St. Brigid Roman Catholic Church
Journal Entry - August 30, 2003
Here is a picture of my on my birthday this year with my friend's son, Mattias.
Checking in with me...
I'm way behind on replying to e-mail, but you can send e-mail at the above address. It is a shared account, so please put "John" in the subject line and it will get to me with no trouble.
If you'd like to send me a letter via snail mail, send it to me at
Bakhita Education Complex
PO Box 312
Balaka, Malawi
Africa
There are some calling cards out there that let you call Malawi "for as low as" 12 cents per minute. If you'd like to give me a call, you can reach me (from the US) at 011 265 8 861 453. (Please keep in mind that we are 8 or 9 hours ahead of the Pacific Time Zone.)
People have been very generous with donations to the school. I'm intending to thank everyone individually, but it's taking me a while to get to it. If you'd still like to contribute directly to the school, you can mail personal checks to:
The Canossian Sisters, Daughters of Charity, PO Box 312, Balaka, Malawi. For Tax deductable donations, you can send a check to the "VOICA Fund" at St. Brigid's Parish, 4735 Cass St., San Diego, CA 92109 and put "Bakhita School in Malawi" on the Memo Line. Thank you all so much for supporting the school.
Below is a picture of some of the girls in the class room (equivalent of 9th grade.)
The time is really flying by here for me-on both the large and small time scales.The months feel more like weeks and the days really fly by. (I can't believe that my last web update was over 3 months ago.) People often talk about things taking so long in Africa. I can't say that I'm bucking this trend, but I think that it is because so many basic things take so long to accomplish.
We've finished the 2nd term in the Secondary School, with the 3rd Term starting Monday. We have just passed the 1/2 way mark of the school year in the college as well. Speaking of time flying by, 34 has come quicker than I expected. I've recalled my 1 year anniversary from leaving work at HP and then my 1 year anniversary from leaving San Diego. These were big milestones and I certainly recall many good times and experiences that I miss, but I'm also very glad to be doing this mission. I also recall that the trigger point for my decision to "go and do it" was when I realized that I would regret not having this experience if I didn't do it. I recall all of the barriers and fears that I had with respect to doing this and they seem like such little things now. I'm very thankful to have this opportunity and to get to experience this.Certainly no regrets, aside from being gone from family and friends.One great big boost is that everyone is doing very well with the nice thoughts, prayers, letters and phone calls that keep me up to date with what is going on back home. (I'm ashamed to admit it, but I've got e-mails more than 3 months old that I haven't been able to respond to. I'm hoping to get to all of them at some point though, later rather than never.)
Teaching has been going pretty well. I made some changes to the way I taught classes which has made it easier for me and more effective for the students. The biggest change was that I carefully separated them into study/work groups, paring the weakest students with the strongest students and allowing them to speak to each other in Chichewa during their work time. The 2nd term was comprehensive for the year and the average scores increased by more than 10%. Yeah!
I'm the advisor for the Accounting students in the college. All of the staff have been working hard to get the students motivated to do their assignments and study for the tests. They were extremely lazy to start the year. It seemed like the basic thing was that these girls didn't have any plans. They were coming to school to become secretaries or accountants mostly because it is better than doing nothing and they hope to get a job. But they weren't studying, they didn't do the simplest of assignments, and they acknowledged that they just weren't working very hard. So we've been talking about this as a different kind of poverty than the financial poverty. After they saw their term grades for the 1st term, they've all buckled down to work much harder and progress seems to be getting made. It's beginning to look more like a college around here with the students hanging around after classes to work and study together. They are coming to study on weekends now as well.
The principal of the college and I have had lots of discussions regarding their motivations and lack of personal goals and what we can try to do to improve their performance. I lead a few assembly sessions regarding core values, personal goals, and strategies to achieve their goals. One thing we did was to have them look back over their last 5 years and think about the changes and successes that they've had and then think about the next 5 years about what is possible for them and what they want. Some of them really seemed to latch onto these exercises and they have gotten a bit of a spark. That was pretty cool and enjoyable for me to see and somehow be a part of. Out of those sessions and other conversations with the principal, I was recommended to teach the Values Education class to the college students this term and I gave up my 9th grade class to accommodate the schedule. My 9th grade students have been saying that they miss me and that they want me back, which I take as compliment. Now I just have some of the students coming to "Math Club" where we try to make math fun and get another pass at the information that they are learning in class.
In my Values class in the college, I don't teach them values, we just talk about what values are and we discuss the values demonstrated by Jesus, some Saints, and other good role models throughout history. I have them do worksheets and exercises to help them become more aware of their values. I also have them writing journals to relate the different things we talk about in class to their own lives. Reading these journals has been incredible. They write things like "I wasn't aware that I had any values, but now I realize how important they are to me." I was caught off guard when food was listed as such a high value for so many of the students, but it is appreciated as a basic necessity for life and they've all lived through some tough times here in Malawi over the last few years. I "wowed" them with the now very familiar demonstration of having a jar filled with rocks, and then showing that it's not really full because you can add gravel, sand, and then even water. Then we discussed how the big rocks are an analogy for the really important things in life, the gravel for less important things, and then the sand and water the little things that take up our time. Part of the lesson is that unless we fill up the jar with the big rocks first, there is no room for the big rocks after the jar is filled with gravel, sand, and water. Now we are following this up with identifying personal ideals with which to guide our lives. It's a fun class to teach.
