As of December 31st, the contract that DAPP has with the pre-schools will come to a close after its third year. That means that there will be no funding for pre-schools for workshops, materials, supervisor allowances, etc. But, DI’s are still expected to continue visiting the schools without the supervisors for translation because they are unable to pay them. The idea that management had was to try and find someone in the communities that speaks English who would help with translation on a voluntary basis. But it’s not likely that anyone would be willing to do so without getting some form of payment. I’m not visiting pre-schools anymore anyway (even though they think that I am) so it’s not such a concern for me, but even with a system that wasn’t working, they continue to want to keep it going.
We have also been told that we are welcome to do some things in the college, which is what I had been trying to do for the first 3 months of my DI period, but without any success, because as previously mentioned in other months, things are scheduled, then cancelled or something always seems to come up. I don’t know what they expect us to do really. I have tried and tried and tried, and after a while it gets tired. So I will just continue with my HIV groups, and other bits and pieces here and there.
At the beginning of December we had the last pre-school workshop, but instead of for the teachers like last time, this one was for the committee members. This workshop was completely different to the last one and a lot better. Last time we stood up in front of the teachers, giving presentations and feeding them information without having any interaction or involvement. So we learnt from that one and decided that this time around we needed to make sure there was interaction and also that we broke the participants into smaller learning groups of 8 or 9, rather than just one big group.
The headline this time was ‘My role as a pre-school committee member,’ and we broke this up into five categories: Water and hygiene, nutrition, building classrooms, vegetable gardens and contributions/school fees. My topic was nutrition and since I had been working on a soy project doing demonstrations of making soy milk with HIV groups, I decided that I could also do the same thing with these committee members because soy products are nutritious and beneficial for the health of everyone, including children.
Soy beans contain a lot of vitamins and minerals, such as protein, fibre, calcium and iron. Some of the nutritional properties are beneficial for strong and healthy teeth and bones, lower cholesterol, helps in prevention against diseases such as cancer and heart disease, and contributes to good body functions, overall health and well being. Because children are still growing, soya beans are particularly good to include in their diet, especially if the children do not get to eat much of other things that contain the nutrients they need to be healthy.
I spoke about the importance of nutrition for children, how in some schools the children don’t get food at all, why soya beans are nutritious and encouraged them to make soy milk for the children after talking them through how to make it while they actually did it. They seemed quite interested and asked many questions about the use of soya in food.
What each group then had to do after the morning tea break was to have one representative of the group present what they had learnt about their topic. It was really nice to see that each representative was able to speak a fair amount about what they had learnt that morning and many of the fellow committee members asked a lot of questions. I think it was a step forward from the last workshop and I hope that each member was able to take something away from their group activity as well as learn from their peers.
I have been lucky enough to have my own room now since the beginning of December, so I feel a lot more free and comfortable. I forgot how nice it is to have your own space and privacy, and also more room to do what you want when you want without needing to have consideration of another person living in the same room.
I’ve been playing a bit of basketball on the courts at the orphanage/school I live at with the ball I bought some weeks back. Every time I go to shoot around many of the young girls come and join me. Sometimes we play a game of netball or basketball, sometimes we just shoot around, and lately I started to ‘coach’ them a little (like I used to do when I was about 13 and coaching my brother’s under 12’s basketball team). I showed them many basketball drills that I used to do when I played and coached. They love it and so do I and they are forever laughing at themselves and each other. It makes me feel really happy when I get to spend time doing this with the girls and they always put a smile on my face.
Whenever I go into town, I always see street kids with a document of paper and a pen, stating that they are trying to raise money to get off the street and are asking people to sign their papers and also for donations to help them with this. It is difficult to see this but I don’t condone handing out money because you never know where it goes or if these kids are not just working for someone who is taking all the money they collect.
