St. Brigid Roman Catholic Church
Journal Entry - May 17, 2003
In order for e-mail to work, there needs to be electricity here in Balaka, the phone lines need to be working, they need electricity at the college that has the server, and the server needs to be up and allowing us to connect. When we have all of these things, is not often and certainly not predictable. It worked twice in 3 days in early May, but not again since. I can get e-mail to and from the account shown above, but it just takes a while. To top things off, the floppy disk that I was using to shuttle e-mails from PC to PC got fried (of course not backed up) and I lost a bunch of addresses. It's tough to go without e-mail at first, but then you get over it and eventually forget about it or just don't expect it to work. But when it finally comes in...woohooo! It's so good to hear from everyone.
A woman in Italy had cancer and came to know about us while we were doing our volunteer formation in Rome. This woman, Tina Romano, said that she would use her suffering as a reminder for prayer for this mission and for me. I can't tell you what it's like to know that someone is doing something like this. I just got word the last time the e-mail connected that she died on 4 April. It's sad news, but not bad news, since she was in a lot of pain. It was very inspiring to hear of her participating in the missions in such an extraordinary way.
We've finished the 1st term in the secondary school and the 1st 3 weeks of the 2nd. The college is 1/2 way through the 11 week term. Whew! It's a whole lot of work and a lot of time that I am scheduled to be in front of students...I remember counting more than 30 class periods per week that I need to be involved with students or in extra curricular clubs and meetings...then on top of that there is the planning and grading that has to be done. All of the teachers out there will probably just laugh and tell me how much more that they do, but it's been a quick transition for me and it's a lot of work! The average score on my finals were 41% in Math and 65% in Physical Science. It's pretty easy to group the kids into the ones who speak English and have some push from home, then there are the ones who have learned the concepts but made careless mistakes, and then there are the ones who don't speak English (some of them didn't even know what test they were taking, with "Student's Name _______" looking like just another fill in the blank question at the top of the 2nd column on the page. Other answers on their test included fill in the blank answers from the 10 commandments, agriculture, and history.) It's a real challenge to try and figure out better ways to reach these kids in particular. There was extra English tutoring for these students over the Easter break. We are also starting a focused effort of extra tutoring in Math and English for the ones that failed last term. A question of their desire to learn English comes up and some we just don't know what to do with them. We have found that some of them are orphans and some don't even know how old they are. These are the ones that will end up in real trouble if they don't get some sort of education. We are talking of paying the tuition for the girls who don't speak English and fail so that they will repeat the grade rather than drop out or be taken out of school all together.
I don't want to bum you out over the situation...the girls as a whole are very happy to be here and really support each other. It's amazing how readily they share with each other...during snack time, lunch, paper in class, or whatever. It was cool to realize that on almost every test I graded, the face that came to mind for each name had a big smile on it.
Here is a picture of some of the girls in the class room (equivalent of 9th grade.)
There are at least 2 groups of 3 girls that are living on their own near the school. They are anticipating the hostel to open next year, but it is amazing and scary to see these girls living on their own for now. Some of the sisters and other teachers did a "home visit." They live in the typical mud hut with straw roof and very loose door. The 3 of them sleep together on a straw mat on the floor. They don't have a mosquito net, no running water, no electricity, and a pit toilet that is share with 4 or 5 other families. Their only security is that their hut is surrounded by others. They cook and clean up after themselves every day. Another one of the girls has a mom, but she has TB and depends on her daughter for everything. This girl also has a younger sister. This situation is even more difficult than the 3 girls living on their own. We were hounding her about being chronically late without any idea of what she was dealing with. Now she is regularly on time. This particular girl was ranked 3rd in the group of 62 students! So, sometimes the girls act like real grown-ups, other times they show that they are just little girls. A few of them have cell phones, made of mud, but have the little details of a cell phone. They call each other and talk, just within earshot. They even hand the phone off to the other girls so that they can talk with whoever is on the other end. They also sing and dance whenever they get some free time, mostly during lunch. Singing and dancing is such a part of the culture here. It's pretty common to see the construction workers walking around campus, singing songs to themselves.
