This country is one of the top five poorest countries in the world. They have no natural resources, so even the government is incredibly poor. Primary education is free for all, but secondary school must be bought. Somewhere around 45% of women and 25% of men cannot read or write. And 85% of people depend on agriculture to make a living. As you can imagine, this country has felt some horrible repercussions from the aforementioned lack of rain... So yeah, I can't shower tonight, but many can't eat.
Before I dive into my day, I wanna share a note I wrote last night whilst contemplating my fear of airplane rides (something I do often).
"Obviously the quality of the airport means nothing in the way of pilot quality, but it was hard for me to tease those two things apart. I don't know, is flying a commercial plane secretly so easy that just basically no one flying one ever makes a mistake? Or is it that commercial airline pilots are truly the creams of the crops when it comes to hand-eye coordination, button memorization, and GPS reading? (Yes, those are the 3 skills I attach to piloting because I'm utterly ignorant in this field) Obviously it's a combination of both because everything important seems to be a "combination of both" when you ask someone."
Now that that nonsense is out of the way.
This morning, same deal: Peanut butter and honey sandwich.
I had tea too, so that felt cozy af. It's remarkable how cold I get in the morning! At home, while it's still dark, a man on NPR will tell me "its 78 degrees at 7:23am." Here, I have chill bumps on my legs and a warm jacket on my torso until 11! Someone explain that to me without using the word 'humidity'!
Ok, next we have class. This morning and all day we had DENSE material to cover! We went over animal enclosure types/requirements/reviews, as well as socialization of new monkeys and tons of welfare standards. Then, Alma took us out for a practical on how to judge existing animal enclosures. In the afternoon we met a new character, the head vet of LWT. She was a very serious person, so she snuggly fit into the same folder as all the other vets I've ever known (like 2 others). Her 3 lectures covered an incredible amount of material... And she was speeding, so I was concerned about asking TOO many questions. She covered zoonosis, safety, and health checks. That was a supreme summarization because it took a huge portion of the afternoon for us to go over all of her material. (She was also oddly casual about Herpes B virus...usually I hear the term "Herpes B" accompanied by a vulgar dungeon pipe organ playing in the background...)
Y'all, I'm so thrilled with the course material.
If I had my notes by me I would spit out some solid random facts I learned today. Maybe I will do a summary blog with my fav cool notes. Also, most of the material is focused on primates!
Lastly, Alma took us on a second practical during which we went over a standardized way of judging the health of animals while they're in their enclosures.
I forgot- I met another new character today, Cazz. She's a white Australian girl who is probably several years older than me. She is the volunteer coordinator. There's something about her... Hmm... I don't know how to say yet. But, she's got a medium-sized tattoo of Africa in between her shoulder blades. How come white girls never get tattoos of Europe or maybe Asia on their backs?...
My friend Stephanie has ALL of the continents tattooed on her back. I think that's very fair.
OH- I almost forgot!!!! EARLY this morning, at a specific time, I was awoken by an amplified chorus of deep Arabic singing! It was pitch black outside... I was so confused... But then I thought to check the time- 5:00am on the dot! Yes! Of course, the mosque! I've never heard ANYTHING like that before!! It was such a neat thing to wake up to. It must have been incredibly loud in the city considering we are kinda far out on the outskirts of town... Jasper said the "wind carries the sound" which boggled my ever-loving mind. But he also said we are up on a hill, which clearly made more sense to me. Also, I'm still confused because I really thought Malawi was predominantly Christian, with Britain's past rule and whatnot. But, I reckon people aren't too upset with the loud early morning choruses! Probably serves as a decent alarm clock, actually. But, just imagine if a mosque in Sylvester took up this custom. (Also imagine if a mosque simply existed in Sylvester.)
Ok after the singing the lions were reacting loudly and then the hyenas and so then I guess the monkeys got all up in a fuss so it was quite a wild cascade of events which made it difficult to go back to sleep but whatever.
Love y'all. I hope these are at least slightly entertaining?
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