Conor in Malawi

From Cape Town to Durban

2007-12-12T03:05:00.000-05:00

I left Cape Town last Thursday, to take a week long trip up the coast to Durban. It was a lot of ground to cover in 7 days, so I didn't stay too long at any one place. I used a backpackers bus called the Baz Bus, which goes door-to-door to tons of hostels along the coast. It was definitely a nicer way to travel than the typical African minibus. I stopped at Wilderness, Storms River, Jefferys Bay, Port Elizabeth, and Cintsa, before arriving in Durban late last night. I only stayed one night at each place, but that wasn't as hectic as it sounds. The Baz Bus runs on the same schedule everyday, and so I had a full 24 hours at each place. I won't bore you all with a description of each place, (especially since I can tell some of you about it in person in a couple days) but I typically spent my nights at backpacker bars, and days hanging out on beautiful beaches.

As you can see in the pictures, I did a little more than hang out at a beach when visiting Storms River. Yes, that's me on the end of that bungy cord, and in case you're wondering, it's 216 meters from the bridge to the bottom of the gorge (making it the world's highest commercial bungy jump). Unlike skydiving, I never had any intention of bungy jumping, it just kind of happened. It was definitely a little scarier than skydiving, but still more fun than scary. (Hey Mom, aren't you glad you're not hearing about this till after I did it?)

Right now I'm in Durban, and tomorrow I'll be flying back home. See you all soon.

Cape Town

2007-12-11T03:36:00.000-05:00

I spent 5 nights in Cape Town, and was blown away by how beautiful and fun the city is. I stayed at a backpackers on Long St, surrounded by several bars, restaurants, and other backpackers. I was definitely impressed with the night life, and it was fun being back in a "western" like city (although sometimes a little overwhelming). During the days I was normally up early to hit up all the sights in my short time there. I climbed Table Mountain, visited Robben Island (where Mandela and others were imprisoned), went on a tour to see the Cape of Good Hope, African Penguins and a winery, and went cage diving with great white sharks. Unfortunately we only saw a few sharks on the cage diving trip, and none while I was in the cage! But it was still fun. I think my favorite part of the city was that every car ride/boat ride was like going on a scenic drive.

Pictures: the Cape Town waterfront, shark cage diving, the coast near Gansbaai, me at the Cape of Good Hope, and African (or Jackass) Penguins at Boulders beach.

Namibia

2007-12-02T06:28:00.000-05:00

I spent last week on an amazing 4 day safari in the Namib Desert. Our first day we drove from Windhoek (the capital of Namibia) out to Sessriem, and hiked up Elum's Dune to watch the sunset. Then it was up at 4:30 the next morning to drive into Sossusvlei where we hiked up another gigantic dune at sunrise. The scenery, was absolutely breathtaking: huge sand dunes, giant mudflats, and no roads or buildings in sight. We also saw a surprising amount of wildlife, considering it was the desert. We spotted springbok, oryx, jackal, and ostrich.

After spending another night near Sossusvlei, we drove out to Swakopmund. The scenery in Swakopmund was equally impressive with giant dunes running right up to the ocean. A few of us went quad biking through the dunes in the evening. It was a great way to see the dunes and a lot easier than walking. It also marked the second time in Africa that I followed Branjolina's footsteps. Apparently they went quad biking a couple years ago with their kids.

The next morning I decided it would be fun to jump out of a fully functional plane at 10,000ft, so three of us went tandem skydiving. The 30 second free fall was definitely one of the most exhilarating things I've ever done. I was a little nervous on the way up, but the actual jumping out of the plane happened so fast there was no time to get scared. After skydiving we drove back to Windhoek, and I got a bus the next night to Cape Town. It was a 20 hour ride, but luckily it wasn't a real "African" bus. It's actually nicer than any bus I've been on in the States.

Right now I'm at an internet cafe in Cape Town. This morning I went with a couple of girls to see a huge colony of seals on Duiker island, and I think now I'm gonna head off to climb Table Mountain. I love Cape Town so far, and I have a feeling I'll stay longer here than I planned on, but don't worry, I'll still come home in less than 2 weeks!

So Long and Thanks for all the Nsima

2007-11-22T01:17:00.000-05:00

I fly to Joburg in a couple of hours, so I thought I would write one final blog from Malawi. (Although, I'll still do a few more entries as I travel).

Last Thursday we had a little farewell party for me with the senior staff and teachers at MCV. Actually, I threw the party for myself, since no Malawian could afford it. Some of the staff made some nice speeches thanking me, and a good time was had by all.

Friday was my last day at MCV. We had a closing ceremony for the school year, and a few students made nice farewell speeches to me. While saying goodbye was a little sad, it didn't really get me down since I know I'll be back.

The last 5 days I spent on vacation in Nkhata Bay. I stayed at Mayoka Village again, and met many travelers and had a great time. I even met some Ithaca College grads who knew some Canandaiguans. (Their names were Will, Mary-Ellen and Brendan, for any Ithaca grads reading this.)

I also took the Ilala (the ferry) one last time to visit a very remote beach paradise up the lake at Usisya. There was virtually no one there (except for a British guy who was volunteering in Usisya), and after waking up in my little thatch chalet on the beach I was able to pluck a few mangoes off the trees for breakfast. After spending the night at Usisya I hoped back on the Ilala to Nkhata Bay. (The pictures are both from Usisya, the first one is the view from my chalet, the second one is the lounge area.)

Right now I'm in Lilongwe at an internet cafe, and I'll be making my way to the airport soon. After a couple days in Joburg I'll be off to Namibia.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!

Fundraising

2007-11-15T03:24:00.000-05:00

For anyone who reads the blog but isn't on my email list, I wanted to make a quick fundraising posting. (sorry for all of you who already got the email.) I'm trying to raise money for teacher salaries next year. We will need about $40,000 total, for 13 teachers. I am hoping to raise $15,000 by January, through small individual donations.

If you would like to make a tax deductible donation, please…
Make check payable to: Malawi Children’s Village and designate the check for teacher
salaries at Gracious Secondary School.

Mail to: Conor Brady
4140 West Lake Road
Canandaigua, NY 14424

Or donate online at www.malawichildrensvillage.com
When donating online, please designate for Gracious Secondary School, by putting Gracious Secondary School in the “in honor of section.” We hope to update the website soon to have a proper field for designating money when donating online. Also, if you donate online, it would be a big help if you could email me, to tell me, so I can make sure the donation was properly designated.

Zikomo!

Koche Hill Primary

2007-11-15T03:01:00.000-05:00

The other day I went with Felix (our assistant director) to visit a couple primary schools. Koche Hill Primary School, just a few km from MCV, is typical of most primary schools in Malawi. It has about 150 kids in a typical class (with one teacher). As you can see in the picture, they are also short on classrooms. Three of the classes are held outside. Often during the rainy season, these children have to be sent home because there is nowhere to teach them. I hope to find a school in the U.S. that can "adopt" Koche Hill. (MCV has already helped numerous primary schools through this school-to-school strategy.)

On our way back, Felix was nice enough to give some of the students a ride home.

Ending Days

2007-11-08T01:50:00.000-05:00

With only two more weeks until I fly out, I think it’s safe to say that this will be one of my last blog entries from Malawi.

We had our last football game of the year two weekends ago against Koche Hill. I am still confused as to whether the Koche team consisted of mainly students with a couple villagers thrown in, or simply all villagers. Some of our students insisted that they were all villagers. The Koche Hill headmaster and the villagers/students insisted that they were students. Accurate information is hard to come by here. Either way, we had fun, and won 2 to 1.

We had one last quiz competition Saturday. It was fun once again, though I can’t really think of anything interesting to report. 1B defeated 1A for the second time in a row. I’ve been busy reviewing the year’s work with my kids, getting them ready for the test next week.

Tomorrow is my last day of actual teaching. Next week students will be taking exams, and on Friday the 16th our school year ends. After that it’s vacation once again! I fly to Johannesburg on the 22nd, spend 2 days there, fly to Namibia for a 4 day desert safari (which should include sky diving), and then head down to Cape Town for two more weeks in South Africa. And then, on the 13th of December, I’ll be headed back to the States.

On a side note, it's been extremely hot lately. This is the hottest time of year in Malawi, right before the rains come. It rained a lot a couple weeks ago, and some people thought the rains were here, but now it's looking like that was just a tease. The rains normally come at the end of November. Everywhere you look you can see men, women, and children busy cultivating their fields, so that they will be ready to plant when the rains come.

Sports Fields

2007-11-08T01:46:00.000-05:00

We hired a bulldozer, and have begun flattening a large track of land which will be used for sports fields. With the new fields Gracious will be able to host its own football and netball matches next year. In the future, we hope to develop other things on the land like basketball and tennis courts.

Liwonde

2007-11-02T08:24:00.000-05:00

Last week saw a plethora of azungu at MCV once again. Board members Bob and Cindy were here along with four other western NYers. I joined them for entertaining games of cards a couple of nights at Palm Beach, and on Monday I skipped school (gasp!) to join them on a trip to Liwonde National Park.

Liwonde is Malawi’s most well known game park (if anything in Malawi can be considered well known), and is only about a two hour drive from Mangochi. We went for a boat game drive in the morning, had some lunch at Mvuu (hippo) Camp, and then went on a 4x4 game drive. We were all impressed with the amount of wildlife we saw, especially on the boat ride. We got to see crocodiles, hippos, warthogs, a few different kinds of antelope, many varieties of birds, and of course, elephants. I was impressed with the size of the crocodiles. I was hoping some would feast on what looked like a buffet of warthogs and antelope on the river bank, but I guess they weren’t hungry.

I think everyone’s highlight was seeing two ndembo (both with heads still attached) out for a swim.

