So much has been going on. But I realized I’ve never written about the typical things I see – only the extraordinary or unusual. So I decided to write down what I saw on our 45 minute bus ride to Mitundu FPS; everything normal and regular. And then I realized just how astonishing it all is.
A police truck that drops off policemen who will stand in the middle of the road waving cars to the shoulder. They don’t have squad cars to follow anyone driving, so they stay stationary. The newly emptied police trucks give locals rides around town, whether for free or a price I don’t know.
A woman with two feet of bananas carefully piled in a tub, perfectly balanced on her head.
Coffin street: hundreds of beautiful coffins and ribbon decorations in every color for funerals that haven’t been held yet – and I barely notice. Death is different here. John, who works in the World Camp house, told us that we fear death too much. It’s a natural part of life that is accepted and even embraced here. Ten minutes further down the road: stone tombstones. And you’d be hard-pressed to find one without a cross on it.
A mother who carries a boy, maybe nine or ten, on her back as she would an infant because he has casts on both legs.
Full goat carcasses hanging from stands on the side of the road fully exposed to car emissions, flies, and the sun.
A group of women pumping water for the day – enough for drinking, cooking, and washing.
I’m shocked to see a young girl, maybe 13, jumping on and clearly flirting with a boy about the same age.
Glad we didn’t get stopped by the police today, even though I know we have a licensed driver and a properly insured bus.
Men pushing their bikes with wood stacked eight feet high because it’s too heavy and unstable to ride.
Waiting at a red light next to a begging man with shoes on his hands because he cannot stand upright and walks on all fours.
Billboards in English next to billboards in Chichewa advertising safe driving, Carlsberg beer, female condoms, Bingu’s new agricultural policies, and paint brands.
Girls in pants remind me of a quote from yesterday’s Nyassa Times: “There is a growing tendency among girls in the country to wear miniskirts, exposing thighs, which force men to rape them.”
Signs advertising for plumbers, electricians, and key makers hand painted on large pieces of wood and nailed to trees: PLUMBER tel: 099725673
Barber shops, where I know kids fear they’ll contract HIV.
Two women, each with a child on her back and a bundle on her head carrying another huge bag between them.
All while I sit in a dirty bus that I’ve complained doesn’t have a tape deck that burns through diesel as if Malawi wasn’t experiencing a fuel shortage.
Telephone lines that run along dirt roads.
Children run beside our bus as long as they can, always chanting azungu.
Brick homes with tin roofs, brick homes with straw roofs, brick homes without roofs.
People chewing sugar cane and thinking it’s cleaning their teeth.
Beautiful cloth blowing on clotheslines.
The line of eight women with their faces hidden by the massive bunches of brush they carry on their heads; at least ten feet long and three feet in diameter.
The village drunk that stumbles along the road.
The flat bed truck with at least forty people crammed in for the ride.
A group of ten sitting in a dust brown field picking ground nuts.
Goats.
Chickens.
Cows.
Dogs.
Donkeys.
Pigs – for variety, and only if you’re lucky.
AVOID AIDS GUYS handwritten on the back of a road sign.
Barbed wire around Bingu’s farm with more than twenty workers picking maize.
Taking the same detour we took in January – will they ever finish the road?
Stopping in the middle of the road to wait for a herd of unattended goats.
A line of three men on bikes with woven baskets on the back.
Forty minutes outside Lilongwe and there’s still telephone wires next to the road. I don’t know where they’re going; no one has any use for them out here.
Kids that wave, although I’ve done nothing to win their admiration.
Traditional skirts. Western shirts. An AYSO jersey.
Trash.
Piles and piles of burning trash.
A graveyard.
And we’re here. A quick 45 minute drive and it’s time for Day 4 at Mitundu FPS.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
2 happy stories and 1 sad
Story 1: Visiting William was incredible. He was so nice and informative. I know Blessings, his country manager, from working with World Camp in January. I arranged with Blessings for our group to come to a ceremony at Wimbe Full Primary School, where William went. I thought they were having a sort of “handing over the keys” ceremony for a new windmill that would power the school. Expecting a two hour drive, we were really antsy when we finally arrived after three. There also wasn’t a windmill in sight. Turns out the ceremony was to hand over the keys to a brand new (solar powered!) building built by an NGO and William’s organization, Moving Windmills. Also to our surprise, the people filming William’s documentary (also called Moving Windmills) were there to film. It was their final day of filming after five years. And a group of 18 azungus was definitely going to disrupt the natural chemistry of William’s small village. So they asked we not be present for the ceremony. We agreed, but asked that in return we could see the school, expecting to quickly poke around ourselves. Instead, William and Blessings gave us a full tour. We saw the new bathrooms (one for boys, one for girls, which actually does a huge amount for keeping female enrolment high), new buildings, solar panels, and even the library where William studied windmills after he was forced to drop out of secondary school. William answered all of our questions and was incredibly kind. He just graduated from secondary school in South Africa and will be attending Dartmouth this fall. He hopes to study mechanical engineering. I asked him quite a few questions about the windmills, but was also pretty star struck. (I also had him sign my copy of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, which I just happened to bring with me.)
