Second month in Malawi

My second month has been a more ‘active’ month in terms of work to do with my project. I have started visiting the pre-schools which is the central part of my work and it has been a great experience so far. Ray is coming to the end of his time in Malawi so I have been visiting pre-schools with him to allow us to do a handover where he has been teaching and informing me about everything I need to know in regards to the pre-schools, including exactly how to get to each one.

There are 32 pre-schools in the program and each DI has at least 10 pre-schools each to look after. We walk to all of them and my furthest pre-school is about 2 hours away and the closest is around 40 minutes. The pre-schools run from 8:00-11:00am, Monday to Friday. Depending on where the school is I usually leave anywhere between 6:00 and 7:00am each day, which means 5:00-6:00am wake ups. I am an early bird though so it’s been no problem for me.

We normally visit the pre-schools with a supervisor to help with translation if the teachers don’t speak English. Luckily in almost all of mine I am able to communicate with the teacher in English. There have been some problems with the supervisors though so I actually haven’t been going with any of them really and just with Ray or on my own. We follow the same schedule each week, but after the first 3 weeks I changed mine to co-ordinate with other activities I have in the afternoons, depending on how far away I have to come from and then travel back to get to the afternoon destination.

We spend many hours a day walking. On Tuesdays I have Youth club in the afternoon and Wednesdays I have English class, and I normally get back to the college from pre-schools anywhere between 1 or 2 hours before I have to leave again to get to these activities. This gives me time to sit down and take a short rest and have some lunch. It can be tiring but I am quite used to it. On these days sometimes I am walking for almost 12 hours – it’s good for the body and soul! What keeps me motivated is the fact that I am helping people and contributing to making a difference.

Visiting each school has allowed me to see the school conditions, teaching methods, materials or lack of materials, the food situation, among other things, and of course to meet and communicate with the teachers and kiddies. Each school is quite different but also many of the things they teach are the same. ABC’s, numbers, English words, games, songs, etc.

The teachers are all volunteers and each pre-school usually has one or two teachers. There are also normally ten committee members per school who are also volunteers. The committee members are supposed to be responsible for helping with various needs of the school and children, which can consist of anything from cooking porridge for break time, helping with construction of a classroom, fetching water, cleaning up, maintaining the garden if there is one, and plenty of other things. It’s a nice idea but the problem is it’s not consistent across all the schools and some committee members are more active and involved in some schools than others, if at all really.

Some schools don’t have a classroom so they are either using the teacher’s house and the classroom could either be outside or a room in the teacher’s house. But usually it’s outside because for the amount of children there are they don’t fit into the small room that is there. Some have a classroom which is usually just a room that varies in size in each school and is made of bricks. The bricks are all hand made with mud and water by committee members or other people in the community. It’s quite an interesting process. They lay hundreds of bricks on top of each other into something like the shape of a house and then they make a hole so they can light a fire inside which burns the bricks. I think they do this for some hours and then leave the bricks to cool for 5 or 6 days which allows them to set and become quite hard.

Some schools have a blackboard (a piece of wood painted black which enables use of chalk for writing). Some schools have various materials such as laminated numbers, letters and pictures of different objects which were given to some of the schools by other DI’s. I think these came from some people that visited from Denmark. If they have the resources, some teachers use their initiative and make some materials with numbers or letters on them by just writing on a big scrap of paper. Some schools have writing on the walls with mud that has numbers, letters, pictures and other things that can be useful for the kids.

Each DI that works with the pre-school program has a different vision of what to focus on in the period. For example, Ray was concentrating on building classrooms if the school didn’t have one and making sure the schools were actually opening each day because sometimes you find that you will show up one morning and the teacher has decided not to open the school. Sometimes it’s because there is a funeral, a holiday or a so-called ‘holiday’, and sometimes it’s for no good reason at all. Maybe the teacher had something personal to attend to that, where I come from wouldn’t warrant not opening a school.

