Day EIGHT - Feeling Better

Day EIGHT – June 24, 2010
Today was great! :) After all that medicine I took the past two days I finally feel soooo much better! I mean my stomach felt just a little funny and I just had a mild back ache but other than that I felt good. I also got a full night’s sleep thanks to this medicine Carly gave me and I could finally eat. I had a nice breakfast because I finally figured out what I did like and what I didn’t like which helped a lot after trying everything these past few days. I also got to try this pinkish fruit juice whish was so good.

As always when I got to school it was tea time, but today it was better because they had these little coconut cookies that were way better than the tough bread rolls they always have.
Today was also my big day to teach a lesson. I started off teaching about the 7 continents and then on to the oceans. There was only one student who is from Zimbabwe who already knew most of the material; he is constantly showing me how much ahead of the rest of the class he is and how good his English is as well. Well, anyways, I continued to talk about some of the countries found in the continents and then I explained the journey that my group has traveled to reach Zomba. I also went further to explain to them that people from America are all not white. So I explained how America is mixed with many, many cultures and how we ended up being called the things we are called like Hispanic, African American, Native American, etc. At this point they were very interested. I also showed them where my family was from which Puerto Rico. Gift, the teacher I’m working with, encouraged me to keep talking so I went further to talk about the differences in their culture, the culture in the United States, and some of the things I knew about Puerto Rico. What I learned was that in Malawi the staple food there is maize which they make into nsima (this is a white food that tastes like mashed up rice that is stuck together), monkeys are the equivalent to our squirrels, special birthday celebrations are from the ages 12- 18, and common careers for females to look forward to are nursing, teaching, secretary work or managing companies. I also got the teacher Gift to participate by teaching him and the class basic Spanish. So he and I did a short basic conversation in Spanish, but I had to keep telling him what to say and how to say it which the kids loved because they kept laughing at how he kept messing up. It was a really good class period. I enjoyed the whole thing and I found out some of the students never even heard of Spanish before so I was glad to expose them to something new.

The second half of my school day was spent with Dr. Barber and the Literacy in Mother Tongue project. I did finish helping the blind teacher translate his book. I also got to Chipo find supplies for the book she was making. Gift ended up finding me again and he gave me a whole lesson on Chichewa. He used the book he translated from English to Chichewa for his students on me except he did it backwards so I was asked to read the book in Chichewa and then he went back and quizzed me on what words in Chichewa were the English words so it was sort of like matching. I had a lot of fun doing that and I could tell that he is going to do great teaching children English using these books.

This was the library Dr. Barber starded in this school.

Later on I had a very good dinner. I order the four season’s pizza and I must say it was delicious. I can tell you right now it is not like American pizza, but it was good judging from where we were. Don’t get me wrong I still reminisce about the last American meal I had which was a BK Double Stackerfrom Burger King, but today that pizza did its job. It was so big I had to save half of it for tomorrow so I’m excited for that.

This was in our room before we went to sleep.


Some chips I brought which had some weird flavors.


And these are all the bottle caps I have been collecting for the kid's abacuses that they make.

Day SEVEN - School Day

Day SEVEN – June 23, 2010
Still with a lot of back and stomach pain I was able to make it to school today. It sure wasn’t easy but I made it through and I’m glad I did. I decided to work this teacher named Gift and his class. What I didn’t realize was that this class has two teachers Gift and Chipo and Chipo is the teacher Danielle was working with so we both ended up in that class.

The first part of my day was spent sitting in on Chipo’s English reading comprehension lesson. This class was standard 7 so they all had a good amount of knowledge on the English language. Some things I noticed in the class was that children’s names range from very cultural Malawi names to common American names like John, Sophie, Oscar and Renaldo. One little boy also had the unusual name Funny. Students also had to get down on their knees to ask for permission for something or to go somewhere. I also noticed that they had extremely old books that were basically falling apart and they had to share it with 1-3 other students. I really wished there was some way to get this school and schools like it all over the world the funds for materials because it’s extremely sad. I was happy to see that a lot of the students had very neat and pretty hand writing some were even better than mines. During break time I noticed that some students who didn’t go outside with everybody else stood inside and kept working on class work. I asked Gift why they didn’t leave and he said that they stay inside and keep working because they don’t have food to eat like everybody else; which was really sad.

