Adventures!

The last few weeks have been a crazy blur of action-packed adventures. My sister and (as good as) brother in law came to visit me and we went on a whistle-stop tour of Malawi and Zambia.

 The first big event was climbing Mount Mulanje. We didn’t even climb any of the peaks, we just hiked up to and over a couple of plateaux, but I think we seriously underestimated the amount of physical strength and effort it requires just to do that. We arrived at the first hut in the dark, soaked in sweat and then spent hours cooking dinner over the fireplace. The hike to the second hut left Mary, Peter, Catriona and I freezing and soaked from the rain/mist. The descent was less strenuous but included a lot of slipping and falling (or as I like to call it, sitting down with style). Despite all the pain, fatigue and discomfort, it was a brilliant experience and we passed through some really beautiful and interesting landscapes. 

Once off the mountain our guide and porters kind of abandoned us in a village, saying a bus would come along soon enough. We were a bit worried about all the attention we were getting from the kids but I was pleased that I managed to communicate to them in Chichewa that we didn’t have anything to give to them but instead played clapping games and wrote in the sand with them. Eventually we gave up on waiting for a bus and took bicycle-taxis back to Mulanje town, which is now my favourite method of transport! I wish they had them in Blantyre!

Next stop was Lake Malawi. We had a bit of excitement on the journey there; waiting to catch a minibus on the highway in Blantyre, we were told to step back from the road because there was a student protest making its way toward us. We stepped back from the road a little, not realising that we were being told to get ourselves out of the reach and sight of the, shall we say ‘rambunctious’, demonstrators, until people starting shouted at us to run from the approaching crowd, many of whom were also running and starting to chant “azungu!”. Don’t worry, Mum, we were never in any real danger. We made it to the lake and spent a night at Cape Maclear before getting a boat out to Domwe Island, where we spent the day swimming and kayaking in the lake before hiking through the woods a bit to climb up a rock where we watched the sun set, then stumbling back down in the dark to our tents pitched on platforms hidden amongst the trees, and sat out in the hammock, watching the stars before going to sleep.

The following day was a bit stressful and included a lot of waiting around for transport which was more expensive and even less comfortable than expected, but we eventually made it to Lilongwe, where I was amazed by how big and fancy and capital-city-like everything was. The next morning Mary, Peter and I left for Zambia, thankful that all the transport from then on was already organised by the safari company. We spent three nights at the safari camp which was right by the South Luangwa River, meaning I was often woken up during the night by the sound of nearby hippos roaring. The game drives were brilliant, we saw all sorts of exotic and interesting animals, including antelope, giraffes, zebras, elephants, hippos and leopards.

Then we made the long journey to Victoria Falls, stopping at Lusaka along the way. I knew that Zambia’s economy is stronger than Malawi’s but it wasn’t until we went to a high-end shopping mall in Lusaka that it fully hit me just how much stronger it is. The whole city in general was just so much more developed than Lilongwe and Blanytre put together, but the shopping mall was too much for my brain to take in and I just kind of spaced out, dazzled by how big, shiny and colourful the whole place was.  Victoria Falls, too, was certainly big and dazzling, although there was so much spray that it was pretty hard to see the falls themselves from Zambia. We crossed over to the Zimbabwean side and got a much better view, complete with little 360° rainbows in front of our eyes when the light spray of water was blown in front of our eyes. The next day we floated along the Zambezi river in a raft float (unfortunately during this season the water level is too high for the adrenaline-pumping white-water rafting so we went with the more peaceful version) before going on a walking safari and ticking another one of the big five off our list by getting really close to a herd of rhinos.

It was really lovely to spend time with Mary and Peter, we had plenty of giggles and having them around made home seem a lot closer. It also made it feel like no time since I’d left home, and no time until I go back. It was great to finally see more of Malawi, and see the difference in Zambia and that tiny part of Zimbabwe. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed staying in a tent and living out of my backpack. I’m happy to be home for the moment but I have a feeling that the travel bug may be lying dormant within me, waiting to spring out and whisk me off on more exciting adventures the next time my bank account can handle it.

I don't have time to think of a good title!

Sorry, sorry, sorry! (As the Malawian people say when I trip over my own feet) As per usual, I apologise for not having updated my blog in so long.