After the tour, we asked to see the actual windmills. Gilbert and Geoffrey, William’s two best childhood friends, walked with us to William’s home and gave us the full tour. We saw the very first windmill he built, which no longer works but is still standing. The second windmill generates power for his home. The third is the biggest; it pumps water to irrigate his father’s fields. The electrical windmill now powers every house owned by a member of William’s extended family.
We met William’s mother as well as his younger sister and brother. I didn’t get to but the rest of our group went into William’s house to see the switch pad that controls the electrical flow. It was incredible to look up and see such beautiful windmills that empowered so many people, all created by one young man.
Story 2: In January, I worked with teachers at the last school we went to, which happened to be really close to the school we were at this week. There were seven teachers total, two of which I became quite close to. One was about five months pregnant. Her name was Ellina. When I told her my sister’s name was Elena, she said we would be sisters as long as I was in Malawi. On Monday, Ellina recognized our Rovers and came to the school we were at. She saw Jaren, another coordinator, and asked for her sister, Karen. It was wonderful to see her again. I can’t describe how surreal it was to see her – and to meet her beautiful two month old son Vincent. I honestly never thought I’d get to see Ellina again, and there she was, standing right in front of me. We talked and caught up for a few minutes before she left. Wednesday, Ednah, another teacher from the same school, also stopped by. It was great to see her too – and find out how she’s been since January. Ednah remembered everyone’s names from the session and asked how we were all doing.
Story 3: My cell phone got stolen at camp yesterday.
After the tour, we asked to see the actual windmills. Gilbert and Geoffrey, William’s two best childhood friends, walked with us to William’s home and gave us the full tour. We saw the very first windmill he built, which no longer works but is still standing. The second windmill generates power for his home. The third is the biggest; it pumps water to irrigate his father’s fields. The electrical windmill now powers every house owned by a member of William’s extended family.
We met William’s mother as well as his younger sister and brother. I didn’t get to but the rest of our group went into William’s house to see the switch pad that controls the electrical flow. It was incredible to look up and see such beautiful windmills that empowered so many people, all created by one young man.
Story 2: In January, I worked with teachers at the last school we went to, which happened to be really close to the school we were at this week. There were seven teachers total, two of which I became quite close to. One was about five months pregnant. Her name was Ellina. When I told her my sister’s name was Elena, she said we would be sisters as long as I was in Malawi. On Monday, Ellina recognized our Rovers and came to the school we were at. She saw Jaren, another coordinator, and asked for her sister, Karen. It was wonderful to see her again. I can’t describe how surreal it was to see her – and to meet her beautiful two month old son Vincent. I honestly never thought I’d get to see Ellina again, and there she was, standing right in front of me. We talked and caught up for a few minutes before she left. Wednesday, Ednah, another teacher from the same school, also stopped by. It was great to see her too – and find out how she’s been since January. Ednah remembered everyone’s names from the session and asked how we were all doing.
Story 3: My cell phone got stolen at camp yesterday.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
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!
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!
Friday, June 11, 2010
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!
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!
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
A quick link to pictures!
Since I can't reasonably upload a ton of pictures to this site, check out World Camp's facebook page! (not a promo, i promise! although becoming a fan is always an option!) There's an album called "LYLAS: Malawi 2010" that will constantly be updated with new photos from my session! I've taken a few that are up there, but they're from all the coordinators and volunteers! Enjoy!
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Again, definitely check out World Camp's blog to see shorter, close-to-daily posts of what we're up to here. (http://www.worldcampforkids.blogspot.com) Plus there's a few pictures!!
We got back about an hour ago from hiking Mt. Nkhoma, the same mountain I hiked in January. The difference in appearance was crazy! I barely recognized the path. I got about 2/3 of the way up and hung out there for awhile with a volunteer who wasn't keen on reaching the top.... which was just fine with me!! We had a picnic lunch on a rock before heading back down and eventually meeting the rest of the group at the van. Tonight, we're going out to dinner at an Indian restaurant called Huts. mmmm delicious!!
