Being Domestic

The past two weeks has kept me under house arrest as I try to transition into the next and final phase of my year in Malawi. It's so hard to believe that a year has nearly gone. Right now, Luca, Lucy, Rafael, and Henry are here on my porch, playing bawo and cards - Rafa couldn't walk when I first came, Luca could barely talk. Now they come every afternoon for a snack, a game, or just to laugh and sing outside my door. So when I had to make a test batch of new chiponde for Dr. M's next study (a version with less milk than we currently use, in order to reduce costs), what better group to ask to taste test than my little munchkins outside?

I mixed a batch of peanut butter in the kitchen (it tasted really good - especially since there was no added "medicine" - concentrated minerals and vitamins, and because it is 27% sugar) and brought it out to all the children to try. Luca, Lucy, Henry, Rafa, Nelia and even baby Maggie tried it - everyone loved it. Within just a few minutes, 1/2 pound of peanut butter was gone! I think I'll try playing with the oil content to see if I can make it a little less thick, but things are looking good for that recipe. The next step is to translate a recipe for .25kg of food to a recipe that makes 200 kg of food...

The rest of my days have recently been spent manipulating databases and writing my final report. Nick has taken over in the field with the site visits, which is sad for me, but very necessary for me to finish this work. Some days I feel like my brother when he watches the Giants lose a football game - I yell at Microsoft Excel and hate how Vista just makes everything difficult.

In the coming weeks, I need to get this report finalized, get the new recipe for chiponde up and running at the factory, get the research and ethics committee approval for the new study, have data cards and consent forms printed and organized, and orient the new people.

--> Very cute thing happening here: Rafael is around 1 year old, and the older kids have flipped my outdoor, wicker end table over, and have Rafa sitting on the table part while they pull him around by the legs of the table. When I asked what they are doing, they told me, "Rafa akuyendetsa galimoto!" "Rafa is driving a car!". They are so adorable.

Well thats a short entry for now, just felt like a break from the database.

-dkm