Welcome, Env 2009!

Around this time of year, a whole new crop of Environment volunteers packs up and sets out for shores strange and foreboding, or at least, the Lilongwe airport. As I recall, packing was intensely worry-filled – though I realize now how it need not have been. Just in case it might help ease anyone’s mind, I thought I’d offer up my own packing list, as an addendum to the official one. If you’re not about to embark on a two-year mission to a third world country, or if you’re already happy with the stuff in your bags, you’ll likely want to skip this post – it’s unlikely to be particularly interesting. I’m not even going to include any pictures. Okay, maybe one, but that’s it.

First, general notes: your bags are limited by weight (though not strictly), but packages from home are charged by volume. In other words, if you’re having anything sent to yourself, heavy and small things should go in packages. (And several volunteers recommend mailing yourself a package or three several weeks before you leave; your address in Lilongwe is Your Name, PCT; PO Box 208; Lilongwe, Malawi, Africa.) Large but light things should go in your bags – to the extent possible. Also, you may want to determine now your packing philosophy. For example, the official list says to bring a non-stick frying pan, and indeed, it’s quite possible that you’ll want one sooner or later. You could… A: bring it (or a lightweight nesting pan set) in your gear, which could be a considerable weight cost; B: buy it in Lilongwe’s Shoprite for around fifteen bucks, a considerable monetary cost especially if you’re determined not to dip into your own savings; or C: wait till you can find a cheap one from a departing volunteer or some back alley Indian importer’s boutique, a considerable cost in time and hassle. Just like in any fourth grader’s multi-ending storybook – you get to pick your own adventure.

Bring Ziplock bags and Tupperware – the cheap kind is fine. You’ll be very, very glad to have both, to contain and limit the rapidly-spreading weevil infestations in stored foodstuffs, if nothing else. Ziplock bags are hugely expensive and found only in two cities; all the covered containers available are of poor construction.

Regarding your own medical supplies: consider bringing multivitamins, icy-hot, antibiotic ointment with pain relief, good hydrocortisone cream, any favorite brands of decongestants or stomach-related tablets (gas-ex, peptobismol), and Costco-sized bottles of ibuprofein and aspirin. Except for the first two, you can get all these items from the medical center… upon request, and in tiny quantities and odd dosages or formulations. If you want any mosquito repellant except DEET, bring that too.

Toilitries: Bring any unusual personal grooming items which you enjoy using – a pumice stone, nose hair trimmers, ultra-fancy razors, whatever. As for consumables and cheap razors, you can purchase all the basics (soap, lotion, toothpaste) in most villages. There are even some premium brands, like AXE body spray, available in Lilongwe… at a price. A tube of good gel deodorant can set you back ten bucks. On the other hand, you can also find Indian imports for about a dollar, though these sometimes verge on the… well, strange.


But then, who wouldn’t want to top off a bucket bath with a little swank?

As for food items: I’d recommend bringing as many luxuries and spices as you have room for. You can get the basics and good Indian spices at Tutla’s in Lilongwe – pepper, garlic powder, tumeric, and even coconut milk and soy sauce – but many east Asian (lemongrass and galangal) and western (rosemary, dill, and sage) spices are tough to find. Spice mix in packets or bottles, like instant barbeque sauce, taco mix, spicy Creole seasoning, or Thai peanut curry (my favorite!), are held in such esteem as to be an acceptable form of currency among volunteers.

As for the luxury food items you should bring or have sent: the food during training is excellent, though you’ll probably only appreciate how awesome it is after you’ve been at site for a few months. So if you miss any food, it’ll probably be something familiar: cheetoes or grapes, maybe. Once you’ve been at site for a while, you’ll probably begin to crave protein. There’s little dairy available in most areas, and animal protein of any sort is very expensive (except for the ubiquitous little dried fish, but they’re an… acquired taste). For example, the Malawi PC office calculates that you should need about a buck fifty a day for food. That’s sufficient to purchase roughly seven eggs, or five cups of milk, or almost an entire six-ounce can of tuna, or a pound of bony goat meat… or between three and eight kilos (~6-18 lbs) of the refined corn flour used to make nsima, depending on the time of the year. On the bright side: there’s plenty of opportunity to learn to make killer beans and tortillas. This is a great country in which to be a vegetarian. But chances are good you’ll really come to appreciate a little protein powder, some granola bars, parmesan cheese, jerky, or even (gasp) spam.

You can buy a number of American candies and snacks, at roughly double American prices, in large cities – Snickers, Oreos, Lay’s potato chips in tubes, Mounds bars, M&Ms – but Reese’s pieces, Starburst, and Skittles are unavailable here.

