Video Odds and Ends

While in Malawi, video was extraordinarily difficult to upload. So please don't look for a theme here. It is just a drop of all the video that I took!

Edit: I've just seen what poor quality the videos are on here. If you ever want to see the HD version, let me know:)


The classroom that I was initially assigned to.

The Malawi national anthem.

First day of nursery!

They literally do this all day!

A sunset!

Just "monkeying" around! Budum tsh!

Elephants! The baby was adorable!

Nursery time! There's actually about 40 kids, but it takes awhile for everyone to show up!

I start to sound Jamaican in this clip. My theory is that I've heard Augustine do it so much, I took on his voice. You have to yell or the kids take over!!! Not my philosophy, but it worked here!

Using the iPad to create some engagement! This was my go to if it was getting crazy. The rule was that if you stood up the story would be over. One kid breaks the rule in the video, but I act like I don't see. Augustine doesn't! He tells her to "Khalapasi!" (Sit down!)

The Love Letter

Malawi wrote me a love letter before I left on Monday morning. She didn't say much, she didn't have to. I could read it in her eyes.

As we drove at 4:00 in the morning, this was the view out of the car window.

My response:

Malawi,

Thank you for letting me enter your sanctuary. The city of Nkope and its people are grafted to my soul. Its faces and souls are permanently placed on my heart.

The warm heart of Africa lacked the creature comforts I was used to, but it always left me satisfied.

I asked the driver to pull to the side of the road, so that I could enjoy the sight one last time.

I took a breath of unusually cool air. I use the word sanctuary, only because its the only way to describe my time in Nkope. I didn't exist in Nkope. It felt like my self disappeared, if that makes sense. Not in a physical sense. The people smiled, waved and made me literally feel like the king of Malawi, but I became aware of how much bigger the experience was, than me.

I will have plenty of stories to tell, if prompted, and the stories are just the top layer of the experience. I don't know that I will ever convey to anyone the significance of this trip and how I think it has changed everything!

Now, to you:

Thank you seems inadequate. There have been hundreds and hundreds of people supporting me during this time. I am not unaware that this entire trip happened because of you. From the money that you gave, the prayers that you whispered, the consistent encouragement you lavished on me and the concern and appreciation for the importance of this journey.

This trip literally went off without a hitch, which if you know me in the slightest, you know that alone is a Christmas miracle! I never got sick, which I cannot say about any other volunteer that I worked with. I was never seriously injured. I had every possible survival tool that I needed. I never had to worry about finances. I didn't miss any flights, there were no international incidents, despite the fact that on my final leg of the journey I snapped at a lady to sit down when she was holding up my progress of going home. She actually sat down and didn't attack me, which was also miraculous in nature, considering we were in New York!

So, thank you for any role you played in getting me there and back. You did it! You might be thinking "Do I fit in that category?"

Answer: You're taking time to read my final blog...congratulations, you're in:)

I love every one of you!Its amazing what can happen when you feel like people believe in you. You don't doubt yourself because there is an army of people saying that you can do it.

I will be doing some follow up with the people of Nkope, and I might be coming to you again for financial, moral and prayer support. There are a lot of great opportunities to empower the people with the tools they need to make the village even stronger. I want to be a part of that.

I will be posting some supplementary videos that I never got to share, due to internet connectivity, so be looking for those:)

So, goodbye for now, Nkope! Tionana posachedwa!


We shall see each other soon!

Fears and Failures

I haven't posted a blog in awhile. I have been doing most of my communicating on Facebook because it is easier to load with our internet service.

I will try to catch you up on all happenings!

First, I tried a frightening version of jump rope where they go so extremely fast!

I'll let you guess how that went!

Nursery has been going great! The students have accepted the routine and I barely need to give verbal directions! But it's nice to have Augustine there when I get the stare. 

They have learned six letters, days of the week, months of the year, shapes and several songs like Old McDonald and If You're Happy and You Know It! The most amazing feat is getting them to all sit down at the same time and stay seated, which they can do now!

