Catch up - Malawi style

So much has happened; I’m not quite sure where to start. My last real post was about Christmas. World Camp certainly keeps me busy and away from my blog. I’ll maybe tell a few stories and not outline everything, because I certainly don’t remember a lot of it and most of it’s work.

All six volunteers were supposed to arrive on Dec. 30. On the 29th, we got two emails from the office in the States saying two volunteers were stuck in airports and wouldn’t get in until the 31st. So the next day I headed to the airport with Cyrus, one of our drivers, and waited for the other four volunteers. The plane emptied and no college-aged azungu girls got off the plane. A security guard bent the rules and let me look back into the baggage claim area but no one fitting the volunteer’s look was there. So I had Cyrus wait in case they walked by really late and went to the South African office. Not to go into details, but the lady helping me wasn’t all that helpful. Turns out only one of the girls was on the manifest, but apparently that doesn’t mean she’s necessarily on the plane. So convinced none of the girls were in Malawi, I headed home. 0 for 4. Luckily, about an hour after I got home, we got an email from one of the girls saying they were all in Joburg together and would be flying in the next morning. Although I’d spent about four hours at the airport, I was glad I hadn’t left anyone behind.

The next day we started orientation a full 24 hours late. Luckily, the volunteers are great and although we were rushed we never missed important points because we didn’t have enough time. We started camp bright and early Monday morning. The school we were at was wonderful. They already had an HIV/AIDS awareness club in place and two tree planting clubs. The teachers and students came to Day 1 on a public holiday – what dedication! The teachers were committed to improving their community and the students were obviously eager to learn.

When we were leaving on Day 3, we passed about ten students walking home on the road. A few of them ran after the bus for a few seconds, but one stayed with us for about five minutes, singing one of our morning songs into the window “Peel Bananas! Peel! Peel Bananas! Eat Bananas! Eat! Eat Bananas!”

Our first outreach project of the session was at Dzaleka refugee camp. again, a truly trying experience. Friday morning we worked with about 30 people. We did a condom demonstration and answered a whole lot of questions. In the afternoon we were given a tour by a few church leaders. It was incredible to see the living situations in the camp. The UN and Red Cross give out monthly rations of ufa (what you use to make nsima) and rice that people use to trade for other food, since they both nsima and rice are eaten with a relish (typically veggies or beans; meat is a special treat).

We saw the camp’s clinic was appeared much nicer than most of the rural clinics we see. The doctor described a wonderful clinic that helped the refugees as much if not more than the Malawians it treated. The refugees described it differently.

We saw the camp’s primary and secondary schools. We saw where the teaching college is being built for Malawians only. We walked through people’s fields of maize and small community gardens. We saw the only preschool in the camp, a single red brick building that accommodates more than 500 preschoolers. We saw the hall where refugees in transfer stay in tents. We saw the notice board where a number of refugees were reading the latest updates. We walked by a bar where we saw and said hi to a teacher from the last school. We passed the office where refugees go to get permits to leave the camp since they can’t do so without permission.

We were stopped Saturday morning in a trading center and told to pull onto a side street with about thirty other cars. Turns out a really important person was driving by and they were clearing the roads. We sat in the car for a few minutes and then heard it was President Bingu who would be passing by. So all eight azungus plus our three Field Staff piled out of the van and walked to the road. I saw the President of Malawi! it was through tinted windows and he was going ridiculously fast, but I saw him!

We made it to the camp a little late and started off talking about stigma. We quickly transferred into questions which turned into refugees asking World Camp for resources. They teach people in the villages about HIV but no one will come because they have no sugar or soap to hand out. When they teach in the camp people come and don’t ask for anything. They wanted shirts. They wanted food. They asked for money. They have ARVs but need more food to take them with. It was heartbreaking to know that WC can’t supply any of this. Is the information we come with any good if the people we’re talking to can’t make the changes they want to?

Sunday we were up early to hike Mt. Nkhoma. We left the house about a half hour after when we’d originally planned because it’d been raining all morning. We got to the mountain and the top was completely covered in clouds. The cloud cover made it cool enough but also completely erased the beautiful view. We scrambled up together in the densest vegetation I’ve ever walked through. It was incredible. The view from the top was absolutely horrible. You couldn’t see twenty feet away. We had lunch at the peak and then headed back down.

Today I stayed back from camp to plan our last outreach project and get some work done. I’m really excited to go to this last CBO. Chris, who I met with today, sounds like he’s put so much into his ten year old organization and they do truly great work.

