Field Trip Day

Together Mr. Zimba and I organized a great field trip for our students to Lilongwe, Malawi's capital city. In town, we visited Airtel Malawi, the nation's number one cell phone and internet provided. There we listened to employees from various departments talk about their jobs, training and education. We also took a tour of one of the cell phone towers and listened to an explanation of how the waves work to provide cellular service. Airtel was wonderful, they provided us with a lot of great information, food, drinks and t-shirts!!! It was a great trip and the students learned a ton. After Airtel, we walked through town to the Malawi National Library. There are three branches, one in each of the major cities. here all of the students were given a tour and explanation of all of the library's resources. Throughout the library we found lots of university students hard at work studying, I particularly enjoyed this because in my opinion it served as good motivation for my kids. "Just imagine," I told them, "if you pass your MSCE and go to university, you can read all of the books in this library every day!" From the library, we continues on to vies the Malawi Parliament building and then received a tour of the Kamuzu Banda monument, Dr. Banda was the first president of Malawi. All in all it was a wonderful day, enjoy the pictures below!!

Boy's Football Game

COS Date

It looks like my service in Malawi will officially come to a close on May 20th. I've got a lot of things to do before then and tons of people to say goodbye to. I still have several weeks of teaching inlcuding clubs, fields trips and sports to look forward to and also year three of Camp STAR!

As for future plans, I am looking forward to traveling to Tanzania and flying from there to India where I will meet my cousin Nicole for a week of travel and sight-seeing. From India, I will head to Australia, where my little sister is studying abroad. I'm looking forward to spedning a few weeks with her at her school and exploring the continent. All this means I should be home mid-June, probably on June 15th as long as my plane tickets work out the way I'd like them to.

I'm excited to have made these plans for home and am looking forward to a relaxing summer before starting a Master's in Public Health program this fall.

There's still lots for me to do over the next couple months and a ton of pictures to take. I'll be sure to keep the updates coming!!

Love and Good Thoughts,
Kelly

Pictures

Here are some of the pictures I promised in my last post! The kids hanging out aroudn my house, tree planting, Gwangwa Girls Club and computer class. Enjoy!!

Mid Term

Hard to believe that Term Two is halfway over already. It has been one of my busiest terms yet and filled with a lot of teaching! This term I'm teaching physical science for all forms, biology for forms two and four and my favorite class, computers studies in form three.



Now that I'm actually working with the kids in the computer lab, it's been truly enjoyable for all of us. We start every lesson by typing a few sentences of microsoft word; usually I aske them to type about themselves or their goals. Next, we open up microsoft paint to practice using the mouse by drawing pictures and writing our names. This is important becaus emy kids have never used computers before and handling the mouse has been an especially difficult skill for them to master. Nevertheless, they keep on getting better and better each week.



Girls Club has been going well, we've been meeting regularly each week. Mostly we're just singing, dancing and learning a bit about different topics the girls choose each week. So far this term we've talked about goal setting, cooperation, study skills and how to run a small business. I'd like to take them on a field trip this term and will update you once I figure out where to go.



I planted a few fruit trees in my backyard a couple of weeks ago. Pretty exciting to think that years from now whoever is living in my house will have lemons, oranges, apples whenever they want! I enlisted the help of a few students for the work. Check out the pictures below.



The housing project is progressing slowly but surely. Materials are all gathers and we are hoping to continue building once the rains have stopped a bit. Go to the link on the righthand side of this page to learn more about the project and to help us make it happen by donating.



Speaking of rains, it has been pouring this month! Absolutely, house flooding, pouring! luckily, I've been in my tin-roofed house for a long time and know exactly where to put bowls to catch the rain and towels under the door.



I guess that's all for now. This weekend I'll be taking my kids to compete in boys football and girls netball competitions within the district. I've been training all week and this year, unlike any before, I am coaching in Chichewa. We I guess it's a combination Chichewa-English. For instance, today I found myself yelling "Khalani Serious!" when one of the girls was gooding off instead of listening to the team captain during stretches. Literally khalani means "please be". Kind of a silly phrase, but it got the point across. I'll let you know how the matches go soon.



Love and Good Thoughts,

Kelly

New Years in Zanzibar

Here are some pictures from our trip to Zanzibar, an island off the coast of Tanzania!

We had a really great time on the beach and in our travels. I went with two of my Peace Corps Volunteer friends, Alyssa from my intake group and Jo, Alyssa’s site mate in the environment sector. We took so many modes of transportation including buses, taxis, an overnight train with sleeping cars, a tiny airplane, a beautiful ferry and even a bike taxi at the end of the trip! We rode through Tanzania up to Dar es Salaam passing through the National Park where we saw a few wild animals including giraffes and elephants. Zanzibar, our ultimate destination was AMAZING. The beaches were beautiful, the city was nice, and the weather was perfect. We had a great time swimming, wandering around town and eating lots of seafood. Our hotel was beautiful and had a nice view of the Indian Ocean but we chose to take a taxi up to an even more beautiful and secluded beach. On New Year’s Eve, we sat on the beach drinking red wine and eating seafood from the open market. It was a great way to ring in the New Year. On the following day we took a ferry off the island and were invited by the captain to sit at the front of the boat, taking in the beautiful view with our feet dangling off the edge.

Transport was rough at some times, but we made it and laughed along the way. Definitely an unforgettable New Years!

Enjoy the pictures!!

Alyssa and Jo on our first day of travel.

Taxi to the Malawi-Tanzania border.
The Mbeya train station where we waited for out 22 hour train which was also 5 hours late.
Woman selling bananas alongside the train at one of the stops.
Alyssa and I getting ready to board a plane!
The view from above!

The pool at our hotel. Our room was also in this building.
Our own beach (at least for the day) on Zanzibar.
Walking through historic Stone Town
Buying spices.

A cathedral where slaves used to be kept and sold.

Buying all kinds of grilled fish in the market on New Year's Eve.

Yum!

Another beautiful beach.

The view from the front of the ferry.

Arriving at Dar es Salaam, our final destination before the long trip back to Malawi.