Big news from home...some of the guys from my Saturday morning hoops game have been holding charity fundraisers for the last few years. Past proceeds have gone to a battered women's shelter and to a widow and family of Capt. Matt Bancroft, a pilot who died in Afghanistan (who had actually won the previous tournament.) Well, this year the tournament was held with proceeds directed to the Bakhita Education Complex here in Balaka. These guys are really amazing. They raised $3200 for our school which will be used to pay for desks and chairs and some will go towards paying the salaries of the local teachers next year when our school enrolment will more than double. We can't buy enough textbooks either, so any amount left over will go towards books. In some of the classes we have a book for the teacher, and that's it. Other classes have 3 or more students sharing a book during class and we move the books from class to class. Thanks for making such a big and positive impact to this school, guys! A big thanks to a few others who have given generously to the school as well. St. Brigid's parish did a special fund-raiser as well in April. It's cool to see how God's providence is supporting this school...it really will make a difference in these girls lives to get some of the tools need for them to learn. (Commercial: If you'd like to contribute to the school, you can mail checks to the "Canossian Sisters, Daughters of Charity", P.O. Box 312, Balaka, Malawi. For tax deductible donations, send a check to the "VOICA Fund" at St. Brigid's Parish, 4735 Cass Street, San Diego, CA 92109 and put "Bakhita School in Malawi" on the memo line. Thank you all for supporting the school!)
Easter was very well celebrated here in the parish. There were many people dancing and singing throughout the Mass. It was about 2 1/2 hours long, just about a 1/2 hour longer than the ususal Sunday Mass. The Easter Vigil Mass was just short of 3 hours. They didn't do any baptisms a the Easter Vigil...they do the baptisms of adults the following week, because there are so many! Last year there were 675! All of the people come to the Balaka parish from the surrounding "outposts", of which there are 21. There are just a few priests, so a bunch of catechists go to the outposts for a Eucharistic service and they give a homily. I haven't been to any of them yet, but I'm sure that I will over the coming year. On Good Friday there was Eucharistic adoration in the morning and then Stations of the Cross Starting at 1:00. They Stations of the Cross were acted out with Jesus and the guards, the women of Jerusalem, and Mary and John. It was very theatrical and moving. They went all through the town with a huge crowd from the parish, Lutheran, and Anglican churches all together. It ended at the parish and moved into the Good Friday veneration of the Cross and Eucharist service. It was a very long day, going until after 6:00, but it really emphasized what the day is about.
We had an Easter break for about 10 days, but it's Fall break here instead of Spring Break. The days are much shorter than when we arrived in December and very pleasant. It's pretty cold in the mornings and not too hot at all in the afternoons, with a cool breeze blowing most of the time. I even turned the heat on the car a few times at night coming back from our language studies. It's supposed to get colder into June/July and then really hot from September to December. We had a hail storm in February and they called it snow and asked if I had ever seen snow before.
I've been meaning to write about some of the cultural differences... As opposed to Italy, there is no public display of affection between guys and ladies at all. The guys even sit on one side of the church and ladies and children on the other. It's very common for friends to walk down the street holding hands, guys even more than the girls. It's been really strange for me to have guys shake my hand and then pull me along to start walk with them and hold my hand. The other volunteers always get a kick out of it.
A guy from Italy is working for a non-profit org that is trying to teach how to improve the corn yields. He told us how difficult it is to change the way that things get done. They've always planted 3 pieces of corn in each hole..."one for God, one for the worm that comes to eat, and then one for me." It turns out that you tupically end up with 1 slightly stunted plant and 2 very stunted plants because they compete for the same soil nutrition. They've done many projects where they plant 1 piece per hole and get a much higher yield per acre, but the workers still go to their own fields and plant 3 pieces per hole.
I've been visiting Agogo Alexander Mkalande who is 90 years old, very sharp and has lots of stories to tell. He lives in a mud hut with a grass roof, no running water, and no electricity. He cooks one meal a day over a wood or charcoal fire. Here is a photo of him with his daughter (this is the only time that I've seen her around...)
Agogo Mkalande was a truck driver for 35 yrs in Tanzania and Zambia, was a boxer in Rhodesia in the 60's (gloves, no gloves, and sometimes with sticks...he assured me that he used to be very strong and that no one ever knocked him down.) He left Rhodesia in '70 because of war and became a fisherman on Lake Malawi for a while, and then he came to Balaka 20 years ago to work in the leprosy clinic. He speaks 7 or 8 languages and dialects. He played the guitar as well. He quit playing football in 1931 because his knee hurt. He and his wife had 8 kids. She was a traditional witch doctor, but he tried to discourage her from telling fortunes and practicing her craft. He said that she could tell you what you have in your pocket when you were 20 meters away. He said that many people, including azungus (white people) would come to see her. She died suddenly of a stroke over 30 years ago. He's only got 2 kids left, but they live over 100 km away. His brother is still alive but in bad shape and he hasn't seen him in many years. He's got a great raspy laugh when you joke with him about living to 100 or having 8 kids. He probably weighs 75 lbs and his left shoulder grinds and pops like you wouldn't believe when he moves it. He apparently had a mild stroke a couple of months ago and his left side doesn't work so well any more. He says his secret to longevity is getting up early and doing exercises eery day. He also says that if he wakes up in the middle of the night he'll sit on the edge of his bed and have a talk with God. It's very cool to have him tell me that he's been praying for me. He also talks of dreams in which St. Luke shows him heaven. The 3 girls that are living alone are near him and have started visiting him and bringing him his water. Very cool stuff!
