Chiponde' = Peanut Butter

Muli Bwanji... Hello to all from Blantyre, Malawi. I'm 8 days old now in my new home of sorts, adjusting daily to new sights, smells, tastes, sounds, allergies, languages... I'm here with project peanut butter (projectpeanutbutter.org), also known here as st. louis nutrition project, TEAM CHIPONDE, ect... based on who you're talking to. Chiponde means peanut butter in Chichewa, the first of two official languages here in Malawi, the second being that business language we all know and love which spins the world round everyday for better or worse... English. Now, Chichewa is one of the many Bantu languages which literally means the language of the Chewa, a people who once upon a time ruled a magnificent kingdom here in the highlands above Lake Malawi in central subsaharan africa. These were times before documentation, before inter-global economies, before colonialism. Anyhow, before I get carried away, I wanted to briefly say that I, with a team of nurses, give out fortified chiponde to the children of this economy-less landlocked desititute country, where the average salary reaches an astonishing $3.25 a week. And a 10 kilo bag on maize now costs $12, and we are just post-harvest. I'm not a math person (as some of you well know), but its really shocking what many live on here. But warm smiles abound nonetheless here, and so--through me--the warmest of greetings from malawi: muli bwanji...