I met a primary school teacher one day when I was walking back to Amalika from visiting pre-schools. It was a Monday at around 11:30am and I found out she had graduated from the Chilangoma Teacher Training College in 2009. I asked her why she wasn’t at school and she laughed and said because she had other things to do today like her washing. I told her that wasn’t good and she should think about the kids and that from Monday to Friday she should work and the weekend should be for doing her washing and other things like this. She told me she understood and she wouldn’t do it again. But I know that probably if she feels like it she would do it again. Sometimes these are the types of reasons given for not going to work or not opening a pre-school and this is where the struggle continues with changing the way people think about certain things and making them understand why something is important.

Another example that happened recently and happens a lot is the teacher doesn’t open the school on time. I arrived at one of the pre-schools at 8:00am for opening time and there was no sign of the teacher but around 6 or 7 kids just hanging around the classroom, some inside, some outside, but no adult at all. I saw an old lady nearby who I went and greeted and she said something about the teacher in Chichewa and headed in the direction of the teacher’s house. So I waited with the kids. Then a young boy came over to me who spoke English and it turned out to be the teacher’s little brother. He said she was bathing and that she would come soon. He helped me set up the classroom with the blackboard and mat for the kids to sit on and I asked him if we could get the kids to sing some songs while we waited. At 8:30 the teacher showed up and I asked her why she didn’t come here at 8:00 to open the school and she just laughed and that was it. Sometimes I don’t know how seriously they take things but also realise that time doesn’t really matter to them so no one is really that bothered about waiting or making people wait.

My visions are different to Ray’s and the two major priorities I have are with the nutrition of the kids and the teaching methods. In some schools the kids bring some food from home, and in some schools, sometimes, there is porridge cooked for the kids by committee members. But it is not consistent so the kids don’t always get food. I have found out that there are several organizations that have feeding programs in some of the primary schools, so what I am trying to do is put together a proposal of the amount of pre-schools we have, the number of kids and various other pieces of data, approach these organizations and find out what possibilities there are of bringing the program to these pre-schools. It bothers me a lot that the kids don’t get enough of what they need or the right amount of nutrients in their diet, so this is my main priority.

From the first day I could see the problem with some of the teaching techniques used by the teachers. Many times you see the kids are just repeating what the teacher says and not understanding what they are repeating. Many teachers teach the order of letters in the alphabet or numbers from 1 to 10, but it seems the kids don’t really know how to recognise these letters or numbers. The days of the week and months of the year are also taught, but don’t seem to be taught in a way that the children know what they are. They just repeat the words and remember the order when the teacher asks them.  Some schools seem to be better than others and sometimes it seems like the kids can recognise or know the difference, but mostly not.

The kids are also taught what they call “introduction.” When they are asked to say the introduction, again they just repeat what the teacher has told them in the same order. My name is…. I am a girl. I am ….years old. I go to ….. school. I live at…. etc But I think if someone asked them one of these questions individually, they would not be able to answer it because they do not understand what the question is asking them. It is quite clear because a child stands up and says, “Introduction. My name is, I am a, I live at…. You get the point.

For sure, the highlight of visiting the pre-schools is the kids. They are absolutely wonderful and always a pleasure to visit. Some of them jump on you, want to be picked up, want to hold your hand or sit next to you and some of them cry their eyes out because they are scared of you! These kids, with next to nothing, are so happy and I’m sorry to say, could teach some of our ‘western world’ kids a thing or two about appreciation and spirit.

Being “azungu” in Malawi feels like you are a celebrity sometimes. At least from some of the experiences I have had. For example, one day Ray and I went to visit a pre-school and because of some circumstances we needed to go and see the Pastor that is linked to the pre-school and community about the building of a classroom. His house is right opposite a primary school, so when Ray and I walked past the school the kids were all outside and saw us walk to the Pastor’s place and immediately followed us. The Pastor was sitting out the front of his house and we joined him and discussed some things with him. The entire time hundreds of kids were all crowded around us, just curiously looking at us and watching everything. Many of them pushed each other out of the way so they could try and be closer to us than their friends. Something like this at home would be if there were celebrities or important people and everyone would be crowded around trying to get a glimpse of you. They want to be where you are and see what you are doing. When we left the kids followed us and were so excited when we were talking to them and wanted us to take pictures of them.

