MAIZE! and some pics of the digs

The view in Malawi these days... maize.

My backyard: tomatoes, cucumbers, bananas, peppers, basil, and a pumpkin patch.

Posh corps livingroom.

The invincible habanero that thrives despite neglect and goat attacks.

For a while, the neighborhood kids were coming by every night to draw and play on the porch. They took most of their own art home with them, but various PCV visitors left theirs to decorate my bare walls.

The maize is rising around neighborhood paths: more green, more quiet, more privacy.

Moringa! My fence and my dinner.

My regular sunrise visitor.

February Update

Well, I’m 30, and life continues to be good in Malawi. Apologies to anyone who's tried to call or write in the past few days; Salima has been a network dead zone.

Projects going well: Teaching literature for Form Threes this term, and I’m really enjoying it. We moved at a snail’s pace through the first story in “Looking for a Rain God,” a collection of African short stories, but the work has paid off; after establishing a routine and a literary vocabulary, we sailed through five more stories in four weeks.

Permaculture continues to move in fits and starts. Planting happened, but the rains have been sparse. At the primary school, the teachers have been motivated to keep moving, but at the secondary school, it’s two steps forward, three steps back. Last weekend, I visited a permaculture group in Lilongwe that was generous enough to donate seeds, so maybe things will pick up when we plant them. The problem seemed to be getting everyone together to sit down and plan. So we had an Action Plan meeting a few weeks ago, but the results were a little vague about responsibility. I’m concerned what will happen when the rains end in April.

Teacher development work at the cluster level is at a standstill because the Ministry of Education has tinkered with financial policies so that schools have ZERO access to their own tuition funds, and therefore no way to pay for workshop participant transport, allowances, Fantas, etc. While the situation is frustrating, it’s given me the chance to turn my attention elsewhere, and to work on areas of greater personal interest. I’m looking into putting together a workshop on natural medicine and gardening for the nearby secondary and primary teachers, who couldn’t get enough information about this topic during the Permaculture training in September (and thus won’t demand allowances that their schools can’t provide). Also, I’d like to take a few teachers to a training in Lilongwe on integrated pest management and seed saving. And I’m still assisting the Domasi distance learners, a group of 20 teachers who come to Salima every Friday to work on their assignments toward a diploma (like an Associate’s degree) in education. At the primary school, I’ve been helping set up email accounts for teachers, so they can exchange stories with colleagues at their sister school in Biggin Hill, England.

Last weekend, Ashley, Jamie, and I took the GRE in Lilongwe, along with a roomful of Malawians who had never encountered a Scantron test before, so you can imagine the kind of fun that ensued. Needless to say, the four-hour test scheduled for 8:30 didn’t even start until 10 in the morning, and we did a very thorough job of celebrating its completion. Yes, even with jello shots.

I have two new site mates! Terra, a Peace Corps Response Volunteer, who lives a half mile away. And, at Thavite, Annette, just reassigned to Malawi after Niger was evacuated.

Lots of things to look forward to: this weekend, a trip up to Kande Beach on the lake for my birthday party. A week-long holiday at the beginning of March, and then a trip to Tanzania in April. And somewhere in there, the end of term exams, which I am responsible for typing—again.

Communicating in the Global Village

Recently my Form Four Life Skills students have been studying “Communication and Media in the Global Village,” a subject in their curriculum which would be a lot more interesting to teach if we had internet access. Unfortunately, all of the dinosaur computers donated to the school have ceased functioning in the last few months, so I was left wondering how to tackle this topic. First, I brought in all sorts of books and magazines for them to peruse and consider in terms of readership and significance: Newsweek, Lonely Planet, WorldView (a Peace Corps publication), the New Yorker, Vegetarian Times, the Economist, Glamour. And wouldn’t you know they liked the last one best, especially the silky hair advertisements. A few boys asked to borrow it.

As faithful readers may recall, I am linked with a Coverdell WorldWise Partner teacher in America (who also happens to have been a close friend for 20 years). Basically, the partnership program is designed to promote Peace Corps’ second and third goals of advancing mutual understanding between countries. Anyway, Sammy, who teaches seniors at Annandale High School, and I agreed to have our students exchange questions with each other so they could learn a little bit about the daily lives of their peers on the other side of the world.

My kids, who were stoked about this idea, wrote up their questions last week, I typed them up and emailed them to Sammy, and today shared the responses she sent back. Rather than just read the answers aloud, I drew a big Venn Diagram on the chalkboard and we compared my Malawian students’ answers with those of the U.S.A. seniors. There were, unsurprisingly, quite a few similarities among the teens. Here are some of the answers:

Eugene asked: What type of behaviour do you want your friend to be?

