End of Week 3!
Today we discovered a new internet café that I can bring my
laptop to and, therefore, can upload the video I took of the house! Hurray!
Check it out - http://youtu.be/1sG7Lk63jx8
Many things have been occurring in my life since I last
posted. I also realised that I wasn’t very descriptive in my last post about
what exactly I’ve been doing here.
On Mondays, Louise and I go next door to Nama Simba Nursery
School and help out there. This consists of playing with the kids, washing the
kids hands, setting out the chairs for porridge time, helping serve up the
porridge, playing with the kids, washing their hands, setting out the chairs
for nsima time, helping serve nsima, playing with the kids, then sending them
home. Compared to our project at the Samaritan Trust, the kids are absolute
terrors and this wears us down. In addition, the staff are friendly, but have
very little English and the children have none. The only words we really use to
communicate are basi, iyayi (a very forceful no), siya (don’t) and the
occasional zili bwino (very good). So yeah, it’s hard going.
Malawians don’t really call each other by name, especially
not the children, preferring just to say ‘Iwe’. Because I know there’s no way I
can get the children at Nama Simba to tell me their names, I make names up in
my head. My favourites so far are Honey, who loves to bring me coloured pencils,
but doesn’t want anyone else to have them, James, who shouts AZUNGU repeatedly at
me until I give him attention and Bea, a girl who turned out to be a bit
mischievous, but can be very cuddly. There is also Harry (very smart kid),
Connor (smiley boy with a lazy eye), Dina (an actual real name I managed to
discover), Flash (because her top kept falling down) and Monster Girl (named by
Louise, as she is the most horrible child we have ever met).
The Samaritan Trust children are absolute angels in
comparison. I think it’s mostly because they’re older, their English is way
better and they’re used to us white foreigners from previous volunteers. They
can make my day with one hilarious anecdote. They are all extremely eager to
learn English and make such an effort to communicate with us (the majority of
them anyway).
Our days can be extremely different, from helping them with
their reading or maths, or kicking a ball about in the sun, or playing cards in
the shade. On our second day, we went to a local market to watch the children’s
community drama – educating the public about HIV and AIDS. The children were so
confident and engaging, a massive crowd gathered to watch. Another day, English
volunteer Millie took us to the local hospital with two of the boys so that we’d
know how the system works in an emergency. We took one legged Chisomo to paediatrics
while Millie took Jack to general admissions. We have used the computer lab at
TST to run an IT class. This was surprisingly challenging; as a member of the
generation which has grown up around computers, I never really appreciated how
difficult it is to learn simply things like typing, clicking the mouse etc. For
example, I struggled to communicate in my limited Chichewa that you only need
to press the space bar ONCE in between words. It was frustrating, but we really
felt like we were making a difference, which was nice.
TST has just had a change of management and the children put
on a sort of variety performance for the leaving director. While mostly in
Chichewa, it was very moving and entertaining, from beautiful singing, comedy
skits and a hilarious foot drill (using cardboard hats and football kits as
uniforms).
SO YEH, at the moment, life is good. We came home from a
short visit to Blantyre yesterday to find party going on in the nursery next
door. We hope that this is a monthly event and that we might get an invite one
day. It was cut short by the nightly power cut, however, so we weren’t kept up
all night.
Got my first mail this week! It was so exciting! A lovely
card from my granny and another from my parents the next day. Felt like such a
celebrity. Mail seems to take about two weeks, so Michael, I’ll be expecting my
birthday present any day now? XD
Have I missed out any crucial info? If anyone has a burning
question, please do comment. I’m missing home, but I’m really starting to like
it here, so I won’t be coming back anytime soon.
TTFN
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