Mtengo

The baobab tree, is an enormous tree which I'm sure you all know about. I feel like it's one of those famous African things that some of you are sitting at home thinking, when am I gonna see a baobab entry on Conor's blog? Well here it is. This is just a close up picture of the tree in the yard at Gracious. Some of us are a little nervous about what might happen if this massive tree falls down on the classrooms. But it sure does look nice.

The trees are useless when it comes to construction. They're lumber is too soft. You can eat the seeds though. I had the chance to try some the other day, and found them quite tasty.

New classrooms

Three new classrooms are being constructed at Gracious at the moment. I thought I'd give an example of some of the work that's constantly being done around here.

Pics above:

1.Sibale, taking a break from supervising the construction.

2.Some, students supervising the construction.

3.The future, Gracious "quad." (Eventually a row of three more classrooms will be added to close it in)

Zikomo!

Just wanted to send out a couple quick thank yous. Kevin Denny and some other Canandaiguans were at MCV this last week and delivered some soccer balls, pumps, and used jerseys. Sadly I won’t be able to show pictures of the kids enjoying all this new stuff until next term, when sports resume, but I wanted people to know that we received it.

Also, I got TONS of mail yesterday! Including lots of Bday cards, from my former students in a big package from CASTLE Middle School. I was so happy I almost cried. I didn’t even think that many people were aware that my birthday is coming up. What a pleasant surprise to get more Birthday cards here than I do in the states. Africans don’t even really celebrate birthdays. Once again, Zikomo to everyone.

Palm Beach

Palm Beach is a just a couple kilometers away. There is a small resort there which MCV visitors/volunteers often stay in, since it is considerably cheaper than the other resorts. I’m still trying to figure out why they call it Palm Beach.

Njinga ndi mbuzi

A list of various things you can carry on a bicycle.

1.) Another person.
2.) A goat.
3.) Two other people (it helps if they’re kids)
4.) A kitchen table.
5.) Another bicycle.
6.) Two goats. (This requires that the goats are relatively small and well behaved, as you will have to hold one in your lap.)
7.) Several chickens. This generally requires some type of board/box to hook the chickens onto. The chickens may be alive or dead.

I’m sure the list could go on and on, but some of the items are less entertaining. You can also use a bicycle like a wheelbarrow, loading it up completely, and simply pushing it along.

Thandi Dancing

Since, that last posting was so somber, I thought I would lighten the mood with a nice picture of Thandi dancing. (She is the 3 yr old that lives with Sibale, her name is pronounced Tandi.)

Funerals

Before I left for Malawi I gave several talks about MCV. In these talks I normally gave a couple of staggering statistics about Malawi: There are 900,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, and 800,000 orphans. (Keep in mind Malawi has a population of about 12 million). Having been here for almost 3 months, it is easy to see that these statistics are not exaggerated to generate sympathy. Luckily I have not had to attend a funeral for any friends or acquaintances so far. However, I thought I would share some events around MCV that hit a little closer to home than just statistics.

The first week I was here, Sibale and Faith attended 4 funerals.

The nutritional rehabilitation center at MCV (we all call it the nursery) has lost 4 babies since I’ve been here, and another is in the hospital at the moment.

Of the 121 students at Gracious, 46 are sponsored orphans. This does not mean that there are only 46 orphans at the school. I have talked to many non-sponsored students and found out that they have lost a parent. One new student, Abdul, joined late in the term. I asked him why he joined us so late, and he said it was because his father had just died. He almost started to cry; I felt terrible.

The headmaster and principal have attended 3 funerals this term for students’ family members. (One student lost a sister, one a grandparent, and one a parent.) Aminah, who lost her mother this week, was already without her father. She will now have to move in with her uncle.

I do not know the causes of these many deaths, but they are certainly not all from AIDS. There are many killers here (Malaria, TB, heart disease, etc.). Sibale said he believes the life expectancy in Malawi to be 48.

