Below is an email I wrote yesterday, with the intention of finishing it and getting it out today.. but then somethign happened. EEish.
"I can't tell you how much better teaching is year 2. I am used to the students and the language and the culture, and then on top of it all, school is running so better. Last year, our head master was transferred at Christmas, and first term we were left with our corrupt deputy in charge. This year, our new head is in charge and starting the year off right; he is a very good administrator. Not only that, but the teachers are ganging up (with no instigation or input from me) on the deputy, trying to request a forced transfer. He takes money, he hits on students; he is lazy; he is a bad administrator.... the list goes on and on.
School is amazing this year. I have much fewer periods to teach, so I am much less overwhelmed and can plan my work so much better. My lessons are unrecognizable in quality compared to last year.
I started an English club. Each week, we meet for free time, 15 minutes of reading dictionaries, text books, and magazines, where they can ask questions. Then, we go into a lesson of the week on a subject that I try to tie in with all the English teachers' lessons for the week (I look at their schemes before hand). Then, we do a fun game or activity. Last week, for example, we had a debate. Then, we end the day with vocabulary of the week. It starts right as school ends, 3 pm, and all weeks so far have pushed into dinner at half 6. Speaking of dinner, we expanded the lunch program to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It is great, because it gets the students to school on time (or no breakfast), to stay the whole day and have more energy (lunch), and return in the evening to the solar panel for evening study hours (which start just after dinner). Plus the food is more varied and healthy than what they cook on their own.
This has allowed female students to begin sleeping on the floor of the science lab. They lay clothes down for their beds, with 50 crammed in on every available inch of floor space. If I had seen it last year, I would have cried. But after losing 15 girls to pregnancy last year, and only having 6 (of 75 or so) girls pass their junior exams to continue to form 3, I feel it is needed. And, it has really gotten me working even harder (although I have already been hauling ass at it) to get funding to build a girls' hostel. It's a tough thing, as building is not trendy in development work lately, plus it is a mid level project. There is a lot of money for very expensive projects, 20$ thousand plus, or very small, $100 bucks or so. But nothing for slightly larger but still small projects like a rural building. Luckily, a friend in the ministry of education is trying to help me fast track it to the Canada fund. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
The best part of the lunch is that it has attracted a lot more, and much higher quality, students. We recently got a truck load (literally 10 students on the back of a pick up) from Lilongwe. They are smart and driven. My favorite, Eneless, is the new desk mate to Justice (my favorite Dzoole boy, whose school fees I pay.) The two of them are a killer combo that, rather then overwhelm the class, get discussions and ideas out, moving it to new heights. We are starting poetry, and they get it. In Life Skills, Eneless says her role is her mother, who got an education and worked for herself to take care of the family. Wow. This weekend, their homework is to write a love poem. Her poem, I've been giving a hint, is about someone like her who still does not know romantic love. She told me, "Madam, I really want this to be good... I mean really good." I can't wait.
I have also gotten small funding to start a school permiculture garden, and am a strong candidate to get LARGE funding for an international permiculture training done on a grass roots level right in Dzoole! Permiculture is low-input, sustainable agriculture, something that Malawi, the second most densely populated country in the world, needs terribly. (the only country with more land pressure, number 1 on the densely populated list is Rwanda, and we all know how well that went there). It not only improves the quality of the land, cuts dependency on unsustainable and unaffordable fertilizers, and is less work to do, but also diversifies Malawians horribly boring diet and greatly improves their nutrition. I would bet my life that 90 percent of rural Malawians are malnourished. Very few are underweight, but their staple (processed white fermented maize flour) has literally 0 nutritional value. It is the nutritional equivalent of corn starch. In town, Malawians are quite tall, but in my village, I can name 5 people out of over 1000 who are as tall as me. Now I am 5"7, tall but not gigantic! The best part is that I am doing the project with my best friend in Malawi, Tara. She is an Iranian born in Malawi to Malawi's first dentist, her mother. I am extremely excited and can't wait."
This morning, I was hit with a little mishap. It happens though. It was really frustrating. As I was on my way to buy some basins and supplies for the food program and the girls to wash with, well, actually on my way to the ATM, my wallet was stolen. it had my cell phone (is that number 4 now?!?!?!), my Malawian bank card, my American check card, and 200 MK ($1.25). So, as there are no credit card facilities in Malawi, they don't have my Malawian ATM pin, and my phone is brokish, they got pretty much nothing. I on the other hand, have to cancel my card, get a money transfer for stuff I need to buy, and re-collect all my phone numbers. It happens. It sucks though. I still like my site and love Malawi. There is good and there is bad. In my village, I lock my doors but I probably don't need to. In town, it is extremely safe in terms of my physical being. Rape an murder are unheard of; there are no guns. But man, if they weren't stuck in your head, people'd find a way to steal the gold fillings from your teeth if they cool. It makes you appreciate the village, even with candles and buckets of water on my head. The worst part, well not the worst, but something stinky, is that I will have to delay my trip home an extra day to deal with stuff here. As they say in Malawi, I will be so missing from Dzoole, so missing!
You are all so missing to me. Missing you, missing you.
Ndimakukondani (I love you all)Kathryn
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