It’s kind of hard to sum up the past four months in one digestible blog post, but I’ll give it a go:

I’ve gone from trying to see the bright side of everything and telling myself that it’s all going to get better to really enjoying life, and having the gap year I set out to have. We’ve found our place at Samaritan’s now; before we got here we were told that our project was of the Teaching/Social Care genre, and we knew that the previous volunteer was kind of like a mum to the kids, but it was different for her because she lived with them. We are tutors. We don’t often teach actual lessons, but we teach the kids on a one-to-one basis, usually mathematics, but sometimes English. Now that we’ve known them long enough and can speak enough Chichewa, we’re also actually friends with them, so sometimes if they’re really not in the mood to study; we just chat or play with them. For example, last week we made hats and aeroplanes (the kids schooled us in how to make origami aeroplanes) out of the paper they’d been writing their maths work on and invented our own ball games, using books and an umbrella as bats.

 Just in this past week, I have been getting slightly more involved with the social care side of things. I’ve left Blantyre for only second and third times since I got here; first on a trip to a Children’s Village (it’s far too big to just call it an orphanage), which is funded by Aquaid. A group of Samaritan’s kids went for a recreational activity day, they didn’t win any of the football or netball matches but I think they really outshone the other kids in the drama and singing. And they seemed to have fun, which of course is all that really matters J I also went on a home assessment, first to see how sisters Mary and Ethel were settling into their home, which was really great since I never got a chance to say goodbye to them before they were reintegrated, and they were looking very happy and well-settled. Then we went to meet Kondwani’s mother to see if it would be suitable for him to move in with her. I only understood snippets of what she was saying but it was still good to be a part of it all and see where she lives.

We usually just go to the Samaritan Trust in the afternoons now, when the kids are back from school, and often spend our mornings helping out at Nama Simba. I know, helping out at the nursery used to be the bane our our lives, but now we’ve gotten to know the nursery kids a lot better too, we know how to distract them from fighting, and that they enjoy learning and being tested on little things like body parts, colours (using the clothes they're wearing) and writing on the ground with sticks.

At the church I go to, there’s a service for street kids before the normal service. The kids all wait eagerly outside the church building until somebody arrives to open up, and then they pile in, sing and dance for a while before the pastor’s wife preaches to them in Chichewa and then they go outside for mandasi (doughnuts) and sobo (orange squash). I go to help manage crowd control, plate up food and wash hands, but I love sitting in on the service, especially now that I’m getting to know and understand some of the songs they sing. It’s also great because some of the kids who have run away from Samaritan’s go there so I get to chat to them and see how they’re doing. A couple of weeks ago we saw Saidi, who left Samaritan’s a while back, but he was looking indescribably downtrodden. He was in such a bad state that, since he said he wanted to go, Catriona took him to Samaritan’s on the bus, and the change we’ve seen in him since is incredible. He’s so happy and full of life, it’s hard to believe it’s the same kid.

We’ve had a few more issues a home: some kids left graffiti on our house, just some random letters and skull and crossbones, nothing serious, but we’ve also had the outside tap stolen. It was replaced but then the guard broke it whilst trying to fix the new one so we’re again without an outdoor tap. This is a problem because the water needs to go through that pipe to get to the house, so without a tap to control the flow, all of it just shoots out of the opening where the tap should be, and none gets to the house. We’re quite used to living without running water now; it was something I was prepared to do when I applied with Project Trust, and it’s made me realise just how much water I used to use, and waste, both back home and here when we had running water inside the house.

I’m really enjoying myself and feel so at home in Malawi. I quite often think to myself, “This is what I came here to do; this is the gap year I set out to have”.  I’ll be happy to see my family and friends and excited to go to university, but I often find myself thinking that I really don’t want to go home in four months, I wish I could just live here permanently, and worrying that the next four months are going to fly by even quicker than the past four months.

First Post of 2013!

Sorry again for not posting in ages! (I’m starting to see a pattern in the way I start my blog posts!) Christmas and New Year were actually pretty quiet for me since Nama Simba was closed for a couple of weeks and most of the Samaritan’s kids went to stay with relatives for the Christmas period. Since then a few of them have actually gone back to stay for good. It’s definitely in their best interest to be with their families as long as it’s safe and they’re happy to be there, but I have to say I was sad to see them go. In the past week or so we’ve had a load of new kids come in as it’s actually been made illegal for children to beg and live on the streets. There isn’t actually room for them at TST so it’s been a bit of a squeeze for them. Social welfare are supposed to be coming to take them somewhere else any day now, but in the meantime we’re really enjoying teaching them maths along with the other kids (Thanks Mum and Dad for the watch – it’s come in really handy for teaching them how to tell the time!). It’s pretty hectic trying to keep track of who’s doing what when they’re all working at different levels – some of them are just learning to write numbers or learning to add whilst others are doing long division and multiplying fractions. It’s great to see how much they enjoy learning though; especially when they’re competing against each other or racing against the clock in times table tests.