A couple day a week there is another volunteer that comes in and takes the 2-3 year olds and does fine motor activities with them. This has been SO important!

Not many pictures from Nursery because I am spinning my wheels while I'm there! But here I taught the kids Duck Duck Goose, but I put a twist in it. They say the days of the week and the kid that gets Sunday is the goose.

We had a power outage the other day. The volunteers had a nice romantic mean together:)

We strolled to a neighboring village and made some new friends!

I threw an American style BBQ for someone's birthday!

I went to a school assembly where they announced to the village who passed on to the next standard and who failed! But first they entertained us with fun songs and dances!

On the weekend we went to Liwande National Park. My goal was to see a monkey, Crocodile, hippo, elephant and rhino.

Monkey...check!

Pumba (pig) Not on my list, but...check!

Elephants...MAJOR check!

Beautiful sunset...BONUS check!

The one meal we had was cooked in the dark, since that is when we returned to our campsite. It gets dark at about 6:00 PM. We slept in tents by the water. We heard the hippos laughing all night. They sound like Jabba the Hutt. It was kind of hilarious, but I didn't sleep much. We had to be up at 5 am for the rhino tracking!

Tracking rhino...took 3 hours (We didn't start until 7 am. I should have known that we wouldn't actually start at 5. You have to sit for at least an hour before doing anything here.) We finally found 2 rhinos, but they were about 75 yards away and they immediately sensed our presence and darted into the brush. I didn't have enough time to get my camera out...big bummer that still bugs me when I think about it...but I DID see 2 of them!

More pumba...We also saw a lot of impala and birds...

The crocodiles are just menacing. This one was literally 3 feet from me, but there was a major incline, so I was safe.

We had to view the hippos from a distance because our guide wanted to spend time looking at the birds...who cares about birds? I wanted to see the hippos...but, CHECK!

Ellie and I had a fabulous time in the wild. 

School ended last week for primary students. We had a hope that the nursery kids would continue to show up, but they have not :( So I have created a project to clean and update the nursery! On Tuesday I swept all of the cobwebs, dirt and hives out! Tomorrow I will scrub the walls and go to Mangochi to get the supplies needed to install hooks for backpacks, paint to add the days of the week and months of the year to the walls and bars to block the windows so that they can start storing nursery supplies in the nursery without them disappearing.

I am also trying to get supplies to build dry erase frames. Every classroom has chalk boards right now and there is chalk dust everywhere, all the time! I suggested that we make dry erase frames for teachers that would like to try using dry erase boards. Pens cost just as much as chalk and last so much longer! We're going to try it out in nursery and see how it goes...unfortunately, I will not be around to see.

And NOW you are caught up on what I have been up to for the past 2 weeks! The time has flown and I will most definitely miss the people of Malawi when I leave! I am trying to make the most of my last few productive days here!

The Reality of Culture

WARNING - This is a head post. Some of its content may unintentionally be off putting, but stick with it! None of it is intended to be hurtful or disrespectful.

This weekend we have stayed close to home, but this evening we drove to a lodge to have dinner. During dinner our conversation turned to the culture of Nkope. Augustine, who happens to be the only Malawian in the group was explaining that women in the village are afraid to speak up to their husbands about getting checked for HIV. The women are required by law to be checked before they give birth, but there is no law requiring men be checked.

One of the volunteers was appalled at the notion and declared "The women need to be empowered to say something!" The conversation continued on with everyone trying to convince the volunteer that no outside source is going to convince a woman to act in a way that conflicts with her culture.

I am a very vocal person, but I sat back and observed this exchange. The initial volunteer was adamant that we could do something to empower women and their rights .he rest argued that the change must come from within.

Finally, the topic died down and they began to discuss their biggest surprises of their experience in Nkope. A lot of the responses were fairly surface level things, such as how the schools run, the traditions of the village etc. I wasn't really thinking about my own response as I listened to each person talk about their experience.

