Transport

There are many ways to travel in Malawi. In the village you’re probably walking, riding a bike if you’re lucky enough to have one, or taking a bike taxi to get where you need to go. For longer distances, I try my luck with hitch-hiking which can be a cool way to meet people and get to where you need to go quickly and safely. You can also take mini-buses and matolas which are often over-crowded and make a lot of frequent stops. I guess it really just depends on my mood, whether or not I hitch or take a bus into town. There are pros and cons to both scenarios.

Sometimes waiting for a hitch can take forever, especially if you’re traveling with a lot of bags or your bike. Taking a bus can be nice too if you just want a long ride and have time with your book.
I recently hitched into town with my friend Alyssa and found this little surprise in the backseat which I couldn’t resist posting for you all to see!

Visit to Mr. Kasiya’s Home

One of the biggest problems in education in Malawi is the lack of teachers working in schools. There are many reasons why Community Day Secondary Schools like mine are severely understaffed. For one, a lot of the more educated teachers do not want to work in rural areas where there is no electricity or running water. Another reason is that there are very few houses for teachers and their families to live in at the schools. This is a big problem at my school in particular as two of our teachers must ride their bikes for over an hour back and forth each day to come to school. A few weeks ago, I decided to make a visit to one of these teachers, Mr. Kasiyamaliro in order to meet his family and get a sense of how far he travels each day.

Mr. Kasyia drew me a map and on a Sunday morning I hopped on bike and set out for a visit. It was a pretty well-drawn map, but seeing as how I’m not the best with directions I found myself a bit lost on the way. Lucky for me, being the only white women in my area makes me stand out a bit and pretty much wherever I end up someone is around to recognize me as a teacher from Gwangwa. I stopped a few times along the way to say hello to people and make sure that I was on the right track.

When I got to his home, I was greeted by his wife Mrs. Kasiyamaliro and their nine children. Each child introduced themselves and shook my hand, except for Princess, the youngest girl who was a bit afraid of me and ran behind her mother instead. We then proceeded to go to church which was a really great experience. I sang songs and danced with the members of their church and then listened to Mr. Kasiya deliver a sermon which began with an introduction of me. A small excerpt: “She has hair, we have hair. She walks. We walk. She eats. We eat.” Which lead to more discussion about how “We are all created by one God, in his image and he did not specify. We are all the same, here to live and pray together.” It was really nice and I’m fairly certain if my Mom was there she would have had tears in her eyes.

After church, we went back to their home, had lunch and spent the rest of the day talking about the kids and their progress at primary school. It was really a nice visit and I’m sure I’ll be going again soon. I’ve added a few pictures from church and of the Kasiyamaliro family for you to see.

June Update

Things are going well at school, just busy as usual. We had netball and football matches last weekend and my girls actually won this time! Term Two is quickly coming to an end, with only a few more weeks until break. The weather is still chilly at night and I hear it will only get colder!

I recently visited my watchman’s home and spent a wonderful day with him and his family. Here's a picture of him and his wife.

Plans for my mini-science camp are moving along great and hopefully it will be funded by a grant fairly soon.

We’re still working on our larger camp, Camp SKY and again if you’re interested in helping with this project you can donate online at
http://www.friendsofmalawi.org/grants/how_to_donate.html

A dollar goes a long way in Malawi, so anything you could give would be a great help!

I’m in town this week for a dentist appointment, which wasn’t a pleasant experience, but I’m okay now, no worries!

I've uploaded a few pictures this weekend from around school and the village.

Hope you’re all enjoying the summer!

Love and Good Thoughts!
Kelly

Camp STAR: Scientific Thinking Achieving Results

I’ve found that Peace Corps really loves acronyms, so we decided to call our upcoming science mini-camp Camp STAR: Scientific Thinking Achieving Results. It’s a bit lengthy of a title, I know, but I’m pretty sure we’ll be getting funding from a grant soon and the camp will hopefully be a success! We’ll be inviting fifty students from Ntchisi District, especially those who do not have laboratories or equipment at their school. We’ll cover chemistry lab, physics lab, electricity, genetics, plants, HIV and sexual health, human diseases and the human body. We’ll also have group activities including a career panel, tree planting demonstration, an MSCE (Malawi Secondary Certificate Examination) quiz bowl, and a viewing of Planet Earth!

Camp STAR is scheduled for the third week of term two break, August 10th-15th! I'll be sure to let you know how it goes and post pcitures when I have them!

Weekend in Blantyre

I finally made it down to the southern region of Malawi to visit my friends Kelly O., Tim, and Adam. We spent the weekend in Blantyre, one of the largest cities in Malawi, watching movies, indulging on good food, going out dancing, and watching a Malawian National Football Team game. The game was really exciting! It was a World Cup qualifying match against Burkina Faso. Unfortunately Malawi lost 2:1, but the crowd was still great and we had a really good time!

I’ve posted a few pictures of us at the game on my picture link as well!

Projects I’m Working On….

1. Girl’s Hostel

You may recall me talking about this earlier and posting a few pictures of the “hostels” my girls are currently staying in. It’s so much safer for them to be within our fence and to be able to focus on their studies, so I’m glad we have the space for them to do so. I’m happy they’re here, but it would be great for them to have a real hostel. The old classroom buildings are overcrowded with their mats and suitcases on the floors. Most of the windows have been broken out and I hardly see any mosquito nets, when checking in on them.

So, I’ve begun work with a committee of teachers and PTA members to make plans for building a girl’s hostel at Gwangwa. We’re sorting out exactly what we need and how much it will cost. I’m intending to get all of this approved as a proposal for Peace Corps, which will allow me to raise money back home for the project using space on the Peaces Corps website.