Another example is that one of the pre-schools I visit is near another primary school and when they know “azungu” are visiting they come crowding around to see what we are doing. It happens at this pre-school every time, and it’s not good because this school is the teacher’s house, and it’s quite disruptive when she is trying to teach. Ray and I actually had to go and ask the teachers at the primary school to control their kids, but of course they keep coming back every week.

I am always being followed by kids when walking past the villages. One day in particular I was walking back to Amalika from pre-schools and about 20 kids were following me for ages, asking my name, where I was going and wanting to hold my hand or walk next to me. Again, they were pushing each other aside so they could walk closest to me. This kind of thing happens almost every day and the kiddies are so sweet.

Each month there is supposed to be a pre-school workshop that is run by us DI’s and the pre-school supervisors for pre-school teachers and committee members. Usually the pre-school teachers come one month and the committee members come another month, although I’ve heard that we don’t always do them every month but every two or three months.

A few weeks ago we had a workshop for the teachers, which was from 9:00am to 3:00pm. We invited two teachers/representatives from each school because of the fact some schools have more than one teacher. When we sent the invitation letters out though we told them we would be starting by 7:30, because most teachers would more than likely arrive at least an hour or more late (African time!). And we were right to do so because by just before 9 o’clock, practically everyone that intended on coming was there and ready for us to start on time. Amazing!

Usually there is a headline for the day and we give presentations relating to the headline. So our chosen headline this time was the Teacher Training College motto, “Make Learners, Learn More.” I made a presentation about Teachers, Children and Teaching Methods, Ray presented the Importance of Using Teaching Materials, Krisztina presented the Importance of Music as a Resource or Teaching Method, Sarah presented Learning Theories and Gift, one of the supervisors made a presentation about Indoor and Outdoor Play. There was also a song and theatre play in Chichewa presented by some 2010 students.

As the native language is Chichewa and many of the teachers don’t speak much English or at all, we had translation from English into Chichewa for each of our presentations. One of the 2010 students, Fanizo was our translator, and each sentence or two we spoke in English he translated into Chichewa. Even though there was translation it was hard to tell how well we got the message through because many of the teachers looked bored and didn’t always seem to be paying attention. But we understand that it’s because they are not used to sitting listening to presentations for long periods of time, and especially because they are mostly in English, they probably tend to ‘switch off’ half the time. Plus it seemed that the teachers mostly just came for the food more than anything. Many of them complained their portions weren’t big enough but actually they were absolutely huge! They saved a lot of leftovers in plastic bags to take with them. I don’t blame them though because many have families to feed and they are unfortunately quite poor, some worse than others.

We have taken note of several things from this workshop and discussed how we don’t think it’s so useful to stand in front of the teachers and speak for long periods of time and just have them sit there. So we thought about ways we can make it better for them the next time and more interactive, perhaps with small groups and getting them more involved.

Every so often we receive bags of shoes of many sizes from donors to distribute between the pre-schools for the kids. In this last 6 months there have been 2 or 3 “Shoe Actions” to give shoes to the kids and we had another one just recently. We made an agreement that we would only give shoes to children who come to pre-school regularly. Many parents don’t send their kids to school, but what normally happens is when they find out that we are giving shoes then suddenly they send their kids. This is obviously really bad and what we tried to do this time was change the parents’ minds. We want parents to send their children to school because it’s important for them to learn and begin their education at an early age. We don’t want parents to send their children to school only because they get free shoes.

We also find a lot of the time that when teachers hear we are giving shoes away they add more kid’s names to their attendance lists. So, all of this makes it hard to see if we should even give shoes in the first place. Of course we would love to give shoes (plus so much more) to all the kids and their families, but what we don’t want to do is lose sight of something that continues to be a problem and that is local people expecting ‘free handouts’ all the time. Even aside from the shoes, every day we are asked for money or other things and this is not why we are here.

Just a quick thing on this – one of the pre-school supervisors, Joseph, explained that a reason why Malawian people ask foreigners for money all the time is because the ex-President, Hastings Banda, continuously asked many countries for foreign aid, and so the people see this and do the same thing. The dependence of foreign aid comes from the top and carries through the nation’s people… and the struggle continues.