When it cam my turn to share I paused for a bit. And then I shared my biggest ahah of my time in Nkope thus far:

The world is a big place. I never realized how big it really is. The culture of Malawi is and was beyond shocking to me, it was baffling. Then I realized that there are thousands of cultures that differ just as much, if not more than mine.

There are things that I wish I could take home with me and pass on to my community, but I know that it wouldn't fit the culture that I live in. I know that the people of Nkope have such a great understanding of community. They are never in their houses. They are always outside their houses, around bonfires, talking, telling stories and appreciating each other to the fullest. They know that they need to cherish the people around them, because they rely on them each day.

These are things that I admire, but because of the busy nature of my culture and the family isolation that I see in my world, it is not reasonable to think that I could somehow bring that home with me. The same thing relates to things that I think I bring to Nkope.

I don't like how children and women are looked at as less.

I don't like how little education seems to be valued.

I am disturbed by the lack of commitment to being on time for anything.

But there is nothing that I'm going to do to change that. These are constructs that this culture has built and it is a part of who they are. Until the people as a whole decide that they want something different, it will not change. And that is not a bad thing. The people in Nkope are happy people. They walk down to a beautiful lake every morning and bathe and do their washing as the sun comes up. During their lunch break they can come back to that same lake for a quick swim and fishing. They eat porridge for lunch and Nsima for lunch almost every day, and they like it! They say it makes them strong!

Until the people of Nkope decide that its important for women to have more of a voice in the home, it will remain as it is. Until laws are passed that say a man must be tested for HIV, then they will continue to refuse (These are obviously generalizations). That is the reality of culture! Nobody likes to see people dying when there's something that can be done about it and we can continue to provide resources and education on the issue, but we are not going to empower the women of Nkope to rise up and take a more aggressive approach in the home and that is OK.

I've got news for you. We do things that are killing us and our brains every day.

We over eat. We live sedentary life styles.

We watch hours of television.

We eat too much fast food.

We play violent video games and watch violent and vulgar movies.


These things are not good for us, but we all want the right to do them. None of the things listed above are an issue in Nkope, should they send a team of people to America to change the way we live our lives? Or should the community of people recognize the issues and address them as a culture (Again, generalizing!)

Most of the people that I am working with are quite young. Half of them are under the age of 23. I think they really want to believe that they are changing the world, which in a small but meaningful way they are. But I told them that I don't think we're here to change the world. I think we're here to change our thinking about the world and how it works. And the way that people work. I told them that I think they should look at ways that they have changed because of this experience.

Anyway, on the 30 minute drive back to Nkope I thought about how significant those words are to me and I decided I wanted to share them. My friends and family are the most important thing to me and in no way do I devalue my life at home with these thoughts. It is simply a way for me to face the hard truth about culture and that is that it is as much a part of a person as their DNA. I love you all and cannot wait to see you again!

Routine?

I am a creature of habit and routine. I crave predictability. That desire will go unquenched in this journey. Every day brings new surprises and challenges. A few days ago I was told that I would not be needed at the primary school, because the children are taking exams. The volunteer coordinator said she would figure something out for me. I told her that I would be willing to help out in the nursery that I had heard about. She told me that I could do that for a day to check it out.

“Check it out” meant teach it, which I did not understand. I showed up on Tuesday morning and they said “OK, teach something!” Luckily I had learned from previous experiences here and I brought some supplies (magnetic letters, dry erase board etc.)

The nursery is much like the other classrooms in the village. It is an empty room with a chalk board on one wall. The difference in the nursery is that a volunteer has painted letters and numbers on the wall. It actually looks quite nice.

The children in the nursery are approximately 2-5 years old. The teacher is a mother from the village that does not get paid to teach. Her name is Rosy. She is very sweet and gentle. She speaks some english and is helpful at times with translating.