The next part of my day was working with Dr. Barber and her Literacy in Mother Tongue project with the teachers after school ended. This project was basically an after school class for teachers from all 3 primary schools. It wasn’t required so these teachers had to show up on their own free will. We did tell them that we could not pay them but that we did offer school supplies through the activities. Basically this class taught teachers new methods of teaching for students who spoke a different language other than Chichewa. This was important because when you first start school class is taught in Chichewa and as you move up standards you are taught English so when you enter secondary school the whole thing is only taught in English. So students who speak Yao or a different language never understand from day one because they don’t understand Chichewa so they will never be able to understand English.

The first task and homework assignment Dr. Barber gave teachers the first day was to pick out a very extra large big book that told little kid stories and to translate it from English to Chichewa using a color marker. And today’s task was to add a third language in another color marker that is common in their school.

She also taught other activities and strategies they could use in class like matching and making connections or using vocabulary quilts and so on. Today we had more teachers than the first day which was exciting because we now had a full house. We eventually ran out of supplies for each teacher so later in the day Dr. Barber went out and bought some more. She gave them their very own book bag full of supplies like color markers, tape or glue, and scissors. She also gave them color paints with brushes to each standard to share which I think they appreciated a lot.

One teacher that I got to know well was Alinane. He was the only blind teacher in the room. I felt bad for him because I heard the first day he just sat there because no one bothered to help him translate his book since everyone got caught up in their own work. So today I sat down with him and read his book to him and he translated and spelt each word in Chichewa so I could write it out for him. We both learned a lot from this. He learned words he never heard of like “meadow” and I learned some Chichewa and how to spell some of it. We still haven’t finished the book so I’m sure we will get right to work tomorrow. I also plan to sit in one of his classes because I’m very curious on how he teaches.

At the end of the day Gift surprised me by informing me that he wants me to teach a lesson tomorrow on anything. I plan to teach world geography so we’ll see how that goes.

Today was pretty good minus me not feeling good at all and my suitcase still not arriving after a whole week.

I must say that so far this trip has made me so grateful for the things we do have in America like drinking water, shoes, heated homes, and many, many other things. And I miss American food so much and my momma’s cooking especially her Spanish rice. But whenever I start to miss home listening to my iPod seems to help so I recommend to anybody leaving the country to always bring some music!

Day SIX - Sick Day

Day SIX – June 22, 2010
I didn’t get any sleep the night before since I was sick and threw up. And the morning was just the same. So I stood at the lodge all day and missed the first day to help teach classes. I’m really disappointed I missed the first day, but I was in so much pain. I did appreciate the staff coming to check up on me and bringing me lunch and anything I needed to my room. Today was the day I really wished my phone didn’t cost so much to use because I really missed my mommy.

Day FIVE - Primary Schools

Day FIVE – June 21, 2010
Once again I heard a rooster earlyyyy in the morning.
Today was the day we were traveling to all the schools that we will be working at. The first school was the village primary school called Maliemia that Radford University students will be teaching at.

When we got off the bus all these little kids came running towards us. It was sooo many of them. Of course they did call us “white people” in Chichewa since they believe that everyone in America is white including me and Danielle. And they all went crazy when people took out their cameras. In Malawi, you can never just take one picture of a child; you have to take a picture of all of them. What I did was, I took their pictures and actually let them see their selves on the camera which blew their minds. Eventually, I did put my camera away because I noticed that they started pushing and fighting for pictures and I didn’t like that at all. I did get to meet a little girl whose name was also Michele, but I bet she most likely spells it completely different.
I peeked into some of the classes that were still in session and I was very amazed at how discipline they were even if they did have over a hundred kids in each class sitting on the floor. I also got to speak with some of the teachers and they were very nice and happy to see us.

