clare in malawi

My first week has been very interesting and enjoyable. The children are gradually getting used to me but seem to find everything amusing. Some of the older ones are chatting and keen to know about Scotland – indeed I have acquired an entourage of 8 to 10 teenage boys who come to the house each evening to visit.

The school has 8 classes but inly 7 rooms so 1 class is always out in the open. For Malawi the school seems well resourced but nothing can be left as there are no doors and the local goats can wander freely eating everything!

I arrived in Mlozi on Monday evening. It is about 70km from Dedza travelling by rough dirt roads. It took over 3hours to get there. I was then taken to meet my host family and warmly welcomed – even although they speak no english. A young relative of theirs, called Maxwell, is my minder and he speaks some English.

The headteacher of the school was very concerned about my welfare, checking I had everything that I needed and even escorted me to my ‘bath’.

On Tuesday morning there was another official ceremony to attend. This time at the school. All the village headmen were there and many others. There was singing, dancing, acrobatics and recitations. And, of course, more speeches. This time including my own, translated in the local language of Chichewa by the headteacher. It was very moving. I love it here.

I arrived in Malawi on Saturday 28th June and travelled to Dedza. The following day the Global Teachers started to learn more about local culture and visited the market, which was very colourful.

Monday morning was the official welcoming ceremony and all the local worthies were there including a senior official from the Education Ministry in Lilongwe. There were lots of speeches and there is no doubt that they were glad to see us. Soon after this we each departed to our individual areas and our first encounter with our schools.

Ready? Just about at last. This picture shows some of the pupils who have helped to prepare a book about the school and the Gairloch area for me to take to Mlozi school. It was finally finished on Tuesday after a big effort. Many of the pupils in our associated Primaries have also contributed pictures and information about themselves and their schools and some have sent messages on postcards. It is a lovely record and I hope the pupils in Malawi enjoy looking at and reading it.

Steady? Yes! I’m really looking forward to this and I can’t quite believe that my bags are packed and it’s almost time to GO!!! I’m travelling down to Edinburgh later today, and then over to Glasgow to meet up with the others and head off on Friday. We fly down to London in the afternoon, on to Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) overnight, and then on to Lilongwe on Saturday morning. There we’ll be met by the staff of LCD Malawi and taken to Dedza for briefings on Sunday, then to our schools on Monday. Hopefully I’ll manage to catch up some sleep on the flights.

As I get ready to leave (only 3 days now), I find myself meeting people who have been to Malawi before and discussing the country with them. Today I met a lady in the library who had been there on her honeymoon. I have visited once before, in 2004, with a friend from Northern Ireland. We spent most of our time at the Lake and in Liwonde National Park in the Shire Valley, although we also went to Zomba and Blantyre. These are the main “tourist” areas, in so much as any area in Malawi can be described as “touristy”, and are certainly very beautiful. Liwonde is particularly good for birds. I’ve put a few pictures on Flickr.

This visit will be very different. Although Dedza district extends down to the Lake in the area I visited previously, we will all be at schools in the highlands which are about 2000 ft higher than the Lake and much colder at night. We will be well away from main roads and centres that visitors might go to. It should be an amazing experience to be part of the local community for a few weeks and not just passing through.

This picture shows Daudi and Rosemary Sumani – I will be staying with them for 3 weeks while I am at Mlozi Primary School. Apparently they have eight children and they keep goats, chickens, pigeons and ducks. I can see that my usually quiet home life is going to be considerably livelier than normal!

They are both farmers and, as well as the animals, they grow maize, beans and millet. They also have a maize mill where people can go to mill their maize into flour. Maize meal (flour) is used to make nsima, a thick porridge, which is a staple food for most Malawians.

Their house is very close to the school, which is about 200m away, and also to the village borehole where they get water, so it will all be very convenient for me. Since I am not known for my love of getting up early, and the school day starts at 7.30 a.m. (late for Malawi), I am glad it is so close.

The Sumanis are Muslims and have offered to take me to the mosque with them, which will be a new experience. They are also going to take me to the market. At home they are looking forward to me teaching them Scottish songs and dances!!!! I’d better get practising…….

