Where to begin?
Well, hi from Africa, more specifically, from an empty computer lab at Katsekaminga Community Day Secondary School, where I am killing time typing this up while the students take exams. Yes, the school where we’ve been training has a number of dinosaur computers (sans internet)—unusual in Malawi, but this school got lucky. One of my colleagues is blasting Burning Spear. It is a good morning.
This is my fifth (and penultimate) week living in Katsekaminga village, a sleepy little corner of an urban area called Dedza, up in some mountains bordering Mozambique. The landscape is dotted with white gum trees, and acacia trees, and baobob trees, purple blooming trees, and mango and banana trees. There are chickens and goats, mangy dogs, dusty roads, burning piles of trash, and on the horizon, small karst mountains that bubble up every few kilometers.
The people:
I have been living with the Bvumbwe (or Mvumbwe? or Vumbwe?) family, who are taking very good care of me, especially their 17-year-old daughter Fanny, the youngest of seven, who does most of the work around our compound. Homestay has had its ups and downs, as might be expected from spending six weeks as a houseguest anywhere. Since I am learning how to cook and clean Malawi-style, the family is under the general impression that I am like a newborn who has never seen a broom or a frying pan before. They have taught me how to cook rice (and mop, and wash clothes) about six million times. My occasional protestations, that I am capable of doing these things on my own, are greeted with raised eyebrows of disbelief, to the extent that I also begin to question their veracity. The women in the Bvumbwe family are Amazons who carry giant vats of water on their heads, and children on their backs, and firewood similarly, with the same ease as carrying a purse. Their arms are rippling guns. I am impressed. Six other PC trainees, all of whom are awesome, live in Katsekaminga too.
The day:
In the mornings, I wake up around five, sweep (or, displace dust in) the yard, and meet my friend Elisabeth for a run. Fanny or my amayi (host mother) leaves out a hot bucket of water for a bath, and then I eat a quick breakfast, and hike to school on a neighboring hill. The afternoons, after lunch at home, are spent learning Chichewa, which is coming together pretty well. Our free time (45 minutes after language class) is generally spent drinking Fanta at the outdoor market. After dinner I read a little bit and usually pass out by eight. It’s a wild life.
The food:
Okay, so Malawi cuisine is, as I mentioned previously, pretty much nsima. And a lot of starch. And then more starch. Also: starch. Plus a ton of cooking oil. The Peace Corps has done an excellent job of preparing our host families with the means to meet our nutritional needs. Nonetheless, we are all at the point of insatiably craving things like cheese, and good bread, and bacon and beets of course, and chocolate, and grapefruit juice, and yogurt, ice cream, and cottage cheese, and, more generally, just the ability to control one’s own diet. (I take back anything I said in previous entries about bacon jumping the shark!) I have been eating a lot of goat, and also many animals and their parts that I wasn’t able to identify. Nsima, the consistency of mashed potatoes or grits, is basically just white maize flour and water, a bland base to be flavored by whatever relishes it’s served with. Since nsima is virtually flavorless, it is hard to like or dislike. I am strongly ambivalent toward nsima. It should be noted that nsima, however flavorless, provides the main source of sustenance for most of the children in this country. Interesting fact: In Malawi, they eat mangos like apples!
The chimbudzi (toilet) and bafa (bathroom) (You know you were wondering.)
The chimbudzi is basically a squat pit latrine, just a hole in the floor. It’s scary at night, but perfectly serviceable when adequately lit. My faulty olfactory senses continue to serve me well. The bafa, on the other hand, is a roofless bamboo-walled enclosure for bucket bathing outside. In the morning, when the sky is blue and birds fly close overhead and the sun is rising, I love the bafa. Conversely, when it is cold or when giant bees divebomb my head while I am shampooing, the experience is less pleasant.
The wildlife
At this very moment, a pride of lions is sitting on the adjacent hill, watching in wait as zebras frolic nearby. Okay, not really. Most of my wildlife encounters are with chickens, the occasional goat, and flea-ridden emaciated dogs that wander around the village. Early in my stay I did have a bedroom encounter with a small snake on my pillow, while I was reading with my head on that same pillow. The next night, I killed a palm-sized colorful spider blocking my entrance to the chimbudzi (toilet). I am told to expect more of these run-ins when the looming rainy season finally reveals itself in full. Now, the clouds are gathering darker every morning, and the winds are colder than in September.
The schools
So, during training I have been teaching English Literature to about 75 students in Form 3 (the equivalent of high school juniors). They are good kids. The Malawian school system has a lot of challenges, which I will go into in more detail at a later point. But in brief: from Form 1 (freshman year), students are taught all subjects only in English. The primary objective of education is to pass a national exam after Forms 2 and 4. Because the school system was expanded to include the entire populace recently, there is an extreme teacher shortage, especially of qualified teachers. Exacerbating this, teacher attendance is often a big problem. Textbooks and materials are in short supply, so students may share only a few books in a class of 50 or 100. Some students work hard planting in the early morning and walk long distances to school, without breakfast and without a break for lunch, so their attention wanders, especially during later classes. It’s frustrating. My job, as a teacher development facilitator, will probably include some teaching. Also, I will be working with teachers in a cluster of schools, helping them acquire materials, access teaching resources, and work toward their professional development goals through a Malawian distance learning college available to them. There is also a camp for girls, and a health camp, and a number of workshops in which I am excited to get involved. We are also expected to have secondary projects within our community or at school. More on this later.
Everything Else
There are so many beautiful scenes in the village, and all of them are ruined when you pull out a camera. Everyone freezes, the children huddle around, and the moment is gone. But I hope you will enjoy the ones I have been able to sneak. Not able to post them yet, but very soon I hope.
In the next few weeks, we will move out of homestay back to our training site at the Dedza School of Forestry. Soon, we’ll find out our site locations for the next two years, visit them for a sneak peak, have a week of language intensive before the big Chichewa exam, and then swear in as official PCVs on December 9. Sometime this month I will be issued a cell phone, and hopefully resume more regular access to internet, and get in touch with the ones I love, and all that. In the meantime, I am missing you all incredibly. Please write and send word what is going on in the rest of the world. I would love to know the big and the mundane, including in precise detail exactly what you ate for breakfast and are preparing for Thanksgiving. Lots of love,
Loo
p.s. I've got a terrible connection and about five minutes, so apologies for all of the unanswered emails!
