Top of the Morning!

Sunday night we set up the brines and woke up early Monday morning to start peeling and slicing the sweet potatoes! We got everything set up and figured out so that we could get all of the water activity testing we would need to have more data points in our graph. Our plan is to take water activity readings every three hours for this run so we can see how dry the sweet potatoes are able to get for a longer period of drying.

Water activity readings for five different treatments of sweet potatoes takes us about an hour to do. During the two hour break in between, I was able to do my much needed laundry. I did a lot too, so my hands were getting a little raw from wringing out the water. As we have been cutting into the samples, they are extremely hard! I almost got a blister on my hand from cutting the sweet potatoes up. I'm going to have to change how I cut the sweet potatoes once in a while so a blister doesn't form. My hands are probably a lot stronger than they were before!

After talking with Emily yesterday morning, the plan was to go about as if we were to carry out the sensory testing. A lot of planning and methods go into it, so we wanted to make sure that if we were to be able to do it this week, that it would be a success. It added quite a bit of stress to our day, but it was a good experience. That evening, we got another call from Emily about the sensory testing and it turns out that it will be a no-go because we will need her help in coming to Blessings Hospital, which is incredibly hard to arrange for her because of her sociology testing this week. We don't really have the manpower for it. Also, it is comforting to know that the main use of these dried potatoes will be in soup form, so the flavors that the sweet potatoes have from the pretreatments will not have a huge effect. We also worked on rehydrating the sweet potatoes and on the salt pretreatments, Renee didn't think they tasted salty.

With our water activity readings, we will be waking up at around 5:30am to make sure that we can get the readings taken starting at 6:00am. I haven't woken up that early in a long time! We'll be doing that the rest of the week for sure! We do our last set of water activity readings at 6:00pm. On Thursday and Friday with our last run of sweet potatoes, we are going to take readings every two hours to get more data points along the beginning curve of dehydration.

That's the update so far!

Work Time!

On Sunday we met Win Duersch. He is a very talented man. He works at NuSkin and created the Vitameal mixes that so many children benefit from. Win told us that they provide Vitameal for a school in Romania and that often girls would have to stay home from school. In order to get them to go to school, they decided that only the children who went to school could have Vitameal. This made it so that many more girls attended school and could not only benefit nutritionally, but educationally. We were able to go to church with Win. Church was wonderful as always and Nicolle and Emily both gave talks. They both did a wonderful job!

Win Duersch met with us today at SAFI and asked us a few questions about our research. He wasn't intimidating, just expected a lot from us. Win told us how we are truly affecting so many lives. Even if we teach someone a little about nutrition, a little about farming, a little bit can go a long way and inspire someone, just the way that Napoleon Dzombe became inspired. Napoleon lived in a village not far from SAFI and was just a regular young villager. Then he learned and grew and taught others his knowledge. He built the dam here that we have near SAFI so that there is water to benefit from. He even had the road made bigger and more accessible to the main road. That's a lot of manual labor from these villagers, but they did it and now vehicles can come through. Napoleon started Blessings Hospital. He has affected so many lives!

This week we are working on solar drying two runs of sweet potatoes so that we can have more water activity data points in order to have a more extensive graph. So we are taking water activity readings more often and are drying out the sweet potatoes even more this time. Today was a good start! Everything ran smoothly and now we are in the afternoon and just working on water activity readings for each sample. We have not been able to do any sensory testing because all of the students here have left already. Win might have thought of a solution for us. He might be able to talk to Napoleon and have us bring our samples to Blessings Hospital and right before the workers eat lunch, we could have them test the samples. Hopefully we would be able to do that. We would have to contact Emily though and we have been trying to call her, but she has not been answering. She is out working on the sociological aspect of her research in order to find out how interested villagers are to a solar dryer and if they would use it at all. If they would use it, she is trying to find out if they would want a community one, or just would rather have their own. Hopefully her surveying is going well! We'll have to see what happens with the sensory testing though. It would be nice if it could work out because then we will have results of what Malawians think about the different tastes of the sweet potatoes rather than what Americans think about them. If we don't do testing in Malawi, it will be tested in the United States, and since it is for the people in Malawi, it isn't as helpful if we test it on Americans. We'll see what happens though!

There are definitely not as many people here at SAFI or little kids to hold my hand this week! In fact, I haven't seen any little kids today, and that's not just because I've been working a lot today. I've walked back and forth a bit, and the usual children aren't there. I sure miss them!