Recently I was at a bakery and there were some kids out front and inside asking for signatures and donations. And then I saw one of them pick up something that looked to be a scrap of pastry or bread from the floor of the bakery and eat it. That really broke my heart because it was obvious that he had no choice to do that because he was hungry, plus he didn’t know any better not to eat things from the dirty floor. But who knows when his last meal was. So I decided to buy a bag of sweet bread rolls to give to these kids. I made my purchase and asked them all to come together outside – there were 5 of them. I opened the bag and gave each of them one. There seemed to be enough left for one more each so I gave the bag with remainders to the oldest kid, telling him in Chichewa and pointing to each of the kids, “Modzi, modzi, modzi, modzi, modzi” (meaning one, one, one, one, one), suggesting that I wanted him to share the rest with them all. He said ok and then I left them, watching how quickly they were eating the bread. I wish I could do more to help, but that was the least I could do.
I recently had a nice holiday break over Christmas and New Years. Four of us, Eva, Laura, Travis and I hired a car and went north to various places to spend time by the beach at Lake Malawi. Because a fair amount of the money we budgeted for the trip was spent on the car, we were trying to keep everything else really cheap – food, drinks, accommodation.
On day one we drove to Nkhotakota and managed to get really cheap accommodation at a rest house. We originally asked if we could park our car in their parking area and sleep in the car for 200 Kwacha. The lady was really lovely and said we could sleep on mattresses we had brought with us on the floor in the old dining hall, use the shower and toilet, and park our car in their parking area for 400 Kwacha between 4 of us. That is less than £1.50. Amazing.
On day two, before we set off further north to Chinteche, which is where we planned to spend Christmas Eve, we had to make a stop off at the local hospital because I seemed to have an infection on my foot. What started off as a blister from my shoe days earlier was swollen and unpleasant looking, plus it really hurt when I walked. There were so many people waiting at the hospital, but because I am a “mzungu” they saw me straight away. It was not nice for the other people and I don’t like that kind of thing to happen, but that’s how it is and we would have spent hours waiting otherwise. I was told it was an abscess and given antibiotics, pain killers and had the wound disinfected, cleaned and taped up. It meant I couldn’t swim for around 5 days.
The plan for Christmas Eve was to make a nice dinner for children at an orphanage there, spend time with them playing games and just having a nice day and night. I organised this through a friend of mine who works at the Teacher Training College in Amalika. He put me in contact with the people at Chikondane Orphan Care and we went along on this day to introduce ourselves, meet some of the kids and responsible adults, and let them know of our plans to come back the next day to spend Christmas Eve with them.
That afternoon we went and bought food and drink in preparation for our meal. Rice, vegetables, beef, Sobo squash (sweet cordial-like drink). With some money that Eva and Laura fundraised in Spain we also bought some sacks of maize flour (for nsima), blankets, plates, cups and a football. That night we got more cheap accommodation at a rest house quite nearby to the orphanage. We asked if we could share a single room for 2 or 3 people and have 1 or 2 people sleep in our car whilst we parked our car in their parking area. They were fine with this so for this night we spent 350 Kwacha between four of us. Bargain! And we were able to sit in their back garden to cook our dinner and relax.
On day three we had planned to go back to the orphanage around 10:00am, but it was pouring with rain half the day so we said we’d be there at 1:30pm. It seemed that we had the rest house to ourselves as there were no other guests staying and the manager had to go out for some hours, so we basically hung out there as if it were our own house. It was great!
We also had to buy some last minute things, so Laura and Travis went to do that while Eva and I stayed at the rest house, sorting through gifts for children and making bags for each of them. In Amalika there were many things brought over by old DI’s, such as pens, notebooks, pencil cases, small backpacks, stationery sets, balls, yo-yo’s and lots of other goodies for children. Laura also managed to get some things donated from an organization that she was put in contact with by a friend. So we had many boxes of things to give to the kids for Christmas.
In the afternoon once the rain slowed down we headed over to the orphanage. We were told that there were 55 kids at the orphanage, but only around 35 would be there for Christmas because the rest were on holidays at their villages (some of the kids are half orphans, meaning they only have one parent, or some were living with relatives). But because they heard that “azungu” were going to be around for Christmas, they all came along. So we had the 55 children, as well as 4 adult caregivers, and us four DI’s. There were also many children from the local area gathering around outside to see what was happening because they heard we were coming.
