Zed

Nothing much new here, but I thought I'd write a little something for my faithful fans.
It hasn't rained since the flooding. We were thankful at first; the road was saved! Now it's been more than a week without rain, and people are beginning to worry that the rains will leave completely.

No more imaginary students, but I am continuing to get a few real ones. We're starting to feel like we really need to split the form 2s, (they're almost 60 in one class now) but money for teachers is a problem.

My students laugh at me when I say Z instead of Zed (that's how they say the letter Z), and then they laugh at me again when I say Zed, because they all know I want to say Z. I can't win!!

The vocational school started a computer class, (I'll post some pictures of the computer room). Construction of 3 new classrooms for Gracious is well underway, thanks to money from an anonymous donor.

I still haven't seen Sibale (MCV's director) take a single day off, and I've been here almost two months.

A random picture of some Gracious Students

grammar lessons

I’ve decided to help some of the little village children with their Chichewa grammar. Many of them yell out “Azungu! Azungu!” when I walk by; this means “white people! White people!” Since there is only one white person (me) when they shout this clearly they are making a grammatical mistake, and thus the grammar lessons.

Little village children: “Azungu! Azungu!”
Me: “Siazungu! MMMMMZungu!” (Not white people! White person!)

The children are often quite stunned by this.

Dispatches

I was sitting at my desk the other day planning some lessons, when the headmaster sent in a student I didn’t recognize to see me. It was the sports captain from Ntonda CDSS, with a letter answering our request for a football match.

I love being sports master! It’s like I’m a general receiving dispatches about a distant battle. (My thought process here might be slightly influenced by the fact that I’m currently reading War and Peace). Anyways, the letter said that they would like more time to train, but will be ready to play next Saturday. I conferred with my commanding officers (MCV management) and told him that we would indeed like to play next Saturday.

I also found out last week, that not only am I a sports master, I’m also a math hero! One of my students, Siyabu (a sponsored orphan), asked me during class if he could talk to me in private. I talked to him later, and he asked me, “How do I become a hero of mathematics, like you?” It was definitely one of those moments where I love being a teacher. I told him to come work with me during lunch on Mondays.

Mvula yagwa kwambiri

No, that’s not Lake Malawi in the photo, that’s a puddle. After an amazing rain free weekend in Cape Maclear, it rained and rained for the next three days. We literally had to drive through a river to get to school this morning. Many of our kids were late to school the last couple days. One could hardly blame them, not only did they have to walk in the rain (most of them without umbrellas or coats), they had to navigate around newly formed rivers. And for many of them this was after spending the night in a leaking house. I wish I had some pictures of what the road was like on the way to school this morning; it was really incredible. Luckily it stopped raining this morning. We have our fingers crossed that it won’t rain for the next couple of days. If it does, we can probably kiss the second half of our road goodbye (see picture for what happened to the first half). Even if the rains have let up for now, they’ve already caused some serious damage for some villages. Entire fields of maize have been flooded; I wouldn’t be shocked if some villages need extra maize from MCV’s stores in the future. I also heard that all this rain has caused disastrous flooding of the Zambezi in Mozambique, but most of you probably no more about that than I do. I don’t get a lot of news here.

footballs fly for free.

If anyone is interested in donating used jerseys, footballs, etc. Kevin Denny would love to bring them over to Malawi when he comes March 18th. You could bring them to his house on Gorham Street in Canandaigua, or give them to my parents. I can’t even begin to express how excited the kids would be. (They’re slightly more concerned about getting this stuff than books, but don’t worry, learning still comes first at Gracious) As always, Zikomo.