Since I’m obviously really bad at posting in Malawi, feel free to check out World Camp’s blog since it’s updated weekly by volunteers: worldcampforkids@blogspot.com.

another long catchup!

i promised i'd write about the refugee camp, and now i finally will! only 2 weeks later. we didn't bring any of our own field staff because the majority of the refugees we worked with were congolese and didn't speak chichewa. we invited them to come anyway as participants, which turned out to be a wonderful idea. three field staff came and were incredibly involved in our conversations and great resources during discussions. when we first drove in i could see into houses. at first i was glad that most houses were incredibly sturdy and stable. they're made out of bricks with really durable tin roofs. there were beds much nicer than the ones we sleep in during rural homestays during the session (where there often aren't any beds at all so we sleep on reed mats on the floor). then i realized they're so permanent because none of the refugees are expecting to leave anytime soon. we heard later how hard it is to earn money (they're not allowed to hold jobs) and actually get out of the camp. we worked with a church-based group in the camp. and it turns out that the translators they provided spoke a lot of french! i could pick out some of what they were saying. in the morning, we worked with all adults - some members of the church, some hiv+, and some in a care group. we covered the basics. what hiv is, how it's transmitted, what it does to the body, and how to prevent it. we also did both a male and female condom demonstration. during the female condom demo, a woman stood up to ask a question. i've never seen an adult woman ask a question about any sort of condom before. i was so glad she was able to.

we saved the last 45 minutes for a discussion of the camp. we had broken into two groups and my group's discussion was less successful. it morphed into the refugees asking for help. we offered all the information we could, but can't provide jobs or supplies. it's just not what we do. it was heartbreaking to hear them ask for food. the other group of volunteer got a lot more out of their discussion. the refugees in their room told their personal stories of how they had fled their homes and ended up here. i would have loved to have heard the stories, although it would have been incredibly difficult to get through. but i'm almost glad i didn't have the chance to pry into their lives and bring up memories i'm sure they'd like to forget.

jaren, another coordinator, and i also met with five hiv+ women after our discussion was over. it was a very quick meeting - they wanted to thank us for coming and invite us back themselves. they said discrimination is horrible in the camp and asked that next time we come back we fight stigma.

in the afternoon, we were expecting to work with orphans in the camp. it turns out the church is really involved with a village down the road that has a large orphan population. so we all (11 volunteers, 4 coordinators, 3 field staff, about 10 refugees from the church) loaded into our bus and drove about 15 minutes to a nearby malawian village. no one here was a refugee. we sang songs with the kids first. there were way more than we expected. there were also adults who had come to learn from us, although we'd been told there would be kids only. so rachel (another coordinator) and i, talked with the adults. we again went over the very basics of hiv, but they were interested in malaria. they wanted to know if we could bring bed nets and what they could do to stop malaria in their area. we offered all we knew - long clothing, fill in puddles of standing water with dirt - cover windows, but they wanted more. it's frustrating that we did all we could and yet it's not enough.

we're going to go back to the camp next session. we'll expand on what we taught this time and hopefully go a little more in depth. and we'll address stigma. but discrimination is something that we can visit and talk about, but change can't come from us. that's definitely one of the most frustrating things i've had to deal with while being here.

the next week we did homestay one night. rachel and i tented at the school while the volunteers stayed in houses. i tried sugar cane, smashed corn to make nsima, watched volunteers make relish, and carted water. the school planned dances for us that night. they brought out battery powered lights and there was a dance party in the middle of the field under the starts. they made sure all of us got up and danced around the circle.

the next morning, before camp, we played a game of futbol against all the kids we worked with. we lost. but only 1-0. it was a great game and we all really loved playing. i think the students loved watching us try to play too.

last weekend we stayed at the lake. it was super windy the whole time. we had planned on taking a boat out to a little island where there's great cliff jumping, but they wouldn't let us. we went swimming anyway. i went 3 times. the waves were bigger than most i've been in in california. and it was wonderful. we also walked down the beach by all the boats. and we went into town one afternoon. we watched a soccer game for 20 minutes. the men were adults and there were over 100 people watching.

we walked through the market where everyone knew Baker, the founder of world camp. it's amazing that he's literally known throughout malawi.

this week we only did 3 days at the school because volunteers are leaving friday and we wanted to give them a day off (thursday) to pack and hang out. except that an incredibly opportunity came up for tomorrow and it's going to be a packed day anyway. william, a malawian boy who built a windmill from scraps he found in his village and powered his house is dedicating a new windmill to wimbe primary school (where he went) tomorrow. blessings, who was a translator in january who i was very close to, is william's country manager and invited us to come to the ceremony. it starts at 9 and is two hours away, so we're leaving at 7. it'll probably go until around 1ish. then we'll stay and meet william and his family. i also really want to see the first windmill he built for his house. he has an incredible story and i'm excited to meet a real celebrity tomorrow!

other than that, everything has been great. i've been crazy busy organizing stuff and going to camp everyday, but i still love it. i've gotten to go back to the fabric market a few times, as well as the vegetable and wood markets. morning songs at camp everyday are great, and student presentations on day 4 make what we do worthwhile. volunteers start to leave friday and the house will feel so lonely! new volunteers start arriving the 26, and then second session starts! no down time at all!

i finally updated pictures to facebook! check 'em out!

