っていても、1ヶ月何千円のレベルでその不公平さに申し訳なく感じる。でも、向こうからメイズを植える季節だから肥料代を出してくれとか、給料をあげろ、これが壊れたので買ってくれと言われるとどうして良いのかわからずかなりストレスが溜まる。それでしょっちゅうお金を使う（ような気？）ことになる。ちゃんと働いてなかった、庭師のお兄ちゃんを解雇するかどうかルームメイトと話すに話し合った結果、二人ともびびって解雇できなかった。

共同生活
もちろん良い面の方が多かったのだが、価値観等が多少は違う人と、家財道具や食料の購入などお金が絡む決定をするのが疲れた。例えば私は地味な生活に慣れているので、始め衛星テレビをつけようと言われた時はえーっそんな贅沢なと思ったけど、多数決なのでOKした。これはこれで楽しめたのだけど。お手伝いさんがいたので掃除のことなので揉めたことはなかった。

去年を振り返って。

２００７年は良い年だったと思う。

マラウイでの仕事は山あり谷ありだったけど、最終的には軌道に乗った。契約を延長するしないという話になって、結局は戻るのを止めてしまった。やりかけた仕事を途中で放り投げるような後ろめたさもあったけど、充実感があった。まだ帰りたくないと思いながら、惜しまれながら帰国するのは大変喜ばしいことで、最初の２，３ヶ月にどんなに帰りたかったかを考えれば予想もできないことだったと思う。ただ３月に帰国した時はしんどかった。丸２日かかるフライトと時差ぼけ。暑い国からまだまだ寒さの残るカナダに帰って、冬服はないし、帰るべき人もいない。極めつけにジョブレス。と一つ個人的に悲しいこともあり、かなり落ち込んだ。でも、友達の助けもあり体力は２週間で心は３日で立ち直り、はや仕事探しを始めた。短い契約を渡り歩いている私にとって、就職活動は慣れている。とは言え楽しいものじゃない。毎日コンピューターの前で履歴書とカバーレター作り。留守電のライトがチカチカしているとドキドキするし。段々経験を積めば積むほど仕事探しが楽になるというのは本当で、１ヶ月ほどでバタバタと面接のお知らせが入り、今の仕事が決まった。大学院終了時から念願のカナダNGO勤務！これも過去４年ほどこれに焦点を絞り、一般企業、カナダの地域NPO、ガイアナでのインターンシップでマラウイと計画的かつ行き当たりばったり（！）でつなげてきたお陰だと思う。

新しい仕事へのトランジションは比較的楽だった。最初は週４日のポジションとして始まったのとあまり忙しくないこと、周りの人達が親切なこと。今回初めて保健関係のプロジェクトを担当し、しかも地域は旧ユーゴの国とバラエティに富んでいる。下っ端のポストだけど取りあえず勉強できるところは勉強させてもらおうと思った。CIDAのプロジェクトなのでその辺も学べるので、これからカナダの開発業界でやっていくには重要なことだと思う。私は主にスタディツアー等の担当なので、バルカンから来たたくさんの人達と知り合えて楽しかった。

８月に初めてアパートを借り一人暮らしを始めたのはハイライトの一つだったかもしれない。アパートハンティグもろくにしたことなかったので、一人で決めてから不安で友達に窓の外から見せてOKかどうか聞いてしまったほど。家具を買い、家財道具を買いアフリカの物を飾り、元々インテリアが好きなのですごく楽しかった。（お金はかかったけどね）なぜか初めてのカウチは特に感激で、仕事から帰宅し、夕食後に、これが私のソファなのね～と思いながらまったりするのは至福の時。リビングが独立したアパートなので、合計友人が３人と妹2人が泊りがけで遊びにきてくれた。餃子パーティーもしたし、人と住んでいたときより格段料理が楽しくなった。

仕事は暇なときはすごく暇なのだけど、週の間にボランティアでやっている理事の会議があったりフランス語のクラスやジム、そしてたまに講演会など聞きにいったりするとすぐに1週間おわっちゃう。

今年はまた仕事で生活が動くかもしれない。なのでそれまでは、こののんびりオタワ生活を満喫するつもり。

Happy New Year

Wishing you a happy new year!

今年も宜しくお願いします。まだオタワですが今年中にもまた海外勤務の可能性あり。今度は赤道の北側かな？

Home Sweet Home

I have been back. I came to Guelph (my second home) immediately after I arrived, as I was absolutely knocked out tired. Two days of traveling back was brutal, and I found the transition to the climate etc etc hard. So, I decided to go to Guelph, because it is nice to be “taken care of.” This is the downside of not having a permanent home in Canada. Well, it sounds like I am being a baby, but who cares?? I am almost rejuvenated and I will be back in Ottawa later this week!! I am gonna have to start my job-hunting, which I am not so thrilled about. My cell phone is now up& running is the same number as before. I will give you a call as soon as I get back.

Coming home!!

Today is my last day in Malawi. Things have been so hectic past few weeks. We organized four meetings/workshops in three different cities.

I will be on my way to Canada tomorrow. I will be staying where I was last year in Ottawa, so give me a ring if you still have my old telephone number. I will activate my cell phone shortly as well.

明日遂にマラウイを発ちます。去年住んでいた家に一旦戻るので、もし電話番号まだ持っていたら電話下さい。14日の夜10時以降にはいると思います。 まだ寒いと聞いたので心配。空港に着いたとたんに凍えるんじゃないかな。

Petit annonce お知らせ

来月の13日のフライトでカナダに帰ります！！やった～！14日の夜にKLMのシャトルバスでオタワに到着する予定です。みんなに会えるのがすごく楽しみ。この先3週間気が遠くなるほど忙しいけど、頑張ります。

Leaving Malawi on the 13th next month. I will be back in Ottawa at night of 14th by the KLM shuttle bus. I can't wait to see you!

Japanese style vacation

決死のラフティングを生き延びた後は、今回の旅の目玉であるビクトリアの滝の見学へ！ビクトリアの滝はザンビアとジンバブエの国境に位置しているのでどちらの国からも見られます。ナイアガラと同じですね。私たちはザンビアの国立公園から見ました。絶景でとても感激。これは残念ながら文章や写真では伝えきれないです。雨季中なので水量も多く水しぶきでびしょぬれ。滝は高さも幅も半端じゃなく、世界のseven natural wonder に数えられるだけあると思います。滝の周りが整備されてるとはいえ,自然な感じなのも良かった。見ての通り、霧の乙女号なぞはないです（笑）念のために言っておくと、ラフティングしたのはこの滝じゃないですよ。機会があればまた行きたいと思います。

翌日はサファリへ。規模の小さい野生動物保護地区で、宿泊先でツアーを組んでもらいました。遭遇した動物はエンパラと呼ばれる鹿の一種、キリン、ザンビアでここにしかいないというサイ等。象は残念ながらこの時期はなぜか隣接しているアンゴラに行っているらしく不在。（クリスマス休暇で遊びに行ってるの？？）どうしても行きたかったボツワナのチョービ国立公園のサファリに、手違いで行けなかった代わりだったので、ガッカリだったけど、これはこれで楽しめました。

リビングストーンの最終日は早起きして乗馬に行ってきました。アフリカのブッシュを馬に乗って回るのはなかなか良い気持ちでした。一緒に行った友人が初心者だったのであまりスピードが出せなかったけど、ラフティングで10年分のスリルを味わった後はそれで充分。

お昼前へルサカに向けて出発。正に日本式の休暇の楽しみ方。アクティビィティー満載で、充分に寝る時間も満足になく次から次へのスタイル。人生1回切りだし。でもさすがに滝の上のバンジージャンプだけはどんなに頼まれても絶対やりません！！

After surviving the near death experience of rafting, we went to see the very highlight of the trip, the world famous Victoria Falls!! The Vic Falls is situated between Zambia and Zimbabwe and can be seen from two countries just like the Niagara Falls. We saw from the side of Zambia’s National Park. It was spectacular, phenomenal, amazing. How can I describe it by mere words!! Even the photos wouldn’t do justice. The volume of water was high, since it was in the middle of rainy season. We got soaking wet with the mist. The height and width are not comparable to other ones that I have seen. No wonder that it is considered to be 7 Natural Wonders of the world. The setting is pretty natural and un-touched. As you can see, there is no such thing as the Maiden of Mist Boat J Just to let you know, this is not where I rafted…. I would like to go visit again if I have a chance.

The following day was Safari. It was a small-scale wildlife reserve, and the lodge organized a tour for us. Animals that we saw are impalas, giraffes, baboons, monkeys, white rhinos and warthogs. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see elephants this time. Apparently, they went to Angola. (Is it because they are on the Christmas vacation or what??) I really wanted to go to the Chobi National Park in Botswana, but it was not possible. So, this was an alternative and I enjoyed it nevertheless.

On the last day in Livingstone, we got up early to go horseback riding. It was nice to go around African outback (?) on a horse. One of my friends was a beginner and we couldn’t go faster. However, after experiencing 10 years worth of thrill during the rafting, it sufficed, I shall say.

We left for Lusaka before noon. This is really a Japanese style vacation. So many activities, got barely enough sleep every night, go-go-go style. But, what matters is you live once and want to experience all!! But, I will never ever bungee jump over the Falls!

Trip to Zambia

I realized that I haven’t written about my Zambia trip. I have already sent you some photos with the New Year greeting e-mail, but I will share some more with you.

Our travel itinerary was that we spend one night in Lusaka, and then move to Livingstone (where the Victoria Falls is situated.) We spend a few more nights in Lusaka on the way back.

We left Lilongwe very early in the morning when it was still dark. It took us more than 10 hours to get to Lusaka. When we were getting closer to Lusaka, we kept screaming with excitement. Civilization!! “Look at the three-story apartment building! Look at the decent looking mini-buses! They are all painted in a same color! Oh they have proper bus stops! Pedestrian bridges!!” The highlight was a shopping mall. They even have the Subway sandwich place!! In a large supermarket in the mall, I got overwhelmed by the number of selections. I guess I really got used to the “country life” in Lilongwe… Would I be able to adjust back to Canada once again? I wonder…

We spent a night in Lusaka, and the following day we left for Livingstone. We stayed in a nice lodge along the Zambezi River. We did a sunset boat cruise, all you can drink with a light meal. We enjoyed the scenery. Saw monkeys and hippos etc.