We spent some time playing games with the kids, getting to know their names, singing songs and dancing with them. It was really nice. The ages were from around 4 years to 14 years old. After some games we prepared refreshments for the kids. We had found out they hadn’t eaten since breakfast time, so we gave them bananas and some sweets and chips to snack on. Then after this all of us adults began to prepare dinner while the children either played football or hung around watching what we were doing. Then just before dinner while we were waiting for the food to be ready, we gave each of the kids one of the gift bags we’d made for them.
Once dinner was ready each of us adults helped to dish the food out for the kids, making sure that all kids had a plate of food, and if there was enough left over then we would also eat. It turned out there was just enough food for everyone so it was great. But there were also many local kids outside watching what was happening inside, so Laura, Eva and I gave our dinner to some of these kids as they didn’t have anything.
After dinner we spent a little more time with the kids. Then the caregivers asked the kids to say thank you to us, and made sure that they remembered all our names so that if we came back they would recognise who we were.
This Christmas was a really memorable one and we were glad to be there with the kids who probably wouldn’t have had a meal for Christmas otherwise, and that breaks my heart. It was a really nice experience and I’m glad we did something like this. There were a couple of things that were slightly disappointing though, but we tried not to let it get to us, especially because it was Christmas.
The first thing was that the husband of the chair lady to the orphanage came to meet us while we were preparing dinner, and the first thing he said to us was, “Do you have any books for our library? I am a teacher at a local school.” One thing that continues to happen in Malawi many times is when you do something nice for people, instead of being appreciative with what they get, they ask for more and ask why we didn’t also bring them this or that. The expression, “you give them an inch and they take a mile” is what always comes to my mind when I see, hear about or experience this kind of situation.
The second thing that was quite disappointing was that as we were saying our goodbyes, the chair lady said to me that one of the caregivers told her that the day before when we came to the orphanage we mentioned something about getting an account number from them. I knew exactly what this meant and I told her there was no mention of any account number and that we were not here to give money, that wasn’t the purpose and we have already given them a lot. They did appreciate what we did for them as they told us how much it meant to them that we went there, but it ruins things a bit when these kinds of things are said.
Once we had said our goodbyes we headed further north to a beautiful area called Nkhata Bay. We had heard from some other DI’s that there was a lodge called the Butterfly Project where you could do some volunteer work and pay half price for your accommodation. The lady that runs the place is an English ex-pat and was really nice to give the 4 of us a lodge for the price of a tent on the first night because it was late and would have been difficult for us to set up tents.
We ended up staying here for 3 nights by the beach, chilling out, swimming, enjoying the sun, exploring the markets and centre of town, meeting people and forgetting about our work back at our projects which seemed like a long way away. On Christmas day we met the District Commissioner of the area while we were relaxing by the beach, and he invited us to dinner at his house.
We also organized to do some volunteer work with the local HIV support group that is affiliated with the lodge, so we taught about nutrition and made soy milk with them, as well as about income generating and showed them a cheap and easy way they could make peanut cookies to sell and be able to afford soy milk which is good for their overall health. It was really nice and the owner joined to watch our demonstration and seemed to be happy with what we did.
We also organized to do some volunteer work with the local HIV support group that is affiliated with the lodge, so we taught about nutrition and made soy milk with them, as well as about income generating and showed them a cheap and easy way they could make peanut cookies to sell and be able to afford soy milk which is good for their overall health. It was really nice and the owner joined to watch our demonstration and seemed to be happy with what we did.
On day seven we started making the trip back down south and stopped in Senga bay for a couple of hours. There wasn’t much around and the beach was quite dirty, so we decided to leave for Monkey Bay that evening. On the way to Monkey Bay though we were quite low on diesel, and we were told by locals that there weren’t any nearby filling stations, so we didn’t think we’d make it that night. But we asked around to many people and somehow we found a guy who told us he knew where we could buy diesel at a nearby village. He got into our car and directed us to where we needed to go. Somehow in Malawi, you can always manage to resolve difficult situations, even in the middle of nowhere!
