July 1st- My first note from my students!

Krista and I realized we need to plan for “Tenison time” each morning. When we go outside each morning to rush down for breakfast, Tenison always stops us and wants to chat. I enjoy talking to him but it always makes me late. So we will be sure to give him at least 10 minutes each morning!

Thankfully Brian is feeling better each day and today he felt good enough to join us. He survived the day and has started eating too. He told us about his trip and apparently it’s a guy thing and Peter takes the boys each year on a weekend trip. They went to Lilongwe and went to clubs and house parties. They partied with Peace Corp people and most people they met were not from Malawi. Brian said the houses he went to were out of this world. Mansions in Malawi! They all hire help and have guest houses for their maids. Dr. Kelly said if your rich and live in Malawi it’s a dis-service to not hire help. You have the money so you are expected to provide jobs. Brian said it was a great experience and it changed his view on a lot of things.

The advisors brought those large picture books that allow the entire class to see the pages. Those are great since the classes are so large. Something to keep in eye out for at thrift stores/ yard sales.

We dropped the Radford students off at Malemia each morning during the students break. So every morning the children run up to our bus and chant “white people” in Chichewa. It’s the same feeling when we drove up on the first orientation day. Since Malemia was our first school that we experienced that at, it will always be a special school to us. We get to relive that moment each morning when we drop off the Radford students.

As we got off the bus and walked to our classroom they were having break and the little mature boy walked up and greeted me. I found out his name was Gift. That’s a very common Malawian name.

We came in as they were working on their English assignment. We saw the animal stickers we gave them yesterday on their forehead, on their workbooks and still on their clothes. They cherished their stickers. They had to copy a paragraph and choose which of the following fit in the blank: is/are, does/doesn’t, say/says, likes/likes. For the most part, they did very well on this assignment. They sometimes put the answer in the wrong blank but when I was confused they explained to me where they wrote their answer. As I read the workbook, I noticed the workbook didn’t have proper English. It was sometimes missing little words like “the”. Dr. Kelly said that’s very common.

As I sat at the tables the kids would try and each me Chichewa. They were being very patient with me. I pronounced everything awful but I know it makes them laugh. I really am trying! I tried really hard the first day to explain to them that I wanted to learn new things from them, so I think that’s why they are teaching me! I had them write words down to help me. Zikomo kwamberi=Thank you very much. Some of the kids wrote down their name for me; Grabiel and Stephen were the only common ones I recognized.

We pulled out the world maps and talked about the 7 continents, showed them Africa, Malawi and USA. I walked around with the maps and showed them how to read a map to find out where the deserts are located and how to find the mountains and lakes. I also would name countries and they usually found them! We also brought blow up globes and continent puzzles for each table to look at. Even though these kids have nothing, they are still so responsible and return everything we pass out.

We had one student volunteer to hold a bouncy ball and be the sun and another student hold the globe to be the earth. We showed them that the earth rotates around once, which completes one day. When its facing the sun its daylight and when its on the opposite side its nighttime. I think they understood that but when we asked how many days were in a year, only one student raised his hand. He knew it was 365. We showed them the earth went around the sun one time to equal one year.

Break time! We grabbed the Frisbees and I asked Gift if he knew how to play the drums and he said yes! He asked his teacher and they had a drum in the closet! So they brought it out to the field!!

As I walked outside with the kids, a little boy and girl who sit next to each other in class came up to me and gave me a note and then ran off. It has hearts all around it and one side says, “Thank you very much Lexi” and the other side has the school address and date on the top right side. It reads “Dear Lexi, Good morning Lexi, How are you? My life is happy seeing you this following day” It goes on for about 4 more sentences but it’s very hard to understand.
It says I am a good teacher for the class and she says “good by answer for me” Dr. Kelly says that means to write them back. I’ll have to write a letter tonight! I read the notes Katie got last summer and they were precious so I was really excited to get one for myself! It’s the best souvenir I could ask for!

Krista danced in the circle a little and I took pictures with the kids. They throw up their hands almost like gang signs for the camera. I was giving the kids high 5s and they showed me different hand gestures to do with them and they all laughed. I have no idea what they made me do..uh oh! Gift was so helpful because he would tell the kids to back up when they were too close to the camera. He told me I had a nice camera and I asked if he could take a picture. I attempted to stand next to the crowd of kids and not get trampled as Gift took the picture. He held it up high and didn’t let anyone look at the camera until he gave it back to me.

I wanted to go dance! The kids were just crowded around so I got them moving in a circle around the drums. Kids from all over just kept crowding around to watch me make a foul out of myself! I could do this every day all day long. Thankfully most of the kids dancing were younger so I was much taller then they were so I could breathe and wasn’t claustrophobic. I would invite the kids watching to come join the circle, and most of them would! Some of the kids got a little crazy with their dancing. I think they dance very close to each other normally but were hesitant to get close to me at first. Shortly after they got comfortable with me in the circle and didn’t mind touching me. I’m probably like an alien to them.