This is when my evil roommate talked me into doing the white water rafting in the Zambezi. I will tell you the story in person. I really thought I was going to die. Was as bad as my experience at the Great Wall in China.. I have DVD and photos and they are great!

**Just realized that I can change the setting to allow anyone to comment. So please leave some comments! 誰でもコメント残せるように設定を変えられるのを今気が付きました．．．。コメントしてもらえると嬉しいです。

ザンビア旅行

(English version will follow later…)

忙しくて年末のザンビア旅行のことを書いていないことに気が付いた。今週は急に途切れたように仕事が暇なので忘れる前に書いてみたいです。

ガイアナではあんなに頻繁に書いていたのに、しかも英語と日本語で。マラウイ生活は忙しいのとバタバタしてるのであんまり書けなかったのが残念。

年賀状メールで皆には写真を何枚か既に送ったけど、他の写真をお見せします。

ザンビア旅行はリロングェから車2台で行きました。メンバーは私とヘレン、イギリス人とベトナム人の夫婦と教育省の友達のパキスタン系イギリス人の女の子ともう一人男の子、ザンビア人の女の子（ルサカまでだけ）と総勢7人。

首都のルサカでまず1泊して、それからビクトリアの滝のあるリビングストーンで3泊、でルサカに戻ってまた3泊の旅程でした。

朝の暗いうちにリロングェを出発し、10時間以上かかってルサカに到着。ルサカに近づくにつれて私達は歓声上げっぱなし。なぜかというとすごい！文明がある！あー3階建てのアパートがある！ミニバスが全部同じ色に塗られている！（しかも窓ガラス全部ある！）ちゃんとしたバス停がある！陸橋がある！極め付きはショッピングモールを見たとき。サブウェイサンドイッチ屋さんがある！！
と正に興奮しっぱなしでした。モールの中の大きいスーパーに行った時は品数の多さに圧倒され、本屋、CD屋などが立ち並ぶ中キョロキョロとおのぼりさん状態。首都と言っても田舎のリロングェに慣れた私は本当に田舎者になってしまった気分でした。あーカナダの生活にまた順応できるか心配．．．．。 こういうカナダや日本じゃ当たり前の物がないのに半年ですっかり慣れたみたい。

ルサカに1泊し、翌日リビングストーンへ移動。宿泊先はザンベジ川のほとりのロッジでシャレー型のきれいなところでした。その日の晩は小さいボートでザンベジ川の日没クルーズお酒のみ放題の軽食付き。ジントニックで良い感じに酔っ払ってカバを見たり岸辺の猿を見たりして楽しみました。

そこでヘレンの魔の罠にかかり次の日にラフティングに行くことを承諾させられてしまったのです。

ラフティングの話は今度会った時に直接話します！中国の万里の長城ぶりのすごい経験で本当に死ぬかと思ったよ。ビデオも写真もあるのでお楽しみに！！

続く．．．

Continuous from the previous story… 前回の話の続き

This is what happened….

The morning after when I realized my backpack was stolen, some police officers came to interrogate our house staff. Helen and I went to work feeling quite anxious. When I came home late from work that day, Helen said to me “your stuff was found.” I couldn’t believe it. She told me the following story:

While we were at work, a cousin of our housekeeper happened to be visiting his daughter. The housekeeper told him about the burglary, and then his cousin went “oh I saw a guy selling a black laptop in a marker today in the village. I know he works for a security company.” They waited for Helen to come home and then brought her along to a police station. Police and the two men went to find this guy in the village and met him on his way to work (our house) for the night. He was interrogated, confessed and told where he was hiding the stolen items. It was an extremely lucky series of events for me to have my things back. Apparently the guard took it when the other one was sleeping and hid it in a tree. He was arrested and prosecuted in a court.

He was sobbing when the judge read his sentence, and I also felt like crying. Theft and particularly burglary are serious offence, and he got three years of imprisonment. There is absolutely no excuse for stealing. However, this guy gets paid so little despite how much we pay to the security company. He didn’t even know that this was a laptop, letting alone finding a good market to sell it. He has four kids and his wife is expecting another one.

I felt somehow partly responsible for this. I felt guilty that he is poor, that I have so much compared to what he has and that this severe equality exists in the society and a world that I do not have much control over. It just felt wrong, and this is one of the aspects of living here that I don’t like. It’s great that we have people working for us, but I will never get used to the idea and would rather not do this.

The other side of this incidence was that I got to experience the judicial system in Malawi. I gave a statement to the police, went to the court and almost had to testify (didn’t happen after all.) I used to do a volunteer work in Canada to accompany victims of domestic violence to a court. Now I can understand a fraction of how scary and traumatic it is to face your offender. It was extremely uncomfortable for me to see the guy.

Eventful Month/ 大変だった！

Finally have some time to update my blog!! You must be wondering what I have been up to these days…..

Lots of things. First, I went for a weekend get away in a forest lodge with friends. When I came back, I found my laptop computer was stolen from my bedroom. Someone broke into my room through a window and took my backpack, which contained the computer and a few other things.

I was little dazed by that, but more scared, since I didn’t know who had done it. Considering the circumstance, my roommate and I reckoned that it was an inside job. We had to call police and they came to interrogate our housekeeper and two night guards. To make the story short, the laptop was found and now it is back in my possession. I will write about what exactly happened some other time, but I had to go to a court etc. It was quite an experience.

What’s difficult was that I was organizing a training session for the gender steering committee members on the same week. Off course all my work was on my computer. To make the matter worse, the ONLY key to my office was in the backpack. I had to wait till someone in the Ministry ok’ed it, went to buy a new lock and then brought a carpenter to replace it, which took almost a full day. In the meantime, I was trying to borrow a laptop, finalize the arrangements for the following days (three days of training), and re-work/ re-type some of the documents. Thank Goodness that I finished most of the prep work previous week!! In conclusion, the training session went well with minor logistical problems (expected in Malawi anyhow…) I facilitated a couple of sessions, and I enjoyed myself. It was certainly a lot of running around, but I can say that it was rewarding.

Lessons learned:
· ALWAYS make backups and keep the files separate!
· Don’t panic. Somehow it all works out in the end.

Happy 2007!

I wish you a happy New Year! I am back from the Zambia trip safe& sound. I will be updating this site with photos and stories from the journey.

新年明けましておめでとう！今年も宜しくお願いします。

Seasonal Greetings!

Wish you a merry Christmas and a wonderful new year! I will be thinking of you from Africa. I want to thank you very much for your friendship and support particularly through the hard time this year, and I look forward to spending more time with you in 2007. May 2007 be full of happiness.

今年は家族やお友達の皆さんに大変お世話になりました。2006年は辛いことが多かったけど皆に支えてもらって乗り切ることができました。本当にありがとう。2007年が良い年になりますように！

I will be going to Zambia (Victoria Falls& Lusaka) for one week with friends. Will let you know how the trip went when I come back. Sending you lots of love.

The one and only women’s shelter in Malawi＊マラウイ唯一の女性救済施設

Lately, I got involved in the group called “NGO Gender Coordination Network.” They were planning the 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence (25 November – 10 December), which is a global campaign to eliminate violence against women. The launching ceremony in Malawi was held on the last Saturday, and I attended it along with the regional director of my sending org. Through this group, I got acquainted with Malawian women’s rights activist.

She runs an organization, Society for the Advancement of Women, which helps women who are victims of domestic violence. They have services, such as counseling, provision of legal advice, advocacy and most importantly the one and only women’s shelter in the whole country. I went to visit this organization this Friday. I spoke to some of the staff members, got some posters, and saw the shelter etc. It was quite impressive.

It was very interesting to see how their organization operates, as I used to work a lot with the VAW (Violence Against Women) issues back in Canada. This issue, no matter where you are and no matter how developed the country is, is universal unfortunately. The situation here in Malawi is accelerated because of the poverty.

The shelter has four bedrooms, and they are always at the full capacity. They have to scramble to get food and other household items for the women and their children who stay there. They recently started to create a children’s play area, but they have nothing, no chairs no toys, no crayons.

I am hoping to make some donations to this organization to particularly support this shelter. If you like to support this cause, I would like to ask you to donate some money.

My goal is to raise around $150CAD to buy some toys and things for the shelter just to make a small difference. If you would like to help, please send me an e-mail specifying the amount that you like to contribute. The suggested amount is $10-$20 (or less or more.) I will donate the money on your behalf and collect the donation when I see you next time. I can’t give you a tax-deductible receipt, as this is just my personal project. But, I will send you a report with photos of purchased items and the shelter etc.

Running non-profit organizations is hard both in Canada and Malawi (and in Japan, too.) You are at the mercy of government policies and are always threatened by the budget cut. You need to keep looking and applying for funding to maintain or expand the essential services, which should really be the responsibilities of the government.

Please join me in supporting this organization that provides valuable services to the Malawian women.