Something else that I have been involved in for a few weeks is visiting a primary school in Blantyre with Ray and doing creative arts with the kids. They are at the ages of around 12-14 years old. One week we asked them to draw what they did on their recent school holidays, then another week we made masks and another week we made a huge sign they could hang up in the class where the kids drew the school’s name and pictures of whatever they wanted to draw. It has been really nice because as well as visiting pre-schools it’s also nice to see the older kids in primary school to get an idea of how things are run. It’s also nice to get out of Amalika during the week and go to the shops and markets for some groceries and have lunch outside for a change.

Some more involvement I have with kids is a youth club that used to be held in Amalika for kids in the closest villages and run by Ray and Sarah, but recently there was a change of plans because it was noted that coming to Amalika seemed to be too far of a walk for the kids and that maybe they wouldn’t get back to their homes by dark. So Ray and I made a meeting with the headmaster of one of the local primary schools which also happens to be where I teach English, and asked if we could use his school for youth club so it would be closer for all the kids, seeing as though they all attend his school. So now I have taken over from Sarah and Ray and I had a couple of weeks of youth club together, but because Ray is leaving soon it is just me for now until another Development Instructor arrives at our project. We made a new plan with some structure where we do different activities on a 4-weekly basis. Week 1 – games, week 2 – creative arts, week 3 – education and week 4 – music. So far we have played some games and done creative arts and it’s been really nice. The kids are all really keen and happy and love to draw and learn new games. There are also many kids from the village that don’t go to the school but come and have a look at what we are doing so we welcome them to join us too and they love it.

English class is going well and I now have around 10 new students in my class. One Wednesday afternoon I was getting ready for my lesson in the classroom and all these new people started walking in, mostly women. I asked if they were here for English class and they said yes. I wasn’t prepared at all for so many new people because I also did not know of their levels of English and most likely they were all at different levels. The headmaster of the school walked in and mentioned the new students. He said he enrolled them for me. I said to him that he could have told me he was going to do that because I wasn’t prepared for this and he asked me if I was going to send them away. I said of course not and that everyone is welcome, but just that he should communicate so I know to be prepared. He didn’t seem to understand the concept of this. Anyway, I had to try and improvise at first but then realised the lesson that I had planned was not too difficult so I used what I intended to anyway and it all worked out fine. TIA. This is Africa.

A rather memorable “This is Africa” moment I had recently was something that I heard can happen over here but never actually thought it would happen to me. I was asked by one of the teachers if I could help the 2009 students with a discussion/debate they were going to have about ethics. So right on time at 7:00pm (I never learn) on a Wednesday evening I went to the dining hall where I was told the debate was going to be held. But no one was around except for some students finishing their dinner. I went to the kitchen and saw one of the project leaders and asked him if he knew anything about the ethics debate and he said no but he called the teacher that organised it. He said that there was miscommunication during the day and that the students were in their hostels but that one of the teachers was going to get them.
I went to the staffroom and saw the teacher that asked me to help and he said the students would be there at 7:30pm but he was busy so couldn’t attend and another teacher would be there conducting things. I told him if they don’t come by then I can’t wait around because I had to finish my pre-school workshop presentation and that I went to the dining hall on time to start but no one was there.

I waited until 7:30pm and still no one was there yet so I went back to my house. Then about 10 minutes later one of the teachers knocked on the door and said the students were there and they were waiting for me. So I said I would come in 2 minutes. Then when I got there I sat down at a table and all the students moved to the front closer to me. The teacher then asked me, “Do you want to use the board?” I said, “What do you mean?” And she said, “We are having your course tonight, do you need the board?” I laughed in shock and said that I had no idea about giving a course and was only asked if I could help with a debate, which by the way is a topic I don’t know a whole lot about so wouldn’t be able to get up and give a course anyway, and that no one told me anything about presenting!

The students were all staring at me asking why can’t I get up there and I explained to them that no one even told me I was giving a course, I was only asked to help with a debate so I couldn’t just get up there. They didn’t seem to understand this concept. Then they asked if I could give the course the next night and I told them I was sorry but I didn’t have time because I also had a presentation to prepare for the pre-school workshop and one of them said, “So you are saying you don’t have time for us?!” I said no of course that’s not what I’m saying and tried to explain myself. It was such an uncomfortable situation and the teacher asked me if I should send the students away and I said that I was sorry but yes she should. I was so mad and I could see that the students looked disappointed, even though it was a result of something that wasn’t even anything to do with me!