Tick Troubles and Bottle Caps

When we were staying at Korea Garden Lodge this weekend, two surprising things occurred.

Surprise one:
Adam knocked on our door and showed us a tick that he had on him. He had a rash-like area from where the tick had been feeding I guess. It was pretty strange looking. But there the tick was, still hanging out connected to his skin.
Then he said to me, "I want you to take it out."
What me? Was my thought.
And then he handed me his big pocket knife.
"Uh, okay." Was all I said
I've heard of people burning ticks off, but since we didn't even have a way to heat up his knife to sanitize it and we just used hand sanitizer, I guess this was our only option. He probably knew better than me I guess. He told me to just get below the head, that was the most important part and to not squeeze the tick or else it would let out nastiness from it.
So I just started trying to get it out.
The tick wasn't very far in, so that was helpful, and probably less painful for Adam.
He didn't squirm too much or make any noises to show that he was in pain, so that helped make my job easier. I felt really bad just cutting into him even if it was going to help him out, so I had said sorry because I just felt so bad!
Finally I got it out without him bleeding very much so that was also good.
We looked at the tick and it was still trying to eat at the tiny bit of flesh that his head was connected to.
So gross!
The next day, Adam told us that he realized that he didn't have his vengeance upon the tick and couldn't even remember what he did with it after observing it on his knife. So basically it could have still been in Renee and I's room somewhere. Needless to say, I checked myself for the tick in the shower the next night.
We were clear.

Surprise two:
Renee and I were reading in our room, and then Adam came in to chat with us. It was pretty fun, and then he saw that I was reading The Prisoner of Zenda. He had read that book when he was younger and he really enjoyed it. Then he asked if I would read it out loud so that he could remember some of it. I told him he could just borrow it after me, it wouldn't take me too long to finish, but he was adamant that I read aloud to Renee and him. After I denied many times, I finally gave in. I started and after a while he had me pause so that he could get a coke from his room next door. I was about to continue when he started opening the bottle cap with one of the water bottles. Suddenly the bottle cap popped forcefully into the air, hit the ceiling and then the wall and then hit my hand on the way down and then the ground. It was so sudden and surprising. Luckily the top of the bottle cap hit my hand instead of the sharp parts so it didn't hurt. It was just so crazy! I have never seen that happen before. Maybe it's because we have plastic bottles of soda in the States so that way we can slowly release the pressure that builds up while the cap is still pretty secure on the bottle.
It was pretty funny and surprising and we held our shocked expressions for a while and looked at each other and had a good laugh over it.

Running and Some Chichewa

As I was on a walk with Nicolle and Renee, we ran into some little boys who were up for a walk as well. They started walking with us. I tend to walk fast anyway, so I was getting a little bit ahead of Nicolle and Renee in the group and I had a little group of boys with me. One of the boys looked over to me and made a running motion in place. I said to him "Race? Running?" He said yes. I don't usually shrink from a challenge since I'm so competitive, so with that we were off! I was in my pants and chacos and was running on uneven dirt, so I wasn't going full speed, but I sure was bookin' it! The young boy who has shorter legs than me and is skinnier than me kept up with me really well! I was so surprised! We slowed down and the other little boys were running to catch up and laughing about the race. The boy I raced and I 'high fived' and then I noticed a boy holding a sling shot.
It looked something like this:

They told me it was a catapult and they started giggling after I grabbed a rock and asked to use it. The boy handed it over snickering. I'm guessing they thought I didn't know how to use it. Once I shot it the boys all went, "Ohhh!" It was so funny and they are just so fun! They have so much energy and such a desire to explore. After that, the boy wanted to race again. We were going up a hill this time, but that didn't stop us! He stayed with me really well in the beginning but tapered off a bit. As I stopped at the top of the hill, he was jogging after me and there was a group of women that were at the top of the hill that had seen me running. They were laughing and motioning running to me and speaking in Chichewa. I was nodding my head yes. Women hear don't run, they have a lot to do each day and the women here have such strong arms! It's amazing! Their arms are so toned! What they do each day is hard work enough, there's no need to run. It was pretty fun though. One of the best walks I've been on.