最近マラウイの NGO Gender Coordination Networkというグループと関わる機会があり、先週の土曜日に16日間のアクティビズムのマラウイの開会式典に出席してきました。これは国際的に行われている、女性に対する暴力をなくすためのキャンペーンです。このグループを通して、マラウイ人の女性の権利の運動家と知り合いになりました。彼女はSociety for the Advancement of Womenというドメスティクバイオレンスの被害者を救済するNGOを運営しています。活動内容はカウンセリングや法律関係のアドバイス等、それからマラウイに一つしかない女性のシェルター運営です。

金曜日に彼女の団体の見学に行ってきました。スタッフの人から話を聞いたり、ポスターをもらったりし、最後にシェルターを訪ねることができました。

私はカナダで女性への暴力関係の仕事やボランティアをしていたので、現地のNPOがどんな活動をしているのか学ぶことができとても興味深かったです。女性に対する暴力は世界中どこにいても、その国がどれだけ発展しているかに関わらず、大きな問題です。マラウイは貧困のせいで状況がもっと難しいといのが現状です。

このシェルターには4つの寝室があり、いつも被害者女性で一杯だということです。運営費用の不足で女性やその子供達の為の食料品や生活用品を満足に買うが大変らしいです。最近、子供達の遊び部屋を作ろうとしているのですが、椅子も玩具も何もおいてないガラガラの部屋でした。

私は個人的にこの団体を少しでも援助したいと思います。つきまして、この団体へ寄付をお願いしたいのです。目標は１５０ドルぐらい集めて、生活用品や子供への玩具を購入したいと思っています。メールでいくら寄付できるか知らせて頂けるとその金額を私が寄付するので、今度会った時に私に渡してもらえたら結構です（来年の春か夏には日本に帰ります！）。購入した品物やシェルターの様子の写真とレポートをお送りします。千円から2千円ぐらいの寄付をお願いしたいです。（もちろんそれより多くても少なくてもよいのですが）どうか御協力お願いします。

World AIDS Day

Today, December 1st is World AID Day. It's the day to unite in the fight against HIV and AIDS world-wide. Please read and learn about this epidemic and raise awareness.

I am wearing a red ribbon made by my roommate today!

I am working hard

Well half way into my placement, I can finally (I hope, touch wood…) say that my work is going better. So far, my main job is to establish something called “National Gender and Education Steering Committee.” This process was started last year, but after the former gender coordinator resigned, it was inactive for more than a year. This is a committee initiated by the ministry, and the membership includes all min. ed departments, governmental educational institutions and other civil society orgs in the education sector. In total about 32 organizations. I am trying to coordinate and facilitate this committee in order to ensure gender mainstreaming in the education sector. We’ve had three meetings, and we have adopted TORs, finalized the structure, elected executive positions and came up with annual action plans.

This work has kept me quite busy these days, running around in the city, contacting people, preparing documents, writing proposals& reports, planning meetings etc. I have to say I am kind of enjoying myself.

The photo is taken in my office.

Muli bwanji?

The whole last week, I was in Salima (Sanga Bay more precisely) attending a cultural and language training, which was organized by my country office of the sending NGO.

We learned about the geography, history, some political issues and culture. What interested me the most was about different tribes in Malawi and their customs. Particularly, their marriage systems and some of traditions have significant impact on the gender relations, which is relevant in my work. Refreshed my memories from Anthropology classes.

The language (Chichewa) training was interesting. I love learning languages, but I felt my brain was totally melting down especially on the first day. It is not an easy language to learn, not to mention just having three days of training. However, it is always interesting to see some similarities of grammars, rules as well as its own uniqueness of the language. I adapted a new Chichewa name, Mwayi. It means fortunate, and I am hoping that this name will bring me some good luck. ;)

I feel now that I learned a bit of Chichewa, my little Spanish was completely wiped out… After all, I have only so much capacity in my brain.

The hotel where we stayed was along a beach (of Lake Malawi.) I went for a walk or short jog in a morning, and I swam a couple of times. It was nice to get away from Lilongwe for a while.

Fun Weekend!

I have been quite busy these days with my work and haven’t had a chance to update this blog. I will write about the progress of my work some other time.

Last weekend, it was the first time when I got out of Lilongwe for non work-related stuff.

Recently, I got acquainted with some JICA (equivalent of CIDA in Japan) experts and volunteers. They organized a trip to a village in Deza district.

They have a famous pottery place in the area, so first we went there to have lunch (they have excellent dessert!) Afterwards, one village was organizing traditional dance.











On Sunday, my housemates and I had a belated Thanks Giving Dinner. We couldn’t find a whole chicken, so we substituted with chicken breast. We had wine, Malawian coffee liquor and Baileys!

Cell phones

Both my cell phone and the land line are up and running! It is quite ironic that this is the third cell phone I buy this year (first, LG one in Canada, which couldn’t be unlocked in Malawi, then the Motorola got eaten up by our doggies and another Motorola.) The thing is that this is the first year I ever own a cell phone in my life and I already went through two of them. I used to despise the culture of cell phones, but now I can clearly see how we grow dependent on them. In any case, it is a necessity in this country as there is no public phone.

Our dogs (Katie and Jazz) have a very expensive taste. If I add up everything (non food items I mean) they have eaten, it will be quite expensive. They have eaten my roommate’s fancy sunglasses, two new pairs of sandals and my cell phone. They have also stolen our precious chocolate!! I guess this is the life with dogs.

とらぶる

This week, my stress level was at the maximum saturation point.

On Tuesday when I got up in the morning, I found out that five guys intruded our property and tried to break into the house. According to our night guard, they came twice on a same night, around 11PM and 2AM. Our mighty guard managed to scare them away. My roommates and I were terrified, as you can imagine. There are not many violent crimes in Malawi, and these thieves normally just want to steal valuable items in the house such as TV, VCR and computers. They don’t intend to harm anyone, but surely it is not a nice thought. The following day, we spoke to our neighbors and learned that six houses in our area have been hit by these guys and they all had something stolen. One of guards even got injured. Apparently, they are a quite skilled group. To reinforce our security, we have decided to hire a professional guard who has a backup from the security company. Now, we feel more or less safe& secure and can have a good night sleep.

My work situation has been quite rocky, and there had been some frictions among my employer, the local office of the NGO (my sending agency) and myself. I can’t write details about it here, but I got into a serious conflict situation with the NGO. It was based on series of misunderstanding and miscommunication, but I honestly thought my contract could be terminated. I requested a meeting with them, and I managed to resolve the problem in a constructive way.

I kept asking myself “Is this worth it? Why am I putting myself through this??” Sometimes, I think it may take more courage to quit or give up. I am happy that I managed this conflict well this time, and it probably added another dimension on my “life-skills” as I never found myself in this sort of situation before. However, these questions still remain, but I will hang in a little longer. もうちょっと頑張ってみるよ。I keep getting into trouble this year for some reason….. 厄年じゃないはずなんだけど。

Out of reach

I am currently out of reach (other than via e-mail) because 1. Our dogs ate my mobile phone. 2. Someone has been stealing our finally-installed land line.

現在、メール以外では連絡不可能になっています。理由は１．家の犬に携帯電話を食べられてしまった。２．やっと繋いだ家の電話回線を誰かが盗んでいる。

こんな感じで暮らしています。

So nice to have finally some routine in my day-to-day life.

I normally wake up around 6 and leave home between 7:20 and 7:40. Our “official” work hour is from 7:30 to 5:00. It is rather long for a Canadian standard, but surely not for Japanese. So, I should be able to handle it unless I am too Canadianized! Come home around 5:30 depending on my luck in catching a ride or a minibus. My roommates and I cook together, eat, watch a bit of TV and find ourselves as early as 9:30 sometimes.

I have started aerobics classes in a dance studio nearby. I jog there for five minutes and take an hour class. Our night guard comes to pick up Helen and I, and we all walk back. Rachel cooks on our aerobics nights (twice a week.) It’s great to do exercise. The studio is a missionary type place and they play Christian music sometimes, but it is fine. They know I am Buddhist ;) I may take salsa dance class, too.

On weekends, we go grocery shopping and chill out in the house. I am taking a distance course on composition française. I am behind schedule, so I am trying to catch up mostly on weekends. On Sundays, we go to one of fancy hotels in Lilongwe to sit by a swimming pool and get on to their wireless internet. Doesn’t sound like a harsh life in a developing country, does it?? I use skype to call my family and friends.

This is how my week goes usually. やっと生活のリズムがついてきました。何かとイライラの溜まりがちな仕事以外にも楽しみを見つけるのは大事だなーと思います。

Working in the Public Sector

My work is seemingly slowly picking up (I hope.) We had the first departmental meeting on Friday last week. I am now in a proper office. I was able to review the gender and education file that the deceased person had. In the departmental meeting, my supervisor, the deputy director explained to me and a new education officer (she is sharing the office with me) the protocols and procedures in the Ministry. For example, for me to organize a meeting, first, I have to write something called “loose minute” to my supervisor. And then, my supervisor has to write to the Secretary for Education (higher up in the management) about my intention of holding this meeting. Approval will come down in a same manner. Then, I will write an official invitation letter to the participants of the meeting followed by the approval of the Secretary for Education. If I want to provide refreshment at the meeting, I need to make a list of items, such as ten packets of biscuits, tea, soft drinks etc. I will then proceed to ask the departmental secretary to go get quotes for these items from three different stores. She will come back with the lists, and then we will finalize what we buy from each store, cheapest it means. I then give money to her and she can go buy them. What a long process! But I guess that is bureaucracy. I am not used to working for a big organization or the public sector, so sure it is different.

Malaria Scare/ マラリアになったかと思った。

Monday morning this week, I woke up with pain in my stomach. I had some stomach problems, aching body and a bit of fever. I went to work, and someone told me to go see a doctor, since these symptoms can be malaria. In the afternoon, I managed to get to a doctor. The technician punctured my finger and squeezed blood out of it. It was painful, but I was too sick and tired to react to it. Good news was that the test came back as negative. I have been bitten by mossies only a few times since I came, so I would have had to be pretty lucky to get malaria. The rainy season will start in about a month or so, but I am not so looking forward to coming back to get more holes on my fingers…. (Needless to say getting malaria itself) What I had was probably some kind of flu. Thank Goodness! ああ良かった！

My work

I haven’t written much about work. It was because I was too depressed about it. I have been in Malawi close to two months by now. However, I haven’t been able to accomplish as much as I have wished because of many challenges.