Luckily, my partner in crime, Augustine, is always with me. He has been my translator, comedy relief and guide to safety since I’ve been here! He has truly been a life saver, quite literally! He also leads the morning calendar routine in the nursery.

The first day I taught Old McDonald and we learned the letter “s”. I also taught them how to say “Good morning, how are you?”  We also took some time using the parachute. It was fun, but it quickly turned into mayhem, which I allowed since they do so much sitting. 

On day 2 we took some tooth brushes with us. We had taken them the day before, but the water pump had been broken so we couldn't use them. This day we took a large container of water with us. 

We continued working on Old McDonald. They are only able to sing the "EIEIO" part, and sometimes they try to make the animal noises with me. One of the nursery kids is the child of the program director, so he lives in the volunteer house. Every day he sees me now he comes up and quietly sings "EIEIO!" Its adorable:)

I taught them the letter M and we did teeth brushing. I really thought that this was going to be a challenge for me, since the thought of looking in anyone's mouth makes me nauseous. But it was actually quite enjoyable. I spent time with each child and I learned the word "Lavula" which means "spit". I left that day knowing that I wanted to come back. The children are noisy and crazy, but they are enjoyable!

On Wednesday night I had to boil all of the toothbrushes because we had not labeled them with each child's name and we had to use them on Thursday. So, I spent my evening heating water and boiling toothbrushes. You might call THAT a first!

On Thursday we returned to the nursery and all of the kids were standing out on the dirt road. The door was locked and no one was there. We unlocked the door and let all of the children in.

Keep in mind that these little babies walk to school by themselves and go home by themselves. Some of them even wander out during the day. I explained the process for dismissing children in the US to Augustine and his response was "WOW!"

We got the children settled and realized that Rosy was not coming today. I sat them in a circle and taught them Duck, Duck, Goose. They picked up on it quite quickly, but like a lot of things it didn't take long for it to spin out of control. So we switched gears and I taught them "If You're Happy and You Know It". They LOVED that! Then I taught them the letter R.

Then I pulled out my iPad. I showed it to the students and told them that I was going to read them a story, but if they stood up I would have to put it away. I read them Little Red Riding Hood. In the book the pictures move and its very bright. Augustine commented that he had never seen all of the children sitting at once! He is always chasing one of them down. But they were transfixed on the story the whole time.

Finally I took the children one at a time to brush their teeth. Since there was only two of us I was on my own with the tooth brushing.

I am quite amazed at how clean their teeth are, mostly. Augustine tells me that a lot of them chew on sugar cane, which is good for their teeth. Their parents clean their teeth every morning, but with soap. Most of the kids really enjoy the tooth brush. 

And some do not!

To be clear, this little girl let me brush her teeth, but she cried the entire time.

At my weekly briefing today I told the volunteer coordinator that I wouldn't mind staying in the nursery for the rest of my time here. There is a lot of good that can be done there. I told her that there is potential if there is some consistency in the classroom. She mentioned that she has been thinking about creating a volunteer position that just works in the nursery and I told her I thought that was a good idea.

It is very hard to explain how I feel about being here. I love the work that I am doing. A lot of the setting makes me very uncomfortable and I certainly miss the comforts of home. I miss eating meat! 

But I know that what we are doing here makes a difference. Since my arrival I have witnessed substantial differences in how misbehavior is dealt with in our library times. I have been able to show a level of expectations that just hasn't existed. 

The students respond well to it and we having record numbers of kids at our library times. The past week we have seen between 80 and 100 kids at each session. When I first arrived there were between 20 and 30. I don't take full credit for that, but I feel like I am a part of something that is using me and my skills, which is nice.

On Monday, all but one of my teammates are going home. This makes me a bit nervous for my remaining two weeks. There is a lot of work for 6 of us to do. I can't imagine doing it with 2! But I hear that its been done with one person before.

It sounds like the volunteer coordinator is going to keep me at the nursery for now, which pleases me. I really enjoy that work in the morning. 