This past week was incredible. I forgot how much I missed being at schools. Being a coordinator is hard! There were so many times I wanted to jump in front of the class and teach again. But it was also great to be able to watch students and volunteer teachers get more comfortable with each day. I did get to sit in on a little of the teacher meetings, which was wonderful. The majority of the teachers were great - very interested in really teaching their kids about HIV and obviously dedicated. There was one, though, who broke my heart. His name was Harold. This week was a holiday week, so every student and teacher was there voluntarily. Harold, however, showed up drunk on Monday. He sat in on the meeting and made a few comments during the day. It was upsetting to see that although he was not praised by the other teachers, they did nothing to have him leave. I didn't get to go to camp on Tuesday, but he was more drunk than the first day. Wednesday, when I did go back, he only showed up to eat lunch and could barely walk in a straight line. While I hope he was only sitting in on the meeting and isn't actually a teacher, I'm fairly certain he is. It was hard to realize that he probably teaches his class like that everyday. There is such a shortage of teachers in Malawi that even an obvious alcoholic is not fired.
There were two teachers who were involved in a local Community Based Organization (CBO) where we worked on Friday as part of an outreach project. One, Emmanuel, was amazing. He really wanted to work to get the facts out into the community and start to break down the stigma surrounding HIV. He was wonderful to talk to. The CBO is just a few years old. A village headman donated a plot of land to them a few years ago so they could build an office, but it is still just empty land. They are currently building new bricks and taking apart old buildings to try to build an office. On Friday, when we worked with the CBO, we worked with staff, village headmen, and a group of people living with HIV. It was wonderful to hear their stories.
The reason I didn't go to camp on Tuesday is because I was interviewing local high school students who will be Field Interns for second session. They'll work with the high school students that come over from the US, and I am SO EXCITED to get to work with them. It's a volunteer position, so the kids are really dedicated to and interested in the issues. They all just graduated from an SAT class and are hoping to go to college this fall or next. They're all applying to schools in Europe and the States.... hopefully they'll get in!!
So that's just about all I have now.... I hope everyone's doing really well!!!
Just one more thing; my favorite quote of the week came from Tonnex, the director of the CBO we worked with on Friday: "We are capable of understanding."
We got back about an hour ago from hiking Mt. Nkhoma, the same mountain I hiked in January. The difference in appearance was crazy! I barely recognized the path. I got about 2/3 of the way up and hung out there for awhile with a volunteer who wasn't keen on reaching the top.... which was just fine with me!! We had a picnic lunch on a rock before heading back down and eventually meeting the rest of the group at the van. Tonight, we're going out to dinner at an Indian restaurant called Huts. mmmm delicious!!
This past week was incredible. I forgot how much I missed being at schools. Being a coordinator is hard! There were so many times I wanted to jump in front of the class and teach again. But it was also great to be able to watch students and volunteer teachers get more comfortable with each day. I did get to sit in on a little of the teacher meetings, which was wonderful. The majority of the teachers were great - very interested in really teaching their kids about HIV and obviously dedicated. There was one, though, who broke my heart. His name was Harold. This week was a holiday week, so every student and teacher was there voluntarily. Harold, however, showed up drunk on Monday. He sat in on the meeting and made a few comments during the day. It was upsetting to see that although he was not praised by the other teachers, they did nothing to have him leave. I didn't get to go to camp on Tuesday, but he was more drunk than the first day. Wednesday, when I did go back, he only showed up to eat lunch and could barely walk in a straight line. While I hope he was only sitting in on the meeting and isn't actually a teacher, I'm fairly certain he is. It was hard to realize that he probably teaches his class like that everyday. There is such a shortage of teachers in Malawi that even an obvious alcoholic is not fired.
There were two teachers who were involved in a local Community Based Organization (CBO) where we worked on Friday as part of an outreach project. One, Emmanuel, was amazing. He really wanted to work to get the facts out into the community and start to break down the stigma surrounding HIV. He was wonderful to talk to. The CBO is just a few years old. A village headman donated a plot of land to them a few years ago so they could build an office, but it is still just empty land. They are currently building new bricks and taking apart old buildings to try to build an office. On Friday, when we worked with the CBO, we worked with staff, village headmen, and a group of people living with HIV. It was wonderful to hear their stories.
The reason I didn't go to camp on Tuesday is because I was interviewing local high school students who will be Field Interns for second session. They'll work with the high school students that come over from the US, and I am SO EXCITED to get to work with them. It's a volunteer position, so the kids are really dedicated to and interested in the issues. They all just graduated from an SAT class and are hoping to go to college this fall or next. They're all applying to schools in Europe and the States.... hopefully they'll get in!!
