A Wonderful Weekend Out and About

July 1^st, 2013

Kim and I had an amazing weekend!  On Saturday a bunch of the volunteers decided to wake up before the sun so that we could see the sun rise over Lake Malawi.  It was so beautiful, but I’m not sure that the pictures really capture how lovely it was.  

 

After the sunrise, we had breakfast, and then we decided to hike to the top of Senga Mountain, which rises 350 metres (1148 feet) above the village of Lifuwu and yields a commanding view of most of central Malawi.  The terrain was very challenging—grasses up to your shoulders, boulders the size of minivans, and scattered trees.  There really was no trail to speak of, so Olivia, one of the Swiss volunteers and I tried our best to find a way up the mountain.  At least we didn’t run into any black mambas or hyenas!  After about three hours of hiking, we reached the summit.

 

After reaching the summit, we walked down the ridge of the mountain to a lakeside resort called the Safari Beach Lodge.  On the way down, we saw a few monkeys in the woods.

 

The food was very good at the Safari Beach Lodge.  Kim had a cheeseburger—the first cheese we’ve had since arriving in Malawi, and I had a sandwich with fries.  The Malawian beer “Kuche Kuche” was quite weak (3.7 % ABV), but cold and delicious after the long hike.  Here is a shot of everybody from our hostel--from left to right: Zohair, Olivia, Keenan, Esther, Kim, Nicola, and Me.

 

At the end of the day, once we got back to our hostel, we pretty much immediately went to bed, but not before we saw a magnificent sunset over Lifuwu village.

 

On Sunday, we chartered a boat from a Malawian friend of ours named Moses.  He took us to Lizard Island, which has some large monitor lizards.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good shot of any giant lizards, but we did get to test out our snorkeling gear.  We saw quite a few Cichlid fish, which are bright blue and quite stunning.  We don’t have an underwater camera, so you are out of luck.  I guess you'll have to come to Malawi and see for yourself!

 

After hiking and swimming on Lizard Island, we took the boat to Livingstonia, a resort on Senga Bay, where we had dessert.  I had a milkshake and Kim had chocolate cake with ice cream…Delicious!  It felt strange to be at a beautiful, expensive resort after living and working in Lifuwu village for two weeks.  The disparity between the rich and poor here is astonishing.  Although you have access to luxury items like milkshakes and cocktails, in many respects, Kim and I actually prefer out humble beach back in the village.  Not to say that Livingstonia was not lovely, but it just feels wrong, somehow.  Anyway, after relaxing on the beach, we took the boat back home.  This weekend was really fun, but very tiring with all the physical activity.

 

Happy Birthday to Kim

June 28^th, 2013

It was Kim’s birthday yesterday!  First thing in the morning, Kim was greeted with a happy birthday breakfast—extra bread rolls and a flower on her plate.  I was fortunate, since Kim could not finish them all by herself, so I got to have a couple of extra ones!

 

After school, when we went back home for lunch, and Kim received her birthday present, which was a Malawian skirt.  You can see how beautiful it is in this picture.

 

At kids’ corner in the afternoon, we kind of ran out of ideas of games to play, so we resorted to playing hokey-pokey and other dances.  We even dusted off the old Macarena—“one maca, two maca, three Macarena”.  I guess that wasn’t so big over here…The girls like to play with the hair of the foreign volunteers, and they absolutely adore nail polish, or “poda”, as they call it. It turns out we forgot to bring the football, so the kids chased me around the football field. They are much faster than they look!  Either that, or I am out of shape.

 

For dinner, to commemorate Kim’s special day, we made wood-fired pizzas.  They were really delicious, even without cheese.  

 

Finally, the stars were so beautiful that we went for a stroll along the beach.  We saw a lot of shooting starts, and the milky way was so clear.  Sorry we don’t have any pictures, but our camera is not good enough to capture the wonder of the stars here in Malawi.

On a sadder note, nursery school was canceled, and many of the children did not come to the after school program due to a death in the village.  It seems a young woman dies in child labour.  Initially the baby survived, but in the afternoon it, too, passed away.  It really demonstrates how fragile life is, especially here without modern medicine.  It’s no wonder than so many of the women who are pregnant in Lifuwu don’t seem very happy to be.  I wish there was more that could be done.

Tomorrow we are going to wake up to see the sunrise, then we are going to climb Senga Mountain.  Then on Sunday we will be chartering a boat to Lizard Island for snorkeling and hiking.  They say the lizards there can grow to two metres in length, so stay tuned for the next entry!

 

A Day in the Life of a Volunteer for Help2Kids

 

June 26^th, 2013

I thought that now, since we have been here over a week already, I might give you a sense of a day in the life of a volunteer for Help2Kids in Malawi.  We get up at around 7:30 in time for breakfast, which is provided for us.  If we are lucky, Annette makes breadrolls, which are a cross between cake donuts and buns.  Then, at 8:30 we leave for Kazembe school, which theoretically has English classes starting at 8:40, but often we don’t really start until almost 9:00—this is Africa, after all.  We teach until around noon.  Here are some pictures of what the school looks like.  Standards 1 – 4 (grades 1 – 4) are in the open-air classrooms.  If you look closely, you will see two boys carrying bricks.  We will use these next week to build a new classroom block.  Finally, all my construction experience will be put to good use!