Some Cape Maclear Pictures

2007-11-02T06:13:00.000-05:00

I went to Cape Maclear again a few weeks ago, and somehow never mentioned it on the blog. Not much new to say about Cape Maclear as it was my 6th trip there. I went by myself, but met an English guy named Tony who I hung out with most of the time. Mostly I just relaxed on the beach, but I also went for a hike in the hills that surround Cape Maclear. Tony and I got thoroughly lost on the hike but still managed to see some nice views and get back safe.

ndembo

2007-10-25T05:01:00.000-05:00

There was an elephant (ndembo in Yao) at Maldeco, near MCV, on Tuesday. Actually, only its head was at Maldeco. Apparently some park rangers had shot it for some reason, and were transporting the head, when their pickup truck broke down in Maldeco. Unfortunately I did not get to see it, but it still added a little excitement to my day.

The kids were very excited, and some even skipped sports time to try and go see the elephant. The girls that stayed for sports tried to distract their friends on the opposing team by shouting, “NDEMBO!” and pointing every time a car drove by.

At Palm Beach, Daniel (one of the owners) had his shotgun out last night, trying to shoot monkeys that have been stealing mangoes off the trees.

1A vs 1B

2007-10-20T04:20:00.000-05:00

I must start this entry with an apology that my blog has been inactive for so long. Our internet has been down for the past couple of weeks. Luckily, you didn’t miss a whole lot, as nothing in my life has really changed. I’m still living at Palm Beach and working at MCV, and locals still yell azungu everywhere I go. (I confess that after about 10 months of being the center of attention, I look forward to walking down crowded NYC streets with no one noticing.)

The form 2s finished their exams a couple of weeks ago and started a long summer holiday that goes until January. I reorganized my schedule with the form 1s so that I only teach in the morning, and I am available to work with form 2 students in the afternoon. Many are not able to come in for these afternoon classes, as they have moved back to their home villages, and live too far away. (Distances become too far awful quickly when you don’t have cars and subways. Even bicycles only do so much.) A group of about 10 to 12 students still comes everyday at 2:00 to work on math with me. There are even 3 girls from other schools!! (They heard that their friends were going to free summer classes, and wanted to join.) I enjoy working with a small group of kids who really want to be there.

Meanwhile, the form 1s have been busy competing against each other in just about everything. During sports time we’ve been having the “Gracious Olympics.” 1A won volleyball and netball, while 1B won Frisbee and football. The kids definitely enjoyed the competitions, and are demanding we play 1A vs 1B football again on Tuesday.

We have also started having quiz competitions on Saturday that pit four students from 1A versus four students from 1B. I’m impressed by how many of the teachers are willing to come to work on Saturdays in order to run the quizzes for the kids. We pride ourselves in being much better organized than the quiz master for the national quiz show. We’ve had two competitions so far, 1A won the first and 1B won the second. We pick new students every time, and try to balance the teams so that the competition will be close. Actually so far they were both blowouts, but since each class won once, I think it’s okay.

Not much else to report. Now that the internet is back I’ll try to be better with my updates. Hope everyone’s well back in the States, I’ll be home in less than two months!!

Back in Action

2007-10-01T03:05:00.000-05:00

After a long hiatus (due to vacation and exams) the Gracious sports teams were back in action Saturday. It was definitely another "Very African" Saturday. We left MCV for Mangochi Boma (the town) in the big truck at 1:30 (an hour late), stopped once along the way to repair the truck, and arrived at the agreed upon ground at 2:00 (the agreed upon time).

Before I could say or do anything all of our students took one look around, decided that no one from Palmland (the other school) was there yet, and took off in twos and threes to walk around town. After a few minutes I met the headmaster of Palmland, and he told me that their sports master and students should be there shortly. Having lived in Africa for 9 months, I knew what he meant by shortly, and I decided to walk to a little grocery store with a couple students to buy some bread.

When we returned to the ground, we found it deserted. We found out from others nearby that the venue had been changed, and that Gracious and Palmland would play at another ground in Mangochi. We walked over to the new ground, and after waiting for another 1/2 hour or so the games eventually got underway. As usual our 2pm game started around 4:15.

The netball game ended at halftime when the referee decided the girls were arguing too much, and she was afraid the teams would start fighting. We lost the shortened game 6 to 4.

Thankfully, the football game lasted the full 90 minutes with no major fights or arguments. Our boys were back to their winning ways with a 2-1 victory. Khenge (Mussa James) our star scored both goals.

Matuwi

2007-09-24T08:46:00.000-05:00

Since the form 2s are now testing, my teaching schedule has been really light. As a result, I finally had a chance to go out into the field with our outreach team. Currently the team is conducting the 2007 survey to register all the orphans in the 37 villages that MCV serves and entering them into a new database. On Thursday, when I went with the team, we visited Matuwi, one of the larger villages that we serve. We spent the day under the shade of a tree, and orphans and their care givers came to answer questions. (The villagers had been told that the MCV outreach team would be coming today by the village volunteers.) The caregivers answered questions about the number of orphans living in their house, their relationship to the orphan(s), their income/assets, needs, etc. Incomes were typically K1000-K2000 ($7-$14) a month, but one grandmother did answer, “by the grace of god.” Their needs were typically reported as clothes, blankets, house repair, and food. Easily the most amazing statistic was the sheer number of orphans we registered. In Matuwi alone (there are 36 other villages) the outreach team registered 106 orphans*. (I was also told that there should be many more than this in Matuwi, and someone would have to come back to register more later.) I of course should have been expecting such a high number (MCV serves about 3000 orphans a year) but seeing 106 orphans all from one village was still somewhat shocking.

On a more positive note, I was able to easily see the impact MCV has made on Matuwi. In 1997 when MCV did its initial survey, the average household caring for orphans consisted of a grandmother with 7 orphans. As MCV became established, and caregivers began to see the support that those caring for orphans recieved, many more began to share the burden. Thursday, the caregivers (grandmothers, mothers, sisters, aunts) that came to answer questions were typically caring for only 1 or 2 orphans.

*in case you forgot, in Africa orphan refers to a child who has lost one or more parent.

Wow, a blog with a footnote, that's a first.

An evening at Palm Beach

2007-09-18T08:02:00.000-05:00

Several kids were following me yesterday speaking a lot of Chichewa and Yao that I didn’t understand, but with occasional words I knew. I kept hearing the word mbale, to which I responded:

Siya mbale, Frisbee
Not a plate, Frisbee.

(As some of you know I always have a couple Frisbees on the outside of my backpack.)

Also on my walk home yesterday, I saw a group of boys throwing coconuts way up into a tall palm tree to get coconuts down. They were amazingly talented. They hit their mark every time. About 5 minutes later I ran into a second group of slightly smaller boys attempting to do the same thing. Not so amazing; they could only throw the coconuts to about half the height necessary. Apparently it’s a learned skill.

Later that night, I finally saw a couple Palm Beach hippos! There were two of them right out in front of the beach area. One of them even seemed to think he was a dolphin and sort of jumped out of the water. The local fishermen that were just heading out quickly paddled their boat back to shore. Sorry, no pictures. I didn’t have my camera with me.

MCV's Bizhub

2007-09-18T07:58:00.000-05:00

No, MCV does not have a machine that is a combination emailer, fax, scanner, and copier. But we do have a room that is a combination clinic, nursery, and school.

The Form 1 students above are attending class in a newly constructed room at MCV. The room was added on to our clinic to serve (along with other new rooms) as a temporary nursery until the old one can be rebuilt. For the next couple weeks the room is being used as a classroom for the Form 1s while the Form 2s are taking national exams at the school. (Gracious is being used as a national exam test site, and students from another local school have joined our students to take the exams at the school. Teachers and non-testing students are not allowed on the premises, thus the temporary classroom in the clinic/nursery.) Don’t be alarmed by the fact that the students don’t have desks; they are simply all being used at the school for exams at the moment.

The idea of MCV’s Bizhub occurred to me because I am currently reading The World is Flat, (Thomas Friedman’s book about globalization). It is really strange to read a book about how technology is changing the world, and then look up and see someone walk by with a bucket of water on her head. Other than my blog, I don’t see a whole lot of evidence that globalization has hit Malawi.

Quiz

2007-09-18T07:22:00.000-05:00

On Friday I accompanied 8 of our students who were participating in a quiz competition versus Mangochi Secondary School. This was, sadly, very similar to education day. The poor organization was, as usual, apparent immediately. We arrived with 8 students ready to participate, 4 form 1s and 4 form 2s, as we had been instructed. We were told that this was incorrect, we should only have brought 4 competitors. After we cut down our team the quiz got underway.

Despite the fact that the quiz was being recorded for national radio, all the questions were hand written on little slips of paper which were littered all over the "Quiz Master's" table. This led the "Quiz Master" to lose track of how many questions he asked. On more than one occasion, he attempted to end a round after not asking each team the same number of questions. Luckily, some of us were paying attention and were able to correct this error. We were also able to correct the wrong answers he said were correct, and the correct answers he said were wrong. Unfortunately we were not able to help the quiz master control the audience of students during the 2nd competition. During the quiz between Palmland and Joy (two other schools) he actually had to stop the competition, and kick almost the entire audience out of the hall. (Not our students. They behaved admirably.)

At any rate, despite the "Quiz Master" not having mastered much of anything, our kids were able to do well. Unfortunately, the other kids did even better. We lost by 2 points.

The picture above shows our quiz team and a few supporters getting ready to leave MCV.

Drums in the Night

2007-09-12T06:42:00.000-05:00

In case you got the impression, that because I now live with azungu, and eat azungu food, that I have stopped “experiencing Africa.” I thought I would share some things that show I am still living in Malawi. (As if my repeated use of the word azungu wasn’t proof enough).

The last month or so has been a time for many circumcision/initiation ceremonies for the Yao people (the predominant tribe in the Mangochi area). The ceremonies are called Jhando for boys and Mzondo for girls. I have seen many large gatherings in the village near Palm Beach with people singing, dancing, and beating on drums. The drums have also added to the lively chorus of the African night. While lying in my bed, I can now hear the drums, owls, frogs, and the occasional hippo. Sadly I also hear the loud music from the nearest village bar, but it’s not so bad that I can’t sleep. Oh, and lets not forget those lovely roosters.