So that's just about all I have now.... I hope everyone's doing really well!!!
Just one more thing; my favorite quote of the week came from Tonnex, the director of the CBO we worked with on Friday: "We are capable of understanding."
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Playing Catchup with Posts!
I've been great about writing blog posts on my laptop, just not about posting them here! With only one internet account for the five coordinators with all of our work, it's hard to get online! But I have been writing a lot on my own. So now that I have the chance to post, I've got lots to catch you up on! I'll date each entry, even though some of them are a little old by now. I'll try to be better about claiming the computer every few days, instead of every few weeks, but we'll see!
A quick overview: I love Malawi! I've already experienced a number of highs and lows, but I also feel so comfortable here. I'm amazing that this is only my third time to Africa and my second time in Malawi, because it seems like I've already experienced so much! But with that said, there is so much more to learn! I can't wait to get to our first camp tomorrow... everything I've been doing for the past week and a half has been leading up to Monday!
Again, sorry this post is so long! But there are a number of posts in one. I'll try to get pictures up soon, but the internet's pretty slow, and there's frequent power outages that make working on the computer difficult. I have been posting on World Camp's blog close to every day though, so definitely check that out. There's pictures and stories there from orientation. Less feelings/experiences and more facts/information, but great nonetheless! http://www.worldcampforkids.blogspot.com/
12 May: Post 2! Or is it day 2 yet?
All my time spent at layovers transfers directly into the number of blogs I can write. I definitely wasn’t expecting to get 2 done before I even reached Malawi! Now I’m in the Joburg airport, waiting for the final leg of my trip. After I typed up my last blog in Dublin, I wandered into a café. I was pretty hungry so I picked up a salad, since it felt a whole lot like lunch time. I didn’t realize it was 6am local time and 1am Maine time. I’m not quite sure what time zone my body was in. The salad with tuna I ordered wasn’t what I expected either. There were four whole potatoes, not to be outdone by the four whole tunas. The potatoes turned out to be delicious, but the tuna wasn’t quite for me. So far, all my flights have gone smoothly; I’ve slept more than I expected, and got to watch a few movies. It was super fun to watch Couples Retreat, since it was filmed at a hotel my family stayed at a few years ago.
Joburg is completely covered in fog. I thought we were still in the clouds when our wheels hit the runway. My plane leaves in about an hour and a half. Hopefully this last flight goes smoothly and quickly! It’s just about 4 more hours until I’ll be back in the Pick Palace, playing bao and sipping a pineapple Fanta. :)
16 May: Finally in Malawi!
I cannot describe how happy I am to finally be back in the WC House! Everything’s all set up – our fifth and last coordinator arrived today, so we’re ready to really get into the preparations. Up until now, we’ve been running around setting up the house, buying supplies, updating documents, and interviewing Field Staff, the new title for our updated position of Translators. I already have great stories. On the second day I was here, Jaren, Rachel, and I headed over to Metro to do all of our bulk shopping. We bought sooooo much stuff. And didn’t have enough money. So Jaren drove back to the house and Rachel and I stayed to wait it out. Linda, one of the employees, brought us each a plastic stool to sit on and stayed with us to talk. She was wonderful. She is from the North, and still lives in her home village. She has two boys, one is 12 and I think the other is around 8.
Today, we decided on what area we’d each be in charge of. I’ve been assigned three aspects of the WC program. First (and what I’m most excited for) is Field Staff coordinator. So it was my job to interview all of the new Field Assistant applicants yesterday and I’ll be in charge of picking, calling, organizing, and paying Field Staff for each of our camps. Our Field Staff is made up of two jobs: Field Assistants, who are paid and work with college volunteers, and Field Interns, who volunteer their time and work with our high school program. Both positions require translation in both directions (English to Chichewa and back), cultural awareness and information, liaison between foreign volunteers and local Malawians, and anything else we could ask for. The Field Staff are amazing people who love what they do and are tons of fun.