USA: honest, loyal, funny, nice

Malawi: honest, kind, faithful, tolerant, moral

Moses asked: I want to know what kind of music do you like?

USA: Go-go, Lil Wayne, Justin Bieber, Wiz Khalifa, Nicki Minaj

Malawi: Reggae, hip-hop, Lil Wayne, Justin Bieber [Sigh.]

Noel asked: What do you want to do when you finish your studies?

USA: Some people go to “Beach Week” after school ends.

[Okay, that was a tough one to explain to my morally upright and temperate students. I compared it to celebrating at Lake Malawi.]

Noel also asked: What things do you do to keep your body strong and healthy?

USA: Martial arts, running, basketball, American football, swimming.

[Malawian kids LOVE martial arts, or at least what they call kung fu. They practice it on each other behind the school—diving, jumping, and spinning into the soft bed of grass and straw that lines the abandoned pits for burning rubbish.]

Malawi: football (soccer), netball, bathing, swimming, running [I’m not sure I believe that one; I’ve never seen a Malawian walk faster than 3 miles per hour. They failed to mention their bodies stay pretty strong and healthy just going about their daily lives, carrying buckets of water or firewood or sacks of maize on their heads, and working long hours in the fields.]

Kelvin asked: What country do you live in?

USA: All of us live in America, but many of us are from different countries, like Germany, Cambodia, Vietnam, Ireland, France, Pakistan, and Sierra Leone.

[My class gasped. “I want to go to that school!” said Emmanuel.]

Frank asked: What are your hobbies or things you like to do on weekends?

USA: Hang out with friends, watch movies, part-time jobs, play games, going to the mall, parties, homework

Malawi: Chatting with friends, watching movies, homework, dancing, church [They were surprised nobody from America mentioned church.]

Tamala asked: What foods do you like in your everyday life?

USA: Cereal, spaghetti, pizza, kabob, hamburgers, French fries, pho, Chinese food

Malawi: Nsima, chicken and chips, thelele (okra).

[They were a little confused when I explained pizza, some had tried spaghetti, all very interested in pho, and excited to hear that French fries and chips are the same thing.]

Chifundo asked: What is life in America like, to you?

USA: Very good for some people, but hard for people who don’t have jobs. [This answer surprised my students, who described life in Malawi as very hard.]

Blessings asked: Do you want to visit Malawi?

USA: Yes, if someone can pay for it! [Malawian students laughed.]

Blessings also asked: Who is your role model?

USA: Oprah, Taylor Swift, Bruce Le [many cheers from the Malawians!], JFK, Obama [more cheers], James Bond [cheers again], Michael Jordan [some kids had heard of him]

Rabecca asked: What would you like to be in terms of your career?

USA: physical therapist, voice actor, nurse, engineer

Malawi: nurse, lawyer, engineer

Gabriel asked: What are your likes and dislikes?

USA: We like girls/boys, Facebook, cell phones, music, Taylor Swift, TV, motorcycles, having a driver’s license. We dislike: bullies, Myspace, liars, homework, cold weather

Malawi: We like girls/boys, football, dancing, movies, chatting, the lake. We dislike: liars [They said more, but I didn’t get a chance to get them down]

Antra asked: What do you do when you wake up early in the morning?

USA: Most teenagers wake up at 6 am on school days, but on weekends we wake up from 11 am to 2 pm. [Malawians wake up, it seems, around 3 in the morning, on their own accord, so this was very confusing for them. It also confuses my students when I suggest that knocking on my door or calling me at 5 in the morning is unacceptable. I began enforcing this policy when I began distributing condoms from Peace Corps, and the students are still baffled at my queer desire to sleep until 6 (or even 7!) on the weekend.]

Andrew asked: Do you have a boyfriend or girlfriend?

USA: 2 out of 14 students have a boyfriend/girlfriend.

[Malawian secondary students aren’t technically allowed to be in relationships so none of them wanted to volunteer that information, but it is safe to say, based on the condom requests mentioned above, that a fair number of them are.]

So, it was a productive and entertaining exchange within the global village. And we are looking forward to some questions from the American students next week.

Yes, the rumors are true.

The Malawian powers that be are considering making farting in public illegal.

Thanks to a number of interested readers for sending queries regarding this important piece of legislation.

On a related note, my Life Skills students told me last week during a game of DealBreaker that they would never get involved with a person with b.o. Considering the olfactory offenses that permeate crowded public areas around here, they may have reason for concern.