I've become friends with a couple of guys from church as well. It's been pretty cool to just hang with them on Sunday afternoons, talk and play with their kids. Frank and his wife Trifonia have a 1yr old son and are also raising 3 AIDS orphans from one of their relatives. Little Matias had malaria a couple of weeks ago. We had the family over for lunch a couple of weeks ago to celebrate his 1st birthday. Poor little guy is afraid of us azungus. We couldn't get close to him at all. One morning on my way into town I saw a kid, about 4 yrs old, start screaming when he saw me walk past. A few days later his mom called to me and asked me to come into her yard. I noticed him leaning around someone to see me and then when I came into full view of him he went into hysterics screaming and waving his arms. I quickly left the poor little guy alone.
Another guy, Emanuel and his wife Grace just had a baby boy on 28 March. They've got two girls about 2 and 5. It is amazing how the younger one, Esther, pulled out a mat and invited me to come and sit and eat nsima (corn porridge) with her. The older one, Ella, was very involved with fixing the meal. Emmanuel asked me if I would name his son and I had to tell him no about 5 times. I finally deferred to Ella and she said that his name was Emanuel. They live outside of twon and grow all of their own vegetables. He took me over to visit one of his 7 brothers and I saw the kids playing tennis with small pieces of board, a tennis ball, and the court drawn in the dirt with a piece of bamboo for the net. They were serving into the opposite court and everything...having a blast. A long way from the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club, but very cool!
There is a grave yard next to our school grounds that we pass on the way into town. (There is a big wall all of the way around our school grounds, so we can't see right into the grave yard.) Well, in Malawi, people only go into the graveyards when there is a funeral. Many have the idea that the people buried there still kind of live there. So the chief of the village has to call out to them and let them know that people need to come in for a funeral and then he "opens it" by lifting a simple log from across the path. The grass is very high and there are some big trees growing in the cemetary, especially in the part where no one has been buried. It's a sanctuary for all kinds of animals. A few people have seen jackals around the graveyard in the evening...the trouble is that jackals are believed to be spirits raised from the dead and aren't wanted around at all. Some of the students said that they've seen them and the students who stayed after school to do the cleaning (we don't have a janitor) didn't want to walk past alone, so a teacher walked them past. We also saw a big monitor lizard in the road near there, which is a normal looking lizard, but is about 5 feet long and eats chickens whole. A few months ago I heard a hyena laughing at night. That was cool. In March we did a day trip to a game preserve about 50 km here. A family picked us up on the way into the park and ended up driving us all over the park to look at impala, kudu, water buck, baboons, monkeys, and to look for elephants. We didn't see any elephants, but we saw these huge piles of poo and big footprints. We saw lots of cool birds too. We get to see wildlife in our house as well. We have lots of lizards and geckos inside and some spiders that grow to about 5 cm in diameter. They run away from you and hide under things. I figure that they are getting big from eating bugs (hopefully the cockroaches), so it's good to have them around. We've had a few different kinds of "walking sticks" inside as well - very cool bugs. Outside I've seen some really big caterpillars and some really big moths and butterflies.
Everything is fine with my health (see photo on next page.) I've had a cough and runny nose for close to 2 weeks now, but it's on it's way out. Lisa from DC went to the hospital this morning for a blood test for a likely case of malaria. Another big deal was with Justyna from Poland. She had a huge (2 cm) ulcer on her back when she got back from Zambia (visit to family friends who are missionaries near Victoria Falls.) We think that a bug laid eggs in her clothes while they were on the line and then the larvae went into her skin and started to grow. (We've been warned about stuff like this.) It's all healed up, but it was pretty gnarly. I don't know if I've put it in the last update in February or not, but Lisa was stung by a scorpion a few months back, but it didn't bother her much, and we've since seen a couple of others in our house. The landscaping is filling in and these bugs should be moving on soon. My weight is stable at about 200 lbs, about 5 lbs less than when I left Rome. We've been eating avocados (w/ lemon and sugar-hmmm), guavas, bananas, pineapple, watermelon, mashmelon, pumpkin, oranges, lemons, custard apples, and fruit from boabob trees. Beans, rice, and nsima are staples. Cabbage, eggplant, sweet potatoes, and "Irish" potatoes have come into season as well. It seems like there is always something new coming into season. I didn't get any of the dried caterpillars, because they were gone by the time that I got there.