As Gender and Education Specialist, I was supposed to work with Gender Coordinator person in the ministry. Soon after I arrived, she passed away unfortunately. There was obviously no hand over notes. On top of that, I did not have an access to her office nor to her work files, as the room was locked until this week. There was also a confusion as to which department I should belong to. Combined with struggling to find a house, furniture and sorting out everything about life in a totally new country, lack of support and supervision made me feel quite lost at times. I know to a certain extent some difficulties are part of the reality of working in a developing country, but it was much worse than expected to be honest. I was ready to come home a couple of times. (though the option is always there..)

Having said that, I am still hoping to do a good job. Past two months, I have been attending many meetings. I was able to familiarize with the general education system in Malawi. I have learned major issues in the gender and education sector. Has been a real learning process.

This weekend, I was at a meeting of Gender and Equity Technical Working group to revise Malawi’s education sector plan from the gender point of view. It was a very vigorous process indeed since we go over a thick document page by page. But, how often do I have a chance to get involved in making a plan for the whole country’s education plan??

Abbreviation Test

Starting a new job requires lots of learning obviously. And it usually comes with a whole set of frustrating abbreviations and acronyms to memorize. My position in MOE (this is easy, isn’t it?) is no exception. As I am reading relevant documents and attending meetings, I have to keep going back to the list of all the abbreviations…..

Here are some of new ones that I came across with. You can guess what these abbreviations are. Scroll down to find out what they mean!

BCC
EMIS
IEC
MTEF
VCT
TOT
TTC

Some more that I am familiar with and use frequently:

TOR
WID
GAD
M&E
PLWA

BCC Behavioral Change Communication
EMIS Education Management Information System
IEC Information Education Communication
MTEF Medium Term Expenditure Framework
VCT Voluntary Counseling and Testing
TOT Training of Trainers
TTC Teacher Training College

TOR Terms of Reference
WID Women in Development
GAD Gender and Development
M&E Monitoring and Evaluation
PLWA People Living With AIDS

If you know all of them, you can work in the Ministry of Education!!

International Literacy Day ・世界識字の日

On International Literacy Day, September the 8th, 2006 I had the opportunity to attend an adult literacy graduation ceremony in the Ntchisi region. The Ministry of Women and Child Development’s Community Development Department is responsible for this program. It was noted that this particular region has a high illiteracy rate. While Malawi’s overall literacy rate is 60%, only 40% of the people are literate in this region. Approximately 2,000 people have graduated recently from this program.

The Adult Literacy graduation ceremony took place in one of the primary schools in the area. The ceremony consisted of several speeches in the local language Chechewa (which I did not understand unfortunately… ) and other entertainment. It was nice to see some traditional dance, songs and music.

After the ceremony, Helen and I got to interview some graduates. This research was aimed at gaining insight into why students drop out of school in order to understand the complexity of problems that people face. I spoke to about nine people with an assistance of Malawian to interpret. I had a set of questions to find out why they dropped out, what they did afterwards, difficulty of being illiterate, their plan now that they know how to read and write among other things.

It was clear that all the interviewees were very excited as well as felt empowered to improve their lives. They were also pleased to speak to us about their experience. I certainly saw a great success in this program, which provided a valuable opportunity to people to not only to be literate but also to help build their confidence and take control of their life. To read and write, we take it for granted, but it made me think how powerful it can be in some people’s life when they were deprived of this opportunity. I also saw one of the keys to improve the education in the country is to educate the adults, so that they would encourage their children to pursue their education.

I love doing research. I hope I will have an opportunity to conduct some policy related research with my job at Ministry of Education.

The photo is with all the graduates that Helen and I interviewed that day. We had much more people than we asked for. They were fighting to get into the line to be interviewed.

Birth Day& The New House

I have turned 30 on September 1st!!

For those who sent me happy birthday wishes, thank you very much! You are the best thing that I have in my life. For others who forgot my birthday, please don’t feel bad ;) I know that you still care about me!! (right??)

As me and my two roommates were moving into the house on my birthday weekend, we postponed the celebration to the following weekend. My roommates and a couple of other people took me out to a nice restaurant near our house. I had nice pasta and crème brûlée as a dessert (was yummy~.) They put three candles on a cake and I made a wish. The restaurant offered all our dessert to be on house, and it felt nice and special.

How do I feel now that I am 30?? I feel exactly the same as before. Unfortunately, it does not mean that I suddenly become mature and wise. I thought I would have everything figured out by this age, but I am in fact as confused and lost as I was five or ten years ago. Life is not easy sometimes, but it’s all good and I am grateful for what I have.

Our new house is located in the Area 12 in Lilongwe, which is a sort of an upper middle class Malawian neighborhood. The house is a nice cozy size with three bedrooms, a kitchen, living and dining rooms with two bathrooms-- a perfect one for three of us to live comfortably. The unusual thing is the size of the house lot itself. It must be close to an acre. Just huge! Cannot believe how big it is. For Japanese person who is used to living in a rabbit hutch house, it is just incredible. From the front gate to the actual house, it is more than 40 meters! It feels like I am living in a small park. The yard got some nice trees, flowers, fruit trees and plants and is quite nice.

We now have nice furnishing and appliances, and we are all quite happy. It involved so much work and spending $$ to get here, and we are completely shopping-ed out. We bought beds, mattresses, a fridge, a stove, a television, couches, a dining table with chairs and some side tables along with other household items like pots& pans, dishes, a toaster etc etc. The list got longer and longer. We have hired three staffs to work around the house. One housekeeper who lives on the premise with his family, one full time night guard and another guard to work on Sundays as well as to work as a part-time gardener. We also hired two additional “security guards”. Two doggies! Two 10 months puppies. The security is an issue here, so to have someone around clock is a good thing. I do feel guilty to have someone else who does cleaning, dishes and laundry& ironing. BUT I have to admit that after long stressful work day, it is so nice to come home to a nicely made bed and ironed shirts.

I will post more photos to make you jealous.

I am still alive

Sorry that I haven’t been able to update this blog. I am still alive, just to let you know. I will start posting soon about my birthday, new house and work etc. I have been busy, stressed and a bit sick. Going away again for three days to attend a planning meeting in a city called Mongochi on Lake Malawi. michiyo

最近なかなかブログを書く余裕がありません。忙しいのと仕事のことでまいっていたのと体調を崩していたので。今日から３日間、マラウイ湖畔のモンゴチという街で行われる会議に出席してきます。私の誕生日のことや家、仕事のことについてまた書いていきます。

Going Away

I am supposed to attend a meeting, which will take place outside of Lilongwe starting this weekend. It is a planning meeting for HIV/AIDS programs in the ministry of education. I was not invited initially, but I asked them to include me, since gender issues should be an important component in it. I will be back on Tuesday or Wednesday. I will be glad to be away, as things have been pretty crazy lately, and I am not feeling too great to be honest. Has been very difficult juggling figuring out work issues and sorting out personal stuff, both of which are hard enough to deal with individually. Will be good to have some time to relax, not to get stressed out and have some perspectives on things. I will be OK, though.

I may be able to see some wild animals. Will post some photos when I come back!

Me and my crazy nomadic life

A lot has happened this year, and somehow I ended up in Malawi…. Here goes my crazy life in a nutshell.

In April I came back to Canada from Guyana, and I went back to Japan to see my family after two years of not seeing them. I spent a bit over a month there, and in the meantime I got out of the long-term relationship in a worst imaginable way.

It feels like I have aged 10 years in this short period of time (actually it is about time I look my age anyways so that I don’t get asked to show two pieces of ID to buy a bottle of wine...) This break-up was extremely hard, and I didn’t think I would make it. I think we learn so much about ourselves when we face challenges and hardships. It probably sounds completely crazy, but in a way I am glad that this happened. It made me stronger in many ways, though it also made me more vulnerable in some other ways. At least, I feel I am more or less standing on my own feet, and this is a nice feeling. Maybe, it’s true that things happen for a reason.

In mid-May, I came back to Montreal and found a place in Ottawa in two days and moved. In a month this position in Malawi was offered to me and I accepted it. And then, I “met” a person and I came to like him a lot (he is really great!) I was very happy to spend some nice quality time with him. This made it even harder to leave Canada again so soon.

So, this year so far I have lived in four different countries. Some of my possessions are still in Montreal and the rest is stored at two different locations in Ottawa. I am currently living out of two suitcases and a few more bags. My permanent address is in Japan, but the mailing address is at the place in Ottawa where I only lived for less than three months. I am having a hard time keeping track of all of my phone numbers and addresses. I am also trying hard to keep my head in this total madness. Will there ever be an end to this?? I wonder…

Shopping Day

As I mentioned in the previous entry, me and my future roommates (Rachel and Helen) went furniture hunting on Saturday. Our Japanese colleague from the Ministry kindly offered to take us around. Furnishing a house is quite a daunting task. Especially, the house comes with absolutely nothing. Not even a fridge and a cooker. On top of paying the six months rent and paying the hotel, this can put a big strain on our finances… The good thing is that we will probably able to sell most of the things when we leave, and we can recuperate the cost.

We went to a few household goods shops, supermarkets and electronic stores. We bought some stuff and just priced other bigger items. There is this one street in the old town area (I will write about the geography of Lilongwe some time) where people make and sell wooden furniture. We looked at beds, bedside tables and couches. I have seen the tackiest designs of couches, and we have no choice but going with these sorts. We will have real fun being creative and decorating the place with these….. We are still debating how much of an animal print fabric is allowed in the decoration of our common areas. I am definitely on the side of minimum animal print. We already live close enough to safaris. So, why do we need to make it more African??

The highlight of the day was in a market. We were taken to a local market where fresh produces, fish and other small commodities are sold. I love looking at colorful vegetables and fruits. We stopped at a baskets vendor, and we had a blast. We each bought a couple of baskets and were very happy with our purchase. They are so cute!!

Here are things that I bought:

· Blanket for 2600MK – still winter here
· Pillow for 860MK – so nice to have my own pillow…
· Cutting board and roller set for 800MK – planning to make dumplings from scratch with a roller
· Two wicker baskets for 1000MK – what a bargain!