I continue to greet many, many kids on my walks to and from Palm Beach. Lots of them have started to shout out Bye Bye a lot. I guess they either know I’m leaving Malawi fairly soon, or they just got bored with hellos. Sometimes on the walks home I find myself leading a troop of 20 kids or so. Don’t worry. I don’t think they’re trying to get me to join a Jhando; they’re just really happy that I’m white.

At school we've been busy preparing the form 2s for the Junior Certificate (national) Exams. They are taking them next week!! We haven’t had any football/netball games this term since we’ve been so busy getting ready for these exams. After the exams the form 2s will actually be done with school for the year (until January), but we plan on working out some sort of summer school for our kids. The form 1s finish up November 16th, and shortly after that I'll be leaving Malawi. Good thing I practice shouting Bye Bye everyday.

Back from vacation?

2007-09-05T02:07:00.000-05:00

I'm back to teaching again, but am quite confused as to whether or not I'm back from vacation. Immediately upon arriving back in Mangochi, I moved from Sibale's house to Palm Beach. Although I enjoyed living with the Sibales, I was happy to move to a place where I can enjoy the beach everyday. I am staying in a spare bedroom at the resort owners' house (a South African family), and eat my breakfast and dinner at the Palm Beach restaurant. They are giving me a great deal for rent, and so it is not costing me anymore than living with Sibales.

I'm enjoying good western style food every night (no more nsima!) and can lounge at the beach all day on Sundays. The only slight down side is that I now have a twenty minute walk to the roadside everyday to get the car to MCV. And this isn't really a down side at all on the days when most villagers shout "hello" and "how are you?" (It gets a bit tiring when they shout "give me money." and "f$#&* you." instead.)

Also in residence at Palm Beach are several monkeys, a giant eagle owl, and some fish eagles. There are also hippos that live nearby and come grazing at Palm Beach during the night. I haven't seen the hippos yet but some people saw one a couple weeks ago. Hopefully my next blog post will have a hippo on it!

Nairobi (Chapter 2)

2007-09-01T06:02:00.000-05:00

I spent one last day and night in Nairobi before flying back to Malawi. I spent the day fattening myself up at Carnivore. It’s one of the world’s 50 best restaurants and definitely one of the best I’ve ever been to. After your soup and salad, on comes the meat. While the flag is still flying on your table they keep bringing it. I ate pork spare ribs, pork tenderloin, lamb chops, lamb, beef, turkey, crocodile, and ostrich meatballs. Needless to say I did not eat dinner that night.

I also got to see a couple more movies (Transformers & The Simpsons), and go to the first decent bookstore I’d seen in 8 months.

Diani

2007-09-01T05:38:00.000-05:00

After leaving Takaungu I continued south to Diani Beach. My commute there was quite fun. I left the volunteer house at Takaungu, took a boda boda (bicycle taxi) 2km to the main road, caught a large bus blaring reggae music to Mombasa, caught a tuk tuk (three wheeled taxi) to the Likoni ferry, took the ferry to Likoni where I caught a matatu to Ukunda, and then another matatu to Diani!

Diani Beach (a place my sister actually didn’t make it to) was absolutely gorgeous. My sister’s friend described it as the best beach she had ever been to. I’d have to say I whole heartedly agree. It’s also supposed to be the place where Brad and Angelina were first spotted together, though something tells me they weren’t staying in the same $10 a night hut that I was. Sadly it once again rained every day, even more than in Malindi. I did get in some beach time in between the rains though, and enjoyed the miles of endless white sand and crystal clear water. I also went to visit the Colobus Trust just down the road from my hut where I got to see some rare Angolan Black and White Colobus monkeys. After two nights at Diani Beachalets I headed back to Mombasa where I caught the night train, (much more comfortable then the bus) back to Nairobi.

pictures: a tuk tuk and matatu in Mombasa, camels waiting for tourists, and sunrise from a little cave on the beach.

Takaungu

2007-09-01T05:35:00.001-05:00

Takaungu is a small village where an amazing NGO called the East African Center (http://www.eastafricancenter.org/) is located. After hearing about the EAC from two former volunteers: both my sister and Nick Booster, I simply had to check it out. I was pleased, but not at all surprised to find that just about every Kenyan there remembered both Megan and Nick. My boda boda (Kenyan bicycle taxi) driver, Hunter, told me that Nick was his best friend. And the Community Health Care workers' faces all lit up with smiles when I said I was Megan's brother. (My sister, a nurse & future midwife, wrote some of their training curriculum). I was definitely impressed with the work the EAC does, and also with the beauty of Takaungu itself.

The first picture is of the inlet next to Takaungu, and the second is me standing outside the hut where my sister lived for a month!

Gede

2007-09-01T05:29:00.000-05:00

After Malindi, I headed south to visit Gede, a site of ancient Swahili ruins. I was blown away by the size of the place. (The picture above is actually just a small portion of the ancient town.) I spent the morning wandering around in amazement and then headed further south to Takaungu.

Malindi

2007-09-01T04:36:00.000-05:00

After leaving Pat & Cathleen at the airport in Nairobi, I took off to the Kenyan coast to do largely the same trip my sister Megan did a year earlier. I took a night bus to Mombasa, and felt the bumps so badly that I sometimes wondered whether we were taking the road, or just driving across back country. We arrived early, and I spent the morning wandering around the old town before catching a matatu (Kenyan minibus) to Malindi.

Malindi (my first Megan recommended destination) is a town on the coast a couple hours north of Mombasa with large beautiful beaches. For some reason it has become incredibly popular with Italians. Not only do you see Italians all over the place, everyone thinks you're Italian! Instead of Jambo, many of the locals great you with ciao. I was amazed to see several Kenyans speaking fluently in Italian. I spent two nights at a resort on the beach, that had a huge pool surrounded by palm trees. (Sadly the rest of the place was falling apart; I guess that's why it was pretty cheap.) It rained much of the time I was there, but I still had time to enjoy the beach a little bit, and I hired a boat to do a little snorkeling at a nearby coral reef. I also enjoyed some great Italian food at "I Love Pizza" (good call Moogs!).

Tanzania Safari

2007-08-29T05:29:00.000-05:00

After the Kili climb P&C and I hit up three different game parks in three days: Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro Crater, and Tarangire. We saw…

Ostriches (some of them mating)
Lions (including a cub)
Hippos
Wildebeest
Impala
Waterbuck
Buffalo
Zebra
Giraffes (including one that was trying to give birth)
Pink Flamingoes
Vultures (taking a bath)
Elephants
Hippos
Hyenas (an entire pack of them)
Baboons
Vervet Monkeys
Blue Monkeys
Sykes Monkeys
And once again lots of birds, lots of big ones this time too.

Sadly no Cheetahs and no Leopards despite the fact that Patrick checked every tree in Tanzania.

Our favorite park was Tarangire where we witnessed a discovery channel type scene…

Two (unintelligent) Egyptian Geese were swimming around in a little river side pool with their goslings, which a Marshall Eagle kept trying to swoop in and steal. As we were watching this, our guide said uh-oh, the Elephants want to take a bath. The Geese flapped and squawked their way out of the pool as the herd of elephants entered it. We think one of their goslings didn’t make it out in time. Then while we were watching the Elephants bathe, the Marshall Eagle made a successful attack and swooped off with one of the goslings.

Kilimanjaro

2007-08-29T05:19:00.000-05:00

After spending one night in Arusha, Tanzania, we started our Kili climb on a Tuesday morning. We had a small group. Just Pat, Cathleen, myself, our guide, assistant guide, cook, and 12 porters!! The porters were perhaps the only thing more amazing than the mountain scenery. The loads they carry are simply incredible. For example: one porter put on my large camping backpack, strapped his backpack on the back of it, and then put a box on his head. My brother asked our guide will they leave before us? How will they keep up? Our guide laughed and said they go up much faster than we will. Sure enough all the tourists constantly have to stand aside as the porters practically run up the mountain with duffle bags on their heads.

Our hike up the Macheme route took 5 days to reach base camp, all the while going pole pole (Kiswahili for slowly slowly) because of the altitude. Everyday we hiked through different scenery, all of it amazing: rainforests, scrub land, lava fields, etc. Most of the time we could see the snow covered summit looming in front of us. We also enjoyed looking back down below and seeing nothing but clouds; you’re above a thick layer from the second day on. The hikes were tiring but not incredibly challenging.

We woke up at 11:30PM on the fifth night to begin our assault on the summit. We dressed in our warmest gear, snow pants and all, and with head lamps on started pole pole towards the top. It was quite cold, but nothing us Buffalo born Bradys hadn’t put up with before. (Actually, for me, it wasn’t much worse than being in the tent; my sleeping bag left something to be desired). Cathleen, the Californian, braved it admirably. The hike took a long 7 hours, and made the sunrise at the top all the more rewarding. The glaciers definitely aren’t all melted yet, and Patrick and I enjoyed running out into the ice fields. We also enjoyed seeing the shadow of the mountain on the clouds below, seeing Mt. Meru (a large mountain) far below us, and congratulating each other on reaching 19,384 ft, Africa’s highest point. (That’s right; I’m bragging a little. Did I mention it’s the world’s highest free standing mountain?)

After a brief celebration, and a lot of pictures at the top, we climbed back down to base camp, slept for a few hours, and then hiked down on a new route back to the rainforest. We camped one more night on the mountain and then hiked out the following day. Our legs definitely thought it was a lot of altitude to lose in two days. Luckily for us all we had to do the next three days was sit in safari vehicles and hang out in resorts.

I let my brother take all the pics for our Kili climb and safari; you can see more of them on his picasa site: http://picasaweb.google.com/mr.patrick.brady/AfricaTrip

Nairobi (Chapter 1)

2007-08-29T05:16:00.000-05:00

After our Zambia safari my parents flew back to the States and I flew up to Nairobi. The city blew me away. Not only are there sky scrapers, there are even movie theaters! (It probably has more in common with the states than with Malawi). I got in a day before my bro and S-I-L, and had time to do a few touristy things. Topping the list was definitely hand feeding Rothschild Giraffes. I also saw Karen Blixen’s house (now a museum), it is indeed located at the foot of the ngong hills. It was overpriced but neat to see. I met up with Pat and Cathleen at the hotel that night, and the next morning it was off to Tanzania.