A few times recently it’s been impossible to do any teaching because of the rain – you can’t hear yourself think for the racket it makes on the roof. But the rainy season has brought out a load of new and interesting wildlife. Lately I’ve seen some really beautiful butterflies and dragonflies, giant African snails, a baby chameleon, and amazing spotted and striped grasshopper and a really cool blue and red bird.

I tried teaching the Nama Simba kids ‘heads, shoulders, knees and toes’ this week. They seemed to enjoy repeating my shouts and copying the actions but they didn’t quite grasp the tune or the idea of putting all four together. After shouting each body part individually a few times I said, “mvetserani” which means “Pay attention”, so that they could listen to me singing it all together, but they all just shouted “mvetserani!” back at me. They can be hard work at times and there are a couple of real trouble makers but most of them are still so cute and sweet.

The older kids in the village, on the other hand, have been giving us a bit of hassle lately. When it’s not raining it can still get pretty hot sometimes, but apparently opening our windows is an invitation to all the village kids to come and poke sticks through, pull the curtains back and shout all manner of things from, “give me money” to “stupid, f**k you!”, and the last time I went out to shoo them away they ended up throwing rocks at me. We’re hoping it won’t happen again since the director of Nama Simba had a word with the village chief for us, but it was just sad to realise that after living here for four months, they still see us as outsiders. I was starting to feel like a member of the community; a lot of people in the village know me by name and I always greet them with a smile when I go out to the market. Seeing the way those village kids act really makes us appreciate how lovely the kids at Samaritan’s are.

Update: Well, in an effort to make our house more child-proof (we think), somebody has mysteriously come and fixed the lock on the gate outside our house. However, when we got home yesterday we didn't realise that the key for the padlock was on our set of house keys, so we scaled the six-foot fence, in skirts, to get to our own house. It was actually pretty fun, and I'm sure that if any of the neighbours saw us, they'll have had a good laugh.

Meanwhile, in Baluti . . .

Sorry I haven’t posted for so long! A while back the power went off for about a week, then was back for a few days before it was off again for about two weeks, so I haven’t been able to write any blog posts from home for a while. Although it caused a few problems with communicating with people via the internet, we actually got quite accustomed to life without power once we got our gas stove. We spent many an evening singing along to Catriona’s ukulele by candlelight, it was very romantic.

Lake Trip!

Last week we left Blantyre for the first time since we arrived here, for a holiday to Lake Malawi. It was absolutely amazing, we had so much fun. The beach and its surroundings were beautiful and the water was warm, even in the evening. There were kingfishers and fish eagles, a tiny praying mantis and a not so tiny scorpion spider, and we went snorkelling and saw tropical fish. The food was delicious, especially the chambo, a type of fish caught in the lake, and it was so lovely having air conditioning and hot showers for a week!

The Cockermouse is a Bat!

A while back when we were both in bed we heard a noise in the bedroom and Catriona said she felt something land on her net. She saw the shadow of something too big to be a normal cockroach fly past her but it was too dark to see what the thing actually was. I concluded that it was a cockermouse, and then we didn’t hear it for a while, so we kind of forgot about it. But a couple of weeks ago, when we were still without power, I was standing in the main room and a little bat landed on my foot! I think maybe I stunned it a bit when I shone the torch on it because it didn’t seem to be able to fly; it just crawled along the floor into the bathroom. We later realised that the thing in the bedroom was probably a bat, not a cockermouse.

Drama

At the end of November we went to the home of Nanzikambe Drama Company to watch a Malawian adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. It was really entertaining, there was traditional Malawian dancing and tribal masks, a ‘Gule Wamkulu’ spirit dancer at Juliet’s funeral and a ‘Sing’anga’ (witch doctor) selling poison. The audience also taught me something about Malawian people; they like to laugh. It seems that laughing is quite a normal reaction to almost any situation, and it’s not a sign of disrespect or mockery, which makes me feel a lot easier about the way people laugh at me when I walk past them in the street.