($1CAD= 120MK)

Moving and moving—life on the go

Due to some miscommunication on our reservation, we had to move to another hotel. It was bit stressful, as I finally got used to the area and figured out how to take mini-buses to get to work etc…. Now in the new area, I need to start from scratch. I can’t wait to move into the house and settle down. Since our house is not furnished, we have to furniture-hunt this weekend. Still lots and lots to do.

What I did this week:

Celebrated Helen’s birthday in an Indian restaurant (She is one of two Canadian girls whom I came with.)
Paid six months rent for the house (about $1000CAD)
Had a good meeting to be briefed on work-related things, and then got stranded for an hour waiting for my pick-up to come.
Moved to a new lodge
Had a minor anxiety attack :)
Moved again to a different room as there was no hot water in the original room
Reading stuff and talking to people trying to determine what exactly my job should be
Tried Malawian fish for lunch (was quite good)

I am so happy to receive nice e-mails from all of you. It helps to get me through possibly stressful days. Thank you all for your support and friendship…

michiyo

My Contact

Here is my mailing address:

World University Service of Canada (WUSC)
P.O. Box 30268 Lilongwe 3, Malawi


Thank you all for your messages. I will reply individually soon!

The first week!

I have survived my first week in Malawi! The great news is that we have signed a lease for a house on Friday. It has lifted a huge weight from us.

I can finally feel more or less normal, so that I am in a state of mind to write more.

Frankly speaking, there are many challenges both professionally and personally, which could be quite daunting at times. My transition here is much harder than what I have experienced in Guyana. I felt like I would be more than happy to just go back to Canada. Although I could still go home (I know I won’t), I feel a bit better. I am keeping optimistic and hoping that it will get easier as I spend more time getting acquainted to the environment, the people and the culture.

The most difficult thing for me was and still is a communication issue. I initially did not have a regular internet access, and even when I did, the net was either down or extremely slow. What is more, phoning home is ridiculously expensive. It costs about 2 to 3$ a minute to call Canada!! I will for sure spend the money when it is deemed necessary for my mental health. Now I have more access to the net at work, and I got a new cell phone (cute Motorola phone for about $50.) You could call me if you like. From Canada 5$ calling card will give approximately 25 minutes. There are cards for calling Africa. The connection is not very reliable, but I hope it will get better when I have a landline in the house. My two Canadian colleagues and I will be moving in on the 1st of September (my birthday!!)

Other challenges are the transportation and accommodation, which are linked together. Lilongwe is the administrative center of the country, and it has developed in a sort of non-city way. Buildings are scattered and there is an un-walkable distance to get to one area to another. It is hard to get around without a reliable and safe transportation, which is not always guaranteed. This has limited our options for places to live in the housing market that is already limited.

I should list some positive things as well. People are nice and friendly. I have hot water, which I thought I would be deprived of for the entire eight months. It relaxes me when I can sit in a bathtub to take hot shower, singing. J The roads are better than Guyana. I haven’t had any stomach problems (I mean diarrhea.) Touch wood! There is one Japanese man, who is the education advisor on a same floor at the Ministry of Education, and I am happy to chat in Japanese once in a while. Generally, bathrooms are clean and flushable with an acceptable amount of water. I plan to come up with more things that I like soon.

Despite everything, I think I am coping quite well with my easy-going attitude and naïve optimism. It is the first step to recognize that it is normal that things are hard and I am going through some culture shock and adjustment.

Please send me e-mail or leave a comment on this site. Hearing from you means so much and it will certainly brighten my day!!

House-hunting

We have started the house-hunting, but it seems pretty hard. The property which was advertised on a paper on this weekend was already rented today, when we went to take a look at it. Another thing is the transportation. It is a big issue. Taxis are not so easily available, and getting around just by mini-buses is not always possible. I am trying to take one thing at a time and not to be stressed.

I am getting my cell phone unlocked (I had it unlocked in Ottawa, but it was no good….) I will be able to recieve calls soon!

I am in Malwi.

I have arrived safe and sound. I am now staying in a guest house with two other Canadian girls. We had a two day training/ orientation. I am already going in to work on Monday. How quick!!

I am a bit overwhelmed by everything, but I will be OK. Hope to write more when I have regular access to the net.

Miss you all.

Here I go again!

I will be leaving for Malawi, Central Africa in two weeks! I am now in Ottawa, rejuvenating for my next adventure. I will be writing about my job and my life in general.

２週間後に中央アフリカのマラウイへ発ちます。現在はオタワでのんびりしています。仕事のことや生活全般のことを書いていくつもりです。

Newsletter

www.vsocanada.ca/attachments/ FINAL_Marafiki_spring_2006.pdf

My article is on the VSO Canada newsletter.

Count Down to Farewell to Guyana

とうとう明日ガイアナを去る。帰れるのが嬉しいが友達とお別れを言うのが寂しいし、泣いちゃうだろうなーと考えると気が重い。このブログはどうするのか検討中です。これまで拙い私の文章を読んでくれていたお友達と家族の皆さんありがとう。

Finally leaving Guyana tomorrow. Happy to go home but don’t want to say good-bye to friends.... Not sure what to do with this blog yet. Thank you for having read my diary.

My Last Trip Vol. 3 japanese

２日目もジャングルの中のハイキングに行った。最初の目的地は洞窟。大昔にマクシ族が他の部族と戦争で死んだ人をここに葬っていたらしい。今はこうもりがいっぱい住んでいて、昔の人が使っていた古い鍋がある。次に渓流の先にある小さい滝を見に行った。エコロッジのおじさんがお弁当を持ってきてくれたのでそこでランチとなった。清清しい水の音を聞きながら休憩。合計４時間ほど歩き回った。行く先々で面白いものがあるとガイドの男の子が説明してくれる。色とりどりの蝶や見ると血圧が上がる鷹（本当に？）ジャガーの一種が引っ掻いた後の残る木などなど。ジャガーも所詮大きい猫みたいなもんで、私の彼のソファーを引っ掻く家のキャネラと同じだな。

午後はロッジに戻り敷地内にある沢で泳いだ（というか浸かっただけか）。スタッフのおじさんが地元に生息するバラッタという木からとれたゴムを使った工芸品の実演をしてくれた。沸騰したお湯に浸けて軟らかくした材料に色をつけたりして動物などの形を造ってゆく。

元々の予定では２日間の滞在だったけどあまりに気に入ったのでもう一日泊まらせてもらうことにした。

翌日は私達のたっての希望でナピ村の見学に行った。村の中は交通手段がないのでみんな自転車に乗っている。と言う事で私達も村人のブラジル製の自転車をお借りして村まで往復することに。ロッジから村まで片道１０キロ以上ある。ジャングルのでこぼこ道は木の幹、枝や石がごろごろしているのでかなりの集中力が必要。熱帯雨林で自転車に乗るなんて人生に滅多にない貴重な経験だった。サバナを自転車で駆け抜けるのは本当に気持ちが良かった。

サバナの中に家がポツポツと立っている。バラッタ工芸の大御所を訪ねたりハンモックを織っているところも見た。主食であるキャッサバから作るファリンという食べ物（なかなかいけるお味）を作っているところも見せてもらった。

一番素晴らしいと思ったのは村の自給自足の生活。家の壁のレンガも屋根もファリンを漉す篭もぜーんぶ手作りで材料は自然が供給してくれるのだ。何から何まで“買う”ことでしか生活できない私にとっては新の豊かさとは何かと考えさせられる。この生活文化を維持して欲しいけど、もちろん近代化がもたらす快適さを享受する権利を村人に否定はできない。このエコ観光が進むと村も変わるのかと思うと自分勝手にも少し悲しくなった。

スタッフの人達と仲良くなったので帰るのが辛かった。ロッジの建設のいきさつ、オープンに際して料理やテーブルセッティングを習わなければいけなかったことや家族のことなど色々話してくれた。私達は４日間だけだったけど家族の一員になったような気にさせてくれたあったかい素朴な人達だった。料理長のおばさんが手作りのネックレスをくれて管理人のおじさんは彼が作ったバラッタ工芸のアルマジロをくれた。涙が出そうでさながらウルルン滞在記の別れのシーンみたいだった。迎えのオートバイに揺られながらこのロッジは成功するなと確信した。

この旅行でもう一つ嬉しかったのはぺトラという友達ができたこと。実はたまたま一緒に旅行することになったけど、彼女のことをあまり知らなかった。こんなに気が合うということも知らなかった。旅行中の長い待ち時間２人で途切れることなくいろーんな話をした。この特別だった旅を共有できてこれからもきっと仲良くできるんじゃないかな。

My Last Trip Vol.3

The second day in the Nappi Village started with another long hike. The first destination was a cave. A long time ago, Makushi Indians used to fight with other tribes, and their corps were brought to this cave. Now you can find many bats living there and an ancient cooking pot. We proceeded to see small water falls. Someone from the lodge came to meet us there with lunch boxes and freshly made juice. We enjoyed the refreshing sounds of water and had a bit of rest. We hiked for about fours hours. We would stop every time when we saw something interesting, such as different colors of butterflies or a hawk that can raise your blood pressure when you look (really?!) We saw scratch marks on a tree of one kind of jaguars. After all they are just big cats and they need to scratch like my Canella who scratches my boyfriend’s new couch :)

In the afternoon we swim or rather had a little dip in a creek on the side of the lodge. The caretaker of the lodge showed us the craft making using Balatta (similar to Gum tree.) You soak the material in boiling water and soften it, and then color it and create a shape of animals etc.

We initially planned to stay there only for two nights. However, we liked it so much, we decided to stay one more day.

The following day, we went to visit the village, which we requested. There is no transportation in the village, so everyone rides a bicycle. We borrowed made-in-Brazil bikes and rode between the lodge and village, which is over 10 kilometers. I really needed to concentrate on the road as it was extremely bumpy with tree roots, fallen branches and small rocks. How many times in life I have a chance to ride a bike in a jungle!? I was so nice to ride through the savannah, too.

Houses are scattered in the village. We visited the Master of Baratta craft and saw a hammock weaving. We also got to see the process of making “farine”, which is their staple and made of cassava. Tastes quite good!