I’m also Cook Group coordinator. I’ll be in charge of assigning cook groups, or groups of volunteers who are responsible for dinner each night. We set a budget and they cook delicious food! For our group of 16 people, the budget will probably be around 2,500 Malawian kwacha, or $20. Yummm! And my last job is Outreach/Activities coordinator. I’m getting more and more excited about this as I start to get into it. It’ll be my job to arrange activities on our days off. We’ll probably go visit a church and a mosque in Lilongwe. We’ll go to the fabric market to buy yards of fabric, then have Loli over, who is a tailor who makes beautiful clothing and bags. There’s also a place called the Crisis Nursery, that I wrote about in that paper if you read it. Children who are younger than 2 years are dropped off by their families and are given the proper care and nutritious until their family comes to pick them up. We’ll do outreach programs every Friday and Saturday. The first week, it looks like we’ll head to a refugee camp. I don’t know much about the camp yet, but a church group requested we come and spend time educating people about HIV. Although World Camp hasn’t worked with a religious organization in a number of years, this church asked specifically for a condom demonstration, so I’m not sure exactly what to expect!
17 May
I just want to tell the world about a man I met today named Michael. (I absolutely love that people don’t call before stopping by! It leads to the best surprises!) He was born in Malawi and went to undergrad and grad school in Michigan, if I remember correctly. Then he taught in Nebraska for a number of years. Originally, he meant to spend only four years in the States before heading back to Africa, but decided, after 16 years, it was time to return to Malawi. Before moving to the states, Michael’s sister died of AIDS; he adopted her son. The son has since discovered he is HIV positive. But he is now in high school in Lincoln, Nebraska and HIV is no longer detectable in his blood. Michael calls him his “poster child.”
Since moving back to Malawi, Michael has gotten incredibly involved in every social issue you can think of. He knows so much about the school system and the current state of HIV. He is in the middle of having children’s stories published that address all types of current issues. It will be a picture book that covers HIV, gender equality, deforestation, and similar topics. He didn’t talk about the book too much, so I don’t know a lot, but I cannot wait to read it! Right now Michael is also working on assessing the effectiveness of government teacher training with a European government (I forget which one, we talked about so many things!). That’s exactly what I’m most interested in; educating teachers so they can effectively teach the new government curriculum. So I can’t wait for Michael to come back later in the session so I can talk to him more!
Then Michael asked us about the cultural differences we notice in Malawi and what we think of them. We all laughed and said we don’t really notice those anymore. We see boys holding hands or sitting in each other’s laps and don’t bat an eye, but are surprised to see a man and woman holding hands. Michael asked if we’d noticed that people use their hands instead of handkerchiefs to blow their noses here. When he was doing cultural orientation for the Peace Corps, Michael and the volunteers asked Malawians why this is. One lady responded that it’s gross to put a dirty handkerchief back in your pocket. It makes sense to blow your nose into the ground, wipe your nose with your hand, and then wash your hands. It’s just cleaner! Then we talked about directness in the two cultures. In the States, someone will call out a person they just met if they are rude. In Malawi, one will go out of their way to avoid confrontation with a person they don’t know. So even if a foreigner does something culturally inappropriate or awkward, even if they don’t realize it and would probably like to be made aware, a Malawian will not tell them.
Michael had the most interesting view points. Having gone though primary and secondary school in Malawi, then undergrad and graduate school in the states, he knows both school systems and can praise and critique both in ways that are commonly looked over. He has impeccable English. He’s not afraid to state his views and can get into amazing and unexpected discussion with all the background needed to make his point and counter his opponent. Michael’s also planning on coming to at least one of our camps, hopefully next week. I’m really hoping to be able to sit in on teacher meetings with him; he said he’d be more than happy to give us tips on how to get into deeper conversations and develop that section of our curriculum!
In other news, the first volunteers arrive tomorrow! Two girls are coming in at 12:20 local time! And we still have so much to do before and after then! The other 9 volunteers (7 girls and 1 boy) are coming on Thursday. We’ll start orientation that evening and head to our first camp on Sunday! I cannot wait to meet volunteers and get back to the schools – I really, really miss rural Malawi and the students, but especially all the teachers!!