We went back to Nanzikambe a couple of weeks later to see a play about prostitution, which reminded me of how important it is to keep girls in particular off the streets and in places like the Samaritan Trust. It was also great to see a contemporary dance piece performed before the play, I haven’t watched any contemporary dance since I left college and I’d forgotten how much I love it.

‘Chlistmas Celeblations’

The schools have all broken up for Christmas now so lessons at The Samaritan Trust have stopped too. We’ve still been going to spend time with the kids though, playing football, volleyball and card games, reading books with them, praising their drawings and letting them test our Chichewa. The Samaritan Trust Choir has recorded a Christmas song and I got to watch them filming some nativity scenes to use as the music video. The kids are such enthusiastic actors, they all really enjoyed watching each other.

One does not simply borrow a pen from the azungu

Wow, it feels like ages since I last posted a blog! Especially since Ialways see Catriona being good and updating hers every week. As I've said before, we spend pretty much all of our time together so for a regular news feed of what we've been up to you should check out her blog www.catrionainmalawi.blogspot.com

I think the rainy season really started this week. I haven't seen any today but it rained Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and November is when it's supposed to properly start. Before it started chucking it down on Wednesday we hadn't seen a drop since the GVT coffee meeting, in fact we've had some really uncomfortably hot days over the past few weeks. The heat made the kids a lot more easily agitated, everybody was too hot really be bothered doing anything and to top it all off I was really missing my parents as we reached the six week mark. So it was nice to see the beginning of the rainy season and what will hopefully be the last of the horribly hot weather, despite not being prepared to walk home in the rain on Wednesday. At the end of our walk through the heavy downpour and thunder storm we received an applause from a couple of men who were passing by our front gate, we're guessing that they were impressed by our perseverence.

On our way to Samaritan's one morning this week we came across Chipiliro, one of the younger boys, along the path down from our village. A man who we don't know very well but often see around The Samaritan Trust centre was passing in the opposite direction, and translated to us that Chipi wasn't at school because he didn't have an exercise book, so we walked him back to the centre where we were told that he actually goes to a school which is nowhere near the path we found him on. We still don't actually know why he was there but I'd guess that maybe he got confused and went to the school that's not far from our house, which I know a lot of the Samaritan's kids attend. Chipi is only about 7, always gives us a great big grin and a hug when he sees us and always seems to be wearing the same massive pair of shorts really high up around his waist which make him look hilarious.

Yesterday was one of the best days I've had so far. In the morning we helped out in a maths class with an introductory lesson to algebra. The class included two new girls who we met in a maths lesson on Tuesday morning, one of whom seemed to have never been taught about multiplication. I tried explaining using bottle caps, getting her to count out four groups of three botle caps etc. but she still didn't get the hang of it. When we saw that she didn't understand the algebra at all I had another go at teaching her to multiply, this time getting her to draw circles and dots (e.g. for 3x5 drawing three circles, and five dots inside each one, then counting all of the dots). I was so happy and immensly proud of her when she managed to do all of the sums I'd set her without me telling her how many circles to draw and how many dots inside each one. I've heard people talk about how fulfilling being a teacher can be and now I really know what they mean. At the start of the lesson she couldn't even recognise the difference between the addition and multiplication signs, I had to spend a good ten minutes showing her how to draw a 'x' instead of a '+'.

This week we finally discovered the real words/ meaning of the song that we saw the kids being filmed singing the first ever time we visited The Samaritan Trust. We've been told that the first word is "mdima" (darkness) and "mtima"(heart) but it's now confirmed the lyrics are actually "ndimadalila" which means, "I depend on you". It's really catchy and the kids are great, check it out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=hm9dh0oPvFg

We also taught Madalitso, a 15-year-old boy who speaks English very well and is a real character,
to say "Can I borrow a pen please?" instead than the usual "borrow me pen!" which is how most of the kids ask for one. I told him that every time he says "borrow me" I'm going to quote Boromir from Lord of the Rings. Of course he didn't have a clue what I meant but I make myself laugh :)

And I will close with the news that the stranger who was at a bus stop on the way to Blantyre on Thursday is fine. It seems that he got a bit confused about how to greet people in English, because although I didn't actually notice him until he spoke and so didn't get a chance to ask "How are you?" he poked his head through the window and said "Hi, I'm fine" when our minibus stopped to let some people off. Or maybe his name is Fine...

I almost died.