Zambia Safari

2007-08-29T05:07:00.000-05:00

After our brief Malawi tour, my parents and I headed to South Luangwa Park in Zambia for safari. We were very pleased with our company, Kiboko Safaris, and our guide Martin was awesome. (no “flying eagles” were identified this time). We went on morning and night game drives, spending the hottest hours of the day lounging at the camp pool, and listening to the hippos in the river.

We spotted…

Elephants
Giraffes
Impala
Waterbuck
Zebra
Hyena
Warthogs
Hippos
Crocodiles
Buffalo
Baboons (including an albino baboon)
Vervet Monkeys
Lions
Countless varieties of birds

And probably many other animals that I can’t remember at the moment.

While the game drives were fun, our favorite part of safari was when the animals came and found us…

I woke up in the middle of our first night when I heard a twig break outside. My tent-mate, an Irish guy named Jamie, and I listened closely. It sounded like a person was walking quietly around outside. There’s no way that could be a big animal we whispered; it’s too quiet. I put on my glasses and walked to the front of the tent. Definitely, a big animal. A herd of elephants had come to the trees in our campsite for a midnight snack. The matriarch wound up with her head (with huge tusks) about 5 feet from Jamie’s bed! Jamie, understandably, had a little difficulty falling back to sleep that night.

When my dad heard about our close encounter with the elephant he went about gathering “elephant food” and placed it outside my parents’ tent. (Interestingly, the pile was placed outside the window on my mom’s side.) The elephants did indeed come again, though I believe my dad’s food pile was left untouched.

My dad, being the hip young guy that he is, shared his photos from their trip over here on picasa: http://picasaweb.google.com/brady.bc/Africa

The Bradys take Malawi

2007-08-29T04:58:00.000-05:00

Before all these entries I have to apologize for their lateness. I do recognize that the idea of a blog is it is updated as things happen. In my defense I will simply point out that my blog is titled Conor In Malawi; and well, I haven’t been in Malawi. Anyways, before I left on my travels, my parents visited Malawi…

I went to pick my parents up at the Lilongwe airport on a Sunday. Unfortunately for me, they showed up on a Monday. (Their flight was overbooked and they lost their seat). Luckily a day spent at the airport waiting for them to get off, did no permanent damage to me, and it made it all the more exciting when they got off the plane on Monday. Amazingly my parents made it with only one lost bag, (one with cleats for the football team), and so we drove straight to Mangochi. The next day we spent the morning at MCV, and then drove to Cape Maclear for a couple days of walking on the beach, snorkeling, kayaking, etc. Then it was back to Mangochi.

My mom spent Friday at the MCV nursery, while my dad and I drove to Blantyre to retrieve the lost bag, since the airline told us that it had been sent there. The bag was of course not in Blantyre, but in Lilongwe. We asked them to please leave it in Lilongwe since we would be heading up there again in a couple of days.

Saturday was MCV’s long awaited 10th anniversary celebration. It was awesome! Many people came for the gathering: 100+ members of staff, 72 village volunteers, 130 students, 37 village headmen, 2 members of Malawi’s Parliament, various other government dignitaries, and many many more. It involved a lot of singing, dancing, and speeches. (Kind of like education day, but much better organized; it only started about an hour late). The dancing groups were really amazing; you’ll all have to see the DVD that the studio made when I get home. Some of the speeches were also great (though most were in Chichewa). Jonathan (a former MCV sponsored student who is now an employee) made a really touching speech about how MCV has made a difference in his life. After day long ceremony, there was a party at a nearby resort with much more singing and dancing. My parents and I left at 11:00, but we were told that the party lasted until 6 the next morning.

The morning after the anniversary we headed back to Lilongwe where we made a last attempt at claiming the lost bag before heading to Zambia for safari. Sure enough, it was in Blantyre.

traveling

2007-08-03T02:09:00.000-05:00

I know I haven't posted to the blog in awhile, so I wanted to give a quick update. My parents have been here for the last 12 days, and are leaving today. Their visit has been filled with truly African experiences; both the good and the bad. We had a great time. MCV's 10th anniversary was celebrated while they were here. It was a truly spectacular event.

Tomorrow I fly out to Nairobi, where I will meet Pat and Cathleen (my brother and sister-in-law). We will be climbing Kilimanjaro (hopefully to the top!) and going on safari in Ngorongoro Crater. After that I will be spending a week in Kenya before heading back to MCV for the third term of school.

I'll update my blog with lots of stories and photos on all this stuff when I return August 26th.

tsalini bwino! (stay well)

The nursery that was

2007-07-20T04:42:00.000-05:00

Not much new to say about the nursery. It's still very much burned down. The kids are living in the "guest houses" as I explained before, and I haven't heard of any major problems. Neville, Sibale's friend who runs an orphanage in Blantyre, brought over lots of milk, diapers, and other supplies for the babies.

A few staff members also lost their offices in the fire. (Our village outreach coordinator had her office in the nursery building among others). They are currently working outside; thankfully it rarely rains here when its not the rainy season. Sibale has begun to construct new rooms in the storage garage which is connected to the clinic for new offices.

Education Day

2007-07-20T03:08:00.001-05:00

I had the pleasure of attending the annual Education Day ceremony yesterday. Education Day is nation wide with school meeting at various sites around Malawi (according to their "zone") for speeches, singing, dancing, etc.

The Education Day ceremonies for our zone involved Gracious, three other secondary schools, and a couple of primary schools (not sure how many primary schools, but there were lots of little kids running around).

To quote one of my colleagues, Education Day was "well disorganized."

Not surprisingly, the ceremonies did not commence at 9:00 as scheduled. By the time all the schools showed up and things got started it was 11:30. Actually, two of the other secondary schools didn't show up at all; apparently they already went on holiday. When ceremonies did begin, I was a little disappointed that Education Day wasn't exactly kid focused. (I should have already known this from the non-kid friendly theme: "School Management is the Responsibility of all Stake Holders.") All the adults sat comfortably in the shade, facing the various student groups that performed, while the students stood in the sun, viewing the performances from behind. Since there was no PA system, and no one made a serious attempt to keep the audience quiet, the only people that could actually hear the performances sat in the first few rows. I was luckily in the first few rows, but alas, almost everything was in Chichewa.

Despite the disorganization, many of the performances (skits, dances, and songs concerning the theme) were quite good. The pictures and video show a couple of different primary school groups and one from Gracious. My favorite part of the performances was the fact that the stage continued to shrink as primary school children crowded closer and closer. To try and control this, primary school teachers were literally using sticks to beat the children back. (Don't worry, they weren't really hitting them.)

After all the speeches, songs, etc. (which seemed to go on forever, the kids were bored as well) we ate lunch, and got ready for a pre-planned teachers versus students football game. For some reason, the game never took place. I'm still not sure why, and no one else seems to know either.

Perhaps the most amazing thing, is that the headmasters, and various committee members met several times to plan Education Day. Our headmaster was quite confused as to why nothing went as planned, but I can't say any of us were surprised; it was just another day in Malawi.

Fire

2007-07-15T02:34:00.000-05:00

Friday night we had a fire at the nursery. Luckily a night watchman spotted the smoke early, and all the kids and staff got out of the building in time. Unfortunately however the nursery is completely destroyed. Not surprisingly, there is no fire department here in Mangochi; the efforts made to fight the fire with the recources available were not enough.

All day yesterday MCV staff emptied out the two guest houses, to make a new home for the infants. The guest houses were being used as our administration office, and girls dormitory. Both the girls and office staff moved into unused classrooms at the school for the time being.

Two babies are in the hospital for smoke inhalation, but otherwise there was no physical harm to anyone as a result of the fire. We're still not sure what started the fire.

I'll try to give more details later this week.

Ndalama

2007-07-12T02:29:00.001-05:00

While it’s obvious that most things are cheaper over here, I thought I’d share some examples of just how different prices are.

mashdabwada (basically little doughnuts) 5 Malawi Kwacha
bunch of bananas for MK20.
plate full of chips (French fries) MK30
minibus to Blantyre MK550
night in a cheap hostel MK300
coke MK40

$1 = MK146 right now so the little doughnuts I buy as snacks cost about 3 cents each.

Many things cost as little as MK5 but the bills go all the way up to MK500, so getting change is always a problem. The fact that the bills only go up to MK500 is also a problem since it means you need to carry gangster rolls of cash if you need a lot of money for something. (Not exactly Zimbabwe, but it’s still a hassle)

What’s terrible is that after you’ve been over here long enough you get used to Malawian prices. I sometimes find myself guffawing at something that’s MK20 and refusing to buy it because it’s too expensive. I’m seriously starting to wonder how I’m going to survive in NYC again if I think 14cents is too expensive for a snack.

More pictures went up again today on my picasa site; I couldn't get them all up yesterday.

more pictures

2007-07-11T04:58:00.000-05:00

There are a bunch of new photos on my picasa site, including lots of kids enjoying their Gracious t-shirts. (They're in the same album as before, so go towards the end for the new ones.)
http://picasaweb.google.com/bradyco/MoreMalawiPics

Guides

2007-07-11T04:52:00.000-05:00

While my guide on the Zomba plateau was excellent, he reminded me of some not so excellent guides I had on previous trips.

A couple of conversations with our guide on Mulanje:
“What kind of flower is that?”
“That’s a wildflower.”
“Do you know what kind of wildflower?”
“A red wildflower. It’s often confused with the orange wildflower.”

“Wow! What kind of bird is that?!”
“An eagle.”
(already knowing I shouldn’t ask) “What kind of eagle?”
“A flying eagle.”

Our guide at Nyika identified a suspicious number of birds as Ogre Buzzard.
"What’s that?"
"Ogre Buzzard."
(completely different looking bird) "Wow, what kind of bird is that?"
"Ogre Buzzard."
After the 4th one Nick and I stopped asking.

