So, this is me, all ready for my 5 week African adventure! I can barely stand. Though I do better with all the bags, so I can balance. In my defense, the one bag is full of goodies for brittni.
For those of you who aren't development geeks, i thought I'd post a bit of numbers about malawi (hey, i have lots of time to kill on this 5 hr layover in DC).
Don't worry if you don't understand all the numbers, just try to relate to the US. I'm basically trying to give u a picture of just how poor this country is.
Population- 15million
Urban population- 19%
Life expectancy- 50.92 years
HIV/AIDS- 11.9% (9th highest in the world)
Literacy- male 76.1%; female 49.8%
School life expectancy- 9years
Language- Chichewa
GDP per capita- $800 ( roughly $2/ day)
Population below poverty lone- 53%
For those of you who don't know, I'm going to visit my friend Brittni, whom I met in grad school. She studied "teaching english to students of other languages" aka TESOL. As part of her degree, she chose to do PCMI- peace corps masters international. (yes, I could have done the same, but decided it was "time to get a real job". Though peace corps is always a plan C for me).
Anyway, she left for Malawi in July 2010, so she's been there just about 1 year. It's a 2 year commitment. I have to give her major props for surviving this long.
I'm going for several reasons:
- I'm always contemplating looking for a job in Africa, but I figured I'd better visit first and make sure i can deal with those conditions for a period of 2+ years
- I'll be starting a "real job" soon and won't have the opportunity to leave for 5 weeks
-it may sound crazy, but I am going to this poor of a country on purpose. After studying development for 2 years and reading tons of books on the subject, I decided I had to see these places for myself.
I think that's enough rambling for now! Next time, I'll be writing from Malawi!
Cheers!
Teh
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Location:En route
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