Mpira wa miyendo

Loosely translated the title is the ball you use with the foot

After rushing back from Cape Maclear, I went to Namiase football ground where we were supposed to play our games. The matches were supposed to start at 2:00, and our players said that they would come at noon. Naturally, I was the only one there at 2:00, wondering if anyone would show up. It was raining, which always works to delay Africans even further. Everyone showed up eventually though, and I mean everyone. I don’t know how all the people knew about the game, but it seemed like everyone in the nearby villages was there. The girls unfortunately lost in netball, but the boys won (3-2)! I’m told they didn’t win a single game all last season. Clearly their new found success must be due to their new sports master. Actually I didn’t do too much coaching. It’s kind of hard to talk to your team at halftime when half the fans gather around the team, and everyone is speaking Chichewa. Some other interesting notes from the game:

Suddenly our team had uniforms. Apparently the kids borrowed them from a local village team. Lots of the kids borrowed boots as well. Don’t worry, Praise and Alex still played with one shoe on.

Everyone rushes on to the field whenever a goal is scored. (the picture is kids running back to the sidelines)

The netball girls and other students danced around the field singing songs in support. (One group for each school)

To my surprise, two kids from the technical school were suddenly on our team. You might call these kids ringers, but I figure our school is short two grades (we only have freshman and sophomores) so we can use the help without feeling too bad. Our best players are still from Gracious.

Mussa James, our captain, scored 2 goals. He’s ridiculously good.
We hope to have another game this weekend.

Cape Maclear

Nick and I went to Cape Maclear this weekend to relax and do some snorkeling. It sticks out into the south end of Lake Malawi north of Mangochi. (You can probably find it on Google Earth if you’re so inclined). The supposedly hour trip took us over 5 thanks to good old minibuses and matolas. The trip was well worth it. We ate lunch and dinner at a lodge with a French chef. I think I would have thoroughly enjoyed my food, even if I hadn’t spent a month eating rice, nsima, and beans first. We got too see a beautiful sunset Saturday. You can definitely tell you’re near the equator here; if you blink too long, you’ll miss the whole show. Listening to the waves in bed at night, it felt like I was on the ocean, instead of the lake. We had some beach boys take us on a boat ride out to an island early Sunday morning, where we were able to go snorkeling. My mask leaked, but I was still impressed with the amount of colorful fish. Sadly, we had to leave right after snorkeling to get back in time for Gracious’s first football match of the year.

Bikes, Vans and Galimotos

After living in Malawi for about 7 weeks, I feel qualified to give a brief description of the countries public transportation system. The main ways to get around (some of this I’ve told you already, so sorry for the repetition) are…

Njinga – riding on the back of a bicycle (njinga). This is a great way to get around when you’re not going too far. It costs about 30MK (20cents) to go a mile. Most of them have a padded seat on the back, and they’re pretty good about avoiding potholes. All you do is yell out, “njinga!” hop on the back and off you go.

Matola – riding on the back of a pickup truck. This is probably the most useful mode of transport if you’re going anywhere that’s less than a couple hours away. All you have to do is flag one down on the side of the road and hop in. As I described earlier they pack everybody in the truck bed like sardines. They stop constantly to let people off and on, so sometimes it’s painfully slow going. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a matola decide that they’re too full to pick somebody up.

Minibus – basically a crowded minivan. Like matolas, minibuses cram in many more people than you would think humanly possible. Sometimes this is accomplished by the tout (conductor) opening the sliding door and standing on the outside as the driver speeds down the road. There are stations for minibuses, but certainly no schedule. The time the bus leaves is quite simple, it will leave when enough people get on; this means that sometimes you wait for a couple hours.

Keep in mind, that all these vehicles are traveling down roads, many unpaved, with enormous potholes. I’ve decided, for the sake of my internal organs, to stand on matolas from now on.

You know your class is too big when...

So we are now a month in to the school year, and I came across a clear sign of the fact that I have a big class. My class of 58 form 2s shrunk to a class of 55 in one day. How did this happen? Three of my students were imaginary!!

In American schools you are always given official rosters and attendance is taken on the computer (or put in to the computer). In Canandaigua schools they even have all the kids pictures on the computer! In Malawi, not so much. The "official list" was developed by simply asking students their names, and a teacher writing them down (often with misspellings). Combine this with 55 kids in a classroom, names I can't pronounce, and every kid, (boys and girls) having the same haircut, mistakes were bound to happen.