Another big project I've been working on is getting a student government started. We are going to have separate meetings for the college and the secondary school and we are going to have offices of President, Secretary, and Treasurer. Rather than have one person be the advisor for the whole thing, we have separate mentors for each office. I'm going to be the mentor for the presidents. We've got a list of projects that we want the organizations to take on, but we need to work through the elections and get things rolling first.
I got an e-mail from a former student of the sisters who found my website while doing a search on the Bakhita Education Center. She finished her studies from the school in 1996, was able to go to the University of Malawi to study electrical engineering. She finished in 2001 and then got a scholarship to go to Malaysia for an additional degree which she will finish next year. It's cool to hear about former students getting to go abroad to study. It was also cool to get the connection with her through this website.
An officer in one of the big banks of Malawi asked one of the Canossian Sisters here to let him know if we have any trustworthy students graduating that he can hire. He said that he has 2 problems: one is that he can't trust many of the people that are working in the banks and the other is that he has to hire 20 people a year into the bank to replace deaths. It is pretty energizing to imagine that after next year, students will start entering the work force and all of the work that we are doing will start to bear fruit, with these ladies becoming leaders and hopefully good role models in their environments. Every year, another wave of young ladies that have had psychology, values, and ethics classes in addition to their technical training will go out into Malawi. It is expected that these women will be a big source of positive change for this country for a long time to come.
It hasn't been all work though. We went backpacking up in the mountains in June. The trails are pretty well maintained by the government, but they pretty much go straight up and down the mountain. Tough hiking, but really cool. We stayed in a cabin with a groups of Canadians, French, and Israelis.
This is a photo of Mt. Mulanje, which has the highest mountain in Malawi at 3000 meters.
We passed some guys coming down the mountain in their bare feet, carrying big chunks of wood (8" x 10" x 7ft or 20 x 25 x 215 cm!) on their heads. They said that they carry the wood about 10 km and then sell it at the bottom for about $3.50. I didn't ask whether they had any job openings.
Another cool thing that they have on the mountain is a porter's race where they run an amazing distance with a lot of vertical change in a little over 2 hours. They have a plaque with the times getting clipped shorter every year.
On another day walked out through the country side about 9 km to visit an orphanage. These children have lost their mothers in child birth, or to AIDS, or maybe have been abandoned. They are raised until they are 4 or 5 years old and then they get taken back by their families when they are older. There is a group of about 8 or 10 children ranging from just a few weeks to 18 months old in one room, then another room for the older kids. The little ones just love to be held and the older kids come running, climb all over you, look in all of your pockets, walk around in your shoes, pinch my cheeks, pull on my beard and the hair on my arms, and sometimes just stair in wonder. It's really fun. There are also some severely handicapped kids who live out there and get to go to school. They are all happy to see us coming and they come running on their knees, on carts, on crutches, and in wheel chairs. They like to read these big books with pictures and stuff. So many wonderful smiles and lots of fun all around.
A few months ago after a math tutoring session with a guy from a nearby school, he asked me if I know Arnold Schwarzenager or Sylvester Stalone. Then he asked me were they get all of the people that they kill in the movies. He showed real concern for the people, and had the idea in his head that they might actually be killing people in the making of the movies. He had trouble believing that they weren't really dead because you could see them getting blown apart. Ahh, the far reaching special effects of Hollywood.
The arrest and deportation of 5 al Queda members from Malawi in July caused quite a stir here in Malawi. The only inside scoop that I got was that the people who trashed a "Save the Children" office went in, asked the workers to leave and assured them that it wasn't personal, but that they wanted to send a message to the US. After the people collected their things, the mob trashed their offices. Then down in Blantyre, about 125 km away from Balaka, some people felt like the Malawi Muslim Association hadn't done enough to protect them or keep them from being deported and so they burned all their files and really tore the place up. The 2nd wave of rumors/news said that a priest was beaten up and his car was burned. Then the mob was headed to the Bishops' residence but the police dispersed the crowd. The President of Malawi (who is Muslim) was really ticked off at them and said that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated. No excitement around here though.
