Teaching

Over the last few weeks we’ve changed the focus of teaching at Chiedza to the Junior school rather than the senior school. Having lost a handful of teachers in quick succession they have been greatly under staffed in the junior school. Helena (one of the other volunteers) had been working flat out there to try to help out. So a few weeks ago Allan and I reduced our senior school classes and began to help out with the Junior school. We’ve had a lot of fun with them but it can be really exhausting. No matter how well you plan for a lesson you find yourself constantly having to come up with impromptu lessons here there and everywhere. This week it was impromptu lessons on the solar system.

The kids were on extended term this week and last (extra classes at the end of the regular term) which gave us the opportunity to do more creative activities with them. You get the feeling you are constantly auditioning to be a kids TV presenter!

Back to the more serious normal classes next week!

Entrepreneur Program

It’s now in its 5th week and going strong. We have spent the last couple of weeks looking at idea generation and opportunity recognition and this last week we covered market research. The participants are a great bunch, really keen to contribute and it really is a lot of fun. It’s given me a great opportunity to learn more about business and entrepreneurship in a developing country. The hardest thing is to switch between teaching 6 - 10 year olds in the morning to teaching 20 year olds in the evening. Sometimes you get the methods a little mixed, much to comic affect. Trying to get a group of six year olds to split into groups and brainstorm ideas often leads to chaos

IT Program

In addition to the entrepreneur program I have been helping out at the youth center with a train-the-trainer program for an IT course. Over the last few weeks I have been reviewing Microsoft Office with some of the members of the youth center. It is hoped that after the program they will then be able to go and train many more members of the center as well as other youth in the area. Computer illiteracy is very high in Malawi and I’m very hopeful that this program will help to reduce this problem.

Construction Project

We are funding a children’s play park at the youth center as there are no public play parks in the whole of Blantyre. We have local builders and welders making slides, see-saws, roundabouts and swings. It’s great to go to the youth center every day and see the progress on this. We are VERY excited about the benefits this will bring to the community. There are hundreds of younger kids who come up to the youth center every day who have no real facilities for them to use. When this park is finished I can imagine it will be swamped with kids all day, every day.

The project has attracted attention from UNICEF who want to use it as a model to create other play parks in various townships throughout Malawi. We are hoping that this project really has a lasting and widely felt impact. It’s amazing to think that something as simple as a play park can bring joy to so many kids.

Other Projects

There are a raft of other projects going on including a drama group, a football coaching course and tournament and volunteering at a post-HIV testing clinic. Needless to say we are all exceptionally busy but enjoying every minute of it.

It’s not all been about work. We’ve been doing quite a lot of traveling as well. I’ll write about that in the next post.

Until then. Be well.

I reckon I’m probably not at that stage even now but I thought I’d give a brief summary of what’s been happening over the last couple of weeks since we arrived here. Albeit without much commentary on what any of it means!

Week 1: Welcome to the Warm Heart of Africa

As soon as we stepped off the plane in Llongwe and met the guys from AYISE, who had just driven 4 hours to come and collect us, we realised this was going to be a very friendly place. People in Malawi are quick to tell you that it is the warm heart of Africa and it definitely seems that way. People are quick to say hello and have a chat with you in bars, restaurants, in the supermarket, on the street and pretty much anywhere.

We were driven to the guesthouse we are staying at which is settled right in the heart of Namiyango, a small community in Bangwe township which is part of the the larger city of Blantyre. It’s great being bang in the middle of the community in which we are working as this gives us the chance to get to build relationships with the people who live around us. The people here are keen to find out what the purpose of our trip is and just to have a chat.

The first week was spent in orientation sessions with the AYISE employees. The orientation program was probably the best I’ve ever been through and it was certainly the most informative. I learned more in those four days than I probably did during my last four months of university

It gave us the opportunity to learn about the history, politics, culture and also a bit of the language of Malawi (Chichewa). The folks who were taking the program were fantastic. Some of the most genuine people I have met. It gave us a good chance to get to know them and I know we’ll end up developing great relationships with all of them.

Sadly the brother of one of the AYISE staff members passed away during the orientation week and we were invited to the funeral. This was a sad event and we felt for our friend who had lost his brother. His brother had been related to the President of Malawi and so he, along with the Vice President and many members of the cabinet, were in attendance. The whole thing was recorded
for state TV and we were told later that we had made a brief appearance in the crowd by someone who had been watching it at home. It was all quite surreal.

