Contest, College, Cash

First of all, let me just say that I'm glad to see that at least a couple (ya, about half) of my loyal readers are getting into the "guessing contest" spirit. I've had 2 more guesses today, but nope. Keep on guessing! There's no limit to how many guesses you can enter, and you likely still have a few more weeks to guess (hopefully the prize will get there before I do at Christmastime!) Interesting to hear from my friend Bridget that the mail is so slow in PA. I wonder why... Are there a lot of vigilante postal workers around there? Let me just say that I really don't understand the "goin postal" thing, as I've always felt that if I didn't make it to or through college, I'd probably work for the postal service. Especially if I got to run routes. I can't think of a better job, really. Walking around outside, enjoying the sunshine... even better if you get to drive the cool white truck with the right-hand drive. Fun stuff. (Ya, now I know...) Though, I guess it depends on where you live. I suppose being a postal worker in Alaska or Finland probably isn't so much fun. I also probably wouldn't enjoy it so much in southern New Mexico, where I used to live... sweltering hot. Maybe it is a good thing I made it to and through college, though sometimes I still dream of delivering mail or driving a truck for a living. More on that another time.

So, on to my life in Malawi. Today was relatively uneventful, actually, but there are some interesting things going on with my job and my finances. As I've mentioned before, I'm posted at two academic institutions-- Domasi College of Education, where I currently am not teaching any classes, but will start in a week or two (I'd better double-check on the exact start date), and Chancellor College in Zomba, where I've been teaching for about a month now. I think I also mentioned that there is currently a lecturer's strike underway, which began last week, but which I am not a part of, due to the fact that I'm not from here, and thus not in the union. The dispute is over a pay increase that was promised by the government and the higher-ups at the University of Malawi, a government-funded institution. Chancellor College is a branch institution of that university. Well, after teaching the class today, I ran into another instructor, Dr. Mbano, who is the wife of Mr. Mbano, who was the lecturer that taught my Language and Communications course prior to my arrival. He's now in Scotland, studying a PhD on a special grant program at the University of Glasgow, I believe related to the special relationship between Scotland and Malawi which I mentioned earlier. Lucky guy!

In any case, Dr.. Mbano was able to give me some more info. on the strike. It appears that the lecturers have been getting a pretty raw deal, as other administrative officials (especially those in the upper ranks) have been getting periodic raises, but the lecturers have not gotten a cent in over two years, so they're understandably very upset. Hmmm... sounds like some small private colleges in the Northeast I've recently become familiar with. In any case, the lecturers have been threatening a strike for awhile, and finally are going ahead with it. This is not just Chancellor College, but the entire University of Malawi System. I also picked up a newspaper after class today, and found out that many officials believe that if unresolved soon, this strike could disrupt the end of the school year, leaving students to finish their academic year (which should end in November) in January or February of 2008. It's really a bad situation. Even if I continue teaching, it will likely disrupt my course as well, since the students will literally be sent home if their instructors are unable to go back to the classroom.

So, this is serious stuff. I think my students might be relieved if this happens, though, as I have them working on a big research paper, and they're already looking frazzled, even though we're only in the preliminary research phase. I even had to escort them to the library today to help them out. This is clearly the first time most of them have ever done any type of research. We shall see what happens, but they're hard workers, so I have faith they'll figure it all out. I'll keep you posted.

The only other big event for me today was picking up my new ATM card at the National Bank of Malawi. It's been there for a couple of weeks, but I just never had the time nor opportunity to go get it. I also thought it might take a long time, based on my previous experience waiting around at the bank for about 2 hours while opening my account. In the end, it didn't take long at all (about 10 mins. in all). However, when I went to the ATM to check my acct. balance, there was only 5,000 kwacha in the acct. (about 35 bucks). I was shocked, as I'd had much more than that put in via a personal check when I opened the acct., and I knew the check had cleared last week when I looked at my online statement.

Of course, I went back into the bank to check it out. I should've guessed. Citibank is behind the whole thing. Ya. Citibank. I haven't trusted that organization since I got lured into my first credit card scam with them shortly after my college graduation a la 1989 (Ya, I'm OLD!!). Ya, I was a communications major and didn't know how to read the small print, especially anything numerical... 20% interest? What's that? Holy idiocy, they took all the money I didn't have-- and then some...

Anyway, it turns out that Citibank has some sort of ownership over The National Bank of Malawi, and at least handles their overseas transactions. Since I opened the acct. with a personal check (to save on the wire transfer fees, which now I see wasn't worth it), I had to wait for that to clear in order to start using the acct. It took a good 3 weeks to clear the bank. Now, the money is sitting in some vault somewhere at Citibank, and little gnomes are counting it before sending it into my acct. at The National Bank of Malawi. Maybe they have to fill their pots of gold and then find a leprachaun at the end of a rainbow who can put it on a boat and send it to Malawi. I just wish they'd hurry the bloody thing up.

In the meantime, I'll be visiting the HSBC leprachauns online and getting a scanned copy of the check printed for the bank, so maybe they can send it to the gnomes who will wire it to the leprachauns who can then ship it over to me. That'd be nice, eh? Wish me luck on that (misad)venture! Tiwonana Mawa!