Don’t bring Crystal Light or Tang or Gatorade – or at least, not much, unless you really love those particular brands. ‘Juice’ packets sell in every little grocery store for fifteen kwacha, and are just fine for flavoring your heavily-chlorinated water. Speaking of which – the Peace Corps supplies you with a very good charcoal filter, and Waterguard (dilute chlorine) is available in every minor town, so don’t worry too much about bringing iodine tablets or a silver-imbedded ultra-compact backpacker’s filter. On the other hand, you may want to consider an ultra-compact backpacker’s *stove*. Local paraffin (kerosene) stoves use wicks rather than a pressurized fine fuel spray, so they are messy, use a lot of kerosene, and occasionally blow up in one’s face. (My sitemate lost half an eyebrow.) But in some areas of the country, paraffin is difficult to find at any price, so you may end up having to cook on wood or eat with other people anyway.

There are a number of handy gadgets and conveniences, difficult to find in country, which you may overlook when packing. In no particular order: good glue (rubber cement or multipurpose,) hand sanitizer, good scissors, sturdy hiking socks (don’t worry too much if they don’t match; you’ll be cutting up one of a pair to repair the other pretty soon, anyway), a knife/tool sharpener (or a set of kitchen knives that will hold an edge better than the local variety), leatherman, vegetable peeler, a book or three which you’ve been yearning for time to read, a durable waterproof wristwatch possibly with alarm and compass, batteries for the aforementioned wristwatch, short wave radio, can opener, solar shower, hair clips if you’re going to grow yours out, sewing kit (you can find thread everywhere but good needles are much more difficult), a giant roll of duct tape, a French press (coffee is oddly expensive in this coffee-growing country, but loose-leaf tea is very cheap), spice or coffee grinder, a frame backpack, a tent and lightweight sleeping bag (sleeping accommodations at the volunteer resthouses are very limited during events, so you may end up using a tent more often than you imagine, unless you like sleeping on a couch in the room where three other volunteers are watching movies till two AM), and a hammock. If you can get them inexpensively, aromatic oils are wonderful to have – just a drop or two makes a bucket bath relaxing and special, and a dab of lavender on your pillow can ease sleep. Incense, if you like it, is nice for the same reason.

Seeds are very lightweight and, in my biased opinion, one of the most important things to bring. Herb seeds are primary – basil, sage, rosemary, parsley, savory, chives, thyme, mint, oregano, and so on. But familiar vegetables and flowers can be a godsend after a trying week, too – watermelon, real pumpkins, beets, broccoli, sweet corn, lettuce, carrots, green beans, snap peas, and peppers are all neigh impossible to find in villages. And while freshly-picked tomatoes are an integral part of the local cuisine, the varieties commonly grown produce fruits which resemble the pink cannonballs sold in chain grocery stores in January, back in the ‘States.

If you’re willing to share seeds, you’ll find many eager takers. A small gift of seeds can be a good way of helping someone out without giving them money directly – lack of seeds is a big reason why people don’t try a larger or more nutritious variety of crops. Yet unusual vegetables sell well and command high prices in the market, when they can be found – a single medium-sized carrot, for example, is between ten and twenty cents. You can order half a pound of carrot seeds – roughly a quarter million seeds – for around fifteen bucks from sites such as rareseeds.com.

Clothing was discussed in posts previous, but just incase you’re in a hurry, I’ll cover the basics: you’ll probably want to largely ignore the Peace Corps list. You can get most items here – jeans, dress shirts, t-shirts, skirts, and shoes. (According to the PC list, you’re supposed to bring six or seven pairs of the latter. I foolishly did, and for a short while was known to wiser volunteers as ‘shoe girl.’ You don’t need more than light hiking shoes, fancy shoes, and some everyday-wear waterproof sandals, unless your feet are hard to fit. The sandal companies ‘Chaco’ and ‘Teeva’ offer PC volunteers a big discount, if you scan and email your acceptance letter.) Bring your own underwear and bras. Environment volunteers should bring a minimal quantity of sturdy and easy-to-clean clothing for mild-to-cool weather, since Dedza can get chilly in March and April – but you’ll never need more than a light jacket and a blanket in the rest of the country. (Health volunteers arrive in Dedza during the absolute coldest months – they can expect daytime temperatures in the fifties, with freezing at night.) Also bring one nice outfit (including a skirt or dress, if you’re female) for getting off the plane, swearing in, and the village farewell. You can find plenty of slacks, suits, and dress shirts here for those occasions when you might need to look ‘professional.’ (Education volunteers may be the exception, as they need to look respectable every day at their schools, even during training.) Do be aware of village sensibilities: above-knee shorts and revealing shirts are right out, though women can wrap a tchenje (length of cloth) over trousers without any difficulty in most districts. In Lilongwe and Blantyre, women can wear trousers outright. Once you get here, button-up dress shirts are fine for men and women alike – no need to run out and shop for ‘blouses’.

