Day FOURTEEN - Liwonde Mvuu Camp

Day FOURTEEN – June 30, 2010
Up early again! Today we are traveling to Liwonde Mvuu Camp. I was sooo excited because I have always wanted to go on a safari to see real animals finally NOT locked up in a cage. It was a long drive there but it was worth it. When we got there we had to first get let into this barbed wire fence and then get in on this little boat to get to the place. When we got there we were welcomed with a glass of fruit juice, but our room wasn’t ready yet so they took us on the short safari.

After that we had a really good lunch that was way better than the food at Annie’s. We also got our rooms which were really pretty.

Then we went on the regular safari and also into the special section where the mating goes on and where you could find rhinos. We were out there for a looong time all the way till sunset which we got to watch. Then we continued on with a night safari with a red light. We got to see a whole herd of elephants! It had to have been like 20 of them from the baby elephants to the big and grown ones. I really wish I could have gotten a picture but they said no flash.





































After the really cool night safari we had a very good dinner and some interesting desert. It was a very busy but after that great shower with full water pressure! I fell asleep so fast even through all the hippo noises I kept hearing.

Day THIRTEEN - AGGIE PRIDE

Day THIRTEEN – June 29, 2010 Today was another exciting day! At first the day started off normal and kind of slow. Then we got to our class and we found out that we were going to do PE. We went outside and played tennis. We didn’t have real tennis balls and we had a very small baby net but we made the best out of it and we did have real rackets. Danielle was trying hard to teach them how to really played, but I don’t think it worked that well because all they wanted to do was hit the ball. I loved seeing their teacher Gift playing with the students; you can tell he loves his job. The class is extremely big so since everyone didn’t get a chance to play with the rackets I took a ball and started playing catch with this huge group of female students. I noticed that the boys and girls tend to always separate so the guys ran off with a little ball and started playing football (Soccer). It was all real fun, but Danielle and I was a little upset that one of our favorite students named Tariro was getting chased. We hope that kids, don’t bully him because he is really smart so now we are going to keep a close eye on him. After getting settled in class we continue on with Gift teaching Life Skills; the subject was self esteem, stress, and anxiety which was pretty interesting. During his lesson Danielle went with Chipo to buy fruit for the class. When she came back we passed it out twice but there was so much left that we decided to have an English spelling bee. It was a lot of fun and we got to interact more with each and every student. We also taught them what globalization was. At first we just asked them to spell it as a part of the spelling bee but they just looked at us so we realized that they had no idea what it was so we made a short lesson out of it. Then the best part of our day happened. After the spelling bee we talked about where we are from again and explained our school to them and decided to teach them the Aggie Pride chant. We wrote the words on the board and taught it to them and then told them to stand up and try it. It was so much fun because apparently they loved it! They all got into it including our teachers Gift and Chipo. We tried to end but they kept going and dancing; it was just good feeling. At that moment I could really feel my Aggie Pride and I was glad to share a piece of it with them. After class we decided to go to M.I.E. again and share what happened with the rest of the group. We did leave early so that way we can come back to help with Literacy in Mother Tongue, but I think Dr. Barber finished a little early. I really liked to day a lot and I was so glad I came on this trip especially to represent A&T.

Day TWELVE - M.I.E.

Day TWELVE – June 28, 2010
Today was a regular day. We went to school and had a nice day in class. Chipo brought family photos to class to show us everyone she talks about. Danielle read a book to the students in English and I think I most of them enjoyed it. Some student’s English isn’t that good so they probably got lost at some parts, but we tried our best to help them understand. After that I tried to loosen them up by teaching them "If You're Happy and You Know It." They all loved it!

Instead of staying for our Literacy in Mother Tongue class Dr. Barber said we could go to M.I.E., which is the Malawi Institute of Education, to meet up with the other two universities to join in on their end of the day discussion. It was a decent walk and I enjoyed it because I was kind of tired of traveling everywhere by bus. When we got there we got to hear about everybody’s day and then we went to go see the very small hospital nearby. I was kind of sad and disappointed that they didn’t have a better hospital. There was like four small buildings; one was the maternity wing, one was they very sick wing and then they had a building for me and one for women. If I had a lot of money I would build them a nice hospital with a lot of supplies because that was really sad.

