From Cape Town to Durban

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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)

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.