Things have been beyond crazy at the WC house. I stayed home from camp today to get work done, and end up writing a blog post! But it’s a great chance to take a quick break from logistics and do something else. I’ll work backwards…. Today’s Day 4 of our third camp. That means presentations and solar ovens – definitely some of my favorite things, and I wish I could be there. I also stayed home yesterday to work on a packet for Field Staff orientation that I’m putting together. I got a lot of work done on that, plus learned how to do some accounting.

Today, I’m planning tomorrow’s outreach project. We’re going to Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Dowa District. There are ten nationalities represented at the camp, but the group we’ll be working with is primarily Congolese (which means they speak Swahili, not Chichewa like the Malawians we typically work with!). So the organization is providing their own interpreters. In the morning, we’re going to work with a group of 45 adults. 10 are staff members, 15 are members of an HIV/AIDS awareness club, and 20 are HIV+ people. They asked for basic education because the camp is really far behind in terms of awareness and information. Malawi as a whole has been doing really well recently in raising awareness and increasing education, but the camp is about 15 years behind the rest of the country. While HIV rates are lower than they are in the rest of the country, the camp is considered high risk because it’s closed.

In the afternoon, we’re going to work with 85 kids who were either orphaned by AIDS or are HIV or AIDS positive themselves. They’re ages 7-15. I’m trying to figure out what to do with them right now, and can’t decide if games and teambuilding activities would be more beneficial than education because of the age variance, or if teaching basic information would be better. I’ll definitely post about the day tomorrow or Sunday.

Last weekend we went on safari in Zambia. It was wonderful. We stayed at a place called Flatdogs that I hadn’t been to before (and that has delicious food!!). We camped in tents and had to be escorted to bed each night by guards because hippos walked through every night. We were really close to the river, so they’d come out at night and keep the grass short. Elephants walked through all the time too, so we had to make sure there was enough space between our tents for an elephant to fit. It was crazy to wake up in the middle of the night and hear hippos chomping on grass. They’re incredibly loud eaters. There were also a number of monkeys that would grab any food or items left lying around. When I was sitting by the pool one day, I left my watch on a table. I got up for awhile to throw a football and when I got back it was gone. Luckily, someone found it in the grass, but I’m pretty sure it was the monkeys. I also saw a HUGE monitor lizard in the middle of the camp ground. I was by myself and didn’t have a camera. It was 3-4 feet and I was pretty scared, it watched me walk by.

I went on one night drive and saw some amazing animals. We saw a herd of buffalo, a single male lion, tons of impala, giraffes, hippos, water buck, elephants, zebras, kudu, lots of birds, baboons, velvet monkeys, crocodiles… it was great. With 14 WC people on drives, we took two cars. We met up for sundowners and took tons of pictures while we watched the African sunset. It was great.

The week before I went to camp every day. We were at a great school that was really excited to have us and the students were all wonderful. I do miss being in the classroom though. Now, I get to sit in on classes and watch the volunteer teachers and Field Staff interact with the kids. Plus I get to sit in on teacher meetings, which is incredibly interesting and informative. They’re always so open and willing to discuss the issues.

On the third day of camp during Empowerment (where we split up male and female students), one of the classes heard that a girl at the school had been impregnated by the head teacher and had left. I’m not sure what to believe – the head teacher was a wonderful man who asked us to come and teach at his school. All he talked about was change and education. I know that stuff like that happens throughout Malawi, but I’m not sure it happened at this school. It was kind of a reminder of why we’re – to help the kids learn about HIV and environmental degradation, and what they can do to stop the issues, protect themselves, and raise awareness.

Working with the teachers is supposed to increase the sustainability of our programs – if the teachers know the information, they can continue to teach it. I only hope a man who requests WC comes to teach his students really does have their best interests at heart.

So that’s about it for now. Pictures from the session are up on WC’s facebook page, plus I think a volunteer is going to post about safari tonight on the WC blog, so check that out too. If the internet was any faster, I’d put pictures up myself.

Elena’s newest discovery: right now, the four Clark family members are on 3 different continents!