What impressed me the most was their self-sufficiency. From bricks of houses, roof to the basket to process farine, everything was made locally, and the nature provides the materials. It made me question the concept of a “good life”. For me, only way of life is buying what I need off the shelf of stores. I would like them to maintain their way of life, but at a same time we cannot deny their right to enjoy the comfort that the modernization can offer. It is unavoidable that, as the eco-tourism develops, the village will change. I selfishly felt a bit sad.

It was hard to leave the lodge. We got close with the staff, and they told us how this project was started up, how they had to learn cooking and a table setting and about their families. It was merely four days, but they made us feel as if we were a part of their family. They are such warm, welcoming and kind hearted people. The head of cook lady gave me a beautiful handmade necklace, and the caretaker man gave me a Balatta craft. I had to hold back my tears. As I was going back to Lethem on the back of a motorbike, I was certain that the lodge will be very successful.

Another great thing about this trip was that I made good friends with Petra. We happened to be planning a trip around a same time, and we decided to go together. I didn’t know her too well, and on top of that I didn’t know that we would get along so well. During our journey with long waiting times, we talked about so many things. We shared this very special trip and hope we can keep in touch.

おしらせ

２９日にモントリオールに戻ります。Will be back in Montreal on 29th.

My Last Trip Vol. 2

This Amerindian (Makushi Indians) village has about 800 residents, situated on the foot of Kanaku Mountains. The village singed a contract to conserve the natural habitat of wildlife, and instead they were provided with a fund to build the eco lodge. This way, they can generate some income without opting out for lumbering or mining, which destroy the environment. It is owned and operated by the village, and is a same principle as the Iwokrama resort.

Since it opened a couple of weeks ago, Petra and I were the third set of guests. During four days of our stay there we were the only guests, and it was just so special. They cleared up a small area in the middle of jungle and built a few quarters. It has a real secluded feeling to it. We could hear ridiculously amazing sounds of birds as if they were playing one of those silly rainforest sounds relaxation CDs.

The first day after delicious lunch and a nap in a hummock, we ventured out in the jungle to see wild monkeys. We had a guide who is equipped with a knife, a bow and arrows just in case of encountering a jaguar. He was so knowledgeable about the forest and explained some medicinal plants and trees. He showed us the tree that can heal wounds and other sort of a local version of Viagra (!)

We saw a few groups of spider monkeys hanging off the trees. They were starting to get annoyed with our presence and were breaking branches and dropping them. Some little ones were on the back on adult monkeys.

We were able to talk a lot with staff members. They told us some legends like a guy who used to kill people hiding in bamboos and Shaman who can communicate with monkeys. The most amazing story is about tiny forest people (half our size). They are called “Tai Tai” in Makushi language. The guide boy has seen one once, but none has been successful in photographing them. With Anthropological training, I was so fascinated by these stories. I even thought about pursuing PhD and doing research in a village like this, and how wonderful this would be!

I always wanted to try to sleep in a hummock, and this was my last chance to try it. The staff put a mosquito net on the hummock which is hanging on the balcony just in front of our bedroom. I was bit scared after hearing all the stories of jaguars and the forest people, but after all I slept OK. The tip is to lie diagonally in the hummock so that your back is not bent too much. On the second night Petra joined me, but the third night we had to give it up because it was raining.

To be continued…..

このアメリインディアン(マクシ族)の村は人口約８００人、カナク山脈の麓に位置している。野生動物の生息地を保護するという約束もとにこのエコロッジを建てる資金を提供された。これで環境を破壊する木の伐採や鉱脈に頼ることなしに現金収入が得れるからだ。村の住民がオーナーであり彼らが運営している。地域の住民参加型森林保護は前述のイオクラマと同じである。

数週間前にオープンしたてなので私とぺトラは３組目の宿泊客。４日間の滞在中私達だけだったので、特別だった。ジャングルの中を開拓して今のところ３つの建物が立っている。文明から隔離され自然のままという感じだった。よくあるジャングルの音を録音したリラックス用のCDでもかけているんじゃないかと思うほどエキゾチックな鳥の鳴き声が聞こえてくる。

初日はお昼のご馳走を頂いた後、ハンモックで少し昼寝してジャングルへ野生の猿を見る為に探検に行った。ガイドの男の子は万が一ジャガーに遭遇した時の為にもナイフと弓矢を持って来ていた。彼は森のことにとても詳しく、薬草など説明してくれた。傷を治す木や地元版バイアグラ（？！）などを見せてくれた。

木からぶら下がっている蜘蛛猿のグループをいくつか見ることができた。猿たちは私達が近づいてくるのが気に食わないようで怒って木の枝を折って下に落としたりしていた。背中に乗った赤ちゃん猿も見られた。

私とぺトラは宿泊客が他にいなかったこともありスタッフの人達とよく話した。竹薮に隠れて人を殺していた男の話や猿にメッセージを送れるシャーマンの話など。一番興味深かったのは森に住む背の小さい部族の話。彼らは普通の人の半分の背丈でマクシインディアンの言葉でタイタイと呼ばれている。ガイドの男の子は一度だけ出くわしたことがあるらしいが、まだ誰も写真を撮ることに成功していないとのこと。文化人類学専攻の私にとっては好奇心がそそられる話ばかりだった。博士課程に進んでこんな村でフィールド研究をできたら素敵だなーとか思わず考えてしまった。

一度ハンモックで寝てみたいなと思っていて、今回が最後のチャンスだった。従業員の人が私達の部屋の前のバルコニーに釣り下がっているハンモックに蚊帳を付けてくれた。ジャガーや森の部族のことを考えたら少し怖くなったがなんとか眠れた。コツはハンモックに斜めに横になることらしい。こうするとなるべくひらべったく寝られる。２日目の夜はぺトラも加わり３日目だけ雨が降っていたので諦めた。

また続く．．．

My Last Trip/ 最後の旅行 vol.1

オランダ人の友人ペトラと９の地域Rupununiへ旅行してきた。私にとってはガイアナ最後の一番思い出深い旅行だった。

滑り出しは好調で予定より早く夜行バスは出発した。幸いバスは空いていたので一人ずつ２つの席を陣取ってなかなか快適だった。エスクイボ川を渡るフェリー地点にも時間より少し早く到着し、私としてはなんだか話が良すぎるなーと思っていた矢先にバスが故障。ガリガリと音がしたかと思うとバチンという音が聞こえどうやらエンジンが壊れたようだった。修理する術がないので３時間先の町から新しいバスを遣して壊れたのを修理できる地点まで引っ張って行くとのこと。クリスマスにIwokramaに行った時も何度か修理のために止まったし帰りも故障した。このバス会社はお隣の国ブラジルでお払い箱になったボロいバスを買って直し直し使っているので当然と言えば当然なのだが、効率の悪いシステムである。

結局私達はバスの中で２時間待ち、その後通りかかった４駆の車で最寄の町アナイまで乗せて行ってもらいそこで新しいバスが故障したバスを引っ張って来るまで合計７時間待った。サービスで出してもらったチキンカレーを食べたり、知り合ったフランス人カップルと話したりして"this is a part of the adventure"と笑いながら時間を潰した。

見慣れた熱帯雨林を抜けてサバナが目の前が開けた瞬間は感動した。ミニチュアの木のような潅木がまばらに生えた草原がどこまでも続く。いつまでも見ていて飽きない景色だった。これを見られただけでもこの旅行は価値があると思う。

夕方に目的地ブラジルとの国境の町レセムに到着。予約してあったアメリカ人の女性が経営する民宿で１泊した。レセムの印象は、サバナに突如現れた埃っぽい日がきつい街という感じてあまり好きになれなかった。ビーフカレー、ロティとサラダの夕食を食べてちょっと雑談した後は私もぺトラも疲れて早々に寝てしまった。

翌日は最終目的地のナピ村の最近オープンしたエコリゾートに行くために４駆の車が迎えに来てくれた。サバナとジャングルのデコボコ道を２時間走ってナピ村のエコロッジに到着！

続く．．．。

Went traveling to Region 9, Rupununi with my Dutch friend of mine. This was my last and most memorable trip in Guyana.

It started out well. The overnight bus left earlier than the scheduled time. Luckily, it was not full, and we each managed to grab two seats and sat comfortably. We reached the Essequibo river crossing on time, and I was starting to feel that this was just too good to be true. Not surprisingly, soon after the crossing, I heard a loud scratchy noise and then something snapped in the engine. It turned out that there was no way to repair it, so they had to bring in a new bus from the town which is three hours away and tow the broken bus to the place where it could be fixed. When I went to Iwokrama in Christmas time, the bus broke down a couple of times, and it was same on the way back home in this trip. Supposedly, they buy buses that are too old to be on the road from Brazil. No wonder it almost always breaks down!

We waited for two hours on the bus, and then got driven to a nearest town, Annai, thanks to 4X4 which was just passing by. In total, we waited for about 7 hours until the new bus towed the broken one. In the meantime, they provided a free lunch (yummy chicken curry) and we chit-chatted with French couple that we met. We laughed saying "this is a part of adventure, too!"

After going through the familiar view of rain forests, it was so impressive when the sceanary opened up to the savannah area. There were some shrubs, which looked like miniature trees, and I endlessly admired the landscape. The trip was worth just to see the savannah.

In the evening we arrived in Lethem on the border with Brazil. We booked a B&B in advance, and we stayed there one night. My impression of Lethem is a dusty and hot town that suddenly appears in the middle of nowhere, and I didn’t like it so much. After having dinner of beef curry, rotis and salad, we went to bed quite early to recuperate from our long bus ride.

The following morning, we departed for our final destination, Nappi eco resort. This is a newly opened eco lodge in the Nappi Village. After the two hour journey on a bumpy road, we were there finally!

To be continued.....

Kaietur Fall/ カイターの滝

有名なカイターの滝に行ってきました！ Went to see the Kaietur Fall.