Electronic goods require some foreplanning. While some volunteers are perfectly capable of living without so much as a wristwatch, a little music or an occasional movie can make all the difference in the world. Those I’ve spoken with are of varied minds about laptops. Charging them may be difficult (some people have electricity in their houses; some live four hours from any reasonably reliable power,) and other volunteers may ask to store pictures or transfer files. If anything goes wrong, getting a computer serviced here is… problematic. If all you want to do is type, an electronic typing device (like Alphasmart dana series – check ebay) is lighter and much cheaper, but most don’t play movies or do much else. With the latest update to the reporting system, you will need to use an internet-capable computer to complete reports, but while you can usually find the computer itself in town within a day of travel, you should bring along the usual accompaniment of flash drives and card readers to carry your data around.

A solar charger is a great idea – there are only a few weeks during the rainy season when it will be useless. But take some time to make certain that it charges all your devices; for example, many cameras will not accept rechargeable batteries. If yours won’t, it’s a good idea to bring along some good disposable batteries, since local ones are very bad and western imports are hugely marked up. Also, most ipods (recommended) need to be charged by a 12 volt solar panel – Bruxton sells a good small one that also switches to 6 volts for faster charging of smaller devices. There’s a large, cheap briefcase-style solar charger available on ebay – don’t bring one, as they don’t work well and are heavy. Battery-powered speakers (the Solio brand is recommended by one volunteer) usually take rechargeables and are nice to have if you bring an ipod.

Don’t plan to acquire any electronics in country, except for the phone the Peace Corps issues, and anything you might purchase from other volunteers. Between transportation and import taxes, everything here is more expensive in real terms than in the states – twenty dollars for a SD card reader and the same for a flash drive, forty bucks for battery-powered speakers that can be had on ebay for five to fifteen, a thousand for a laptop that should run half that.

You should bring plenty of lighting – preferably both motion-sensitive lights that can be stuck to walls, and flashlights. The latter are hugely prized as gifts – locally available flashlights are pretty cheap at around two bucks, but they’re also awful. The one I was suckered into buying seems to have been hammered out by a drunken tinsmith, and like many Malawian electronics still functions only reluctantly. If you bring crank (recommended) or shake flashlights, also bring at least one really good ultrabright maglight and a headlamp – one which utilizes AA or AAA batteries, not the button type batteries, which will generally have to be mailed to you. You might not fully appreciate the benefits of superior lighting until you find yourself stalking around outside your house in the dead of night, juggling your machete, flashlight, and personal alarm as you try to figure out what in the world is making that scraping sound against your window frame, while doing your best to avoid the local snakes. Bring good lighting.

Appropriate small gift items for your host family include calendars, pictures, needles, a little flashlight, or, if you want to be lavish, a deflated soccer ball. You can find balls in the Sana shop in Lilongwe for about four dollars, but they tend towards mediocre construction. (Identical balls are sold in the market and many shops for whatever the sellers think they can get from you.)

If you have friends or family kind enough, supportive enough, and awesome enough to be willing to send you packages, you might want to mention a few of the above points or even print out parts of this post, rather than letting people waste money in sending you things you can’t use. Tales of well-meaning care package mishaps abound: there’s the volunteer who received can after can of roasted peanuts (a major local crop here), scented bar soaps (available in every village for fifteen cents), and sanitary napkins (free and plentiful from the health center and all three resthouses.) And then there’s the volunteer who asked for real pumpkin and utensils, because all silverware available at the market is very thin; the forks sometimes bend when fluffing rice. Rather than receiving, say, a prized can of pumpkin pie mix in his next package, he got several small squashes, loosely-packed and thoroughly decaying, and a box of Dixie plastic spoons. Don’t let this be you.

If you still have questions, please feel free to drop me a line at tenley_s@yahoo.com If you’ve found this post helpful, or if you wish to become instantly beloved and acclaimed by all other environment volunteers, we sure wouldn’t demure if you wanted to bring us something. Cheese, root beer, the second season of ‘Californication’, boxed cake mix, tuna, trashy magazines, smoked salmon, chocolate chips (bring a big bag, and we’ll bake you chocolate chip cookies when you’ve been in the village a few weeks and could kill for a taste of home,) canned shrimp, movies, walnuts, Reese’s pieces, Ritz crackers, the latest Economist – we’re not particular. We’d acclaim your name throughout the ages… and also throw you a party once you swear in. (Ok, we’d do that last one anyway. But the cookies and praise and composing of songs in your honor – that’s extra.)

Happy packing – you’re going to love it here.

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This blog is a personal journal, and does not necessarily represent the viewpoints or stances of either the Peace Corps or the United States Government. Warning: This blog may contain small parts; do not swallow blog.