I went to the staff room to speak to the teacher that was in the hall with me and told her that what just happened in there was not good and that there was no communication at all and how could they do that, etc, etc. She acknowledged that there was miscommunication but it didn’t really seem to bother her that things happened like that.

The next day I spoke to the teacher who had originally asked me to help and told him that he knew I wasn’t aware I was supposed to give a course, so why did he let the other teacher go and get all the students from their rooms for a course I was supposed to be giving. He said that he was sorry and it was supposed to be a debate where they presented the topic to the students but that it wasn’t prepared properly and it shouldn’t have been turned into me giving a course, but somehow it did. I told him that even if I was supposed to give a course that he didn’t even ask me if I knew anything about the topic and didn’t give me any information at all about anything, and that I was under the impression I would be observing what was going on and offering feedback if and where possible, etc, etc. He apologised and said he would make sure things were handled better in future, but I wonder how this kind of thing happens! This is how it went… I got a knock at the door one night and Magura, the teacher said:
“We have a debate about ‘Ethics’ on Wednesday night with the 2009 students, can you help us?”
Me: “No problem, what time?”
Magura: “7-8pm.”
Me: “That’s fine, I will see you then.”
The end…. Can you believe it?!!!! TIA!!!!  J

I was asked to help with being on one of the teacher’s panels while students made thesis presentations about a certain topic to conclude the completion of the first period’s subject “The World in Which We Live.” This was a really interesting experience for me because I was able to learn of many of the different areas the students had studied and had the chance to provide feedback on their presentations.

Out of the 64 students they were divided into groups of around 10 or so to present in different classrooms, and there were judging panels of 3, 4 or 5 teachers. We had a feedback form to fill out for each student which included such things as: (Ability to grasp subject area, presentation of introduction, personal appearance, relevance of information presented, presentation materials used and conclusion, among other things). One of the teachers said that each one of us should take a turn at marking the students while they were presenting but I told him that it would be better if we let the students present so that we could give them our full attention throughout their presentation. Then we could discuss as a panel what we thought, give our opinions and come to an agreement on how we graded the students. So this method was agreed upon.

Students presented such topics as child development, HIV/AIDS, the Greenhouse Effect, human rights, health and personal development, etc. The overall level of the students’ presentations was quite poor but it was an interesting process to have discussions with these teachers after each student presented because more often than not the final decision was ‘swayed’ by my opinion. I expected what it was going to be like, but was interesting to see that some things that some of the teachers thought were very good, I didn’t think was good at all. And many times I gave them constructive reasons as to why I thought it wasn’t good, and also made the comparison between students, saying, ‘do we think that this student presented better than this student?’ or ‘this student didn’t use any materials but made a better argument in this way, although didn’t answer our questions as well as this student.’ etc, etc.

It turned out that all the other groups had finished going through all their student’s presentations so some of the students in our group were sent to another room to present so we could try and get through everyone in good time. When I heard about this I was slightly disappointed because I knew probably in all the other rooms they would have just raced through deliberating about each student’s presentation, not properly deciding on the final marks and most likely gave better marks than deserved because somehow, like I’ve mentioned before, there is no constructive criticism.

After the presentations were all finished and the students went to do other things, the teachers had a meeting to conclude how we thought the day went. The project leader made a small speech about how it seemed to be quite successful and then we went around the room to get everyone’s opinions, or lack of opinion I should say. It seemed like I had the only constructive thing to speak about which was this… First I asked how much practice the students get at doing presentations and speaking in front of each other or if it was their first time. I was told it was their first time and I said that it was obvious and we could clearly see this judging by the standard of many of them. I also suggested that for the future study periods that they should include more presentation tasks for the students instead of just asking them to present something right at the end of the period, because the more practice they get, the more they will improve and can learn from each time. I gave them examples of some of the things I did in Denmark and that it was an area I improved in and they welcomed my feedback and said they will try and implement this. As we went around the room to all the other teachers, the extent of the feedback went something like this…
“It was a very nice day, and I think everyone did really well…”
“I think it was a very successful day… “
“I agree with what the others said, it was a good day….”
“Yes, we did very well and it was very nice….”
TIA… It’s the way it is…