When Akim was driving us back to SAFI, he started teaching me some Chichewa. I'm still not very good at it and don't understand much of anything, but it was really interesting.
He taught me 'nose', which is 'puno'. Also, if you say 'campuno', it means 'little nose'. And if you say 'kancampuno' it means 'one little nose'.
Some of the little boys taught me the word for 'dirt'. It's 'ulime'.

As I walk around SAFI, I don't always hear 'azungu!!' yelled at me anymore. Now I usually hear 'Whinny! Whinny!' It's really funny! They just have a way of saying my name that just makes me smile. And then I say the names of the kids that I know and ask the others what their names are to try and remember them too. It's really fun. We have a good time saying words to each other that the other doesn't understand but repeats anyway.

Crazy!

This weekend has been crazy including Thursday. Yikes! Let's go through day by day, it's just easier...

Thursday:
NuSkin Japan and NuSkin Korea came to SAFI to check everything out and see how SAFI is doing. It was really exciting to see some of them that we already got to see when we went with them to the Vitameal plant. Emily presented to them the solar dryer and the research that we are doing with it. It was pretty great. She did a really good job. Then I did my workout for the night and packed because we were leaving early Friday morning to join NuSkin Japan and NuSkin Korea again for the day.

Friday:
Woke up at 4:40 so that we would leave on time at five in the morning. It was a fun road trip early though! We were with NuSkin Korea in the beginning of the day and we loved it! We went to a village that is a part of the Brighter Future Initiative and we got to see the daycare and such. We were all welcomed with dancing and singing! How lovely! It was really fun and especially fun to see the Koreans getting into the dancing. They were so fun and sweet! The Malawians loved it. After visiting with them and giving the little children the Vitameal porridge, we were off! They danced with us as we left and a couple of the women were standing in front of me trying to teach me the feet movements of the dance. I thought I was doing okay, but I guess I needed some extra help. It was really fun! They would laugh when I messed up, but we just kept at it! I even got to sign the visitor book of the village! I felt really special. Then as we were heading to lunch, the NuSkin Korea van pulled over and gave us cold water! YES! It was amazing! They are so nice to us. We had a delicious lunch. It was some of the best food, yet again, that I have had from being in Malawi. We had a mini meat pot pie, salad, apples, a vegetable bean salad, cabbage, egg rolls, etc. Just delicious! For the rest of the afternoon, we went with NuSkin Japan to an orphanage. The kids were so sweet! The children would just come up to you and would be your best friend for the time you were there. The young girl that came up to me was named Martha. She was very sweet and wants to be a doctor. The kids had a little performance for us after we toured the orphanage. When we had gone with NuSkin Korea, they gave the village gifts and toys, and NuSkin Japan gave the orphanage gifts and toys as well. The kids at the orphanage also eat Vitameal. It was very exciting to see the kids who were once very skinny and unwell that are now healthy from the Vitameal.
After all that excitement we sad goodbye to our NuSkin friends and the orphans and went to our hostel, Mabuya Camp. I decided to just read until I went to bed. Renee and I were going to stay in a tent this time because it is less expensive. As we were talking and laughing, Renee's rash was getting worse and worse and her face and lips were swelling quite a bit! So, I told her we should try and find Emily. We told Emily and decided that Renee should stay at Korea Garden Lodge because for some reason she always breaks out in the rash especially at Mabuya. So we walked to Korea Garden Lodge because we didn't have access to the van and brought all of our things because Renee wasn't going to stay there by herself, so I went along with her. We checked in, showered and got ready for bed. At around 10:00, and then 12:00, and then 2:00 Renee woke up and threw up. She was not feeling well at all. Somehow, every time, I woke up too and was somehow alert enough to ask her questions about how she was feeling and I told her to drink more water so that it wouldn't be as acidic if she threw up again among other things that I said that I just really don't remember. We survived the night, but I kept waking up even if she wasn't waking up too because I felt like I would miss her if she did wake up sick again. So we didn't get much sleep that night.