Later on we went into the market and to the stores to get more supplies and to look around. That was pretty much how the day went.

Day ELEVEN - Zomba Presbyterian Church

Day ELEVEN – June 27, 2010
Today we walked all the way to Zomba Presbyterian Church after breakfast. On the way there we saw tons of monkeys on the side of the road. I was trying to take a picture of a baby monkey when this bigger monkey ran really fast right behind me I guess to warn me off; I was so scared I screamed and these men watching us just laughed at me.
When we got to the church I realized that the men enter from one door and the women enter from the opposite door and they sit on separate sides of the room. I knew that this was how it worked before I got there because I overheard Dr. Kelly’s conversation explaining it so I was kind of really mad when one of the adults named Jean didn’t listen to me when I kept telling her that she was going to enter the wrong door. So I left her and walked around the building and went in the right way.

Church was kind of regular just like any other church; they spoke in English, had hymns, sermons, offerings and so on. I did like their music better even though I didn’t understand it since they sung in Chichewa. I felt a little more comfortable when the church welcomed us because I’m sure it was pretty obvious that we were visitors. Church lasted about 2 hours and some change.

Later on in the day we all drove to Annie’s home for lunch. We got to see her daughter again and meet her baby boy. We also got to meet Brian who is Mr. University of Malawi. He was very nice and throughout the whole day I got to know him very well; by the end of the day we became Facebook friends so we can keep in touch. Lunch was good and she made lots of food. After lunch she took us out to visit the nearby village. The lady showed us her home and how she lives from cooking to wear the children sleep. She basically explained every aspect of her daily life. These two older boys surprised us with a little skit about village life but they spoke Chichewa so we couldn’t understand what they were saying but it was still pretty funny and we got the point of it.

We went back to Annie’s club and chatted a little. It was overall a nice day.

Day TEN - Mulanje Mountain

Day TEN– June 26, 2010
Today was sooo tiring I am ready for bed! The day started off with a long drive to Blantyre which is where Mulanje Mountain is. On the way there I tried to go to sleep since it was so early but I did see a few things. I saw this huge truck of stuff on the road that had fallen on its side; I was glad nobody was hurt but it looked crazy. Then I saw Malawian military men marching in the fields doing training. That was pretty cool and I wish I could take a picture, but it’s against the law to take pictures of government people, police, military men etc. These are women washing clothes in the river.

Finally we did reach Mulanje Mountain. Honestly, I was not excited for this hike. I am not a mountain climber at all and I wasn’t too wild about doing it in old Jordans because boots would have had more grip for the rocks and stuff. Well anyways we started the walk and we had two guides with us.
The whole thing was pretty much up a very steep hill so my legs were getting a work out. I kind of sucked it up and started walking with the fast group up in front. I was amazed with Dr. Kelly because she is like 72 trooping up this mountain with us. I did feel bad for Patty because she uses walking sticks since she has a bad hip so she struggled with it and eventually had to go back to the van where Dr. Barber and her husband stayed.







I was excited to see these pretty big monkeys run by. One of them kind of stared us down from a far distance. One of our guides told us that there’s this big race that men do which is running up and down the whole mountain. He said he had done it last year and came about 50th place out of 250 runners. The first place winner had a time of about 2 hours and 40 minutes so you can tell it was long. A problem we got into while hiking was that this man with sticks on his head and barefooted came down the trail we were walking and one of the students took a picture of him. He got so upset and asked for money for his photo being taken without permission so the girl had to tell him that she deleted the picture. After he left, our guide told us that the man never cares about pictures, but he was mad because she had a picture of him getting sticks some where he had no permission to be so now it all made sense. During our hike we saw a long line of little girls who looked younger than ten struggling with a whole bundle of sticks on their heads climbing up rocks and sticks barefooted. I just felt so bad that they had to work on a Saturday, had no shoes, and work so hard; after seeing that I couldn’t complain about anything.








After a long, long hike up many steep hills, rocks, and tall grass we finally reached the waterfall. It was very hard getting across some of the rocks but it was pretty cool to get to the middle of the river to see the waterfall. Some of us even sat on this large rock in the middle and ate lunch.