 

The older kids (Standards 5 – 8) have classes in the school blocks.  Here’s a shot of me teaching with Keenan and Zohair, two of the other volunteers from Help2Kids.  Teaching in Africa is really different from in Baltimore.  The children are very respectful, and they always rise as a group and greet you when you come in the classroom.  “Good morning sah (sir).  How are you sah?”  Usually the students will have their pens and notebooks, and they have to copy everything off the board, since they have no textbooks.  Generally we try to make things into games like hangman, but the kids come up with really funny, some might say random, names for their teams.  Here are a few examples: “team chocolate” (I guess they like chocolate???), “team Zili ndiwe” (team it’s up to you), and ESCOM (Electrical Supply Company of Malawi).  We can more or less get the kids to learn the lesson, but they don’t seem to review their notes very much, so I’m not sure how much they will retain.  Nonetheless, at least the kids here actually take notes!

 

Afterwards, we walk back to the Friendly Gecko for lunch, which is also provided.  Then we have a luxurious two and a half hour lunch break.  We usually go for a swim in the lake, take a nap, or just relax and think of ideas for English corner and kids’ corner, which are after school programs that we lead.  They start around 3:00 and last for about an hour.  Whenever we walk back from the activities, we are usually followed by children from the village.  Here’s a nice shot of Kim with some of them.

 

After the activities, we come back home again.  I usually swim and play ball with some of the kids from the village, and then Kim and I learn Chichewa from some of the children from school who are more fluent in English.

 

 

Since it is winter here, the sun goes down so early (around 5:30), so we are usually in bed by 9:30—especially when the power goes out, which is quite frequent.  In the evenings we chat or play cards with the other volunteers.  Currently we are writing and recording a rap for the Help2Kids website.  I will give you more details when we upload the video to the organization’s website.  So, this is a day in the life of a Help2Kids volunteer in Malawi.  It is so much fun—I wish we were here for longer than two months!

On Safari at Kuti Park

June 23^rd, 2013

This weekend, Kim and I went with a few of our fellow volunteers to the Kuti Community Wildlife Park just outside of Salima.  To get there, we took bicycle taxis.  It was surprising how cheap it was.  A taxi driver will take a 200 lbs. guy like me 10 kilometers for 700 Kwacha (roughly 2 dollars).  I don’t know of anyone in the United States who would bike with an extra 200 pounds for six miles for 2 dollars.  I kinda felt bad, really, because the wildlife park is in the middle of nowhere, so he had to bike back to town as well.

The park itself was quite nice.  On the website they said that you would be camping in an A-frame, but it was really just a triangular-shaped house.  Here is what it looked like.

After we got settled we went for a 4-hour hike around the park, and we saw quite a few animals.  We saw a lot of bushbucks, kudus, and best of all—a baby giraffe.  He was so cute, and he stood absolutely still, so we could get quite a few nice pictures of him.

After a long day on safari, we settled in at the sunset deck at Kuti park to see the “best sunset in Malawi”.  As advertised, it was a very beautiful and peaceful way to bring the day to a close.  Here is a photo, but pictures really cannot do it justice.

After the sun went down, we prepared a traditional, African Braai, which is basically a barbeque.  I love a good Braai!  The meat was delicious, especially after all of the hiking, and the cassava was roasted perfectly.

 

On Sunday morning we rode back into town on the bicycle taxis.  Then we took our lives into our own hands and rode on an African minibus.  Evidently, Malawi has the 8^th highest per capita road fatality rate in the world, and I can see why.  Though they call it a “minibus”, it is basically a pickup truck whose bed is filled to the brim with cassava bags, beer crates, and about twenty Africans.  We were crammed in there pretty tight, and at one point it was so full that several people had to climb on top of the cab to make room for the next stop.  By the end, half the bus was standing up in the bed of the truck because there was not enough space.  However, you can’t beat the price.  For 1 dollar, you can ride almost the whole way from Salima to Lifuwu village, and it is quite a colourful experience.  About halfway through the ride, the side of the truck bed was coming off, so they stopped and tied some rope around it to keep it on.  I’m sure that made it much safer.  Nonetheless, we made it back to Lifuwu safely.  All in all, it was a lovely weekend.

Religion in Malawi

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Here are some of my thoughts on a rather unique and refreshing aspect of Malawi culture.  Although the country seems rather evenly divided between Christians and Muslims, there seems to be absolutely no animosity, strife, or mistrust between these two groups. I would have expected that there would be a lot of self-grouping based on religious affiliation, but in fact, Christian and Muslim children play together quite happily.