Saturday:
It's Malawi's Independence Day! We woke up and went to the complimentary breakfast and Renee had a piece of toast and some slices of an orange. She still wasn't feeling too great, and her rash was still pretty prominent, but it went away on her face. We ended up going to the hospital that day and stayed there for a good while in lines and getting her blood tested and whatnot. Finally she was given a bunch of medicines and they told her that she has a bacterial infection in her blood. Yikes! So off we went back to Korea Garden Lodge to have her rest and hopefully better! We grabbed some food on the way back so that she could eat before she had the pills since she had still been feeling nauseous all day. Since I was pretty tired too, I just chilled at Korea Garden Lodge with Renee. Renee fell asleep after eating a little bit of food and I just sat and read. Somehow, I just wasn't tired enough to fall asleep. That night we had more food and Renee took her pills. Later she ended up throwing up again, and some of the pills were bright pink, and she had lost some of those that night too. We just decided to just wait to take the other round in the morning. She was fine the rest of the night, but I kept waking up because of different noises around the hostel I guess, so then I would look over to see if she was okay. Needless to say, it was a rough night again for me.

Sunday:
Renee had some breakfast again, and was able to keep it all down! Yay! She had her pills and it's the afternoon now and she feels better already. Thank goodness! We went to Church. It was Fast Sunday so we had Testimony meeting. It was wonderful to hear the different testimonies of the saints here. They are so new to the church and have such a wonderful energy and testimony! I really feel like I belong in this Branch in Lilongwe now. Before I kind of felt like an outsider still and not very sure of myself with everyone around, but now, I feel like I belong. I feel like I am a part of the Branch and know the members much better. In the very beginning, the first week we went there, all of the members were so welcoming, it just took me time to get to know everyone's faces and names better for me to truly feel a part of the Branch. We headed back to SAFI for the day.

What an adventure we had. It was pretty incredible. And I thought it was going to be a boring weekend. No sir! Excitement galore! I wonder what this next week holds! You never know.

Vitameal Distribution and Orphanage

Early this morning, we headed out to Malingunde in order to see NuSkin distribute Vitameal to the children. Children from many towns come and sit down in lines. Each child gets a decent sized bag of Vitameal mix. It consists of roasted soy pieces (roasted with a lot of heat in order to deactivate the trypsin inhibitors), and corn both ground up into a powder and bagged. There were so many lines of kids and I was able to talk to the chief of Malingunde. He was a very friendly man and told me that these children were from different towns and the kids are able to get a bag once a month for their family. Only the children are able to get the bags. If a mother comes with her child, they together get one bag. Unfortunately, my camera had died early today, so I was unable to get ANY pictures the whole day! So sad! But I was able to help distribute the bags to the children. As I walked back to the beginning of the lines after distributing, the children would wave. They are so sweet and were so happy. As they were clearing out, they would come up to us and shake our hands and say thank you. Some of them were nervous to do so, but if we put our hand out, then they would shake it. It was a great way to start the morning!

Next was to grab some lunch. We didn't know whether we were invited to the lunch part with the actual NuSkin faculty, so we went to the grocery store really fast. (NuSkin Korea and NuSkin Japan were the ones visiting.) Shoprite was my grocery store of choice today, so off I went after we got out of our minibus. I really wanted some apples, so that was a definite purchase, and then I was feeling a candy bar...so I went for it! I was checking out and the lady at the register didn't know how much the apples were, so she checked out everything else and then waited for another employee to get that for me. So I had two receipts to leave with! Yes! And then I went out the doors. Beep Beep Beep!!! I stop dead in my tracks...I knew it was me...but why!?! And then I thought...what? They have that kind of security here in Malawi!?! Haha! It was pretty funny. Then the security guard looked like he was motioning me to continue on, so I started walking but kept looking at him unsure. He shook his head no with the same motion, so I was guessing it was opposite day but only for hand motions and I went over to him. I got my two receipts out for him. Guess what caused the beeping...the CANDY BAR!!! What!?! Wow, candy bars must be pretty precious here. I don't even know!
Well, I was too full to eat the candy bar right away, so it melted in the minibus. But that's okay, it will harden up for tonight or some other time.

Next stop, Vitameal Plant! As we were headed there, we heard a lot of music coming from a minibus. Speakers were attached to the top of it and it was following a truck that was carrying a nice, new car with balloons attached to it! At first, Akim said it could be a wedding. Apparently in the city, when there is a wedding, they drive around and play music and throw money. But usually weddings are on Fridays and Sundays. Hmmm...turns out, it was a prize car from Airtel on route to deliver it to a lucky winner! AND they were throwing out free Airtel minutes! Fooled us! It was fun though, because as we were driving behind them, we would see people on the side of the road dancing to the music they were playing. It was really fun to see everyone so happy!

