Kiddos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!