The trail we took down hill allowed us to see many people on the mountain. They were nice and said hello to us, but one group of older ladies kept pointing at me and said sister which was kind of odd; Danielle wasn’t near me so she probably got the same reaction since we look different from the rest of the group.


I was so glad for the hike to be over and I was more excited to see what the wood carvers had at their stands. This time our group had a plan to make sure we got good prices for things. We looked around for 15 minutes and tried to bargain good prices. One or two people brought something and the rest of us kept bargaining. Then we all walked away to the van. When the van’s engine started up all the people kept running to our windows offering way better prices. It was kind of funny but I was glad it worked.

The next place we were headed to was to see the new Annie’s Lodge in Blantyre. When we got there her daughter Catherine greeted us and invited us in for tea. I was the happiest person ever because I saw that they had Nesquick strawberry milk. Now I didn’t have milk so I put it in the hot water they gave me. Then I tried to add cream and sugar, but it wasn’t quite the same. Then finally I got offered some milk. With a little more cream it did start to taste decent so I was very happy. They also gave each table a whole plate of different cakes to try; the chocolate one was the best of course! Annie came along with her boyfriend Limbani who is apparently some big famous musician in Malawi so that was pretty cool. She gave us a tour of the lodge in progress. It was nice, but I think the one we are living in will always be the best one. I also found out that Annie owns one of the clubs we passed.

We got back really late but it was a pretty good dinner because my table had some great conversation about some random topics; it was one of those stories you had to be there for.

All in all today was good.

Day NINE - Mwanje Primary School

Day NINE – June 25, 2010 Wow!! I think today was the greatest day so far!!

Instead of going straight to our schools this morning we went to Mwanje Primary School to award the students in standard 7 with new book bags for moving forward to standard 8 and we are giving the 11 standard 8 students new book bags too for getting chosen for secondary school. When we gave the standard 7 class theirs we were in their classroom and they started singing for us while we passed them out; a lot of them seemed so happy and I was just so glad to be there. One boy in particular that I really wanted to meet was this boy named Gift; he was the most enthusiastic he would not stop dancing, I just loved him! He was real nice too when I spoke to him later. The real ceremony was outside for the 11 students. We each got to give a book bag to one of the students; I chose to give my book bag to one of the girls because out of the 11 students only 2 were girls so I was honored to give it to her. I didn’t get a chance to speak to her but I wish her a lot of luck in her studies and hopefully she will make it to the university. The dancing and singing done in our honor was great! I felt real important sitting in those chairs in front of the school. One thing that was real cool after all the speeches was that they gave us a gift which was a map of Malawi made in tiny, tiny beads glued to a frame which was all hand done by one of the teachers. After signing the visitors’ book and meeting some of the teachers all the kids in the courtyard just started this cool beat with a drum and singing and dancing. I saw people from our group in the crowd dancing with them so I went out there too. These three little girls from standard 7 came up to me and they were just too nice. They were trying to teach me the words of the song that basically kept repeating; I had it for a moment, but I don’t remember the words now. Then the oldest one was teaching me the foot movement they were doing it was so much fun I just loved the whole thing. Those three were my friends I just had to hug them goodbye; they were so nice. This is the teacher who made the beaded art work. I wasn’t ready to head back to school after that, I was still pumped up from all the excitement.

When I did get back to the school I went straight to work with Dr. Barber in getting the classroom ready for the teacher’s Literacy in Mother Tongue class. Today Alinane and I finished translating his book. So then I helped him use highlighter tape to highlight vocabulary words he would want to use. Then I went to talk to a bunch of different teachers and they got to ask me a bunch of questions like comparing schools in the United States and Malawi; it was really nice. The rest of our group also came over to see how our project was doing and some of them even chose to help some teachers with their books. For dinner tonight we went to this restaurant called Tasty Bites. I had these really good things called samosas, but the rest of my meal wasn’t that great. I did get some really good chocolate cake though and the frosting was so different but much better from anything I tasted. I also learned that Tasty Bites was the place where our professors created the logo for our study abroad program which is kind of cool.