Zomba Plateau

2007-07-11T04:42:00.000-05:00

As planned, I spent last weekend in Zomba. I stayed with Michael Hill (he’s the bearded fellow in the last Cape Maclear photo). Michael is one of the original MCV board members, and currently lives in Zomba working as the director of Orphan Support Africa (http://www.orphansupportafrica.org/). He was an excellent host, and I got to enjoy a much needed relaxing weekend. (Working at MCV isn’t always quite as easy as I make it appear on the blog)

Zomba is the old colonial capital of Malawi, and is noticeably wealthier than Mangochi. But don’t worry, it’s still Malawi; the power went out both nights I was there. I went for hikes Friday and Saturday on the Zomba Plateau. The plateau has many peaks with spectacular views. From the southern peaks you can look out over Zomba town with Lake Chilwa and the Mulanje Massif in the background; and from the northern peaks you can see as far as Lake Malombe. (Yes, Malawi has more than one lake; Mangochi is actually between Lake Malombe and Lake Malawi). My guide, Kala, (a local secondary school student) was great. He told me many interesting things about the local flora/fauna and culture, and astonishingly he actually seemed to know what he was talking about. If you read the next entry on guides, you'll understand why I say astonishingly.

While I was away for the weekend, our school had a quiz competition with two other schools. 5 form 1 girls from each school competed in questions on Math, Biology, Physical Science, and Agriculture. Our girls won, and I was proud to hear that it was mainly due to the fact that they dominated the other teams when it came to the math questions. :)

The Azungu Overload continues

2007-07-04T04:48:00.000-05:00

Not to much has happened of note at MCV since my last blog, but there have been a lot of azungu running around. Lots of people volunteering here for short stints, 2 weeks - a month. I've spent a more time hanging out at Palm Beach, and last Saturday a bunch of us went to Cape Maclear. 4 of us stayed over night, and had such a good time hanging out on the beach, snorkeling, playing volleyball, etc. that we decided to stay Sunday night as well. (Actually I spent all day Sunday being sick, but am fine now.) We drove to MCV early Monday morning, just in time for me to take morning attendance.

We have this Friday off, for Malawian Independence day, and I'm planning to head over to Zomba to do some hiking.

Happy 4th of July. Hope you all enjoyed the picture of these patriotic looking Americans. (Most of them are American anyways; there's one South African, and one Brit. Can you pick them out?)

Kiddos

2007-06-26T04:47:00.000-05:00

There were several young kids gathered around for the netball game on Saturday. There are always lots of kids around in Africa. They love cameras!

After the last couple football games I’ve had to wait at Namiase (the closest field) while Sibale takes multiple trips to take kids home (our big truck is broken). After the excitement of the game has tied down the kids all gather around me until I am standing there with about 50 kids staring at me expectantly. Last Saturday I decided to start singing the couple Malawian songs that I know with them. They found this quite fun. When I ran out of songs and energy, I said tisuwela “lets play,” and flung one of my Frisbees into the air. This sent them running every which way, giving me a little bit of breathing room while I continued to wait.

Madesiki II

2007-06-26T04:43:00.000-05:00

20 of the desks (which many of you paid for) have been completed and are now being used by our form 2s. Others are still in production.

Replay

2007-06-26T04:37:00.000-05:00

As you can see in the pictures above, we looked like professionals for our replay with MPSS on Sunday. Sadly, we didn’t play like them. We got outplayed for most of the game, and lost 3-1.

In the week preceding the game MPSS had complained that we featured 2 players on our team that are from the Technical College at MCV, and are not Gracious students. However our captain persuasively argued back that every team (including MPSS) has players that should not technically belong on the team. They were simply complaining because one of our Technical College players is very good. The MPSS team agreed with this argument and Tia was allowed to play. MPSS again featured a teacher which our students found greatly amusing. Especially when you could hear on the field “Sir, pass me the ball, sir!”

The game stopped for sometime in the first half, when the referee awarded MPSS a penalty kick and our players refused to let them take it. After about 15 minutes of arguing between the teams, referee, and assorted villagers who had walked onto the field, it was decided that we would allow them to take the penalty, but the referee would be switched. This was actually a surprising outcome to me, not because of the referee change (seen that before), but because we were actually unsuccessful in arguing away the penalty kick (most of the time the ref just changes the call). MPSS scored on the penalty kick to make it 2-0.

Netball

2007-06-26T04:24:00.000-05:00

We had a netball game on Saturday in classic Malawian style. The game started right on time, 2 hours late. Our girls were quite pleased to use the new Gracious t-shirts as jerseys. The game was hard fought and ended in a 19 -19 draw. Or a 20-19 loss; I’m still not sure. What I can say for sure is that there was a lot of yelling, jumping around, and singing at the end of the game.

Score was kept on both sidelines. At the end of the game both teams cheered dramatically. We had come back to tie the game with two late scores. Or, they had held off a late Gracious onslaught to win the game. When the teams discovered that they disagreed about the score, our girls started shouting and singing as they chased the Koche Hill girls to the road side. No one on either team seemed particularly upset, and so I just watched on with amusement. The referee was mysteriously absent in all of this apparently her job ended when she blew the final whistle.

Shirts and Jerseys

2007-06-22T04:40:00.000-05:00

We had a short and very fun assembly yesterday, in which I was able to make all of our students very happy.

Thanks to a generous donor, we now have Gracious t-shirts for all the kids! Each student can now purchase a t-shirt for K100 (about 70 cents). The money will go towards books for the school, and any kid who can’t afford the shirt can do a little work at MCV to earn it. I had Chinsinsi, try one on to model for all the students. Instead of taking it off, he ran to get money from his brother, and bought it right then. About 5 minutes after the assembly ended, Praise and Alex came to sports in the t-shirts. I actually accused them of stealing them out of the bag, but they had indeed run to the clinic and purchased them. Apparently they think the 100K is well worth it! Most kids won’t be able to get money quite that quickly, but I think they’ll all find a way. I can’t wait to take a big group picture!

The other exciting thing at the ceremony was the unveiling of the new MCV football jerseys. Thanks to generous donations from some of my friends, we now have 15 beautiful jerseys complete with shorts and socks. The jerseys will be used by Gracious, the technical school, and the staff team. I have a feeling MPSS might just concede defeat when they see our players all decked out this Sunday. I’ll be sure to post more pictures.

Oh, and we couldn’t leave out our poor goal keeper, Jon (who now rents a house closer to school, for those of you concerned about his walking). I think you can tell by his face in the picture how proud and happy he is to have a jersey to wear.

I was also able to provide the kids with a volleyball, that came in the goodie bag from the US. Our kids can now choose from one of 4 sports, football, netball, volleyball (we don’t have a net yet, but the ball’s a start), and of course, my personal favorite, Ultimate Frisbee. I’ve put a kid in charge of every sport. I’m trying to make the kids more responsible for running sports time in hopes that things will continue to run smoothly when I leave. Don’t worry; I won’t be giving up the title Sports Master anytime soon.

The students and staff are overjoyed with the t-shirts and jerseys. Thank you so much to everyone who funded, organized, and transported these goods.

Coca-Cola Trophy

2007-06-20T04:39:00.000-05:00

The following "article" was posted on the school bulletin board by a technical student. I think he gives a much more entertaining of the match than I could hope to, so here you go...

It was all about Khenge at Namiase. He proved that he deserves to be a hero, by driving a long range shot to put Gracious in the lead. Yes! It was the kind of shot that could force a weak goal keeper to run away from the goal posts. Khenge, you are indeed a great soccer icon.

MPSS failed to match their words with actions on the ground. We conclude that they are great talkers but less doers!! Indeed all their stars were there, but they ended up in a draw with what they regarded as a small team. Despite their physique which was somehow frightening, they failed to break down the youthful Gracious team.

The funny thing we noted was that MPSS featured a teacher (sir) on their squad. The best part of the game was when the teacher was beaten clean at ground level by a form 1 player from Gracious. The sir was slow to pull himself up due to his embarrassment. The Gracious keeper was injured by the hungry strikers of MPSS, but he managed to protect the precious goal of the Gracious team. Well done goalkeeper!!
The match ended in a 1-1 draw.
Tia was the man of the match coz he was unbeatable man. Good job Tia!!

We're going to reply Mangochi Pvt (MPSS) this coming Sunday, the winner going on to the next round. Hopefully we will be featuring some exciting new uniforms.

Typical Africa

2007-06-13T02:07:00.000-05:00

One of my students was out of school all last week because his father died. This is the third student who has lost a parent, while I've been teaching here.

When I graded exams for my 58 students in Form 2 I came across a paper from a student named Timothy. I have no idea who he is, apparently he joined last week. I still haven't met him. I actually know my kids' names now, and I still didn't notice the extra kid in my huge class.

I've been practicing saying the following sentence all day this morning.

tizasuwela inde Mangochi Private Lamulungu. (sp?, Tim, a little help?)
It means we are playing Mangochi PVT on Sunday. The Coca-Cola Trophy is back on!

The Invigilator Strikes Back

2007-06-12T03:31:00.001-05:00

So I know that today's entries aren't very exciting, but at least they have exciting titles!
We're having midterms this week, and so it's an easy week of work for me. (I don't have to take 12 2 hour tests like the students) Just lots of invigilating, marking exams, and talking with the new found Americans! Actually, I've been so rejuvenated by being able to hang out with westerners, that I decided I need even more time to do that.

I'm taking off on Thursday, and heading to Cape Maclear or Senga Bay for a few days. I have to be back on Sunday however, because the Coca-Cola Trophy might be resuming. I say might, because nobody will officially tell me, but Mangochi PVT students seem to think they're playing us this weekend. Not surprisingly, communication with other schools can be difficult here.

Hopefully the next time I post I'll have some pictures from my trip and yet another football game.

Azungu Overload

2007-06-12T03:23:00.000-05:00

I haven’t written much in awhile, because I haven’t had a whole lot new to report. I’ve been doing the same old teaching, and reading at Sibale’s house on my free time. Actually, I was starting to go a little crazy, since I hadn’t really talked to anybody non-Malawian in over a month. (on the phone doesn’t count) Luckily, just in the nick of time, we had an Azungu overload at MCV.