At last I have managed to sort out how to get pictures into this blog. (Thanks to Jim H for reminding me to do what he told me to do in the first place!)

The above pictures are two views of the school. Compared to some of the pictures of schools in Malawi that I’ve seen, the classroom looks in quite good repair and they have desks! I don’t suppose all the classrooms will have these but I’ll find out soon.

This picture shows some of the teachers – the Headteacher on the right and Depute in the middle. Apparently the school “bell” is the drum behind them.

It is less than 2 weeks until I leave home to head to Malawi and there’s so much to do. Despite having done a lot of travelling and camping in the past, and therefore thinking that I had most of what I would need, there still seems to be a lot of things to get and to organise.

Being away from an electricity supply for several weeks yet still wanting to get my various gadgets to work is a definite challenge. I seem to have been exploring wind-up and solar chargers on the internet forever. Last week, I ordered one, but when it arrived, it didn’t work, so that got sent back this week. Now, I’ve ordered another, so fingers crossed that this is more successful. I really want my phone to work while I’m there and the ipod would be good so I could play them some Scottish music and record some of theirs.

Otherwise, the main shopping left to do is for gifts. Even this is not without its challenges. My host family have 8 children, but I don’t know either the age or gender of some of them! There will be village headmen (some of whom may be women) to give gifts to , but I have no idea how many. Fortunately, I have information about the teachers in the school so that has been easier.

Sometime, I will get the hang of the blogging software and actually get some pictures on here, but just now I’d better get shopping again.

This is the school I will be going to in just three weeks time. Last weekend, I found out a little about them, but as yet they know nothing of me! That should change in the next week or so as LCD are sending out letters of introduction from us to them.

The school seems to be pretty remote, even by Malawian standards and is quite a long way from the town of Dedza – I’ll find out when I get there, but my guess from the map I saw last weekend is that it’s about 30-40 km. Of course, I’m completely unable to find any map here that shows it. There will be another GT in a school about 7 km from me.

Here’s some of the information I have been given about the school:

The school has 6 trained teachers and two volunteer teachers who are all financially supported by the community. The pupil to teacher ratio is 104:1. There are 830 pupils in the school. Classes start at 7.30am and the school day finishes at 1.40pm.

There are 6 permanent classrooms in fairly good condition and 2 temporary classrooms. There is also a separate office for the headteacher. There is shortage of desks for learners though some classes do have desks. There are 4 latrines for boys, 6 for girls and 1 for staff members. There is both a football and netball pitch on the school compound. There is a nearby borehole for water which belongs to the community. The community is involved in the life of Mlozi Full Primary School. In the past the community has been involved in providing a school feeding programme whereby the parents were cooking meals for learners.

Mlozi village is a small rural village with little, if any, infrastructure. There is Celtel mobile telephone network coverage in some places. There is a health dispensary 1km from the school and the village is just 500m from the school. To get to Dedza town, you first must pass through Mayani Trading Centre. Mayani is a busy trading centre with many different types of shops and a health centre as well as a transport hub.

From all we’ve been told, it sounds like a typical rural school in Malawi. There seem to be lots of similarities between life in Malawi today and life in the Highlands of Scotland a couple of generations ago.

There are 14 of us going to Malawi as Global Teachers this year and we will be accompanied by two of last year’s GTs who are coming out to do some follow-up work. The majority are Primary teachers and headteachers, but three of us are Secondary teachers. We come from all over Scotland – Caithness to Dumfries & Galloway – and range from the young and enthusiastic to the slightly older but just as enthusiastic! We have got to know each other through our selection days and then two training weekends, and we will, no doubt, get to know each other even better through the next year.

During the training weekends, LCD have provided us with masses of information about Malawi, about the education system and the challenges it faces and practical advice about living in rural Malawi. In between times, we’ve been reading up about Malawi, organising the medical side (lots of jags), trying to sort out and get all the things we need to take with us, and starting to think about the follow-up work we will be doing in our own schools. At the second weekend (last weekend), we found out about the individual schools we are going to and our host families which was a very exciting moment – it makes it all seem very real now. More of those later. It is now only just over three weeks until we leave and there is still so much to do………