So, the imaginary students...
Terah Button is the same person as Tereza Batani.
Stephen Mandela is Stephano Frank.
Aliness Jahn is Aliness Gilson

In my defence, many Americans have nicknames, but we don't come up with a nick name for our surname!! One of my students Omar Sait's real name is Saiti Umali. He just decided to give himself a new name this year.

The good news of all this confusion was that the class hw completion increased in my grade book. Both Terah Button and Tereza Batnani had only done 1/2 their assignments! (this was also one of my major clues that something was fishey)

As a way of combating this large class (keep in mind I'm still trying to teach them Maths) I've split the kids up into 3 smaller groups (low,medium, and high skill level, but the kids don't know this) and require them to come in for an extra period of Maths during lunch one day a week. Although, I'll still have to struggle with getting every kid to come, I love that I have the power to do it. This would never fly with American kids. Then again, if I was in America I probably wouldn't have a class of 55 low level kids that can barely speak English.

We'll have our first Football and Netball matches against another school on Sunday. We got a letter from the sports captain at Mangochi Private Sec. School requesting a match, and I told our sports captain, he could write a letter back accepting. Both the kids and I are quite excited. I also wanted to include one random tidbit about our football team. Alex (one of the kids) obtained a pair of cleats. His best friend Praise is left footed, they now both play with one shoe!

I promise to post some more pictures next time.

immigration

So you may recall, that in my last blog posting I said that I got my certificates from my parents, and was heading back to Blantyre to get a work permit for real this time. Not so fast. I have certainly read and heard a lot about government agencies in developing countries, but to see one in action is really something. To start with, there were about 5 people waiting to be assisted in one of the offices, three government workers were there. 2 of the workers were sitting at their desks just reading the paper!! As far as my paperwork was concerned, I was certainly not successful. I won't bore you with the details, but the short story is... we were told to fix things/get more forms, etc. several times. We would then fix the "errors" print out new forms bring them back, be sent to a new administrator who would tell us something new that was wrong. In the end we were told that a work permit costs 63,500 Kwacha which is about $460! And that's only if it gets approved. As someone who is volunteering, I found this a bit harsh. We are looking into other means of preventing my deportation. Right now, I'm at an Internet cafe in Blantyre, while Felix and Dickens (MCV people) run errands. I want to scream just a little bit. (Trust me I am giving you all a much shortened version of this immigration saga)

It's still raining out there

So I finally found internet that works again, so I thought I'd post a quick note. I actually had to ride on the back of an njinga (bicycle) to get to this internet cafe. bicycle taxis are a common mode of transportation here. They have padded seats on the back, and it's really pretty comfortable. It cost me 40 kwacha to get here, (about 30cents).

It's still raining a lot. The weather can go from pouring rain to bright sun in an instant, and it does this pretty much every day. The water under one of the bridges we pass over on the way to Mangochi was getting dangerously high today. I also heard a story that an elephant came into a village in the hills nearby, because of all the rain, and killed a couple people. I haven't seen any elephants though, and that's all I know about that story.

Still teaching maths, and all of our kids are still struggling to understand English. Today actually went really well though, I at least felt as though all my kids were understanding.

I went to Blantyre (Malawi’s biggest city) on Thursday to go to the immigration office. I can’t say I was particularly impressed with the city, just urban sprawl really, but there was a huge supermarket, and even a store that was akin to Wal-Mart in that you could buy electronics and stuff. Unsurprisingly (things never happen quickly here) we were unsuccessful in getting my work visa. Yes, I said work visa, even though I’m not getting paid. We found out we needed my “certificates” and some more paperwork from MCV. Thank god for technology though, my parents scanned and emailed my diplomas, and we printed them out here. They look great, so now we just need to go back to Blantyre on Wednesday. The big plus side of the trip to Blantyre was that I got to eat some pizza!