There most have been more than 10 of them in the library yesterday. I actually got a little flustered. Most of the people are just passing through for a couple days, but people from Solace International are staying at Palm Beach and working around MCV for a month or so. I hung out with them at Palm Beach on Saturday, and had a great time. They even have some bootleg DVDs for me to watch!

Just another update

2007-06-05T04:18:00.000-05:00

We had another football game last weekend. Palmland Secondary School requested a friendly match on Friday, since all the Coca-Cola Trophy games had been cancelled. We played on Saturday. We walked to the field because the big truck is currently broken (again). The game was at 2:00 African as usual. (it was 3:45 when Palmland showed up). Palmland didn't have a netball team, to the disappointment of the girls. Our football team was up 2-0, but Palmland came back and tied it with 2 goals in the last 10 minutes. We ended with a disappointing 2-2 draw.

At school I've started teaching my form 2 kids about probability. I was shocked to discover that they haven't learned anything about probability before. (Kids start learning probability in the 4th or 5th grade in the states).

There have been two more MCV funerals in the last week. A library worker named Gradice lost her husband, and one of the welders (who's working on the desks) lost his 3 year old daughter.
Sibale mentioned at breakfast this morning, that he is worried about how much money MCV spends just on transport to funerals.

Everywhere I go I continue to exchange shouts with children:

children: Azungu, Azungu!
To which I pleasantly shout back: Malawian!

Headline News

2007-05-31T05:47:00.000-05:00

Not much new in my life lately, but there is some news in Malawi. The first lady, Madame Ethel Mutharika, died on Monday. As a result of this sad news, Coca-Cola Trophy games have been postponed, and so we will not have a game this weekend, to the great disappointment of all the students. We’re not sure when the Coca-Cola trophy will resume.

musings

2007-05-29T07:31:00.000-05:00

Some random thoughts of everyday things here in Malawi

When I was in the hospital a couple weeks ago, (not for me, with a student, and he’s fine) a rat ran across the room. Everyone saw it, but no one even commented or thought it was a big deal.

Several kids were out of the classroom for form 2 yesterday, and the class was just remarkably behaved (not that there really bad here, but they’re still kids) and easy to teach. I was thinking, wow, it’s so nice to teach when the class is so small. When I counted there were still 39 kids in the room, (that’s still almost twice the amount found in several suburban classrooms).

When a well educated woman saw me take my contact out on a bus in Blantyre she had no idea what I was doing. It occurred to me that all my kids would be amazed if I showed them my contacts.

The electricity goes out in Mangochi for a couple hours (sometimes more) about 5 out of 7 nights a week. We lose our running water almost as often.

I often get to see and hear my dinner moving around and making noise the morning before we eat it (I got to watch people slice open a goat yesterday).

I have a 21 year old in my form 2 class, and two 11 year olds in my form 1 class.

Okay, that’s all the random facts/thoughts for today, more later.

Walking to school

2007-05-29T07:25:00.000-05:00

I believe I recall yesterday’s blog entries involving both a story from the US, and an attempt to get readers to vote on my beard. Clearly some genuine African material has been lacking, and thus today's entries are meant to fill the void.

John Laston is a form 1 student (and our outstanding goal keeper) who I decided deserved an entry because of his commute to school. He walks over 2 hours (each way) to school everyday. When I asked him what time he left yesterday morning, he told me quarter past 4.

Another student, Chama, who is in form 2 walks from an equally impressive distance from the opposite direction of MCV. He has the benefit of being on the way from Mangochi however, and so we often pick him up on the way, and he usually gets a ride home.

Beard or no beard

2007-05-28T06:07:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted to the blog in a little while (ignoring the posting I made 5 seconds ago, in which I actually resorted to reporting State side events) and thought that my readers might be getting a little antsy; asking questions like, What's going on over there in Malawi? What do you even look like right now? The answer is that I am currently still with short hair and I no longer have a beard but am considering growing it back. People here weren't too keen on the beard before, but blog readers seemed to like it. Anyways, I decided that you the viewers should decide. You simply vote on the comments. Beard or no beard.

I of course realize that I am risking turning my blog into bad reality television, but hey, I'm keeping you all entertained in America, and frankly I need some entertainment here as well.

Malawi is in Africa

2007-05-28T06:05:00.000-05:00

I was sick the last few days, but am on the mend now. Not Malaria or anything serious; I’ll spare you any details. Anyways, since there’s not a whole lot new to report here, I thought I’d share a Malawi related story that I got in the mail from my mom:

“I can’t remember if I have told you what an adventure it is taking mail for you to the post office. With every new clerk, they tell me I need to put the country on the envelop/package. I respond, “Malawi is in Africa.” “Well, you need to put ‘Africa’.” I remind them that it is a continent. Twice they have tried to put Africa in as the country and keep getting defaulted to Afghanistan resulting in much distress for them. When the clerk finally “gets” that Malawi is indeed a country, he or she gets VERY embarrassed. I, of course, now can point to another clerk & say, “oh he did the same thing.””

My fellow staff members at MCV found the story quite hilarious. (I know, I know, I’m giving Americans a bad reputation.)

I thought Madonna had finally put us on the map!

picasa

2007-05-22T04:38:00.000-05:00

I put up an album of extra photos on my picasa site for your viewing pleasure.
http://picasaweb.google.com/bradyco/MoreMalawiPics
I also found out that Google automatically made an album of all the photos that I've put up on my blog in the past...(Patrick, nice work.)
http://picasaweb.google.com/bradyco/ConorInMalawi

We had another football match last weekend with Orama. Nothing really new and unique to report. The match started 2 hours late as usual (we couldn't find the keys for the truck, then had to put gas in, and of course when we got there, we had to wait for the other team anyways.) Girls lost by a bunch in netball, and boys tied 0-0.

The next big exciting thing here is that we are in the Coca-Cola Trophy tournament, and will play our first game versus Mangochi Pvt on Saturday June 2nd.

I couldn't get my form 2s to understand 3-D drawings today despite numerous efforts. I was definitely wishing I had little building block manipulatives handy, like I do in the States.

more pictures

2007-05-18T04:46:00.001-05:00

The first picture is what a truck generally looks like as we leave MCV at the end of the day. The people in the back are various kids and MCV staff members hitching a ride with us as we head back to Mangochi. I generally get a seat in front. I’m pretty sure my azunguness has something to do with it. This is basically what a matola looks like, but they normally have about 10 more people in the back. Trust me they find a way.

The second picture is just a couple kiddos I caught at lunchtime when I walked through the nursery the other day. There are generally about 15 infants being cared for at the nutritional rehabilitation center. These are infants whose parents died of AIDS or are very sick etc. I’m sure I’ve told you all about it before, so I’ll stop now.

Save the Children

2007-05-18T04:40:00.000-05:00

The following is a classic example of the large NGOs that throw money at Africa without really creating much meaningful change.

The first picture shows a Save the Children exercise book. These books are donated to schools, and thus not for sale. The next picture is Chiso and Temwa with a couple of these books. The Sibales bought 10 yesterday. Apparently you used to be able to buy them in stores, but the police confiscated too many (since of course selling them is illegal). You can still buy them all over the place, but now you have to either buy them from headmasters directly, or find someone else who is selling them.

Don’t worry; we don’t sell any of your donated goods for profit here at MCV.

Another Funeral

2007-05-16T02:12:00.000-05:00

As is always the case with things here in Malawi, there is joy mixed with sorrow. Despite all the fun things that I have reported on my blog lately, there have been many funerals as well. Last week one of the truck drivers for MCV died of AIDS. Jairos was only 26 years old, and leaves behind a wife and children. I did not know him well and so I did not attend the funeral which was in his home village. I had spent a little time with him at MCV though. He was always pleasant to be around. I remember him playing with my I-Pod when we shared a car to Blantyre. He was definitely well liked, and everyone at MCV is very saddened by the loss

A very African Saturday

2007-05-15T07:26:00.000-05:00

We had another football game last Saturday against Koche Hill. It was definitely a typical African experience. After Saturday classes (8:00-12:00) I ate some nsima and chicken for lunch and got ready to leave for the match at 1:30 (the scheduled time). We were going to take the big truck (you’ve seen a picture of it), but of course, had to wait for it to get fixed. At 3:15, the truck was working, but had to go unload sand in the opposite direction of the match. While most of us waited, some students hopped in the back of the truck and went to help unload sand. About ½ an hour later, we got word that the truck had broken down. We decided to walk to the match which was only about half an hour away. (If you’re like me, you’re now wondering why we didn’t just walk in the first place.) We walked to the match, worrying about how late we were (even for African standards) and the fact that we now had some members of our team with the broken down truck (more than an hour’s walk away). We showed up at about 4:15 ready to play the match (minus a few players and fans) but, of course, the other team had grown sick of waiting and left to go watch another match at the other end of the village.

As usually happens in these situations, just when the the mzungu (me) is beginning to lose it, everything works out.

Someone returned with the Koche Hill team and Sibale pulled up in his truck with the kids from the break down dancing and singing in the back. Rumor has it Koche Hill had to get some random villagers to join their team.

The netball game was cancelled b/c of the late start (and I didn’t see enough of our girls around anyways), and the football game was shortened to 30 minute halves. We were down 1-0 most of the second half, but a late substitute scored in the closing minutes to tie it up. It was very exciting; all the fans danced on the field with the team for quite awhile before the game started again. We drew 1-1, in one of those weird contests where we left feeling like we won because we tied it so late.

Also of note in the game: The referee sat down (in the middle of the field, while reffing) for a good chunk of time in the second half. Jabulanie’s brother Mabvuto was on the Koche Hill team, leading to the following conversation.

-Mabvuto! (most of us still call him Mabvuto)
-yes sir.
-your brother was on the other team?
-ah, yes sir.
-So that’s Mabvuto!
-haha, yes sir.