We drove to a lodge called Mufasa which is where some other DI’s already were – Frida, Vaida and Attila. The lodge is owned by a South African guy who also owns the other Mufasa lodges in Cape Maclear and Lilongwe. He was nice enough to let us park our car on the private beach and sleep in it, while also using their facilities. All he asked was that we bought a drink at the bar. We were really lucky with accommodation everywhere we went, and it’s amazing what you can get if you ask. We saved a lot of money on accommodation by having the car, and we cooked most of the time as well as bought cheap local food from the market sometimes too. There were times where we treated ourselves to a restaurant meal, but mostly we lived on the basics.
We only planned to stay at Mufasa two nights but we stayed three. On the first night the owner told us that when we woke up in the morning we would know why we were staying here. And he was absolutely right. This area had to be one of the most beautiful sights I had seen since being in Malawi. It was such a nice atmosphere, with the most perfect surroundings for relaxing. The water was amazing and Laura and I did some fishing off the rocks on one of the days. We also enjoyed some camp fires at night and the staff and other guests were really nice and it was quite a social place. I am thinking about coming back here before I leave Malawi.
On New Year’s Eve we headed to Cape Maclear Mufasa and also got lucky with being able to stay for free with our car. We cooked lunch on the beach once we settled in there, relaxed a while, swam, and then got ready for dinner at the Mufasa restaurant. Another of our DI friends, Annie, joined us on this night so that was really nice. There were two parties going on nearby, one at a nearby lodge called Gecko’s that cost 1500 Kwacha and included some international DJ’s from the UK and South Africa. The other was at a bar/club called Hiccups which included some DJ’s as well and cost 500 Kwacha. We would have preferred to go to Gecko’s because it seemed like the place to be and the party was bigger, but we went for the more affordable place for everyone and chose the latter. We were lucky because 4 of us girls, Laura, Eva, Annie and I got in for free thanks to Laura knowing someone there.
We had a really good night and danced until around 4:00am, when we decided to go and see what was happening at Gecko’s. We danced there for about an hour, and then hung out under a tree on the beach while the sun came up. By this stage it went from six of us to four, so Annie, Eva, Travis and I went back to Mufasa. I went to sleep on one of the hammocks for about an hour and then Eva woke me up to say that an American guy she had met that night who was also staying at Mufasa, had a daytrip already booked and paid for to the nearby island, but his plans had changed and he was leaving that day so he offered Eva to take the trip and to go with her friends. It was for four people so it was going to be Annie, Vaida, Eva and I, because Travis was sleeping in the car and Laura was still out, but then the others were too tired so it was just Eva and I. We got a boat out to the island, had a delicious Kampunga fish and rice lunch, did some snorkeling amongst the hundreds of amazing and colourful fish in the crystal clear water, and had a short siesta in the shade on the rocks before heading back on the boat to the lodge. What a great day on the island we had!
At night we decided to go back to Monkey Bay to Venice Beach backpackers as we had met the owner a few days before while we were at Mufasa Monkey Bay, and he invited us to his lodge for a New Years Day party which included some great local reggae/pop music. Again we were extremely lucky because he let us camp for free wherever we wanted, although we just slept in the car. We also got free food because the owner of Mufasa was there and had ordered 5 meals for some friends, but they hardly ate any of it so rather than throw it out he gave it to some of us, the homeless, cheap/poor volunteers/travellers!
The next morning we headed back down south, the end of our lovely holiday approaching. On the way back we stopped in Zomba for lunch. And then to add a turn to the end of a great holiday, we were stopped at a roadblock by police for having one too many people in the car, and they wanted us to pay a fine of 3500 Kwacha. We actually didn’t even have that amount of money between us, because 1. It was the end of our holiday so we had next to nothing left with us, and 2. We are volunteers so we couldn’t even afford to pay that amount anyway.