I mentioned African time in my last blog. Something that has become quite evident here is that when you want to do something, you should do it “now, now.” This is a term that I hear all the time and if you don’t do it “now, now” then either it won’t get done or by the time you get around to doing it, it could be months later. My example is giving courses to the students in the college. Since I got here I have been trying to find a timeslot to give a course about Australia as an evening program. But somehow or another, now two months on, I still haven’t been able to do it. Every time I speak to the head teacher or one of the lecturers in charge about doing my course, they always say it’s no problem, we will fit you in, but then something comes up or things get moved around. I have also been told I can choose a regular night each week to give courses but this has also not been possible so far.

In the middle of October there is a music festival called “Lake of Stars” which I am going to with Ray and some DI’s from other projects.  Many, many local and some international musicians play over a 3 day period in an area called Mangochi which is heading towards the central part of Malawi, south of Lilongwe and North of where I live, and obviously right near Lake Malawi. We are planning to camp and it should be a great experience. It costs 7500 Kwacha which is around £30. So that’s really cheap by UK/European/US/Australian standards but for here it is quite expensive and probably will mostly be tourists or foreigners because most local people for sure can’t afford that. It takes around 9 hours to get to Mangochi from where we are, so to break up the trip, Ray and I have decided to leave some days earlier and make a stopover in a place called Zomba which has a nice mountain we would like to see. Then we will also stopover near Lake Malawi a day or two before the festival to relax and spend some time on the beaches. Then it’s 3 days of festival fun!

We DI’s at Amalika have recently moved to the nearby orphanage, “Victory Christian Children’s Home” because one of the project leaders was promoted to headmaster of the school and his family has moved to the college and into our old DI house. One of the teachers here used to live at the orphanage but has now moved to the college into some new rooms built for teachers and lecturers.

We are quite lucky because there is electricity and running water all the time, except in the case of a blackout which if it happens isn’t usually for long. Although since being here, we have had a shortage of water. It’s quite a nice atmosphere and there are always kids around so if you feel like going outside and playing around or going for a walk, you can hang out with the kids or connect with other people around the place. There is also a basketball court which I am very happy about, so I need to try and find somewhere I can buy a basketball. The disadvantage is it now takes longer to get to some of our pre-schools and we have had to try and find out different ways and shortcuts of getting to each school. I have only recently learnt where all my pre-schools are from Amalika, so to change so quickly isn’t ideal, but I’ll manage and it will be fine.

Being here means that lifestyle changes a bit. Aside from the obvious electricity and water, time is a big factor because previously we always had to try and get things done before electricity went off and we would sleep early, but now it’s no longer a race against the clock and we can fit more into our day. It’s a nice change, even though we were ok before and used to planning our time. It also means that now instead of being able to walk 5 minutes from our house to the college to do things or see people, we have to make an afternoon of going to there with a list of things we may need to find out or do to make the trip worthwhile. It means we aren’t able to be as involved in the college as before, but this is how it is. We still go there every Monday at lunchtime for a weekly meeting, and between visiting pre-schools and going to English class on Wednesdays I also go there to eat lunch and say hello to everyone. I will start to go there on Thursdays soon too once I begin my “Health Club.”

It’s crazy that two months in Malawi has already passed. It doesn’t feel like I’ve been gone that long, but of course as the years and months go by, time passes by quicker and quicker. I have this constant feeling that I am running out of time here because six months to do some form of sustainable development really isn’t long at all, so let’s see how the third month goes.

Good news is that Ray is able to stay for a month longer due to some circumstances here at Amalika so I am really happy about that because we have some plans to work together for his last month to do some good things. We want to do a “hand-washing action” with our pre-schools, work on getting something going with the feeding program I mentioned and doing some things in the college with the students. One weekend we are also planning to climb Mulanje Mountain which is more than 3000 metres high and not too far away from where we are now. We might also visit one of the many national parks Malawi has to offer before Ray leaves Malawi. Liwonde National Park is one of the more well known ones and that could be a weekend adventure also. It’s going to be a busy third month, just the way I like it!