Things to note in the picture: 1. The kids on the right are students parading around, (partially on) the field singing and dancing. 2. We’re still in our Canisius gear. 3. None of the players are wearing any shoes.

Trouble

2007-05-15T07:25:00.001-05:00

As some of you may recall from earlier blog entries, Malawian kids can cause some confusion by deciding to change their names from time to time. People don’t have birth certificates over here, and we certainly don’t have anything like student IDs, or a computer regulated attendance system. Students are thus free to choose their own name. Of course, in general, people give and use the name that they were given by their parents, but on occasion people will choose to change their name. For instance my student Stephano Frank, now uses the name Stephan Mandela. The lack of official records, etc. makes things confusing as to who actually changed their name, and who had their name recorded incorrectly by a teacher/administrator. The following is my favorite story of name confusion:

Mr. Kambalame came into the staff room after attendance for the Form 2s.
- “Did you know, Mabvuto’s name is not really Mabvuto?”
- “I was wondering about that, he just wrote Jabulanie on his test the other day.”
- “I just found out that his name is Jabulanie; his younger brother’s name is Mabvuto. But he was getting into so much trouble last term that he decided to change back to Jabulanie.”

At this point you’d be laughing if you spoke Chichewa; Mabvuto means trouble.

Amazingly enough, he has been behaving better this term with the new (or I guess old) name.

Canisius v Canisius

2007-05-09T02:14:00.000-05:00

We had a friendly game vs. the MCV Technical School yesterday. Buffalo folk should recognize the jerseys the teams used. Thanks to Evan Brady (my cousin) and Canisius high school for donating a bunch of old soccer jerseys and shorts. Sadly, the colour (that’s right, we use British English here) coordination didn’t help our soccer skills.
We lost 2 to 1. But as far as I’m concerned I’m still undefeated as sports master, since games against other MCV teams don’t count.

Also, since this is a Buffalo related entry already, Go Sabres!! (I hope the greater Brady fam appreciates that when they win the Stanley Cup this year, it will be b/c I'm out of the country.)

So long Mr. Booster

2007-05-07T06:51:00.000-05:00

So this entry is a little over due, since Nick actually left a couple weeks ago, but I thought he needed a send off since he has appeared in many past blog entries. Nick’s been spending a year in Africa in between highschool and college, the “gap year” that’s so popular for Brits and Australians. He volunteered at MCV for a few months, and then we met up again to travel around Malawi. We got a long great, he’s definitely the little brother I never wanted. He randomly volunteered with my sister Megan in Kenya before I met up with him. Nick is now petitioning to be an honorary Brady. Pat, Caryn, what do you think?

I thought I’d send him off with a picture I’m sure he’s going to be showing all the ladies at Pitzer (a college near LA) in the fall. If you’re finding yourself wondering where you can get such a stylish coat, I believe he got it second hand in Tanzania.

And then the azungu were one.

food essence

2007-05-07T06:50:00.000-05:00

Not all African food products have ingredients listed on them, but the ones that do can usually provide some entertainment. Here are some of my favorite ingredients:

food flavor, food colour, food essence, stabilizer.

If you eat some really good biscuits, you can normally guess before you look; they’ve got some food flavor in them.

I think I’ll be a little less obsessed with nutritional labels and food ingredients when I get back to the states.

Bacc 2 School

2007-05-07T06:47:00.000-05:00

Not a whole lot new to report from Mangochi. The new term started last Monday, and I’m back to teaching. (MCV actually provided classes during the summer term as well, but I was busy being selfish and traveling.) We’ve gotten a few new students, but mainly it’s the same kids. It’s nice having their names down already. Now my main struggle is to try and finish the curriculum before the Form 2 students take their Junior Certificate Examination. Although the government syllabus contains 3 terms, you only have 2 to teach it, since the test will be at the beginning of the third term. Of course, this being Africa, we still don’t know when the test will be exactly. Last year it was early September, so that’s what we’re planning for.

When I’m not working at MCV, I sit around and read. There’s not really anything to do here, so I read a lot. The rainy season is over (supposedly, but it still rained again today), and we are entering the coolest months of the year, (May and June). It really has started to get pleasantly cool; I even put on jeans and a sweatshirt at night! I suppose that the weather is actually fairly similar with what you east coasters should be getting this time of year, (hopefully, not sure if spring really arrived there yet).

I’ve started to run again. I had tried before, but was scared away by all the yelling. My new strategy is to get up at 5:00 and go running then. There are fewer people out, and the ones that are don’t seem up to yelling in the early hours. Mind you, people still seem completely baffled by my voluntary exercise. Their looks seem to say, “Why don’t you just walk 5 miles with 10 gallons of water on your head? It works for me.” I also started listening to my ipod, so that I can imagine the shouts I do hear are simply people cheering me on.

Sorry sir, food is finished.

2007-04-27T02:58:00.000-05:00

The restaurant on the Ilala reminded me of some other classic restaurant experiences over here. (Going out to eat in Africa almost always provides some entertainment.) I thought I’d share some random anecdotes with you.

Nick walked into a restaurant in a large town in Tanzania (I forget where exactly) at 6:00PM.

“Could I have chicken with…”
“No!”
“Okay, could I have the chipati and”
“No!”
“ummmm”
“Sorry sir food is finished.”

The following incident took place one weekend on Cape Maclear at a fancy French restaurant.

Bert (a Dutch friend):“What’s in the herb omelet?”
Waiter: “Let me go ask the chef,” goes into the kitchen, comes back, “herbs.”
Bert: “What kind of herbs?”
Waiter: “Let me go ask the chef,” goes into the kitchen, comes back, “mixed herbs.”
Bert: “Are they fresh?”
Waiter: “Let me go ask the chef,” goes into the kitchen, comes back, “yes.”
Upon eating his omelet Bert was quite sure that the herbs came from a can.

The other day I asked for a beef burger with cheese at a restaurant in Mangochi. I was surprised to get a veggie burger, with no cheese. This was remarkable, since veggie burgers weren't on the menu.

Mulanje

2007-04-27T02:45:00.000-05:00

4/20/07 - 4/24/07

After a brief stop at MCV, Nick and I took off to climb the Mulanje Massif (Massif refers to a large mountain mass or compact group of connected mountains).

We stayed in self catering huts for three nights, and climbed up to the top of the highest peak, 3,100m Sapitwa, which means "don't go there." The climb was definitely no joke. Not only is it tiring, you definitely fear for you're life a little at times. I decided to carry my frisbee with me, so that we could celebrate the peak in unique fashion.

The Ilala

2007-04-27T02:28:00.000-05:00

4/16/07 - 4/18/07

On Monday night, we left Nkhata Bay aboard the Ilala steamboat. (Actually, this was after we rode a minibus, for an hour and half each way just to go to an ATM in Mzuzu, since no place takes credit cards here, and you have to carry around gangsta rolls of cash to pay for anything.)

We took the Ilala all the way down Lake Malawi to Monkey Bay, about an hour drive from Mangochi. The boat took 2 days and 2 nights, and we got to see some beautiful scenery on the way. We slept on the upper deck, (which you can see in the second picture), which was quite comfortable except when it rained, and we had to hide behind the bar. This was considered first class, and was considerably more comfortable then staying below where accomodations resembeled a floating minibus. One night, when Nick and I were getting soaked, and unable to sleep, I shouted above the storm, "First Class!"

The boat was definitely a truly African experience in other ways as well. The kitchen almost ran out of food, despite the fact that there were only 6 first class passengers. We arrived in Monkey Bay, predictably, several hours late. The main reason we were late, was that we stopped at an island called Likoma for several hours and picked up fishermen (in their boats), and later dropped them off at a remote island in the middle of nowhere for better fishing. Apparently they will return to Likoma when the rains start again. As you can see from the picture, it was quite an event picking them all up.

Nkhata Bay

2007-04-26T02:37:00.000-05:00

4/12/07 – 4/16/07

After Livingstonia, we decided to kick back for a few days and enjoy the northern lakeshore. We stayed at a place called Mayoka Village in Nkhata Bay. It’s a cheap backpacker’s hostel, with a great bar/restaurant on a deck that hangs right over the lake.

We didn’t do a whole lot here besides lay around and go swimming, but we did go cliff jumping one day. As you can probably guess from the picture, I was scared for my life. Sadly, I can’t say that I went into the water with style and grace; my backside hurt for the next few days.

Another remarkable thing of note in Nkhata Bay was that we ran into a bunch of other Americans for the first time in Malawi. Actually, some of you might recognize one of them! Susie (second from left) and I hung out for almost a whole day before we realized that not only did we both go to BC, we had met in a NYC bar last year!! This marks the second time in my life that I’ve met someone I know in a random country, the first being Leslie Hankin (a friend from high school) at a Mexican restaurant in Dublin.

Livingstonia

2007-04-26T02:25:00.000-05:00

4/10/07 – 4/12/07

We had a nice brief stay in Livingstonia. It’s a town that was founded by Scottish missionaries, in honor of David Livingstone. The 19th century European architecture is certainly interesting to see in the heart of Africa. We visited the small museum, walked over to beautiful Manchewe Falls, and spent some time with our friend Emmanuel, a student at Livingstonia College that is being sponsored by MCV.

The little 4x4 that could

2007-04-26T02:08:00.000-05:00

4/10/07
When we left Chelinda Lodge on Tuesday morning, we were spared the matolas and minibuses by a remarkable stroke of luck. We got a lift from my long lost cousin. Owen Brady (and he’s even from County Cavan!) and his girlfriend gave us a lift all the way to Livingstonia in their trusty little 4x4. I can’t even begin to explain how fortunate this was. Not only would we have had to do the reverse of our hop, skip, and jump, to get out of Nyika National Park, the road to Livingstonia is no picnic. I extracted an accurate description from Lonely Planet:

The road to Livingstonia turns off at Chitimba, forcing its way up the escarpment in a series of acute hairpin bends (20 to be precise – they’re numbered) with a bad road surface, steep gradients, and pretty frightening drops to add to the fun. If you’re driving it starts out well, but the wide dirt road quickly becomes a steep rutted track, only just passable with a 4WD.