After waiting around for about an hour, and pleading our case as to how we always see trucks, cars and minibuses loaded up with too many people all the time in Malawi, plus discussing other issues about corruption and lack of education in Malawi, among other things, we were let off without having to pay anything. Thank goodness!
It was a really great experience to get out of the project and see other parts of the country. The local people are very different the further north you go compared to what we are used to down here and in the city/urban area of Blantyre, The people seem to be more relaxed and respectful, not so ‘in your face’ saying stupid things to you or trying to see what they can get from you because you are a foreigner. Down here there is always a lot of staring and ‘give me this’ or give me that’. Up north there is less staring and more ‘genuine’ friendliness and people don’t really ask you for anything.
I was supposed to have one week of investigation straight after the holidays at the Chinese Buddhist Orphanage, Amitofo Care Centre that I have taught at and visited a few times, but at the last minute it was cancelled by the headmaster because the Malawian Government requires all schools to follow the calendar year, meaning that school would start again on the 3rd January. Amitofo was going to start on the 10th, so Assum and I had planned almost a week’s worth of fun and educational activities with the kids before they started school. And because they are too busy everyday from the morning until the evening, it is not possible for us to change the date. So I have to think of something else to do for my investigation week, which I think I will now take at the end of January.
This month I read a biography about Albert Einstein called “Einstein… A Life in Science.” Although quite interesting in some parts, I found there to be too much detail about scientific theories and terminologies that made it kind of hard for me to understand. So I didn’t actually finish the book because I wasn’t able to get into it too much or completely enjoy it. But I did read a very interesting book straight after it which I couldn’t put down and finished in about 3 days - “Banker to the Poor” by Muhammad Yunus, who is the founder of the Grameen Bank, which is an unconventional bank that started in Bangladesh back in the 1980’s and lends money to the poor using a micro-credit system. Yunus believed that credit, just like food or clean water, should be a basic human right.
The objective of Grameen (meaning “rural” or “of the village” in Bengali) is to alleviate poverty and empower the poor, with a special focus on women, due to their poor social status in Bangladeshi society. As required by regular financial institutions, Grameen does not require a borrower to have collateral and makes small loans to poor people in the villages to use for income generating activities such as starting up small businesses to help get themselves and their families out of poverty.
There are many more qualities that make Grameen unique such as sponsorship for educational scholarships for children of Grameen borrowers, support groups which consist of five people that act as guarantors for each of the other members, the bankers go to the villages rather than the other way around, the bank is owned and run by the poor (they are majority shareholders) for the poor, among many other things. The bank offers pension savings opportunities and health insurance, something that the poor would have never thought possible in their lives.
Grameen has become a worldwide success with branches in many countries including Philippines, Malaysia, India, and the United States and has managed to lift millions of people out of poverty who now have endless possibilities in their lives for themselves and for their families. It has also influenced many similar micro-finance programs around the world.
I found this a very inspiring book and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in third world development, poverty, economics, international relations or if you just want something that makes you think and is quite motivating! I already knew a bit about Grameen because I studied about it while I was in Denmark, but it was great to find out even more information and actually how everything came about right from the beginning.
A rather interesting experience that I had recently was when Mohammed, a Kenyan friend of Laura, Eva’s and mine was taking us out to dinner one night. Mohammed picked me up from Blantyre and then we went to Chilangoma Teacher Training College to get the girls. That day and the day before it had rained quite heavily so parts of the roads that lead to the college were nothing but mud. As we had picked up Eva and Laura, we were driving out of the college towards the main road, we came to one of the really muddy parts and the car became stuck and there was no way we could get out. Mohammed called a man he worked with and ask him to bring 4 or 5 guys from his neighbourhood to come along to help us, as well as to bring some rope and bricks.
In the meantime, there was a Malawian guy walking past and we asked him to help us by pushing, lifting and also putting rocks in front of or behind the wheels to try and help us possibly roll out of the mud. But it was impossible so we asked if he could try and find some other guys to help. He came back with 3 or 4 others and for more than 2 hours they were trying to help us, getting knee deep and barefoot in the mud but still unable to get the car out of the mud. Somehow during this time more guys showed up to help and there must have been 8 or 9 of them.