Not really. But I had a mini panic attack and thought I might. On Saturday we got the bus into Blantyre to do our weekly shopping, except it didn't make it all the way into Blantyre. About half way there it stopped at the side of the road because the exhaust was spewing out massive white clouds. I made the mistake of inhaling after we'd stopped and I got a lung full of something I never want to get a lung full of again, and simultaneously noticed that all of the people in front of us were hurrying to get out of the bus. I'd never seen a Malawian person do anything in a hurry before and seeing nine of them showing signs of urgency all at once was what made me panic. I was comforted though, when Catriona and I were both safely out of the minibus and it didn't explode. When we saw that people were getting refunds for their bus fares we took off (we hadn't gotten round to handing over our money) and walked the rest of the way to town. So we actually went all the way into Blantyre for free! And don't worry, mum, I was just overreacting when I thought the bus might explode, that never happens. The transport here is completely safe.

I also had my second viewing of the beautiful Malawian sunset this week. It's so amazing - in addition to the lovely pink and orange sky we get at home you can see the sun itself turn orange, then pink, then red before it sinks out of view. We can't see it from our house, but The Samaritan Trust's football pitch is on pretty high ground, and on Wednesday we stayed late to watch the match between the older boys and a team of med students from one of the local hospitals. It was lovely staying later and just sitting and chatting with the girls whilst they prepared a fruit salad to serve at the match.

In our home life, we've started to really appreciate the wonder of washing machines. Catriona actually has sores on her hands from washing her clothes. We also realised that we spend a lot more time together than the other Project Trust volunteers do with their partners. I went round the corner to get eggs yesterday and realised that it was the first time I'd gone out of the front gate without Catriona. It was also the first time we went out on a Sunday as well. We went to church in the morning, after having discovered that they do an English service at the Catholic church that we pass on the way to Blantyre. It was almost exactly the same as in England, I was really surprised that there was actually less of the congregation joining in with the hymns than at home! I guess if we want the real African church experience with the singing and dancing and shouting "Amen!" or "Hallelujah!" whenever you feel like it, we'll have to go somewhere else.

We got our fix of singing about Jesus and clapping and dancing yesterday afternoon anyway. We also got coffee (made with real milk!!!), really tasty banana cake and our first rain! The volunteers in Nancholi invited us to a coffee afternoon fundraiser for their Girls' Voice Trust group. Once most people had arrived we had a nice sing and a dance, then it started chucking it down outside and we (the volunteers) were so excited by it that we went outside and danced in the rain like lunatics, it was brilliant! Definitely the best weekend I've had so far!

Getting into the swing of things

I wrote this whilst sitting on the swings in the playground outside our house yesterday afternoon. There was a church service going on inside the nursery building and it sounded amazing with all the drumming, clapping and singing. Maybe next week I'll pluck up the courage to go inside, even if I don't understand most of what's being said. I learned last week that 'Ambuye' means 'God', which is a good place to start.

In the latest email from home, my dad asked me if I feel like me project had really begun; do i feel like I'm helping people? Or am I still just getting into the swing of things?
Well, over the past week I've felt like it's just beginning. On Wednesday Catriona and I taught an English lesson about the plural of certain types of nouns, and then we taught the same lesson (although slightly more organised) to a different class in the afternoon. Even though it was a bit slap dash it reminded me of how much I really enjoyed teaching on my training and selection courses, and we both had a little giggle at how the kids all said "hair" like a Scouser and "book" like a Scot when we were getting them to repeat after us.

As for helping people, I don't feel like I've dona anything major yet but I feel confident now that we can make a difference over time.One of the older boys has said that he wants to go back to school, but didn't do too well on the assessment we gave him, so I'm going to try really hard to help him get to the level he needs to be at to go back to school. He came over to ask me for help the other day and he called me 'madame', which is what all students call female teachers. Being used to being addressed by my first name, or my nickname (wisdom (louise - wiz - wisdom)), or just 'azungu' when I'm at the nursery, it took my by surprise and made me feel really grown up.

And the third question? I am still getting into the swing of things (she writes, whilst rocking back and forth on the swing). There's still loads to learn about the kids (and from them - I had to reminded of the method for doing long subtraction when 'helping' with homework on Thursday) but I'm starting to feel like one of the family. Sitting outside with some of the girls on Friday, belting out Christmas songs in the middle of October and falling about laughing, reminded me that life over here doesn't always have to be so different to life at home. Not when you're a bit crazy, which a lot of people have told me you would have to be to do what I'm doing.