As we walked back the kids couldn’t get enough of me and I was enjoying every minute of it. They are getting more comfortable with talking to me instead of just waving. One little boy asked me what type of problems they have in America. I told him we have lots of different problems. A lot of the little kids were talking, laughing and looking at me. They were teaching me Chichewa words and I would attempt to pronounce them. They are good teachers and encouraged me even though I know I wasn’t saying it correct. Gift was walking by me and translated what they were saying in Chichewa: he told me the kids are saying they like me. ☺ Gift is very excited to teach me more Chichewa. I told a little boy my name was “Lexi” and another student walking said “Hollar”. Hahah I had told one table my last name yesterday and I guess word travels fast.

Before we left, we told Macdonald that we were leaving the resources for him and he was very excited to use them and share with the other teachers. He said the students in standard 8 learn about the continents so now that we taught the standard 6 about continents, “they will be champions”’. I have only really seen the curriculum for English and since I know that isn’t their primary language I still couldn’t get a good idea how much they know compared to United States 6th grade classes. I know that in VA, my babysitting kids in 1st grade learned about the 7 continents this year. So I’m shocked that they don’t typically learn about that until standard 8. Most girls don’t even make it to standard 8. This put it into perspective for me.

We left around 12noon and headed to our classroom at MIE. Sarah briefly talked about chapter 4 on hate speeches before our visitors arrived. Most hate speeches in Malawi are politically related.

Today 3 Malawi Institute of Education students were coming to visit us. Each student was a teacher but is now back at school to get a degree to be able to teach teachers. It takes 4 years to complete this degree. VT, Radford and NC are each sponsoring one student by paying for their tuition. Part of our money for this trip is helping pay for these students but Dr. Kelly and one of her colleagues are personally paying for the majority of the student being sponsored by VT. MIE only has beds for 30 students so that is all they accept each year. Dr. Kelly asked how they felt about having day students come to class but being responsible for their own food and rent. MIE was thrilled with the idea. So these 3 students rent from houses close by and are responsible for all outside expenses. This is the first time something like this is being done and its kind of an experiment to see if it works out. These 3 students wouldn’t have the opportunity for this education if this agreement wasn’t made. However when they visited today, they read us a letter asking for money to pay for rent, food, books, travel money and even a trip to the US. I don’t blame them for asking, but we all felt uncomfortable listening to them ask for money because in our culture you simply don’t do that. Dr. Kelly explained in Malawi, you thank someone for their help and usually ask them to help you with the rest of their needs. So the advisors were expecting them to ask for more money. Dr. Kelly explained to them that we are all students too and we have to work and go to school to pay for things…they didn’t realize that. She also explained to them that they are sponsored by individual donors, not an organization. I have no doubt it must be hard, and they are very grateful for this opportunity.

Radford sponsors a student focusing on literacy, VT sponsors a student focusing in science and A & T sponsors a student focusing in math. All 3 of them left their families to come to school. They brought their 1st semester report card and they passed all their classes! The student focusing on literacy actually worked with deaf students. He said there are 4 schools in Malawi for the deaf children.

Once the 3 of them complete their degree, they will teach at a teacher training college. You do not apply for a job, you will get assigned. The teachers at the teacher training college receive a certificate after they complete the courses. They do not need a degree to teach, just a certificate.

Another sidenote I noticed was how Malawians talk about time. They say “half past 2” when they mean 2:30.

We left at 3pm to stop in town for some quick errands. I got some more water and Charles drove us up the hill.

We were planning on eating at tasty bites in town, but they are always closed on Tuesdays for cleaning. Bummer! We are going tomorrow for sure!

Since we eat a small lunch, we are usually hungry by 5pm so we eat early at Annie’s. I have vegetable soup and rice for dinner. Since it’s so cold outside, soup is delicious! We are all craving something sweet.

As you will already be able to tell from this delayed post, I have had no internet access for the last couple of days. We bought 24 hours online but randomly Krista’s computer said, “simultaneous log ins” and wouldn’t let her onto the internet. She bought another card but then it happened to me. Next thing you know, it happened to her second card. The next day it happened to Heidi and Sarah. We were all panicked. Most of us had at least 12 more hours left of our card. We didn’t even try to explain our situation to the workers; we just went to the desk and asked to talk to Peter when he comes by. Thankfully he was coming by tonight. We knew he would understand our problem. He works very hard to make sure we are happy.

Since we didn’t have Internet, we all raided Krista’s bag of candy as we waited for Peter.

Well, we hear knock on the door and it was a Peter in a suit bringing us each a bottle of Amarula. What a great man! Apparently he mostly works in Lilongwe at another hotel, but comes to Zomba just because we are here! He was familiar with the Internet problem and took down our username, password and number of hours left. He is going to reactivate our account tomorrow. We love it when he says “rockin” “brilliant” and “you’re a star”! Now we could try and focus on our lesson for tomorrow…

Heidi and Amber are told what lesson to teach each day. They have the teacher handbook and must teach each lesson in order. Our teacher is flexible and lets us teach anything. So there’s really no way to prepare ahead of time for this trip. You will just have no idea until you get here. The great part is we are all doing very similar lessons and we can bounce ideas off each other. It’s great having such a large, talented group! Tomorrow our plan is to teach body parts. I’m excited to teach the hokey pokey!