With that being said, if you’re interested in helping with this project, maybe you have an organization or group who’d like to do some fundraising for a good cause, please be patient and consider thinking of my girls in the near future. I’m hoping everything will be all squared way by the end of the summer and I’ll l have an easily accessible space on the Peace Corps website, for anyone to make tax-deductible donations. For now, just keep us at Gwangwa in your thoughts and I’ll continue keeping you informed with our progress and plans.

2. Camp Sky 2009

Each year, the education volunteers put together a summer camp (held in December, Malawi summer) for top students at Community Day Secondary Schools. This year we’re hoping to bring 100 students (50 female: 50 male) to Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital city from November 29th-December 11th.

The camp is intended for Form Three students to help them prepare for their Malawi Senior Certificate Exam, which they’ll need to take at the end of their fourth year and also to get them thinking about career and post-secondary educational opportunities.

We’re really excited about holding the camp in Lilongwe this year as we’ll be able to expose the students to lots of different things though field trips and guest speakers. We’re hoping to bring them to parliament, hospitals, businesses, game reserves, the airport and a ton of other fun, yet educational venues.

The camp is a long way away, but we've started work both planning and fundraising. For my part, I’m working on writing some grant applications to try and cover a portion of the cost as well as visiting local businesses in town to solicit general supplies and donations.

A lot of the funding for last year's Camp Sky came from volunteer’s friends and family members back home. As of now, we’ve just been given a spot on the Friends of Malawi website so that tax—deductible contributions to the camp can be made electronically. If you’re interested in learning more about Camp Sky, please send me an email. If you or your group or organization is interested in donating funds you can do so at the following website, by clicking on Summer School Camp Sky 2009:

http://www.friendsofmalawi.org/grants/how_to_donate.html

I’m sure I’ll be writing more about Camp Sky as we continue planning!

Here’s a link to some pictures and information from last year’s camp :)
http://campskyinzomba2008.shutterfly.com/

3. Science Mini-Camp

This is a smaller scale project, which won’t cost too much in terms of money, just some planning and effort on the part of me and Mike, my sitemate, a health volunteer who teaches at Gwangwa two days per week.

We’re hoping to have about 50 students, half from our school and half from neighboring schools, together at Gwangwa for a 5 day Science Mini-Camp. The Camp doesn’t have a name yet (suggestions?) but we’ll be taking Form Four students to help them prepare for their upcoming national exams and get them excited about science, while giving them opportunities to work in the lab. So far our list of activities will include review classes on the biology and physical science topics our students find most difficult, participation in lab practicals, creation of their own experiments, and fun educational activities like building mousetrap cars and musical instruments. We’re looking into other health related activities, maybe focusing on a particular disease, like Malaria and also environmentally focused activities such as a tree planting demonstration.

Basically, we just want to get our kids excited about science and ready for their MSCE. Physical Science and Biology are typically two of the most difficult subjects on the national exams. Gwangwa’s very fortunate to have a well-equipped laboratory and it will be great to set up a fun learning environment for our own students and those without labs.

Our budget’s looking like it will be pretty small and we should be able to get funding from a “mini-camp fund” established by a previous PC Malawi Country Director after submitting a proposal. It should be a great experience and a great time for us and our students. I forgot to mention, we’re inviting friends, fellow PCVs, to come and help us run the camp activities so it really will be a lot of fun!

I’ll be sure to update my blog with more information about these projects regularly. Feel free to email me with any specific questions, ideas, or words of advice!

Love and Good Thoughts,
Kelly
P.S. – Enjoy the pictures I’ve added this week!

Harvest Time

The rains have finally stopped and everyone has begun harvesting for this year. As I've said before, the staple crop in Malawi is maize which is used for porridge and nsima at practically every meal. For the past month or so we’ve been eating lots of fresh corn, mostly just roasted on the fire, but now’s come the time for harvesting, in order to save maize for the rest of the year.

Besides maize, some of the other major crops grown in my area include tobacco, soy beans, beans, pumpkins, squash and groundnuts (peanuts). Of course there are those who grow sugarcane, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, and even peppers as well. Tobacco as you’d imagine is the biggest cash crop here and a lot of Malawians depend upon buyers in the U.S. and Europe in order to make a profit.

Also, I’ve been lucky to have a variety of fruits and vegetables over the past few months. Everything’s quite seasonal, especially the fruits. We moved from mango season, to guava season and now to orange season, though I’ve always been able to find bananas no matter what time of year.

I haven’t had a ton of experience harvesting in the fields myself. However, I did spend a day with Susan (my headteacher’s wife aka my Malawian mother and caretaker) and her two nieces Natalia and Monika harvesting groundnuts. We walked to the munda (ground) at 6:30 am and didn’t return until after 4:00pm. I spent the first few hours digging up the groundnut plants, but the majority of my day was spent sitting in the sun with Susan, picking the nuts themselves. We took a break to sit in the fields and eat nsima around lunch time when the girls brought us food they'd gone home to cook earlier in the day. Another day, I was also able to help them harvest the corn surrounding my house. I spent an entire morning with Susan and the girls cutting corn stalks and then taking husks off the corn cobs. As I said above corn is the staple food in Malawi. To me this may have been a morning of playing in the fields with friends, but to every other rural Malawian it’s an essential chore which if not performed could lead to hunger later in the year.

I’ve posted a few pictures of me and the girls. I still need to teach Susan how to use my camera correctly so I can get some more pictures of me for my mom. :)