One thing I noticed between the younger and older kids was that the older kids were very distant and didn’t want to say anything to us. So I decided to go up and start talking to them. Most of them were either in standard 6, 7, 8. One boy decided to ask me a million questions like “Why are you here? Where did you come from? Why this school? What is it like at your home?” I could understand why he was asking so many questions and I was actually glad he did. And I guess I must have done well in answering the questions because after he let go of his hard face he smiled and said “Welcome to Malawi.”

The way school works in Malawi, they have primary school and secondary school. Primary school has standards 1-8. In standard 8 they take an exam and the students who do the best on the exams are accepted into secondary school, but some drop out even if they are accepted because they can’t afford the small fees of secondary school. Secondary is for four years and on the last year you have to take an exam and whoever does best on the exam can go on to the university. So it’s like pyramid style with the amount of students getting smaller as the level of education gets higher.

So the next school we went to was the Government Primary School. This school is where the Virginia Tech students would be teaching. One thing I noticed about this school and the last school was that some students here had uniforms while the students at the last school didn’t. This school also had the child feeding program which is why there were so many little kids, who were too young to start school, hanging around on the yard. Again, classes here were pretty big with over 100 students in each class. But what I did get to see since they put the attendance on the board was that most classes averaged about 30 kids being absent each day. I also got to see the library A&T started at this school; it’s a small locked up room but at least they have one.
The next primary school we visited was the Domasi Demonstration Primary School where Danielle, Dr. Barber and I will be working. This school looked the best out of all of them and every student had a uniform. Dr. Barber was well at home; every teacher knew her there and they were ecstatic to see her. The teachers at this school set up a room of chairs for all of us to sit around and introduce ourselves. This one teacher name Gift was the most outgoing and very friendly so I might work with his class. He showed us around the school and kept teaching us words in Chichewa.
After this school we walked over to secondary school next door. This is the school that the two Virginia Tech PhD students will be teaching at. One thing I found sad about this school was that their library was pretty and had many shelves, but barely any books and the books they did have looked extremely old like they came from the 70’s or 80’s. We didn’t stay too long in this school because the two PhD students had to meet with the head teacher and talk about some things.
When we did finish visiting the schools we headed into town to go visit a fabric store. Apparently there is a seamstress nearby who can make anything you want as long as you buy the fabric. So everybody bought pretty fabric to take to her soon.

After going to the store to pick up some more bottle water we all decided to walk back to the lodge instead of driving so we can know how to get back and forth on our own. This was the part I regretted. That was the longest walk in life and the whole thing was walking up hill. And at one point this man was following us until we went in this store and we got one of the workers to get him to leave us alone. That was kind of scary because he looked crazy. The main thing I did like a lot about our walk was that I did get to see the little monkeys on the trees outside of Annie’s Lodge.

Now here is the part when things started going downhill. My back was hurting a lot from the walk because I already get back pains on the regular so this walk made it worse. And I don’t know if it was something I ate but I got very sick at night. My stomach was killing me and since my luggage wasn’t here yet I didn’t have my medicine so I had to ask Dr. Barber for some. This whole night was just completely painful and I didn’t get any sleep.

Day FOUR - Zomba

Day FOUR – June 20, 2010
Today started off kind of rough I woke up with a bad cold. I had been sneezing and coughing all night since it was freezing. Malawi has a very interesting winter; the days can get very hot, but the nights are completely cold. Dr. Barber gave me medicine, but it was the cough medicine strip things that dissolve on your tongue. I never even knew these things existed and I was even more surprised when it made my tongue numb for a little while. But on a happier note, I had a nice breakfast with an omelet, toast, and these huge pieces of bacon with some pineapple juice.