Nyika

2007-04-25T08:30:00.000-05:00

4/7/07 – 4/10/07

Okay, so I lied a little bit in that last blog entry. We only ended up walking 8 miles (a truck eventually picked us up), and only the first 5 miles were through a hail storm.

After the storm lifted, we walked on in high spirits hoping that maybe we would see some wildlife. In the distance we spotted several animals grazing on the hillside, but couldn’t tell what they were. We decided to walk up the hill and get a closer look. The closer we got it was easy to tell. We walked right up to a herd of about 20 zebra, with some small bushbuck jumping in between them. It definitely set the theme for an amazing weekend.

Since it was my birthday, we decided to stay in the luxurious Chelinda Lodge for three nights, instead of the cheaper Chelinda Camp. We stayed in a chalet overlooking the rolling hills of the Nyika Plateau and had amazing food for breakfast lunch and dinner. They even have someone come into your chalet in the morning and light the fire while you’re still in bed!!

The luxurious accommodations certainly didn’t fit in with the rest of our budget trip.

“Did you fly or drive?” asked another guest at the lodge.
“We took a matola and then walked from the junction.”
“Shouldn’t you be staying down at the camp?”

We went for a hike one day, and a horse ride the next. The landscape was truly amazing. I don’t think pictures will do it justice. I’d describe it as the unsettled plains of the Midwest back in the day (not at all what you’d expect from Africa). We saw lots of zebra and 4 different kinds of antelope (eland, roan, bushbuck, and reedbuck). They let you get incredibly close, especially when you’re on horseback. We also spotted a bush pig, and various birds. Our last night there we went on a night drive in which we got to see a cerval cat, several eagle owls, and a couple jackals. Unfortunately we didn’t spot any leopards or hyenas. It was definitely a remarkable few days, despite the fact that we got caught out in two more storms.

Hop, Skip, and a Jump

2007-04-25T08:29:00.000-05:00

4/7/07

After the Express Line to Mzuzu, I met up with Nick (who had been traveling already for a couple weeks), and it was merely a hop, skip, and a jump to Nyika National Park, where we were starting our trip.

A 1 hour minibus, 3 hour matola, and 10 mile walk through a hail storm.

The Express Line to Mzuzu

2007-04-25T08:21:00.000-05:00

4/5/07 – 4/6/07
As the sun began its quick descent, I walked up to the Blantyre Bus Depot, ticket in hand. The fact that my bus was late didn’t surprise me in the least; after all, this was Africa. I was in high spirits, for I was headed north, on the express line to Mzuzu.
Shortly after 8:30 I boarded my 5:30 bus. I took an aisle seat, and attempted to stuff my bag under the school bus like bench. As we pulled out of Blantyre, I readjusted myself and attempted to get some sleep. I was in high hopes that when I woke with the sun, we would be climbing the hills of northern Malawi.
An hour later we sputtered to a halt on the side of the road. I didn’t need anyone to translate the Chichewa being spoken around me; it was clear that we were broken down. We waited for an hour or so, until an empty bus pulled up behind us. Overjoyed that help had arrived, we grabbed our bags and climbed down off our debilitated bus. We weren’t allowed to board the new bus right away. Not being able to speak Chichewa I was confused. I sought out an English speaker among my fellow passengers.
“What’s happening? Why can’t we board the new bus?” I asked.
“They are examining the buses, to see which one has a better chance of making it to Mzuzu.” He replied.
I was speechless. After a few more minutes the conductor told us to board the new bus. The normally patient Malawians, surged for the doors as if they were a herd of buffalo converging on a water hole. I fought my way on board and was able to secure my seat once again. The engine started with a roar, and we gave each other reassuring looks. Surely a vehicle with such a mighty engine would get us to Mzuzu without difficulty. As we drove on facial expressions turned from satisfaction to dismay. Our new bus roared like a lion, but it moved like a snail. With the engine roaring, we crawled north through the night. I tried to fall asleep but the engine’s grown and the lack of a head rest kept jerking me back into consciousness.
Around 2:00AM, neither fully asleep nor awake, I was jolted upright by a loud bang. As we waited on the side of the road, I once again found an English speaking passenger.
“What happened? Why are there two buses here?”
“Didn’t you see?”
“I was half asleep. I heard a bang; did we hit something?”
“We hit the other bus!”
In my exhausted semi-conscious state, this somehow didn’t even seem out of the ordinary to me. After about 15 minutes or so, we were told to re-board. We fought our way back to our seats, and the bus crawled on once again. Apparently no serious damage was caused by the collision.
At 8:30 in the morning (when we should have been arriving at our destination) we pulled into Lilongwe. Through my limited Chichewa skills I was able to ascertain that we would be stopping here for repairs. I was relieved to hear this, since our bus had been traveling at a maximum of 40 km/hr, and we were still a long way from Mzuzu. But as we pulled into the Shire Bus Yard, I was horrified by what I saw. There were dozens of buses in the yard, but not one of them was fit to travel. Their axels rested on cinderblocks, and it looked as though every usable piece had been removed from these dilapidated old buses. Rusted metal and broken glass was everywhere. Having finished a Heart of Darkness only hours before, I couldn’t help but think of Marlow, finally reaching his destination, only to see the ghastly ornaments outside Kurtz’s hut. Surely there was no hope to be found here. An hour later we got on our “fixed” bus. As we crawled out of Lilongwe it roared louder than ever.
The hours dragged on as the sun began to sink once again. All the while the noise of the engine roared as if it were coming from inside my head. In the late evening, rain began to fall, and we were dismayed to find out that our mighty snail was not a sea worthy vessel. As we squirmed this way and that to avoid the rain, I struggled to maintain my sanity. The already incomprehensible dialogue around me seemed to get more and more distant; everything was drowned out by the awful noise of the engine. What was that ghastly thing sitting next to me? Hadn’t I sat down next to an attractive young woman? Indeed perhaps the only thing that allowed me to keep my sanity at all was the mental composition of this very story.
Eventually the rain let up, and as we climbed the high hills of the north I could look out over endless seas of green. The landscape was truly fantastic. I began to think that perhaps this ride had been worth it after all. We arrived in Mzuzu around 6:00, more than 24 hours after I had arrived at the Blantyre Bus Depot. I got off the bus and walked onto the streets of Mzuzu to begin the next stage of my journey. The incessant noise of the engine droned on in my head.

Website

2007-04-04T14:47:00.000-05:00

www.malawichildrensvillage.com

That is all.

Audio/Video

2007-04-04T06:15:00.000-05:00

A couple random things from life here at nyumba ya Sibale.

Faith bought the audio cassette of my favorite song here in Malawi, Gobedegobede. We then proceeded to have a dance party. This song is considerably better than the most popular song currently in Malawi, which consists of a baby repeatedly crying into a synthesizer.

The Sibales’ have a television which gets the one station available here, TV Malawi. TVM shows televangelism 90% of the time, and I never watch it. However, the other morning there was a program encouraging people to go visit a couple of random small towns in Indiana and Illinois. This, I had to watch. Who in the world is watching this and deciding that if they ever make it to America, they really need to go visit Lake Michigan. Adding to my personal amusement was the fact that they showed shots of Gurnee, IL, where my friend Sarah Ryndak is from, and Indiana University where some of my friends went to school.

By the way, the reason for me putting up a bagillion entries today, is that I'll be out of touch for the next couple weeks on a trip up to northern Malawi.

Salini Bwino

Mmm, mmm good.

2007-04-04T06:13:00.000-05:00

A typical lunch here in Malawi, nsima and ndiwo. The nsima is the white lump of paste made from Maize. Ndiwo is anything that goes with nsima, in this case, Chambo from Lake Malawi, and pumpkin leaves. (I'll be honest, this is not one of the meals which I have learned to love.)

Cultural Diversity

2007-04-04T06:08:00.000-05:00

Meet, Mazinda, Sahar, Tania, and Tamana, students at Gracious Private Secondary School. They moved here recently from Afghanistan with their mother and father. Their father Ayuby, works for Solace International (solaceinternational.org), an American NGO that was helping to create girls schools in Afghanistan. They moved here to get away from the obvious dangers they were facing back home. Their father is continuing to work for Solace which helps support various projects at MCV.

Solace Cyber Café

2007-04-04T06:05:00.000-05:00

The Solace Cyber Café opened up a couple weeks ago in the MCV library. Thanks to this project, we now have a satellite dish which provides us with much faster and more reliable Internet. The project will provide Internet free of charge to the MCV administration and school, by charging for public usage.

The Café is currently being run by a pleasant Solace employee, from Kenya, named Violet.

Calculators chapter 2

2007-04-04T05:57:00.000-05:00

So I know it’s terrible to take pictures when kids are trying to take a test, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity to show our kids here using the calculators that kids at Canandaigua Academy collected. (the old blog entry: calculators) We’re definitely grateful to have them, and can always use more if anyone wants to start up another collection.

The students using the calculators in these pictures are all Form 1s. They’re names, starting with the top going down, are Mtisunge, Atupele, and Hannah.

The Invigilator

2007-04-04T05:53:00.000-05:00

The last couple of days I’ve been just proctoring tests. This of course is rather boring, but the British English gives it an entertaining title: Invigilating. So now, in addition to being Sports Master, and Math Hero, I am The Invigilator. I think we need to start using this word more in the States. The invigilator sounds so much better than the proctor. (I’d rather be a character in an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie than a character in an Arthur Miller play.)

Mtengo

2007-03-30T07:37:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-30T07:25:00.000-05:00

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!

2007-03-28T09:44:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-28T09:39:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-28T09:37:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-23T08:47:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-23T08:40:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-23T08:37:00.000-05:00

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)

2007-03-19T09:43:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-19T07:04:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-16T08:28:00.000-05:00

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)

2007-03-11T04:19:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-11T04:03:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-09T05:38:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-09T05:23:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-08T07:05:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-08T06:57:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-07T05:03:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-02T08:39:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-02T04:38:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-01T07:21:00.000-05:00

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