Mwanje Visit (June 29)

This morning we traveled to Mwanje which is a village school built by the Germans that’s pretty close to our schools in the Domasi district. The National Social Studies Association (I think) has a very close tie with this school is responsible for the majority of their funding. It’s absolutely beautiful, but still has many problems. There is no well, so the girls at the school have to travel awhile to bring back buckets of water, and this is a huge deal. The goal in the next year or so is to install a well that will last them. We went today so we could hand out backpacks to the older students. Last year, the Standard 7 and Standard 8 students received them so this year we were handing them out to children who didn’t get them last summer. It was such an incredible experience. I loved this school because there was sooo much more music and dancing involved among the instructors and students and they even got a few of us dancing with them (James!). Of course, Jess and I were the only one’s that started to cry when they were singing for us in the classroom. It was cool because they even had a big drum they played, which they didn’t have at all the other schools.

Once we handed out the backpacks they were all so grateful that they went out into the schoolyard to have a huge celebration. It was basically the drum in the middle with all the students dancing and singing around it in a big circle, I have amazing video footage of this (that I didn’t delete, yay!). We arrived about an hour and half late to our school assignments but that was okay. Jess and I handed out pens to our class and they loved it! Katherine told us that many kids get discouraged because they never have anything to write with, especially not pens, and it hinders them from excelling. Towards the end of our stay we will hand out even more. Tomorrow we will teach their English, Math and Music lesson. We were thinking about teaching the hokey pokey for music, I think it will be a lot of fun, and a great way of teaching them body parts in English. Twister is another good game for this that we’ll do later in the week. I’ll definitely let you know how it goes.

During our class discussion at MIE afterwards we discussed what our project/gift should be for our school that we take on every year. I really wanted to paint some of the classrooms since they really have nothing on the walls and all their posters are destroyed for the most part. The problem is in the coming weeks they’re going over all the walls in the classroom with a base paint so that next year the students that come can paint things on the wall with a fresh start. This was supposed to be done last year, but the schools never got around to it. Last year we also paid for all their windows to be fixed as well as locks to be put on all the classroom doors. Apparently, the supplies closets were supposed to be rebuilt as well as ceiling tiles replaced, but they never did that either. Since they still have the money though, they should be getting around to that soon. Ultimately, we decided we would try to create some visual teaching materials in the form of posters that we’ll have laminated in town, as well as repainting all their blackboards. It’s getting so hard to read what’s written up there because they never wash them. Dr. Kelly said this needs to be done every few years anyway, so they will really enjoy it.

I have to write a 10-page paper or so that will be due sometime after I return home. I can’t exactly decide what I want to focus on yet, but I definitely want to draw on the paper that I had written for my Senior Seminar in the Spring semester. I might focus on the educational aspect of the Malawian culture and weigh it’s importance compared to other things, like agriculture. It’s easier to understand these things after being here even for only a week. Schooling here is compulsory, and only about 50% of children in Malawi even start school. Of those 50%, less than 10% make it to higher levels of education. It’s very interesting. They also focus on the collective class rather than the individual which is opposite of how it works in America. This can be attributed to their large class size (classes of 90+!) and may just be the easiest way to teach. I am also looking at the role of female school children compared to male. Their roles are drastically different and it would be worthwhile to look further into that as well. Since both of my teachers in 4B are women, I’m sure they could bring a lot of insight into the topic. We’ll see though, I still have awhile to observe and get it narrowed down.

Today was tiring, I can’t seem to sustain any energy here. I think it’s the diet, everything is fried and high-carb, which I’m not used to eating on a daily basis. The good thing is I’m going to bed before 10 each night so hopefully I can carry that habit back home with me. Oh, and the power went out while I was showering today, that wasn’t fun. Now I know not to take a shower between 5:30 and 6 because it will get very dark and very cold.