We were leaving Annie’s Lodge in Lilongwe to travel to the first Annie’s Lodge located in Zomba. I learned that Annie is very successful woman. She started off with a coffee shop and restaurant and worked her way to owning four different lodges in Malawi.

Well, anyways, we had to squeeze all 18 of us plus our luggage (which I still didn’t have) all in this small van/bus thing we drove in. It was very, very tight but we made the 7-8 hour drive to Zomba just fine. On the way there we stopped at this beautiful pottery shop where they sell handcrafted figurines, pots, vases, blankets, shoulder bags, and a bunch of other things. We also got to have a nice lunch there; I ordered the chicken lasagna which was pretty good. One funny thing that happened while I was eating was that the power went out and all the workers looked at us and our lost faces and started laughing. The power going out is a very common thing in Malawi; it happens all the time but for only short periods.
Driving to Zomba was very pretty from what I did see since I kept falling asleep to avoid feeling my legs cramping up. At one point we were at the border line of Malawi and Mozambique which was only separated by one road. Well what I learned about this country was that they had a civil war throughout the 80’s and early 90’s that’s why their buildings looked so bad and some were destroyed and I guess some citizens would run away to Malawi to remain safe.

We got out the car and walked over to Mozambique’s side and walked by the people who had stands of food everywhere. In a way I kind of felt bad because I think we led them to believe we were all going to buy something since we got out the van, but instead we walked by them and kept looking around. Some started yelling and pointing at us and others were starring and talking about us. I didn’t feel very welcomed, but I could understand why they felt that way. Something that did surprise me was that the men kept saying hi and one man came up to me and asked me to be his wife. I didn’t know what to say so I just said no thank you. As we were all getting back on the van one young man tried to get on the bus with us. He wouldn’t take no for an answer until our bus driver came to talk to him. Some think he was drunk since he smelt like alcohol but who knows.

Well, we continued our journey and we saw huge mountains and lots of village life. We stopped at the top of a hill to take pictures of a village below and all these children came running to us. Some were nice and let us take their picture while some threaten to throw rocks at us and started picking some up. That was when we realized we needed to leave. Finally, we got to Annie’s Lodge which was beautiful! It was like our own little village. Everybody had their separated buildings and you had to travel up little hills and stairs outside to get to others and buildings like the restaurant, the bar, and little gazebos. At first they had me and Danielle in this room off at the bottom of the campus by ourselves, but luckily they moved us up to the upper level with the other girls. And good news came when I reached the lodge. Noah, who is like a manager, informed me that they the airport found my bag and contacted our last lodge so Annie’s son Peter was going to drive it down to me soon. It was the greatest news I had all day.
This little hut was the bar! Yes it sold more than beer it had water and soda too but only Coca-Cola products.
Dinner time was great we all had some pretty good meals. I ordered the cheese burger and chips which is basically little potatoes. My burger was very, very well done so it was kind of crunchy but good. I also had an exotic Fanta which is now my favorite soda; I have no idea what flavor it is but I’m glad I tried it. And Annie made us a tasty chocolate cake to welcome us to her lodge which was very nice. I was so glad to meet her; I just think she is such a phenomenal woman. She was really nice to me; she heard I was sick so she said she would send extra blankets to my room which I appreciated very much.

The last few hours of my day were spent with some students from Radford University. They’re pretty cool, I’m glad they came.

Our room was pretty nice except for the large spider I had to kill when I first got in. I loved how we had a real shower with really hot water. That was the best shower I had in a while. I did like how our floor had carpet unlike the last lodge and that we had mosquito net hanging above our beds. But one thing I was disappointed to find out was that we now had to start buying internet cards, which means that my future blogs will be posting less frequently.