End of Term

We are approaching the end of the first term here at Gracious. I just finished typing up my end of term exams this morning. Next Thursday will be the last day of classes and April 5th will be the last day of exams. Like the British system of education, students do not get class grades; the end of term exams count for everything. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like we’re going to get another football match in this term. After the truck difficulties, we got shut down by a couple schools that were starting exams earlier than us. (Clearly they were not aware that I am the sports master.) If we’re able to through together a friendly match this weekend, I will of course give you an update. Perhaps the most exciting thing on the exam schedule is the Disco the afternoon of the final day. I can’t believe I left my bellbottoms back home!

Mkazi (woman)

I have no idea who the lady in the picture is, in fact I didn't even take this picture. She is simply a typical Malawian woman on the roadside. On top of her head is most likely Maize flour, though it could also be water or something else in the bucket. The cloths, both the one around her waist, and the one holding the baby on her back, are called chitenje.

The chitenje is an all purpose cloth women use to carry children, tie things up in a bundle, and wear around their waste to keep their clothes clean. Like I said, she is typical of a Malawian woman. Often times they have a much bigger bucket on their head (or bundle of sticks) and many of them have a baby or two strapped to their back. I would say 2/3 of them carry all this down the road without shoes on.

The Rat

The following events took place in my small guest room last week:

Wednesday night – I went to get into bed only to find a lizard about the size of my hand occupying it.

Thursday night- When I opened the door to my room and flicked on the light, a giant rat ran across my bed and jumped into a cupboard.

After the following events took place, I was quite jumpy and nervous when I was in my bed. Neither “pet” was sighted on Friday, but Saturday night I crawled into bed still quite wary of the rat. At midnight, I awoke with a start when something scrambled across my bare chest. I screamed loudly, and jumped. Somehow, I stayed on top of my mattress, but fell completely out of my bed. Both mattress and I wound up in the corner of my room, still completely ensnared in my mosquito net. At this point, I breathed a sigh of relief. The creature which had scrambled across my chest was far too small to be the rat; it was merely a giant cockroach.

Sunday night: I decided to move into the other guestroom.
(This room was recently vacated by Paul, a volunteer who headed back to the States.)

Nothing much

I thought I'd post a little something for those of you wondering why you haven't heard from me in a little while. The truth is, nothing has really happened here this week. Our next football match has been delayed a little bit, because the big truck was broken. It's fixed now though, so I should be telling you about our next victory soon. Since there is nothing new to report, I guess I'll resort to telling you about my conversations with the village children.

Sadly, I no longer attempt to correct the children's grammar anymore. It turns out azungu, as well as meaning white people, is the respectful way to say white person. That's right, there is a respectful way to shout out "white person white person!" Don't worry, I still find ways to surprise the kids. Nick and I are learning how to say "that's rude" in Chichewa for the kids who curse at us and demand money (in English).

It turns out that the grasshoppers Nick bought last week were only boiled, and hadn't been fried yet. I'm sure that's why they didn't taste good.

Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to report next time. Right now I have to run and help kids with their homework.

Laweluka (Saturday)

We decided to increase the study time for kids here at Gracious in an effort to improve performance. Kids are now required to stay for an extra hour Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. (Tuesday and Thursday are of course still reserved for sports) The kids also have to come for 4 hours of study Saturday mornings. I've decided to come as well most Saturdays, since so many kids could use the extra help. I came yesterday morning, and thought that things went quite well. I was definitely tired after an extra 4 hours of homework help and remedial classes. I'm thinking of asking for a raise. (maybe 1 Tambala a week?) I just figured out yesterday that one Tambala would be the equivalent of 1/100 of a penny.

Ziwala

Feeling rather bold after successfully eating fried ants, I tried to eat fried grasshoppers the other day. Not so successful. It wasn't the bad taste that made me spit it out, or the fact that I could feel the various body parts in my mouth as I chewed. It was the combination of the two. Nick did succeed in eating one, and claimed they were alright, but I didn't see him finish the bag which we bought from the roadside. I don't feel too bad for not liking them though, many Malawians don't eat them either. I've still come a long way from my childhood days. I used to be so picky, I didn't even like mashed potatoes! Thanksgiving dinner for me consisted of turkey and peas.