18 May
So today, I was reminded of exactly how much patience Malawi can sometimes require. All five coordinators were up early this morning to get lots of work done. We had one meeting at 8:30am which went great. We had another meeting planned for 10am with the Ministry of Hope, an organization that runs a number of wonderful programs throughout Malawi. At 9:40, one of the head coordinators called the local hospital to make an appointment for later in the day. They told her she needed to be in by 10 if she wanted to see anyone; but we really needed her in at the meeting too. So we dropped her off at ABC, the hospital, and went to the meeting without her and slightly less prepared than I would have liked. Since I am in charge of Outreach Programs, I’ll be talking to the Ministry of Hope a lot as we work with their already-established programs. The meeting went really well – we set up what I think will be a wonderful day at a program in a village near one of the schools we work with. On May 29, we’re going to a village to work with adults in the morning and kids in the afternoon. (I’m SOOOO excited to work with age groups other than the students we normally do – I think it’ll be a completely new and different experience with exciting and new rewards, as well as great windows with many new questions!) On the way back to the house, we all thought I should get dropped off at the hospital to stay with the one coordinator because she didn’t have cell minutes to call us with and it had been awhile since we’d dropped her off. The rest of the coordinators went back to the house so they could pick up the two volunteers who arrived today!! I sat in the waiting room for awhile until she was called in. After her appointment, we called the house to see if anyone could pick us up. But World Camp has three cars, two of which were in the shop, and the last one that was at the airport. We also called three Field Staff members and the guy who runs the house when no one from WC is here, but none of them could pick us up. So we started the long walk home. An hour and fifteen minutes later, we finally arrived. Although that time could have been spent being productive, it was great to get out of the house for awhile. It also reminded me why I’m here. Ignoring the fact that we walked along a busy road the whole time, everyone we passed was so nice and said hello. I saw children running and laughing, and miles of maize fields. We passed successful professionals who looked worried and tired and people struggling to make ends meet with beautiful smiles on their faces.
Once we got back to the house, we heard that the daytime watchman, Ngoni, had stopped by the house. He’d been really sick for about the past week – with what a local clinic had diagnosed as malaria. He was in for work yesterday and it was great to see him again, although he didn’t look as good as I remember. He didn’t come to work today, but had stopped by with his whole family while I was on my walk. He was lying on the bench outside and couldn’t sit up. He wants to go back to his village to get traditional treatment for his illness that had majorly relapsed since yesterday. He believes his deceased grandmother’s spirit is inside him and causing him to become ill. In order to remove her spirit, he must go to his home village and visit her grave. There, a number of ceremonies will be performed. He must also hold a huge feast for the entire village. He has refused to go to another hospital and will need to raise the money to get home soon. I can only hope he recovers soon, whether from traditional or modern medicine.
After hearing about Ngoni, the volunteers arrived; two girls, from North Carolina. One will be a senior and one just graduated college. They’re incredibly nice and I’m glad they’re here! After dinner, we took an inauguration trip to McDaud’s the local McDonald’s spinoff for ice cream! Tomorrow, we’ll take them on a town tour and have them help us with the last few preparations before the other 9 volunteers come in on Thursday.
It feels like the session’s really starting now – volunteers are arriving and soon we’ll be back in schools! Today was hard, but incredible nonetheless. I learned a lot about so many aspects of life in Lilongwe I hadn’t realized before; I cannot wait to get back to the villages; I can only hope Ngoni recovers; and soon the house will be full with volunteers!
A quick overview: I love Malawi! I've already experienced a number of highs and lows, but I also feel so comfortable here. I'm amazing that this is only my third time to Africa and my second time in Malawi, because it seems like I've already experienced so much! But with that said, there is so much more to learn! I can't wait to get to our first camp tomorrow... everything I've been doing for the past week and a half has been leading up to Monday!
Again, sorry this post is so long! But there are a number of posts in one. I'll try to get pictures up soon, but the internet's pretty slow, and there's frequent power outages that make working on the computer difficult. I have been posting on World Camp's blog close to every day though, so definitely check that out. There's pictures and stories there from orientation. Less feelings/experiences and more facts/information, but great nonetheless! http://www.worldcampforkids.blogspot.com/
12 May: Post 2! Or is it day 2 yet?
All my time spent at layovers transfers directly into the number of blogs I can write. I definitely wasn’t expecting to get 2 done before I even reached Malawi! Now I’m in the Joburg airport, waiting for the final leg of my trip. After I typed up my last blog in Dublin, I wandered into a café. I was pretty hungry so I picked up a salad, since it felt a whole lot like lunch time. I didn’t realize it was 6am local time and 1am Maine time. I’m not quite sure what time zone my body was in. The salad with tuna I ordered wasn’t what I expected either. There were four whole potatoes, not to be outdone by the four whole tunas. The potatoes turned out to be delicious, but the tuna wasn’t quite for me. So far, all my flights have gone smoothly; I’ve slept more than I expected, and got to watch a few movies. It was super fun to watch Couples Retreat, since it was filmed at a hotel my family stayed at a few years ago.