They seem equally curious about the religious beliefs of the volunteers as well.  After “What is your name?”, the next most common question is “belief?”, or “Islam?”  A volunteer from Florida is here, and he is a Muslim, so now the children think that people from America are all Muslims.  When they ask me if I am “Islam”, it is only out of idle curiosity, which is quite encouraging.  Either that, or they just like to say “Salam aleikum” (then again, who doesn’t?).  Today I had a nice conversation with a Muslim boy who asked me if I knew who Mohammad was.  I told him that he was “God’s prophet”, and the boy smiled.  He then asked me if I knew any other men of God from Islam, so I said “Ibrahim”, and the boy gave me a fist bump.

On a continent filled with strife along tribal lines (for example, Rwanda) and religious lines (for example, North and South Sudan), it is nice to see that it is possible for different groups of people to coexist peacefully.  In this respect, Malawi seems more progressive than the United States and other industrialized “Western” countries, which still have some problems with tensions among these two religious groups.

Below you can find a picture of snack time at the Nursery School.  It has nothing to do with religion in Malawi, but it's just so darn cute I couldn't resist.

Fun with Teaching and Learning

Wednesday, June 19^th, 2013

Today I taught for the first time here in Malawi.  I got to teach different types of angles—acute, obtuse, right.  Then, I typed up a final exam for 5^th grade English so that it can be printed out for the kids.  Some of the questions were ridiculously hard, and I don’t think that I would have been able to answer them.  Here are two of the more humorous examples of some of the questions they have to answer to pass 5^th grade:

16. I have a large mat, but I sleep on the ground.  Who am I?

a) pumpkins

b) cassava

c) onions

d) eggs

19. The skin is inside and the flesh is outside.  What is it?

a) hen

b) pigeon

c) gizzard

d) cattle

This is a poem that my students need to analyze.  I thought that it was very relevant to our students’ daily lives, but it could have used a little more poetic diction.  Then again, I’m just a math teacher, so what do I know…

Song of Entrepreneur

My name is Entrepreneur

I am in Standard 5

I work hard, very hard

I buy pencils and exercise books

And sell them to my friends

I help my mother bake snacks

And sell them at the market

At weekends or on holidays

I work with my parents

I do all I can

To make money for myself and my family

To develop our society and the nation

I am Entrepreneur

The tool for development

By Peter J. Khoman

Kim worked in the nursery school this morning.  She sang songs with them, practiced counting in English, and gave them some porridge to eat.  Then, after work we both planned some activities with the kids.  We played different ball games and patty-cake.  They were especially intrigued by my harmonica.  All the kids were fighting each other to get a chance to blow in it, so now that 50 kids have put their mouths on it, I guess I won’t be using it anymore…

After the activities, Kim and I watched some of the kids do acrobatics.  They are pretty flexible!  Then they taught us some words in Chichewa.  “Devu” means beard, and flip-flops are “sulipas” (slippers).

This weekend Kim and I are going to a local game park with the other people staying at the hostel.  It will be an overnight trip, and we will get to see some giraffes and zebras, so stay tuned for some cool photos.  That’s all for now.    

Amazing First Day

June 18^th, 2013

After more than 24 hours by land and air, Kim and I finally arrived at the quaint village of Lifuwu on beautiful Lake Malawi.  We are staying at a nice hostel called the Friendly Gecko, a stones throw from the beach on lake Malawi.  We fall asleep to the soothing sounds of surf, wind, and the rustling of leaves.

Yesterday, when we arrived, we were told that there would be a meal served for dinner, and it turned out to be…Knödel, Würste und Kohl (dumplings, sausages and cabbage, for those who do not speak German).  As it turns out, there are three Germans staying at the hostel.  There is one other American and two people from Ireland.  Everyone is quite friendly.

Tomorrow we will start our volunteering with Help2Kids, which assists in various projects around Lifuwu village, including a nursery school, primary school, and clinic. We will help out wherever we are needed, though our expertise in education will probably be of most use at the two schools. The town that we are staying in is quite remote—about 10 kilometers northeast of Salima.  It is a fishing village, so there is quite a bit of activity at the beach.  A short 10-minute walk from our hostel along a dusty track takes us to the local primary school (grades k – 8).  I am sure that we will be spending a good bit of time there in the weeks to come. 

Our first impressions of Malawi are all positive.  The weather is absolutely perfect; it is about 20 degrees (70 Fahrenheit) with a pleasant wind coming off the lake.  It is winter here, so thankfully we are spared the 35-degree heat in a cinderblock oven of a schoolhouse.  The people are very friendly, especially the children.  All it takes is for us to walk by and the children will yell Nzungu (white person), run up to greet us, ask us our names and hold our hands as we walk.  Parental supervision and “stranger danger” don’t exist in Malawi, I guess—not that we’d get far, being the only foreigners in about a 20-mile radius.

Well, that’s about it for now.  I will try to post at least 3-4 times per week, depending on the electricity/internet situation, so keep tuning in.  Cheers!