Day THREE - Tikondwe Freedom Gardens

Day THREE – June 19, 2010
Wow, so today started off with me hearing a rooster early in the morning. And my roommate Danielle getting left behind because one of the professors on the trip said she was taking too long. We were headed to the Tikondwe Freedom Gardens which is known because it is a sustainability garden. We picked up this man named Dr. Absolom Phiri on the way to come along with us to tour the garden. Dr. Absolom Phiri is a very smart man he earned his master’s degree in Malawi, but then traveled to the United States to earn his PhD at Virginia Tech is Science Education which is how he became good friend with some of the professors on our trip. Currently he has retired from the ministry of Educations in Malawi and now works as a private contractor for USAid.

Driving to the gardens was cool we saw numerous goats all over the road, small little villages, and a lot of little boys carrying fried mice on a stick.




I was soooo scared to cross this bridge on the van!
When we reached the gardens Mrs. Chinkhunta had prepared tea time for us. I’m not a big fan of tea so I tried the coco. The coco in Malawi tastes nothing like our coco it was very, very bitter so I didn’t enjoy it that much.

After tea time, we sat around in a circle as Daniel, Mrs. Chinkhunta’s son, told us the entire history of the gardens. Apparently, his father Dr. Glyvvyns Chinkhunta was the founder of the gardens. He brought a small piece of land for a cheap price because the land was very swampy so everyone thought it was a waste of land since you couldn’t do anything with it. Well he spent about three years digging up the land to clear it of the swamp. And then he spent about ten years digging, planting, and working towards this garden. He knew a lot about agriculture so he was able to dig up his own irrigation systems and be able to water his plants, vegetables, and fruits a healthier way than using pumps and pipes and things of that sort. His garden is completely organic so he does not use fertilizers or anything like that. It was pretty cool to see how his little tiny land has grown this huge garden it is today. Before Dr. Glyvvyns Chinkhunta passed away he was very sick so Daniel left the university he was at to watch over his father and take over the gardens. So Danielle is now the head person of the garden.


We took a nice tour of the whole garden and learned about the system.





In this picture they used these leaf things on a stick to spread around this liquid they made from natural resources that makes bugs go away instead of using toxic pesticide sprays.


Sugar Cane.



This is what it looks like when the bananas bloom.

Some students tried to do the hard work themselves; let's just say they weren't very successful.


We got to pick our own oranges! :)


We never seen a sweet potato that big before!
After leaving the gardens we were headed to the memorial of Malawi’s first president. On the way there this man named Tony who always drives with us since he works for Annie’s Lodge had the driver pull over so we could take pictures of the fried mice on a stick, but he scared all of us when he took the boy’s stick and brought it in the van with us. We all started screaming especially me and this lady named Patty because it was right in front of us. Dr. Absolom Phiri started laughing at us, so we asked him what food in America did he react the same way with and he said oysters and crab which is pretty interesting.

Then we drove to the memorial of Malawi's first president.


After reaching the memorial we drove to the market place and got out to go see what the people with stands were selling. It was sooo overwhelming because as soon as all of us got out all of them came to us saying “Hey friend come take a look at my stand.” We were surrounded and they were not taking no for an answer. And if you did go to their stand they kept trying to put bracelets and necklaces on you to get you to buy it. After a while I just kept telling them that I’m not buying only looking but all they kept saying was “okay looking is for free” but when I came over to look they kept trying to sell me something repeating “I give you best price, best price.” Finally, we got to leave.

When we got back to the lodge the power was out so there were candles everywhere. While waiting for dinner we were all in the conference room talking and telling stories when we saw a lizard on the wall. I was the brave one who touched it, but I did start screaming when the tail hit me when it started running away. It was pretty funny since it was real dark so we could not really see where it ran to.
We got to have a candle lit dinner. I had this really good fish called chambo; it was so good I decided to have two. Eventually lights did come on which I was happy to see because I was ready to take a shower. But this time me and Danielle learned our lesson and took a shower in the hallway bathroom which had a real shower and hot water.

After my shower, everyone was watching the world cup in the dining room and we had friends over. I had met two guys named Simba and Moses and they were both really nice.

By the way, my luggage still has not arrived.