Joburg is completely covered in fog. I thought we were still in the clouds when our wheels hit the runway. My plane leaves in about an hour and a half. Hopefully this last flight goes smoothly and quickly! It’s just about 4 more hours until I’ll be back in the Pick Palace, playing bao and sipping a pineapple Fanta. :)
16 May: Finally in Malawi!
I cannot describe how happy I am to finally be back in the WC House! Everything’s all set up – our fifth and last coordinator arrived today, so we’re ready to really get into the preparations. Up until now, we’ve been running around setting up the house, buying supplies, updating documents, and interviewing Field Staff, the new title for our updated position of Translators. I already have great stories. On the second day I was here, Jaren, Rachel, and I headed over to Metro to do all of our bulk shopping. We bought sooooo much stuff. And didn’t have enough money. So Jaren drove back to the house and Rachel and I stayed to wait it out. Linda, one of the employees, brought us each a plastic stool to sit on and stayed with us to talk. She was wonderful. She is from the North, and still lives in her home village. She has two boys, one is 12 and I think the other is around 8.
Today, we decided on what area we’d each be in charge of. I’ve been assigned three aspects of the WC program. First (and what I’m most excited for) is Field Staff coordinator. So it was my job to interview all of the new Field Assistant applicants yesterday and I’ll be in charge of picking, calling, organizing, and paying Field Staff for each of our camps. Our Field Staff is made up of two jobs: Field Assistants, who are paid and work with college volunteers, and Field Interns, who volunteer their time and work with our high school program. Both positions require translation in both directions (English to Chichewa and back), cultural awareness and information, liaison between foreign volunteers and local Malawians, and anything else we could ask for. The Field Staff are amazing people who love what they do and are tons of fun.
I’m also Cook Group coordinator. I’ll be in charge of assigning cook groups, or groups of volunteers who are responsible for dinner each night. We set a budget and they cook delicious food! For our group of 16 people, the budget will probably be around 2,500 Malawian kwacha, or $20. Yummm! And my last job is Outreach/Activities coordinator. I’m getting more and more excited about this as I start to get into it. It’ll be my job to arrange activities on our days off. We’ll probably go visit a church and a mosque in Lilongwe. We’ll go to the fabric market to buy yards of fabric, then have Loli over, who is a tailor who makes beautiful clothing and bags. There’s also a place called the Crisis Nursery, that I wrote about in that paper if you read it. Children who are younger than 2 years are dropped off by their families and are given the proper care and nutritious until their family comes to pick them up. We’ll do outreach programs every Friday and Saturday. The first week, it looks like we’ll head to a refugee camp. I don’t know much about the camp yet, but a church group requested we come and spend time educating people about HIV. Although World Camp hasn’t worked with a religious organization in a number of years, this church asked specifically for a condom demonstration, so I’m not sure exactly what to expect!
17 May
I just want to tell the world about a man I met today named Michael. (I absolutely love that people don’t call before stopping by! It leads to the best surprises!) He was born in Malawi and went to undergrad and grad school in Michigan, if I remember correctly. Then he taught in Nebraska for a number of years. Originally, he meant to spend only four years in the States before heading back to Africa, but decided, after 16 years, it was time to return to Malawi. Before moving to the states, Michael’s sister died of AIDS; he adopted her son. The son has since discovered he is HIV positive. But he is now in high school in Lincoln, Nebraska and HIV is no longer detectable in his blood. Michael calls him his “poster child.”
Since moving back to Malawi, Michael has gotten incredibly involved in every social issue you can think of. He knows so much about the school system and the current state of HIV. He is in the middle of having children’s stories published that address all types of current issues. It will be a picture book that covers HIV, gender equality, deforestation, and similar topics. He didn’t talk about the book too much, so I don’t know a lot, but I cannot wait to read it! Right now Michael is also working on assessing the effectiveness of government teacher training with a European government (I forget which one, we talked about so many things!). That’s exactly what I’m most interested in; educating teachers so they can effectively teach the new government curriculum. So I can’t wait for Michael to come back later in the session so I can talk to him more!
Then Michael asked us about the cultural differences we notice in Malawi and what we think of them. We all laughed and said we don’t really notice those anymore. We see boys holding hands or sitting in each other’s laps and don’t bat an eye, but are surprised to see a man and woman holding hands. Michael asked if we’d noticed that people use their hands instead of handkerchiefs to blow their noses here. When he was doing cultural orientation for the Peace Corps, Michael and the volunteers asked Malawians why this is. One lady responded that it’s gross to put a dirty handkerchief back in your pocket. It makes sense to blow your nose into the ground, wipe your nose with your hand, and then wash your hands. It’s just cleaner! Then we talked about directness in the two cultures. In the States, someone will call out a person they just met if they are rude. In Malawi, one will go out of their way to avoid confrontation with a person they don’t know. So even if a foreigner does something culturally inappropriate or awkward, even if they don’t realize it and would probably like to be made aware, a Malawian will not tell them.
