Random Episodes (3)

Having Overprayed the Rains

At first there were no rains, now there is too much of it. Tens of thousands of people in the south of Malawi are cut off by the rains, around 100 have died. Fortunately it isn't a problem in Salima, where I am stationed. In the south, many people have to be evacuated. Here the floods are very minor, although some fields are under water too.

Our trading center.

Coming Back

Coming back was really nice – already at the airport. I asked if I could first collect my luggage, when I came back the guy at the visa station was already filling in my application form for me with the information from the last visa in my passport. This is Malawi.

One thing that I already noticed from the plane was how green everything was. In the three weeks I was gone the landscape has completely changed from a sandy and dusty brown-red to green. One of my students wrote in a response letter to Swiss students (we are exchanging letters with a class from Doris' school in Switzerland) that "today it rained and it was really cold". It was still 27 degrees Celsius ;)

The new season has also brought some new bugs:

Fireflies are the coolest! They light up. You can see dozens of them flying around, it looks really cool.

Teachers Meetings

The teacher's meetings always take at least 2 hours and are usually on Saturday evening. They are always quite funny, and very revealing. Almost all talk is about how they could improve students' results. Here at the school, the number of students is limited to 25. So one teacher suggested to abandon this (which they apparently never really agreed on anyways) and get 40 students instead. Then they could cut the fifteen worst ones loose in the school year to come to 25. Another option was suggested that they work together with the guys who create the tests, and have the come to the school, so they know exactly what will be examined. Another option that always comes up, is that teachers should be rewarded with money if their students perform well at tests. One thing that I very much agree on is that we need books. So far, basically everything needs to be copied to the black board by the teacher, which is very time consuming. You also can't just give a couple of pages as homework... What's interesting about the system in Malawi is that every teacher at a school is paid the same amount, whether he/she teaches 20, or 8 lessons. Also interesting is that in government schools the maximum of lessons to be taught be a teacher are 20, the average is maybe around 15, and some only have as little as 8 (all receiving the same pay). In Switzerland 100 % at this level means 28 lessons...

Visiting the Farm Again

I went to the farm again and they were happy to see me. I gave them some pictures from my stay with them and I think it was the perfect present I could give them. They were really happy. When I left Ernest gave me some insects to try. They are basically ants with wings. You can eat them raw or cook them with salt.

They don't eat the wings. These are ones where the wings have been removed.

This is the ant hill. They put a bucket in there and cover it up with grass, so that it's dark. Then the ants fall into the bucket.

Lilongwe

Now already the time of saying the first good-byes has come. This weekend I went to Lilongwe to enjoy some more days with my friend Gift. We played golf, and pool, and I stayed in his home in the outskirts of Lilongwe, which was great. When we came back from spending the day in town Gift's wife had cleaned the bag for me. It's like that.

Eating memo, where everybody chips in and then you all eat together.

Tanning

Before I left for the Netherlands I wanted to tan a bit, so that I would get rid of my “T-shirt,” the area of my body, which was still very white because I always wore a shirt. I had to look good since I was about to meet my girlfriend… So I was just lying in the sun twice. Both times someone came over to ask me if I was alright, and why I was lying in the sun. Of course they don’t have to tan, because they were born with a good tan, so it’s something they don’t understand, why one would lie in the hot sun voluntarily.

Also it is very hard to find sun screen anywhere. I could only find it in Lilongwe.