Some Snippets

I hope you all had a nice Easter. Jonathan and I went to visit a few other volunteers in the central region of Malawi which was nice. Good to catch up on the news and it may be the last time that I see these volunteers as either they are heading home soon or the fact that I only have 4 months left in Malawi which is a scary thought.

Anyway on the way down we had to pull over several times as it was Good Friday and many people took to the streets to parade – all the women were dressed in white shirts and purple skirts. I get the impression that Easter is probably celebrated more than Christmas but still no sign of any hard boiled eggs rolling down hills, or any chocolate ones come to think of it either!

I had plenty opportunities for some tourist shopping on our travels and I am now starting to stock up on things to take home. The good news it that Kenya Airlines have risen their baggage allowance to 46kgs so I’m hoping that they will keep this by the time I fly!

We were staying at an expensive place called Mua Mission (totally not worth the money as they tried to serve me goat meat for my dinner, Jonathan had my share!). On the way to the place we stopped to ask directions from several people – it is better to check as special awareness is not a Malawian strong point. We were still not sure we were heading in the right direction so we stopped and asked from traffic police. Of course they could direct us especially if we gave them a lift to the junction. Fine as there is nothing unsusal about that. In the car one of the officers found a bottle of water which hadn’t been opened and asked if he could have a drink. I quickly swapped the open bottle of a half full one and within 20 seconds the cheeky bugger had drunk the whole lot and crumpled the bottle in his hands. But what can you say? The traffic police are the power in this place and you really don’t want to mess with them!

The trip was nice and we stopped off at a rose quartz quarry on the way back up to stock up on rocks (not sure if they will get in the case but with that extra allowance you never know!). We were given a guided tour of the place by the owner and then had to buy a few goods!

Back in Rumphi things don’t change. However there was some excitement the other day. I was on my way to the office and the road I normaly take was crammed full of women. I initially thought that there was a funeral so took a detour. However appreantly there was a big scandal and the ladies had all come out from the woodwork to have a peak. One woman who has been married for 2 years but doesn’t yet have children, not through the want of trying, decided that she had had enough of being teased for not having a child. She took matters into her own hands and travelled down to the capital city, wandered into a village and while no one was loking, she stole a baby, popped it into her bag and made her way back to Rumphi (a day’s travel on minibus!) When she arrived her mother was slightly bemused and asked her where the baby had come from. Eventually her mother called the police and the woman was arrested. The ladies were all crowding about the police station to see this woman before she was taken to court! Now is the woman ‘mad’ or did her culture drive her to this desperate act?

That’s all for now!

What does it mean to be hungry?

We often find ourselves saying that we are hungry or starving so the solution (unless you are on a diet!) is to head straight to the fridge/biscuit jar/local shop in order to get something to eat. Fair enough, it is relatively easy and to be honest we are probably not even that hungry and most definitely not starving.

Here it is a bit different. I know I have mentioned before that it is the hungry season when people are waiting for the new harvest but I have been doing some investigating to find out what really goes on. Most Malawians live from the land and in December they plant a lot of maize. My night watch man was forever off miles away to tend to his garden. I assumed that this maize, once ready was harvested and then kept by the local farmers (just about everyone!) to last them through the season. Apparently not. They sell most of the maize to the government through a company called ADMARC. That is fair enough because it is quite difficult to store the maize correctly and people just don’t have the space. You would assume that with the profits made, most would be kept so they could buy the maize back when it is needed. No, not so!!

If people have money in their pockets, (hardly anyone has a bank account) then it tends not to burn a hole for that long! The money is quickly spent on various things with most people relying on their small incomes to keep up with buying the maize when their own supplies have ran out.

Meanwhile the government is busy calculating the amount of maize that has been taken in and the amount that they think the people will need. Last year was a good harvest so there was supposedly a lot of maize left over. The government then sells this surplus maize to other countries who don’t have enough – in Malawi most if not all goes to Zimbabwe (funny that they don’t have much maize now that there are a lack of farmers in the country!) Anyway the whole system is supposed to work fairly smoothly and if the calculations are correct then no one should be left without maize, provided that they can pay the government for it.

However, that is before corruption. The papers are full of stories of missing tonnes of maize that simply just can’t disappear. No one knows where it goes but it has gone and in reality the people are hungry, perhaps even starving.

There is a real shortage of maize and I really see it in Rumphi. People are constantly waiting outside the ADMARC building at the bottom of the road, often for days, with the hope of a delivery of maize. And when the delivery eventually comes, my god it is chaos. People are desperate. They have no food left and money is really tight. The number of children admitted to the local hospital with malnutrition is rising as are the number of HIV/AIDS adults who need to eat a balanced diet for their drugs to have the best effect. The worrying thing is that there is still at least another month before the new crop is ready, especially in the north where the rains start a little bit later.

The lucky ones are the ones who had the foresight to keep some of their maize in stock, either individuals or companies, as they themselves won’t be hungry and they can then charge ridiculous prices for their maize at the local market. The people who have jobs and earn a decent wage (not that many) have no choice but to buy the expensive maize but for the rest of them, they just have to wait and hope…..

School Visit

I have been ill for the last week with a stomach problem! (Probably something called ameobasis or something like that!) Apparently it’s very common for this time of the year (rainy season) and many people have been diagnosed with this at the hospital. Dr Katrien prescribed antibiotics that are pretty strong and actually made me feel worse – like I was about to throw up all the time. I’ve basically spent the week in bed with poor Jonathan having to look after me and cook all the meals!!

I managed to get out of bed on Thursday and ventured into the office for the morning, this was really to prepare me for the next day when I had to set of by half 6 to reach a TDC by 7.15. I had organised a school exchange visit where I was taking 3 teachers from different schools who are teaching different classes to one school that the Primary Education Advisor had selected as being a good school so they could observe good practice.

The school we arrived at is in the middle of no where and is the last point on the actual road (more like wide footpath if you ask me) before it turns into a little trail that leads right up into the Nyika Plateau. As a result the school is in a lovely, peaceful setting at the bottom of these hills. The school structures have been heavily funded by the EU and as a result the classrooms are in good condition and there are even really nice teachers houses with working electricity! Yes it is possible to get electricity in the middle of the Africa bush, only it comes from solar panels on the roofs of the houses. The headteacher took us to his own house for cakes and tea and he even put the television on for us! What a treat! The fact it was all in Chichewa was irrelevant!

Back to the school itself. Even with all this EU intervention there were still only 6 classrooms for 8 classes so the Standard one class met in one local church and the Standard 2 class met in the other one! Thankfully both are really near each other and right beside the school area.

The lessons that I watched were really good and the teachers were managing the new curriculum fairly well. However, there were only 4 teachers including the HT and one volunteer teacher (basically anyone who fancies the job with absolutely no training and is paid for by the local community). So in these classes the learning was taking place. In the other classes the children were there and copying the work from the board or the textbook which had been prepared earlier that day by the HT so one might assume that there was some learning taking place but on closer inspection of the actual work that they were doing this is not the case. Most of the time the work completed was completely wrong and made up. How do you expect children to do long division with barely any example at all? It takes me many hours re-visiting the teachers guide to try and crack the code! So what can the school do? Not a lot really, without the teachers there to help! They are doing their best under the circumstances but the government has made such a fuss about this new curriculum which is really challenging for the teachers at the best of times so that any other problems like classes without teachers really do get left by the wayside to fend for themselves!

Still all in all I was really impressed with the school and I think that the teachers from the other schools were also impressed and hopefully have learnt something new for their teaching.