All in all the welcome we received from the folks here was fantastic and helped us to settle in very quickly.

Week 2: March of the Azungo

The second week saw us begin our placements in the local schools. We had been divided between 4 or 5 schools in the local area. I am working in a school called Chiedza (Light of God) which is about 15 minutes walk from were we are staying. The walk to school is quite hilarious. The kids in the area go a bit crazy when the see white people (Azungo) and scream and shout and run over to us.
They are very eager to say hello and ask us our names. Sometimes they do it in English and sometimes we try to do it in Chichewa. We have to get our practise in somehow!

The first day we went to visit the school was probably the crasiest. When the kids saw us through the window they all jumped up to the windows and started yelling “Azungo, Azungo”. It was all a little terrifying!

The first week of teaching went well. The first couple of days we were shadowing to get a feel for how the lessons are tackled and also devising a timetable with the teaching staff. I’m teaching English, Social Science and Science and Technology to Primary 5’s and 6’s. The class sizes are about 60 - 70 so it can get a bit crazy but they are surprisingly well behaved for such large classes. It does makes it difficult to do a lot of the activities which we would like to do with them. Games and groupwork can be quite difficult to co-ordinate. It’s also tough at times to give the students who are struggling the extra tuition they need.

At the end of the week the Director of the school took us and many of the teachering staff out for dinner which was a fantastic reminder of how friendly and welcoming the people of Malawi are.

Week two saw us planning many of the extra activities we want to get involved in. AYISE has a fantastic youth center nearby and we plan to use this as the vehicle of many of these projects. We have been in discussions with a local welder and a builder to get a quotation for building
a play park for the younger kids in the area. We have been told that this will likely be one of the first public pay parks in the area so we are very excited about that prospect. Second to that we are beginning a Young Enterprise program tomorrow. The aim of which is to provde some of the older youth with the fundamental theory and basic skills of entrepreneurship and small business development. This will be the program I will be most involved in and so I’m very excited about it. On top of this, various members of the group are planning things as far ranging as drama groups, a local Stomp group, HIV/AIDS awareness programs and Big Brother and Big Sister mentoring schemes.
We have a meeting with the current AYISE members this afternoon to discuss these projects so hopefully that will go well.

At the weekend we headed off to the Mulanje mountains, only a 45 minute bus journey away. Despite nearly being sent back by an immigration officer for not carrying our paspports (apparently an illegal offence here) we made it safely. Mulanje is the largest mountain in Central Africa and is very impressive. We though it would be foolish to tackle the entire thing on our first trip so we went on a couple of smaller hikes instead. On the first day we went to the waterfall and pools which was spectacular (pictures to follow). It was also the coldest water I have EVER been in!
It was well worth jumping in for a swim though, despite losing sensation to most of my body!

Monday was Independence Day (45 Years) and there were celebrations at the local football stadium. When we arrived they had stopped letting people in so we hung around and watched outside for a bit. Then we headed to a friend’s house to watch the celebrations on TV. It was fun to be part
of these celebrations, albeit in a very small way.

So that brings us up to date (more or less). There are so many other stories I would like to tell but I wanted to get the main jist of what we’ve been up to. Hopefully I will start writing more in the coming weeks and will be able to expand on things a bit more. Until next time, be well.

Volunteer Survival Kit

1. GUM to help you to stick with it.
2. LICORICE to remind you not to bite off more than
   you can chew.
3. A MARS BAR to help you to shoot for the stars.
4. A STARBURST for a burst of energy when you think
   you’ve had it.
5. A LIFESAVER to remind you how important your
   work is.
6. A HUG to remind you that you are special.
7. And a BAG to help you to keep
   it all together.

Cheesy but kind of cute. Or maybe just cheesy.

So… I’ve decided to postpone the fast until Wednesday at 10 PM. It will then run until Thursday at 10 PM. Same rules apply. 24 hours, no food, only water.

So I’ll be getting stabbed in the arm this afternoon but at least I’ll do so on a full stomach!

Why I’m not Eating For a Day! from Dave McKeown on Vimeo.

A Bit of Background

I guess an appropriate place to start would be to talk a bit about Malawi and the project that I’ll be working on. Well, in true Blue Peter style…. Here’s one I made earlier:

About Malawi
About the Project

Neither are the most in-depth discussions, but I thought, why not start with the basics and then when can go from there!

See you later!