Michael had the most interesting view points. Having gone though primary and secondary school in Malawi, then undergrad and graduate school in the states, he knows both school systems and can praise and critique both in ways that are commonly looked over. He has impeccable English. He’s not afraid to state his views and can get into amazing and unexpected discussion with all the background needed to make his point and counter his opponent. Michael’s also planning on coming to at least one of our camps, hopefully next week. I’m really hoping to be able to sit in on teacher meetings with him; he said he’d be more than happy to give us tips on how to get into deeper conversations and develop that section of our curriculum!
In other news, the first volunteers arrive tomorrow! Two girls are coming in at 12:20 local time! And we still have so much to do before and after then! The other 9 volunteers (7 girls and 1 boy) are coming on Thursday. We’ll start orientation that evening and head to our first camp on Sunday! I cannot wait to meet volunteers and get back to the schools – I really, really miss rural Malawi and the students, but especially all the teachers!!
18 May
So today, I was reminded of exactly how much patience Malawi can sometimes require. All five coordinators were up early this morning to get lots of work done. We had one meeting at 8:30am which went great. We had another meeting planned for 10am with the Ministry of Hope, an organization that runs a number of wonderful programs throughout Malawi. At 9:40, one of the head coordinators called the local hospital to make an appointment for later in the day. They told her she needed to be in by 10 if she wanted to see anyone; but we really needed her in at the meeting too. So we dropped her off at ABC, the hospital, and went to the meeting without her and slightly less prepared than I would have liked. Since I am in charge of Outreach Programs, I’ll be talking to the Ministry of Hope a lot as we work with their already-established programs. The meeting went really well – we set up what I think will be a wonderful day at a program in a village near one of the schools we work with. On May 29, we’re going to a village to work with adults in the morning and kids in the afternoon. (I’m SOOOO excited to work with age groups other than the students we normally do – I think it’ll be a completely new and different experience with exciting and new rewards, as well as great windows with many new questions!) On the way back to the house, we all thought I should get dropped off at the hospital to stay with the one coordinator because she didn’t have cell minutes to call us with and it had been awhile since we’d dropped her off. The rest of the coordinators went back to the house so they could pick up the two volunteers who arrived today!! I sat in the waiting room for awhile until she was called in. After her appointment, we called the house to see if anyone could pick us up. But World Camp has three cars, two of which were in the shop, and the last one that was at the airport. We also called three Field Staff members and the guy who runs the house when no one from WC is here, but none of them could pick us up. So we started the long walk home. An hour and fifteen minutes later, we finally arrived. Although that time could have been spent being productive, it was great to get out of the house for awhile. It also reminded me why I’m here. Ignoring the fact that we walked along a busy road the whole time, everyone we passed was so nice and said hello. I saw children running and laughing, and miles of maize fields. We passed successful professionals who looked worried and tired and people struggling to make ends meet with beautiful smiles on their faces.
Once we got back to the house, we heard that the daytime watchman, Ngoni, had stopped by the house. He’d been really sick for about the past week – with what a local clinic had diagnosed as malaria. He was in for work yesterday and it was great to see him again, although he didn’t look as good as I remember. He didn’t come to work today, but had stopped by with his whole family while I was on my walk. He was lying on the bench outside and couldn’t sit up. He wants to go back to his village to get traditional treatment for his illness that had majorly relapsed since yesterday. He believes his deceased grandmother’s spirit is inside him and causing him to become ill. In order to remove her spirit, he must go to his home village and visit her grave. There, a number of ceremonies will be performed. He must also hold a huge feast for the entire village. He has refused to go to another hospital and will need to raise the money to get home soon. I can only hope he recovers soon, whether from traditional or modern medicine.
After hearing about Ngoni, the volunteers arrived; two girls, from North Carolina. One will be a senior and one just graduated college. They’re incredibly nice and I’m glad they’re here! After dinner, we took an inauguration trip to McDaud’s the local McDonald’s spinoff for ice cream! Tomorrow, we’ll take them on a town tour and have them help us with the last few preparations before the other 9 volunteers come in on Thursday.
It feels like the session’s really starting now – volunteers are arriving and soon we’ll be back in schools! Today was hard, but incredible nonetheless. I learned a lot about so many aspects of life in Lilongwe I hadn’t realized before; I cannot wait to get back to the villages; I can only hope Ngoni recovers; and soon the house will be full with volunteers!
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