I don't feel like I've been making much progress on my language, but sometimes the words just come to you when you need them. I still don't understand a lot of what is said in church, but I'm catching more than I used to. It's more fun to see the kids when you can talk with them a bit. I don't know if I've mentioned it in past updates, but the l's and r's are completely interchangable, and many times reversed. Rain is often pronounced "lain," Florence and Jackleen often spell their names Frorence and Jackreen. Jenny from Wisconsin stopped into visit the 3 girls that live on their own and asked, "Where is Tisunge?" One said, "She's not alive." - "What! What happened?" I don't know, she's not back yet." -"Oohhhh! You mean she hasn't arrived back from holidays!" One time I was feeling like I was picking up the vocabulary pretty well when I was able to tell the girls who were going shopping that the Chichewa word for charcoal is makholo (sounds like coal, eh?) Well, when they asked where they could buy makkholo, they got strange looks from the normally eager vendors who find you anything you want to buy. They said, "I'm sorry, we don't have any." After a lot of side conversations from the vendors, it was discovered that they want makhala, not makholo. Makholo is the Chichewa word for parents! Everyone got a big laugh out of that.
I may have mentioned it already, but the idea of the "adventure" of living in Africa has pretty much worn off. I've gotten used to the power going off, walking 20 minutes into town to mail a letter or a little further to do the shopping, and e-mail not being readily available. But the little neighbor kids are still always so happy to see us. They come to slap me 5, but they call it "Tabwa!" which means board. It's cool to them if we get a good smack. You might have seen photos of kids with their eyes wide open staring into the camera. I get those looks from the kids everywhere I go. One of the kids went and told his friends that "I greeted him!" It's good to be a tall white guy. We don't hear them call us Azungu too much any more, now they call out our names. Even when we drive by, everyone in the car laughs when they hear the kids calling out "Mr. Johni!" The adventure of having us around hasn't worn off for them. I saw some kids on my way home from church on Easter Sunday, about 5 of them about 3 years old. They all came running out to slap me Tabwa. One of the girls had been eating a fist full of sugar and then came and slapped my hand. The other kids got mad at her because they got sugar on their hands when they hit my hand. One of them grabbed my hand and turned it over to look at the white skin. Another reached out and touched the "tsitsi" which is hair on my arm. I pulled up my sleeve and they were asking me about my watch and they wanted to know what my tie was. One of the little guys asked me where I live. I told him that I live at the school. Well he repeated what I'd said and then busted out laughing with all of the other kids. Some younger kids came over and they were afraid of me, but the other kids encouraged them to come over and take a look. They came over and shook my hand. Another time I was hurrying past a group of kids that were playing outside and they ran over and piled their hands in my hand. Then they each grabbed a different finger and started jumping up and down yelling "Johni! Johni!" I was expecting to say a quick hello, but this was quite a surprise. Who needs adventure when you're such an adventure to these kids?
For any potential visitors, the best time to come and visit is during the 1st week of August when we have a break from both the college and secondary school, or early in the New Year, or over Easter next year (probably the best time for the weather.) You can come at other times, but it will be difficult for me to get away from my classes.
Hey, thanks for checking in here. I hope that you are doing well. Thanks for all of your letters, e-mails, thoughts, and prayers. May God bless you!
Best regards, John.
This is the volunteer house where the 4 of us each have our own room with bathroom. Lisa goes home in December and then we get 2 more volunteers coming in. There is a spare room that will get converted to a bedroom with bathroom, so then there will be 5 of us! It's a very nice place. It's all about us being comfortable and healthty to work hard and teach the kids.
Below is a picture of the front of the school. The college administration office is on the right. The secondary school office is similar and off to the left. The class rooms can barely be seen, but they extend to the back about 100 m. There is a lot more to see, but it gives you some idea of what is here. Not shown is a dining hall about the same size as the main hall shown here, and a hostel with about 30 rooms, expected to hold 120 girls. The nuns are getting their new convent finished this month as well.
When it's all complete, there will be 400 students in the secondary school, 60 in the college, 5 volunteers, and up to 12 Canossian Sisters or so living on the grounds. This is all just the beginning.
Don't know when I'll get to put out another update, but I'll try and keep you posted on my news! Peace!
