21/4/13
Didn’t I say I would do a blog post this week? And I did.
YES.
The past 2 weeks have been quite busy: at TST we’ve been
doing lots of Maths tutoring. One of the Malawian volunteers was leaving so the
kids got sweets and the adults had a party of sorts. Basically, we were all
herded to the ICT room, where music was played and everyone started dancing. I
was trying to imagine my old teachers at Meldrum doing this, but couldn’t. It
was a great example of how different the culture is over here; Lou and I are so
used to it that it doesn’t take us by surprise nearly as often, but this
certainly did.
That day we also had an Italian woman visiting TST. Mary
Cristina’s French was better than her English, so when Edwin asked her to
introduce herself to the TST kids, she spoke in French which Louise translated
to English which then Edwin translated to Chichewa. I was really cool to
witness – it made me ashamed that my French is still miles better than my
Chichewa after being immersed in the latter for 7 months.
At home, the water was off again. The entire village was dry
for 3 days – the longest we’ve ever had to cope without. While this doesn’t
seem like a long time, even with water stored up we all really struggled. We
never know whether the water will be off for 2 hours or 2 days, so we are
conservative of every drop. Bucket showers are seen as an unnecessary luxury
and the toilet only gets flushed once a day (with used dish/clothes washing
water). This is hard enough with 2 people, but Georgia was also staying with
us. We made it fun however, as it became a bit of a competition to see who
could use the fewest dishes in one day. On the bright side, electricity has
been really good recently. Although, given the chance, I would definitely swap
no water for no power. I hadn’t washed my hair for 6 days when the water
finally came back on.
Last week I accompanied Louise for the Street Child Ministry
before church. The street children are welcomed into the Pentecostal Church
where they all sing together and play some drums. I found it really moving to
witness all these children united by their faith. Then Pastor Francis comes through
to preach to them in Chichewa, before they receive mandasi and sobo (round
doughnuts and fruit squash). When I was briefly around for the Street Child
Ministry on Easter Sunday, I had noticed Saidi – a TST child who had run away a
few weeks ago – and I had asked him why he wasn’t at TST and whether he wanted
to go back. While I couldn’t get a coherent reason out of him, he and fellow
TST-runaway Esau said they wanted me to take them back to the centre. I told
them to meet me outside KFC the next day at 10am, but they didn’t show. I
wasn’t altogether surprised – add the fact that these kids had no way of
telling the time to Malawi’s tendency to be late and there was next to no
chance of the kids making an appearance. Last week, he looked even worse than
before – absolutely miserable and not even joining in the singing and clapping.
So I decided to take him back to TST there and then, before I lost sight of him
again. Esau also found his own way back the week before. The change in Saidi is
almost indescribable. He is always delighted to see us, throwing himself into
the work we set him and, most importantly, happier than we’ve ever seen him. If
I leave Malawi achieving nothing else, I will be satisfied. All children should
have the chance to be happy. That is one of the many things that TST gives
these kids.
So yeah, climate change is messing us around. We’ve had far
too much rain, way too late, and now we’re ranging from having November-esque
heat to nights where we can see our breath in front of us! What is this?
So Georgia left us last week. It was sad, especially because
she’d been living with us for the past 2/3 weeks. And with Steph gone home, it’s
just Matilda, Louise and I left of the Baluti/Nancholi crew. But we shall prevail!
(What we shall prevail, is still unknown.)
I don’t have any pictures! So here’s a picture I took of Steph’s
exposed shoulder after I claimed it for Narnia.
TTFN
Anecdotes
We came home from work last week to find three kids playing
outside. They had pair of rollerblades and two of them had a skate each,
skating one-legged-ly alongside the wall. The third kid looked just as happy as
he pretended to skate in his flip-flops.
When washing the dishes after we make nsima or phala, I
always poke the dregs down the plug hole. Louise is constantly paranoid that
the sink will block and I always wave her away saying ‘Nsima/phala is
water-soluble! It’ll be fine.’ Well, I managed to block the sink. However, I
simply unscrewed the U-bend and emptied it, feeling like a pro.