The US Embassy holds the US Independence Day celebration a week early every year so that it doesn't conflict with the Malawian Independence celebrations which are on July 6. So I made the journey to the Ambassador's house in Lilongwe, the capital. 5 hours each way on a really crowded bus. I helped an old woman get her luggage on the bus and then the driver popped the clutch and she came flying into the front seat on top of me. I helped another lady with her luggage by holding on to the live chicken for her while she loaded her things. Another guy brought a huge box of dried fish on the bus. That's almost a requisite for the crowded bus rides here. Just in case you like the 5 people with 3 kids sitting in a row designed for 4, the dried fish stench really stretches the miles out even longer. The photo here tells a little bit of the story. So, anyway, back to the Ambassador's house... There were about 100 Peace Corp volunteers there. I talked for a good while with the head honcho, Mr. Ambassador, who has since left because his term is over. It was cool to sing the national anthem and see the kids do a tug of war, 3 legged race, and an obstacle course. There was even a pie contest and the Dutch apple pie won! An "all American" day.
Our latest adventure was a retreat/vacation up to the northern region of Malawi. We waited for buses at the depot here in Balaka from 8 pm until the last possible bus came at 1 am and was completely full. We came home and then hit the road the next morning at 6 am to catch minibuses. At one of the bus stops, the vendors came up to the window to sell "Bin Laden bread." They call it that because "It's heavy stuff." It was about 8 hours on cramped minibuses to reach there, but then it was a very nice and relaxing time to reflect on our time in mission and to get caught up with the others. We met up with a couple of other volunteers from Tanzania (oooh! - a 20 hour bus ride each way for them.) They went through the VOICA formation in Rome with us. We stayed right next to the lake. The fishermen would go out fishing at night and then come back in the morning. They would sell fish on the shore to some women who would then take it to the market. This is a photo of a couple of the fisherman heading towards home at sunrise after selling their fish.
Another cool thing that I'd never heard of before was the smoke that we could see coming off of the lake. It looked like there was a good sized fire burning somewhere out on the lake. It turns out that it wasn't smoke, but a hatch of insects! They said that the swarms rarely come to shore, but it being a really thick swarm. Well, wouldn't you know it that they came ashore while we were there! They were like small mosquitoes that get in your eyes, ears, and nose. It wasn't a big swarm and it wasn't where we were staying, but we walked through it a couple of times to go into town.
There was big steep hill going down to the lake. There were a group of women carrying pails of sand and water up and down the hill throughout the day. Some with up to a 1 year old baby strapped on their back. Up and down the stairs all day. They sell the sand to construction companies and the water is used for mixing clay to make bricks. I briefly thought of what it would be like to explain to these women the concept of a stairmaster. It's just a totally different world.
Here is a colorful view of the market that we passed on the way back from the vacation.
On the way home I stopped to visit a friend of mine who had gone home to visit his family up north. The families here are matriarchal, so I was introduced to his grandmother, mother, and eldest sister. It was a quick visit, but I was glad to be able to meet his family and get a little more insight into the culture. We used the whole week for the vacation, so it's one of those times where you come back from vacation pretty tired and jump right back into work.
So the mice are in season now. There are a lot of kids selling them along the roads and I was offered some when I walked past one of my students who was preparing to cook some for dinner. They boil them for about 20 minutes and then pinch them between sticks and cook them over the charcoal. They eat the whole thing - fur, bones and all - except the teeth. I've heard that it tastes like liver and someone else said that they like it better than sausage.
I heard on BBC Africa that a guy in Sierra-Leon had won the largest lottery payout yet all by himself. He said that he was going to buy some real estate and some land to farm, and get his whole family together for a big party. He was really excited and he sounded like he'd won millions and millions of dollars, but it turns out that it was the equivalent of $35,000. It's way more than what most people in Africa can imagine, but we probably don't spend much time dreaming about what we would do with $35,000.
We've had a good long stretch of good health here. A couple of students had malaria during their finals, but much fewer cases now in the dry season. No problems with us volunteers or the sisters. Oh yes, it's been down right cold here during July, (probably only down to the 40's though.) Today was the hottest day we've had in a while and they tell us to expect it to just keep heating up throughout August and September and then lasting through November and into December when the rains come. I've been getting some running in a few times a week. I also had the builder put in a pull-up bar. It took a couple of iterations to get it right because they didn't know what it was. I use it but I was surprised at how much the secondary school students like it.
So time continues to fly by. We are beginning to talk about things like "Well, this time a year ago, we were ." and we each recall how we were each on our way to Rome. Lisa goes back to Rome in just 4 months and there are 2 new volunteers coming. They will be reporting to Rome for their formation in a matter of weeks now. It will be fun to have the new volunteers show up.
We've just had the parents of Jenny and Lisa come for visits of one and 3 weeks. It was nice to get some "shop talk" in with their dads and I realized how good it is to have guys around to talk about things that matter to guys (that the girls don't seem to care much about) and then to see them role their eyes over the things the ladies were talking about. They brought lots of gifts and really chipped in with cleaning up after dinner and doing little things around the school. It seemed like their visit was so far away when they first started planning it and now it's come and gone. That's about all that I have for now. Thanks for checking into my web page to see how I'm doing. Thanks for all of your thoughts, prayers, and letters. It's great to hear from home and I hope that all is going well for you.
