Almost halfway of my African experience and has gone so quick! Seems like few days here.
I'm gonna start today talking to the visit to Lake Malawi last weekend. What an awesome time! Definitely not the same Malawi as living at Domasi. White beaches, transparent water, sun, snorkel and gorgeous kanpango fish, perhaps the best one I have ever had, ah and electricity, almost forgot what was it!
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| At Malawi lake. Cape Mc Clear |
I have some good news from the project. Three of the volunteers had been fundraising money and they are going to build two of the schools apart from other donations, one of the schools is mine. So, hopefully by the end of my time here I will be teaching under a roof, instead of a tree. And what is the important thing, children will go to school even if it rains, and raining season is coming quite soon, since starts in November.Two of the volunteers them are working building with the builders. Yesterday, I worked with together with all the volunteers helping with the building. Carrying sand, water and bricks from some distance to the school location using the Malawian style, that means carry whatever, doesn't matter size or weight on your head.
They start very young carrying things on the head. One day, on the way back from the school there was a 8 years old girl carrying a full bucket of water on her head and couldn't hardly walk. I asked her to help with it and try to put it on my head. Of course, I couldn't even lift it up to my shoulders, so we shared for 200mts from the tap to her house. Honestly, don't know how can they do it. You can see children under 5 doing it and the male children working in the fields during the spare time, preparing it for farming. It is just something normal and everyone here have some job to do. Children come to school with their baby sisters/ brothers and hold them meanwhile in the class.
I want to talk about some disagreement as well. Regarding the school, what happens at least with my school is that the church next to it is perfect built and even with banks to seat down. The school, as I said before have less than half wall built and we teach under the tree. Shouldn't be in the other way around? First education and then religion? Just, my personal opinion.
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| The church |
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| The school |
On Mondays afternoon we go to visit the orphans. Because there is no money to keep them and feed them in one building they are distributed living with different families. The personal stories we listening to are shocking. One of them was 4 orphan kids, 11 the oldest and few months the youngest. There were 3 girls and a boy and the 11 years old girl have to look after and feed them all. How can a 11 years kid do that...? Apart from that, two weeks ago we had rain for two days and their tiny house was absolutely destroyed. Everything here is made from mud. The manufacture their on bricks backing the mud and don't have money to buy cement so the filling is mainly made from sand...So sad stories and there are so many orphans...For me the saddest point is they don't have "any" possibility to improve their life. Is not you work or study hard to have a better life, they can't even afford to eat everyday. But as I said before always keep the smile. Don't we have something to learn from here?
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| Orphans' house |
Some more comments:
When we go to school children join us on the way and Azungu is a motivation for them to go to school. When we walk back from school most of the children come with us until the village and they ask to carry your rucksack. What the local teachers explain to us is that for them that means like they are kind of rich since they can't afford to have a rucksack maybe never.
One children of the school brought us popcorn yesterday to school as a gift. He paid for the popcorn. So kind and so cute. He doesn't even wear shoes....
Many children can't go to the government school because they need the school uniform for that and they can't afford to pay the 500 Malawian kwacha that cost it (in pounds, less than 2 quid).
Next Tuesday is my Birthday and it is third Matrilda's Birthday as well the same day. She is one of the kids I am living with. On Sunday we are having a big party to celebrate the Bdays and Miriam's Bday (another volunteer) as well. We are having rice, beans and vegetables for all the village and a Birthday cake. I bought 15kg of rice and 5 kg of beans to feed around 60 people. Miriam and I paid for the cake and Matrilda's family is killing a chicken for the celebration. Most of them don't even know what a cake is... I am looking forward to it and will tell you about in the next post.
Thanks for reading me :)