Gone by the small plane, the Islander as usual. This water fall is the world longest single drop, and it is five times higher than the Niagara Falls in Canada. The area is just natural without any tourist facilities not even a fence.

おなじみの小型飛行機アイランダーに乗って世界一高いという滝を見てきました。
高さはカナダのナイアガラの滝の５倍。付近が自然のまま、何も手を加えられていないのが嬉しい。観光施設はおろか柵さえも取り付けられていない。この滝はガイアナの２０ドル紙幣に印刷されています。



毒性のある黄金のカエル。爪の先ほど小さい Poisonous Golden Flog, tiny as a tip of your finger


カイター付近の植物 Flowers seen in the area

仕事のことを振り返って

久しぶりに過去のエントリー（私がカナダから書いていたもう一つのブログサイト“La mémoire courte” http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Praline/）を読み返してみました。ガイアナ出発前のいきさつや迷っていた様が分かって今となればおもしろいです。

もうすぐ仕事が終わろうとする中で、結論から言うと．．来て良かった。しんどいことや腹の立つことも多かったです。仕事が進まない中で私はカナダくんだりから大好きだった仕事を辞めてはるばるやって来て、なんで時間を無駄にしているだろうと思ったこともありました。私の仕事と派遣先は自他共に認める難しいものでした。特に私はその団体が長期で受け入れる初めてのVSOということもあり言わばパイオニアみたいなもの。VSO側の上司が「あまり多くを成し遂げられなかったと気落ちすることはない、途中で匙を投げずによく粘ってくれただけで価値がある」と言ってくれました。実際もう辞めて帰ってしまおうThere is no point in this!と思ったことが何度かありました。でも一方でここで辞めたら負けになるし、これから国際開発の仕事を志すなら結果的に何もできなくても６ヶ月まっとうしなければと思ったのです。

この仕事を通してキャパシティビルディング（Capacity Building）のアプローチの大変さが身にしみて分かりました。現地の人が運営するNGOを改善してエンパワーメントを行う。聞こえは良いし、理想的なシナリオではあります。でもそう簡単ではありません。現地NGOとパートナーシップを結んでCapacity　Buildingを行う為の相互の信用などは一朝一夕に築けません。ましてや外国人の若造（私のこと）がやって来て、「ここができてないしここも変えるべき」といきなり言っても、今まで何年も向こうのやり方で運営してきた団体が、そのやり方が良かろうが悪かろうが、はいそうですかと言ってくれることはないでしょう。それを頭では分かっていながらも気持ちでは「私は６ヶ月しかいないのにどうしてこんなにも待たせるの？仕事をさせてくれないの？」と思ってしまう。私の中にも多少は横柄に私が正しい、相手側が間違っていると見下す気持ちがあったんじゃないかとも思います。だからと言って向こうのペースに合わせて待ってばかりいたんじゃそれも時間とリソースの無駄なのは確か。どこまで自分の意見を押し通すか、どこまで相手側の状況を受け入れるのかを見極めるのが難しいのです。

これから何年もかけてこの団体とパートナーシップを育てていく中で効率的でない配属が多少あっても仕方がない。私が毎日出勤しできる範囲であきらめずに仕事をしただけでも長い目で見るとプラスの大事なことなのです。ある意味、私は実験台というか犠牲のようなところがあると思います。ある人に「こんな無茶苦茶なところに配属されて腹が立たないの？初めから分かっていたはずなのに、あなたをそこに派遣するなんて間違っていると思わないの？」と聞かれたことがありました。もちろん不満がない訳ではないし、正直今の仕事を延長する気にはなれません。でも怒って何で私が！と思ったり損したと思うか、それとも受け止めてそこから得るものを見つけるのかは私次第です。それが最近になってようやく分かったような気がします。それも私へのレッスンだと思います。長い人生の中の６ヶ月、異国に住んだということだけでも無駄にはならないのでしょう。

実際の私の元々の仕事内容はニーズ調査を終わらせてレポートを執筆と助成金申請書の作成だけでした。でも私はこれもあれもとやりたいと野望を抱いてそれはちょっとナイーブすぎたのかもしれません。ニーズ調査と報告書は成功に終わったし、ガイアナのGlobal Campaign for Educationの運営もできた。その他にも色々小さいことも見つけてできました。時間がある中でVSOのオフィスのことも手伝ったり何でも積極的にできたのは良かったと思います。

と考えている内に気持ちの整理が付いてきました。いかにもしんどそうに書いてしまったけど色々と楽しいこともあったのでご心配なく。現にまだ私懲りていません。チャンスがあれば今度はもっと長期で途上国で働きたいと考えています。

３月/ March

今日から３月。ガイアナで過ごす私の最後の月。

仕事は約２週間残っている。出来る範囲で頑張るつもり。

その後はオランダ人の友人と２人でブラジルとの国境にある町レセム周辺を４泊６日で旅行することになっている。

振り返るのはまだ早い気がするけど、帰りたくない！という気になれないのが正直残念。実はこちらに来る前は６ヶ月じゃ短すぎる、あと数ヶ月は延長しないとと張り切っていた。適応力には自信がある私でも、やはり１番の目的である仕事が思ったより障害が多かったことがネックだったのだと思う。でもその中で学ぶことも多かったし、自分の未熟な点も少し見えた。良い経験になった。何よりは次へのステップに繋げる可能性が広がったことが一番。

あちこち旅行したことや、アメリカ手話とスペイン語も勉強できたのは良かった。カナダにいるパートナーと離れ離れになったのは辛かったけど、束の間のシングルライフ（？）も楽しんだ。家族同様に過ごしたVSO仲間と離れるのは悲しい。

カナダや日本に帰ってしまうと、この南米とカリブ海の狭間にあるヘンテコな国で暮らした６ヶ月が、まるで夢の中かテレビで見ただけなのか、または異次元の出来事みたいに思えてしまうのだと思う。その時せめて懐かしい気持ちになれれば良いな。それまではジュシーなパイナップルや生姜が利いたジンジャーエール,
プールなど満喫しなくては!

The first day of March. My last month in Guyana.

I have about two more weeks of work left. I will try my best finish up within my capacity.

After the completion of my placement, I am going to travel with a Dutch friend around Lethem, which is a border town with Brazil for six days.

It’s a bit early to look back, but it is too bad that I haven’t felt “don’t wanna go back!.” Actually before coming here, I was so keen and eager to extend my placement by at least a few more months. I am usually happy everywhere I go, but there were more obstacles to proceed with my work than I originally thought. This is precisely the main reason why I don’t feel best. Nonetheless, I learned a lot, and it was a good experience after all. Above all, it hopefully is a stepping stone to my next career plan.

I made quite a few trips within the country and studied both American Sign Language and Spanish. It was extremely hard to be away from my partner in Canada, but in some ways I enjoyed the “temporary single life.” (You know I don’t mean that way) I will be sad to leave VSO friends, who are almost family to me here.

After going back to Canada or Japan, six months when I lived in this strange country between South America and Caribbean will feel as if this is something I saw in my dream or on TV, or something that took place in other dimension of the world. I hope I feel nostalgic when I remember my life in Guyana. Till then, I have to make most of it by enjoying things like juicy pineapple, real ginger ale and the outdoor swimming pool!

Mashramani

建国記念日のマシュラマニのパレード/ Republic Day Celebration

色とりどりの衣装と大音量の音楽/ Colorful costumes and fully blasted music

みんな金粉と銀粉だらけ。私も帰る頃には体中にキラキラが付いていた。/ Everyone is full of glitters. By the time I finished watching the parade, I myself was covered with it

炎天下に３時間以上立ちっぱなしでかなり疲れた。/ Stood around more than three hours in a sun. My feet felt like sticks.

Bartica Photos

"Our Mansion"



Water looks brown, but supposedly drinkable for locals


Small fall, can you see a person behind the water?


Here is the gang!

Bartica旅行/ Trip

今週は珍しく仕事が忙しかったので先週末の旅行について書く暇がなかった。

１１人という団体でガイアナの７の地方の都市Barticaへ１泊２日で行ってきた。
カナダ人、イギリス人、オランダ人の友人達プラス日本人の私というグループである。Barticaへはまず乗り合いバスでエスクイボ川の主要港であるPurikaまで１時間かけて行く、そこからモーターボートで１時間と４５分程の旅。

このボートはスピードボートと呼ばれていて天候によってはかなりスリリングである。波が高い日や高潮の時はかなり揺れるし水しぶきでびしょ濡れになるときも。でも船にビニールシートが常備してあるのでそれを使ってうまくかわさないといけない。雨が降るとそれを一列毎に頭に被る。風でシートが吹き飛ばされないようにしかも雨にぬれないようにするには難しい。シートの下に４人ごとにうずくまる姿はかなり滑稽だと思う。

Barticaはガイアナの２つの大きな川（エスクイボ川とマザルニ川）が交わる中州に出来た町で内陸部へのゲートウェイでもある。私達はそこのヴィラを借りて一泊してのんびりしようという予定だった。ボートを降りてブラジル料理のレストランで昼食を済ませ徒歩で貸家まで行った。家は想像以上に綺麗で、プール付き白壁のコロニアル様式の豪邸（？）だった。この旅行の前に友達からお湯が出るらしいよと言われた時は喜びと興奮のあまり“お湯！”と叫んで椅子から数センチは飛び上がってしまった。我ながらガイアナのシンプルな生活にどっぷり浸かっているなと可笑しくなってしまった。

夕食までめいめいプールで泳いだり読書したりドミノで遊んだり昼寝したりし、合同製作の野菜カレーを食べて１２時には皆寝てしまった。翌日はガイドを雇ってボートで周辺を観光した。オランダ人が植民地時代に強制労働に逆らった原住民の首切りを行った島やガイアナ一大きい刑務所、渓流の途中の小さい滝などを見て回った。ガイドの男性はとても物知りでガイアナの歴史に少し触れられてなかなか面白かった。

I was unusually busy with my work this week, so I haven’t had a chance to write about the weekend trip.