The Vitameal Plant was pretty cool. They have bags and bags and bags of soybeans and corn to use for the Vitameal mix. They clean the raw foods and heat the soybeans a bunch to deactivate the trypsin inhibitor. (We got to taste some.) It was great going through with NuSkin Korea and NuSkin Japan because they responded to everything with 'Oooohs' and 'Aaaaahs'. It was so fun! It made me really appreciate everything more. It kind of made me wonder if they just show their inward emotions more or are more appreciative of these little things that people do that can turn out so big! It was just overall really cool and fun to be with them and communicate with some of them. They had a roasted flavor. Yum! Then they grind up the corn and roasted soybeans and bag it! Simple! Then there was lunch, which we were aloud to have. It was amazing!! Some of the best food we've had in a while! At least, it was really similar to what we would usually eat in America, so it was a nice taste of home. We even got to try some of the Vitameal, it was actually pretty tasty (maybe it's because they added some sugar though...but it's probably still pretty good without it).

Off to the Orphanage! It is called Ntendere (I think that's how you spell it), and it means 'peace'. It was really nice! They had a whole presentation and dancing for us and NuSkin. It was really nice. They did a traditional dance that was really cool too. Then the children wanted to play a game with us. NuSkin picked soccer. So they played a soccer game while we talked to the children. It was really fun. Some of them know French. Most of the children have become orphans because their parents have died of AIDS or because their father died and their mother married again and their new father rejected them. How sad. We checked out the library, and then were off!

It was a long day full of adventure and many kids. I loved every second!

Bathe Like a Malawian

We've been out of water since Thursday, so that has been pretty fun. We've managed pretty well and somehow Nicolle and I did some laundry. We have buckets in the bathroom area so that if the water does go out, we can still last a little while. Luckily that was the case for Nicolle and I this weekend. For a while we thought our sheets and clothes were going to sit in the soapy water all weekend, but a little bit of water was coming from the sinks, so we hurried and filled up some buckets with water to finish our laundry. Then we were going to shower, but by then, the water stopped working....so no luck with the shower. But then, by some miracle, the water started working yesterday!!! Wahoo!! The other women that were in our hostel filled up a bunch of buckets while the water was still going (what angels) so we were able to come back to the hostel last night happy as can be! I set up my filled buckets in the shower area and started splashing the water on me and everything just how they taught me. (Also, Nicolle gave me some tips too because she had just bathed as well.) It was kind of difficult because you have to squat down the whole time basically, but it was all so worth it! The water was a little chilly, and Renee had offered to heat it up for me, but I didn't feel like going through a whole other step before being clean again!
AND...
The cleaning lady even cleaned our sheets! Haha! We had no idea that she does that, so Nicolle and I had cleaned ours about two days before now. It was pretty comical. We had a good laugh about that. So it was the perfect night. Clean sheets, clean self. It was the best night of sleep I have had since I got here in May. Maybe that's the true secret of a good nights rest...well, maybe that's just for me.

On another note, there was a huge grasshopper in our hostel! I successfully got it out, but I've gotta say, I was a little scared that it was going to jump at me and attach to my face or something. That played in my head as I was getting it out, so I held the metal rod to get it out as far from me as possible, just in case. I was having a difficult time as I was outside getting it off the metal rod though. So I used a little piece of a sugar cane to scoot it off and then it jumped up and fluttered a bit and flew over my head. At first I was worried it had gone inside again since I left the door open, but it landed on the brick of the building above the door. The noise it made as it jumped was pretty cool too, it's probably the noise you hear all grasshoppers make, but it was just louder and seemed really strong. I could hear it latch onto the brick wall as it landed too. So cool!

Really big grasshopper. Longer than my middle finger!

He's looking at me!!!

One day, I was outside walking back to the hostel and there were a bunch of young kids outside and they were saying 'nfundo' or something like that. Moi, who speaks english quite well told me that it means 'picture'. So I hurried inside to get my camera so that we could have some fun taking pictures. I took a bunch of pictures of them and would show them the picture and they would start laughing and pointing at the picture. It was funny. Then I crouched down to try and get in a picture with them. They weren't understanding the fact that it would take a picture of us. So one of the kids stood in front of the camera to see what I was pointing at after looking where I was looking, and that's when I took the picture. It was pretty funny! Then I tried to motion to them to come by me and then they would be in the picture after I showed them what happened in the last picture. They caught on pretty fast and we were successful!

We're working on it...

Success!