Eventually the man that Mohammed called came with the other guys, and there were then around 15 guys gathered at the front of the car who managed to lift it enough. It was an amazing sight to see and we really wished we had a camera! In only a few minutes we were able to back out of the mud and then drive partly on some grassed area and partly on the road. Finally after being stuck for over 2 hours we were free! Mohammed gave the guys some money for their help and trouble and we went on our way. It was after 10:00pm and we were beyond hungry so drove into town to have our long awaited dinner.
Mohammed knew the owner of a pub in town which was probably one of our only hopes of getting a meal at that time, so he called ahead and asked if they could prepare us some chicken and chips. They were already closed but said they could cook us dinner and allow us to sit in the restaurant. It was a nice end to our experience and even though it was a hopeless situation for a while, none of us got mad or frustrated or worried, we just laughed a fair bit and accepted the situation for what it was. TIA!!
One Saturday I decided that I wanted to have a day all to myself, so I went into Blantyre and had lunch at an Ethiopian restaurant. It was actually the first time I had tried Ethiopian food, and I really liked it - much better than Malawian food. I had Injera which is a traditional Ethiopian pancake/crepe which you use to scoop up nicely cooked meat and vegetables, eating with your hands. It was really nice and the owner of the restaurant was a lovely Ethiopian lady who showed me the way the people eat Injera because I wanted to do it properly. I also had some amazing Ethiopian coffee. I think I will go back one more time before I leave Malawi.
After lunch I planned to go and check into a lodge to stay overnight to get out of the ‘bush.’ There were 2 decent lodges that I knew of, one called ‘Doogles’ which I visited first. Doogles was really nice, with a swimming pool and a bar which you could easily sit at, have a drink and meet people. I asked to see a single room, which was fine and priced at 3100 kwacha (about £12), but one thing it didn’t have was a TV. I hadn’t watched TV in more than 6 months so I was keen to have one in my room this time. Also, the toilet and showers were not so close to the room
I also went to check out the ‘Oriental Lodge’ which was a bit cheaper at 2500 kwacha (just under £10). The room looked nicer than the Doogles one and it had a TV, although there was no common area so not a really social place to stay. The toilet and shower was right across from the room to so for convenience sake it was great. Under normal circumstances I definitely would have stayed at Doogles because of the social aspect of it and in general it was a nicer atmosphere. But my purpose for this day was to be by myself in a room, lay on the bed watching world news on TV, read my book or listen to my iPod, sleep, etc, without worrying about anyone else or having a care in the world. So I checked in to Oriental Lodge and did exactly all these things. I also had 2 hot showers with actual running water which is the same amount of hot running water showers I have had in Malawi in 5 months! It was amazing and all this was just what I needed for a day.
I had my last English class at the end of this month and for something different, since my main line of work was promoting soya in nutrition and doing soy milk demonstrations in communities, I thought it would be good to also extend this to my English students. I gave a quick lesson in the classroom about the benefits of soya and then we went outside and I gave a demonstration on making soy milk. What I normally do is talk the people through the steps while they actually perform the task themselves, so they are ‘learning by doing.’ I think it’s the best way because they are more likely to remember what to do if they are actually have a turn at doing so.
We went back into the classroom and enjoyed a cup of soy milk together. Because it was the last lesson I also bought everyone a sweet bread roll to go with their milk and gave a little goodbye speech. The students were really disappointed that I was to be leaving soon because I have been with most of them for more than 5 months. I started teaching English in the second week I was in Malawi so for most of my DI period we have been together. I am also disappointed and sad I have to leave them because they are such nice people and a pleasure to teach as they are always so interested and polite and I had such a nice relationship with them. Out of all the local people I have worked with here, I have been together with them the longest so naturally it’s the most difficult to say goodbye to them. I will see them one more time for a final meeting the week before I leave Malawi. So that will be nice, but I really don’t like goodbyes and never have.
Time is starting to wind down here at the project. 5 months gone, just like that! 6 months will be here in no time!