The pas 2 weeks have flown by. I am trying to live in each moment, because I know that this experience only happens once in a lifetime if you're lucky!

Home Away From Home

I was asked to talk about where I am staying while in Nkope.


Nkope Mission is a village found near Monkey Bay on the southern tip of Lake Malawi

The volunteer house is situated right up against the lake. This is the view from the back porch:

                                      

This is the entrance to the backyard:

Here is a sitting area, right inside the backdoor. This is a great place to sit and plan.

This is the view from the front of the house. This house is completely self sufficient. It has its own water processing, sewage etc. There is a garden that grows all of the vegetables we eat. (I have had meat for 1 meal since I've been here...and that was a quarter piece of steak like substance...I'm not sure it was beef.) The project manager and volunteer coordinator live on the property, but in different quarters. The property is completely gated in and there are two guards on duty. There is a gardener, a cook, a housekeeper and a dog named Scrappy!

This is the view from the front porch, looking out toward the garden and the front gate. When you walk down that long dirt road you come to a gate. On the other side of the gate is the village of Nkope. I teach at Nkope Hill Primary School, which is about 1/4 of a mile walk. 

I have had to change my lifestyle quite a bit here. We eat for survival, not for recreation. The food comes in very small portions and there is very little protein, that I am willing to eat:) I brought some protein bars and I have been supplementing my diet with those. Its a very communal life style and it is difficult to find alone time, though the group I am currently with is quite enjoyable. Luxuries such as hot water, electricity and even just water are unpredictable. I feel well taken care of, though. We are the privileged few. No other home has as many luxuries as we do. Everyone else drinks their water straight from the river...The same river they bathe in and wash their dishes in.

That is just a glimpse into my life in Nkope.

Private Tears

WARNING - The following post takes a break from the normal day to day documentation of my trip. Enter at your own risk...


As some of you may know, I am a pretty emotional person. My principal jokes that she is more of a man than I am! Luckily, the group that I am working with in Africa does not know this about me. I am able to come across as a pretty level headed person. On the inside, I am a hurricane! My eyes water from joy, awe, excitement, sadness, brokenness and compassion for the people, sights, sounds and experiences in my daily life here. And I have only been here for 1 week!

This weekend we went to the Kuti Wildlife Reserve, which is about 2 1/2 hours from Nkope Village, where I am living. We headed out on Friday at about 1:30 in the afternoon. After all eight of us squeezed into our minibus, along with tents, backpacks, sleeping bags, food and a spare "tire", we started rolling down the pitted dirt roads of Malawi.

Could not get a picture that wasn't blurry, due to those fun Malawi roads!

The beginning of the trip started with jovial conversations and selfies (mostly just me), but as time moved on, the van grew quieter as people retreated to their books, journals and thoughts. Mine, almost like clock work, turned to reflection.


Several people joked that I would come home with a group of kids in tow. At the time I found it amusing. Now, I see the reality in the feeling. I had no idea how much I would look into the eyes of each individual person I encounter here. I had no idea how uniquely I would see each of them. Before I left, the images I made had no faces. Now they do.  They are kind, excited, hopeful, shy, funny, sneaky, friendly, scared, apprehensive and proud.

Their lives are COMPLETELY different from mine, but we share so many feelings and desires. I don't feel sorry for them, like I thought I would. I am in awe of their life style. Their work ethic, the way they value community, their resourcefulness and their pride for who they are.

As I'm having these thoughts, driving down the rough dirt rode, I come to realize that my face is covered in tears. I look around, self-conciously, to realize that no one is even aware of my private tear moment. I am relieved, but I also find it a bit humorous.

My point is that I am so blessed to have this opportunity to change my paradigm entirely. I might have some incidental impact on the people of Nkope, but they most definitely will change me and my small thinking. Our world is so large and there are so many things that we just don't understand. We pretend to be in control and have all of the answers, but we do not.