Otherwise I seem to have actually grown to enjoy the food here. At first I thought it was fine, then I got really sick of it, now it's great. Sometimes I'm even kind of hoping we get rice and beans for dinner.

Teaching as usual

Work is continuing to go on at Gracious as usual. I’m struggling to teach positive and negative numbers to the Form 1s. (Interestingly enough these are called directed numbers here, rather than integers. Actually that’s probably only interesting to geeky math teachers like me. But there should be a few other math geeks reading this, so I thought I’d share). In Form 2 we’re trying to learn how to solve quadratic equations, and most of the kids didn’t remember how to multiply decimals yesterday. Despite the low level of many students and the missing skills that they all have due to a poor primary education, there are quite a few bright and motivated students like Siyabu.

The picture is to prove that I’m not just traveling around and arguing with village kids over here. I actually have a job that takes up most of my time. In this picture I’m teaching the form 2s. Trust me there really are 57 kids in that class; the photographer is not in the back of the room. Also there are a few kids missing because it was raining a lot that morning. Kids aren’t in uniform because it was a Wednesday. They don’t have to wear uniforms on Weds so they can wash them. By the way, please try to ignore the fact that Omar, (lower right) is clearly not paying attention.

Sibale

In response to my dad’s request, here is a picture of the man who makes it all happen. Chakunja Sibale is the director of MCV (remember there is no paid American staff). It really is impossible to imagine this place without him. He works hard to over see all that goes on at MCV, and has since it started 10 years ago. There is certainly much more at MCV than Gracious. There are over 100 employees and over 70 village volunteers. There is a nursery, medical clinic, library, technical/vocational school, and Gracious Secondary School all on the MCV campus, with lots more being built. And of course much of MCV’s work is done in the villages it serves. Sibale makes sure this is all running smoothly, and like I said earlier, he never takes a day off. On top of it all he has 3 kids of his own, and is constantly taking in orphans at his house, actually, azungu too for that matter. He’s a great guy, and very laid back despite all the work he does.

The end of the immigration saga

My passport was finally stamped with a work visa yesterday! I didn’t even have to pay 60,000 Kwacha. The MCV management wrote a letter on my behalf to the secretary of the treasury in Malawi, who in turn sent a letter to the immigration office asking them to give me a 1 year work visa. Felix (MCV’s Assistant Director) went to Blantyre with the letter and my passport and they stamped it without anymore hassle.

On a completely unrelated note: Malawi has two wireless providers, Celtel and Telekom. Last Friday there was a fire in Blantyre which knocked out service to all Celtel phones. (Basically the equivalent of all Verizon phones suddenly not working in the USA). The officials from Celtel said it would be back up in less than a week. Nick’s predicting 3 weeks, Sibale guesses a month. Lucky for me I have Telekom.

Return to the Cape

I went back to Cape Maclear this last weekend with Nick and some new friends that he had met in Blantyre. Thomas, Maura, Bert, and Joanna are medical students currently doing a rotation at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Blantyre. Joanna is English and the other three are Dutch. They’re all really nice, and perhaps the nicest thing about them was that they picked us up in their rented car and drove us to Cape Maclear. It was great to ride in a car, even with 4 in the back. Matolas are fun the first time, after that they’re just plain miserable.

We got to spend 2 nights on the Cape since we had Monday off for Martyr’s Day. There were lots of azungu (white people) on the cape for the weekend. There was even a big party at a bar on Saturday night where I got to relearn how to associate with multiple non-Africans at once. The highlight of the weekend was a kayak trip around one of the nearby islands. We saw an African Fish Eagle (about the same size as a Bald Eagle) catch a fish and eat it in a tree right next to us.

We noticed a flat tire, on our car before we had to take off again. (Not surprising with these roads.) Luckily we met an extremely nice Indian guy, who was born and raised in Malawi, that helped us out. He not only put on the spare for us, but we had lunch at his house, and he got our tire fixed for a non-azungu price. (Malawians tend to jack up prices about 200% when they see a white person.)