11 of us went to a town called Bartica in Region 7. Our group consisted of Canadians, British, Dutch people and me. To go to Bartica, we took a minibus for about an hour to a city called Purika, which has got a major port on the Essequibo River. And then, we changed to a speedboat that took an hour and forty-five minutes.

Depending on the weather, a speed boat ride could be pretty rough and exciting. When the water is choppy or the tide is high, you get fair amount of splash and can get soaking wet. Each boat is equipped with some kind of plastic sheets, so we need to use this to avoid water. It is worse when it rains, as you can imagine. Each row (four people) cover themselves by making sure to keep away from rain but hold the sheet not to have it blown off by the wind, which can be tricky. I think it’s quite funny to see everyone shoving their heads under this cover.

Bartica is located on a delta between Essequibo River and Mazaruni River, and it is also a gateway to the interior. Our plan was to rent a house there and just take it easy. We got off the boat, had lunch in a Brazilian restaurant and then walked to the house. The house was so much better than I expected. With a swimming pool, white-walled colonial style house! Before the trip, one of my friends told me that the house has hot water. You don’t know how happy I was. I screamed “hot water!!” and jumped off from the chair at least a few centimeters with joy and excitement. What a simple person I have become being completely immersed in Guyanese way of life!

Till dinner time, each of us did whatever we felt like, such as swimming in the pool, reading, playing Domino and taking a nap. We ate jointly cooked vegetable curry (was yummy), and went to bed as early as 12. The following day, we hired a guide and did sightseeing with a small boat. Their tourist traps were Skull Point where Dutch people used to chop heads of Amerindians who refused to work for them in the colonial time, a biggest prison in Guyana, a small water fall in a creek and so on.. It was interesting to know a bit about the history of Guyana.

ガイアナの教育問題/ Education in Guyana

先週の金曜日にVSOの教育分野で活動している人達の為のワークショップがあり、私もそれに参加してきた。これは同じ分野で働いている個人の連携を促進しVSOガイアナのプログラム活動案をより強めて行こうと始まった試み。

公式な統計によるとガイアナの識字率は９０パーセントとなっている。でも現実はそれに程遠いということだ。確かに義務教育は無料で学校に通う子供たちの割合は９０パーセント近いだろう。でも問題なのは学校に毎日通っても読み書きを覚えられない子供が多いということ。実際生徒との接触のあるボランティアの人の話だと推定で半分位がまともに本を読めないのではないかと言っていた。

字が読めないと教科書が読めないので他の教科の学習もままならない。識字問題は深刻である。問題点は色々あり、試験に重点を置いた詰め込み式教育制度（日本人には耳の痛い問題）や適切な学校設備や教材の不足、低賃金で働いている教師の質やモチベーション欠落や親の子供の教育への不参加などである。私がニーズ調査で訪れた学校を例に取ってみると例えば学校に図書室と書いてるある部屋があり、入ってみるとそこはただの教材置き場ということが多かった。科目毎の生徒一人一人の教科書がないので、共有しているのだ。学校に印刷機やコピー機もないので副読本などは教師が黒板に書いたものを写して学習している。学んで理解するというよりは一日の大半を黒板に書いてある内容をノートに写すことに費やされているようだ。

私の子供時代を振り返ると本当に恵まれていたと思う。小学校の図書室には読みきれないほどの本があり週末には地域の図書館に通って本を読むこともできた。本の中に暮らしていたと言えるほど読書好きだった。私の場合は勉強を疎かにするほどだったので読書は利点ばかりだとは言い切れないが、理解力や想像力道徳などの他の教科ににも欠かせない能力を養うことができるので言わずも知れず子供の発達には不可欠。でもガイアナでは学校に通っていても読書はおろかまともに字も読めない子供がたくさんいるのだ。

こんな教育制度を改革する為に世界銀行が他の途上国でも行っている
BEAMS (Basic Education Access, Management Support) というプロジェクトがガイアナでも開始された。その中で識字問題は柱の一つとなっている。先述のVSOのワークショップでこのプログラムの責任者のプレゼンがあった。識字教育はPhonics といって一つ一つのアルファベットから派生するすべての発音、所謂発音記号を用いた方法が主流となり始めているということで、このプログラムもPhonicsを基本とした教材を使っている。同じPhonicsが繰り返し出てくるごく単純な薄い本を何冊も用いる。これは１冊読み終えた時に子供が達成感を感じられるようにしている。とても興味深い内容だった。このPhonicsについては次回のワークショップで詳しく勉強するのでまた書きたいと思う。

Last week Friday I attended a VSO workshop for those who work in the education sector. This is to strengthen the program area by all the volunteers working together.

The official statistics claims Guyana’s literacy rate to be 90%. However, the reality is far from this. Certainly the public education is free, and the percentage of children who go to school should be close to 90%. The problem is even though they go to school everyday, many of them still do not learn how to read and write. According to some volunteers who actually work with children in school, it seems like almost half may not be literate.

If you can’t read and write, you never learn. Literacy is a serious issue in the country’s development. There are various factors: memorization and information cramming method focusing the examination (common entrance exams), lack of appropriate school facilities and materials, untrained and low salaried-teachers who are not necessarily motivated to teach, parents not participating in their kids’ education and so on. I can take as an example some of the school that I visited during my needs assessment research. In some schools, rooms that say “library” turned out to be just a place where they store their textbooks. They don’t have a printer or photocopy machine, so kids have to copy what teachers write on the blackboard. Rather than learning and understanding, these pupils spend most of their day simply copying what is on the board to their notebooks.

If I look back my childhood, I realize how lucky I was. The library of my primary school had too many books for me to read. On weekends, I could go to the library in my neighborhood. I loved reading, and I was living in books. It is needless to say the benefits of reading, such as comprehension, imagination, creativity and morality, which are important in other subject areas and are essential abilities. In my case, I was neglecting studying because of my reading, so I can’t say it’s all benefit though….. Guyana has many students who go to school but can’t read letting alone enjoying reading books.

To reform such education system, World Bank started implementing BEAMS (Basic Education Access, Management Support) in Guyana along with other developing countries, and achieving basic literacy is one of the main objectives of this program.
In the VSO workshop, we had a presentation by the people responsible for this project. They talked about utilizing “phonics” in their approach, which are sounds that come with each alphabet. This is becoming mainstream now, and BEAMS employs this method as well. It applies thin and simple booklets/ workbooks that repeatedly use same phonics, and it aims at children feeling a sense of accomplishment after reading one book. It was extremely interesting. We will take up this issue again further in detail in the next workshop, so I will write more about it.

Hateful creatures

Every morning, you can hear loud slapping sound from my office. What am I doing? Killing mosquitoes… I don’t start my day until most of these vicious mosies are exterminated. Otherwise, I cannot focus on my work. I am getting real good at catching them. My roommate can testify that.

Georgetown is full of mosquitoes. It is because of the water canal and ditches, where water is stagnant, the perfect breeding places for them. I am amazed by how many different kinds of them there are. A big one, a small one, stripe legged one, brown one, a bit greenish one, one that carries Malaria, one that carries Dengue Fever, you name it. It is almost a world exhibition of mosquitoes.

Not only are they many, but they are quite smart. I always put repellent, either spray or something called Mos Bar supplied by VSO. Mos Bar is a soap looking thing that you rub on your skin with your wet hand. I make sure to spread it thoroughly, but they can always somehow find a few tiny tiny spots I miss and feast on them…

Mosquitoes nets are indispensable in life in Guyana. It hangs from the ceiling on top of the bed, and you need to tuck in the drape under the mattress to deny intruders any passage to come inside. You feel safe in it, but they can still bite you. If any of your body pats touches the net, they eat you through the net.

They are so determined to suck your blood. They prey on you through your shirts; dare to fly against gashing wind of a fan to get to you. One of my friends got eaten even through jeans. What kind of needle do they have to do that?

Even inside of a house, there are quite a few especially in the evening. After taking shower, you either have to put on long sleeve, long pants and a pair of socks or cover yourself with repellent, unless you decide to operate entirely under your net.

When I went back to Canada for a week, I was so happy just with the “mosquito free” life.

毎朝私のオフィスからはバチンバチンと大きな音が聞こえてくる。何をしているかと言えば蚊を退治しているのだ。ほとんどの蚊をやっつけるまでは仕事に取り掛からない。集中できないから。

ジョージタウンは本当に蚊だらけ。街中にある水路とどぶ川の澱んだ水は蚊の産卵の絶好地である。色々な種類がいるのにも驚かされる。大きいやつ、小さいやつ、足が縞々の、茶色いの、緑がかったやつ、マラリアを媒介するやつデング熱を媒介するやつ等など。蚊の世界博覧会とでも言うように。

蚊はただたくさんいるだけではなく、かなり頭も良い。私はいつも虫除け、スプレー式のかVSOが支給するモスバーを使っている。モスバーとは石鹸のような物で、濡らした手で肌にすり込む。いつも万遍なく塗るようにしているが、“あいつら”はほんの小さい塗り忘れた部分を見つけて刺してくる。

ガイアナの生活においては蚊帳は生活必需品である。ベッドの上の天井から吊り下げて、蚊の侵入を防ぐ為に垂れている端の部分はマットレスの下に押し込まないといけない。中に入っていると安心できる気がするがそれでもまだ蚊は攻撃してくる。もし体の一部でも蚊帳に当たっているとネットの外から刺してくるからだ。

彼女達（血を吸うのはメスの蚊だけ）の執着力には驚かされる。シャツの上からでも刺してきたり、扇風機の突風も、物ともせずに飛んでくる。私の友人の一人はなんとジーパンの上からかまれたらしい。一体どんな針なんだろう？

家の中でも特に夜は蚊が多く飛んでいる。折角シャワーを浴びても、長袖長ズボンプラス靴下いかにも汗が出てきそうな出で立ちでいるか、虫除けを足中腕中に塗らない限りはすぐに刺されてしまう。一日中蚊帳の中で過ごすなら話は別だが。

カナダに一時帰国した時は、蚊無しの生活というだけでかなり嬉しかった。