Our car troubles didn’t seem too bad in comparison with another group that tried to drive to Cape Maclear in a 2 wheel drive car. After driving through a river in the road, the bottom of their car had about 4 inches of water in it, but still worked fine!

Only in Africa

I don't have time to write much right now, but I promise to write a lot more in the next couple of days. In the mean time here are a few random things that have happened lately. Most of these things would be quite shocking in the US, but don't even seem unordinary here.

Nick's Minibus ran from the cops on his way back from Blantyre

A friend of mine had his wallet stolen from him at Cape Maclear, and then had his credit cards licenses sold back to him by a guy whose friend "found it" (more on my 2nd trip to Cape Maclear later)

I tried to put on my shoe this morning only to quickly pull back my foot and have a frog jump out. Luckily, I didn't put on my shoes too quickly. I wouldn't have appreciated an impromptu dissection; the frog certainly wouldn't have.
Normally I try to shake out my shoes, but after the 20th time of doing it and having nothing fall out I had gotten lazy. I guess I'll start doing that again.

Siyabu

Meet Ellaton Siyabu, aspiring math hero and football star. He’s a total orphan (meaning he has lost both parents; those who have lost one parent are considered orphans as well). He lives with his Grandmother. Siyabu is one of the brightest students, and also one of the better footballers. His football skills have earned him the nickname Rampard (after a Chelsea player). A few of our more talented players have “earned” football nicknames. Mussa (Siyabu's half brother and our captain) is called King when he’s on the pitch.

netball pics

Just some more pictures from last Saturday. Girls playing netball, and a picture of myself with a few of the students. They all love it when you bring a camera out, since obviously none of them have cameras. This also results in many Africans running at you when you try to take pictures, resulting in extreme close ups.

I also wanted to add that in yesterdays picture. Those are borrowed jerseys. They just borrow them to play the game, and many of them are ripped. They only get 11, so any subs have to trade shirts as they come on the field.

Chief Supporters

“The professor” (Adam Nahuluma) and Allen Makwinja (in Chichewa, his name is pronounced more like Arren) took were the chief supporters for the matches.

Football Frenzy

We had our second football/netball match, this last Saturday. As you can see from the pictures we had quite a bit of fun. We played Ntonda CDSS (a nearby secondary school) at their grounds. The kids were all brought to the field in MCV’s large truck. Luckily I was able to ride with Faith Sibale, and so I didn’t have to join the kids in the Mega-Matola.

I arrived at the field a few minutes ahead of the kids, and many of them swarmed me when they got off the truck. We then waited around for about an hour for the other team to show up. The netball match started around 3:30, 2 hours late. (A 2 hour delay is pretty standard with just about any event in Africa). As you can see in the pictures, many of our students dressed up and painted their faces for the matches. They run on the field after every score, and netball has a lot of scoring. The girls won handily, and then it was time for football.

I thought our team played terribly in the first half, but we ended up winning 2-1 anyways. Siyabu (aspiring math hero) and Mussa (our captain) each had a goal. The ref was terrible, and I spent part of half time yelling at him, the other part yelling at our team for not playing defense. Don’t worry, I wasn’t literally yelling, and I’m sure he only actually understood half of what I said.

Immediately after the game all the kids piled into the truck, and we rode out like conquering heroes honking horns and singing. (Once again, I was in Faith’s car).

I have lots more pictures that I will upload soon.

Tastes like chicken

The following conversation took place at dinner a couple weeks ago: (It may behoove the reader to remember that I complained about lack of sleep due to various animal noises in past entries)

Faith: Sorry, this meat isn’t very tender. Rooster does not taste as good as chicken.
Me: Wait. Do you mean the rooster! As in we’re eating your rooster.
Sibale: Ha-ha. Yes.
Nick: I need to have seconds. I didn’t enjoy that enough the first time.
Me: How does dog taste?

At another dinner last week I was able to enjoy ngumbe (sp?). Basically, fried ants.