Hello, I hope this finds you all well.
There's not a lot to report since I last updated my blog. I spent another week at Chimwemwe, one of the Joshua feeding centres. I'm finding the situation there very stressful at times. There are now two very good, very dedicated teachers called Violet and Monica which is great news, unfortunately I seem to be fighting an ongoing battle with the committee of caregivers. They have a rota so that there are at least four present each day, each caregiver comes in to help out once a week, and it should always be the same group of women each day so for example every Monday we should have the same four women helping out – two in the kitchen cooking the meals and two in the classroom aiding Violet and Monica with behaviour control. Unfortunately it is a rare occasion to have all four caregivers present, and over the course of four weeks I have only ever seen one caregiver helping in the classroom. With the help of Stevie who very kindly translates for me I usually talk to the women present about how important it is that they help in the classroom, but it's always another week (minimum) before I see them again, giving them plenty of time to forget their role! Earlier this week only one of the four caregivers turned up in the morning, so when she went to fetch water from a nearby borehole the guard ended up cooking the porridge! Definitely not in his job description...
I then spent a few days at the school where Lizzie is working. I won't describe it in too much detail, as most of you will hear all of this from Lizzie (email erheyes@gmail.com if you want to be added to her list so you can receive her email updates) but I'll give you a basic idea. It's a private primary school (associated with the Elim Church for those of you who've heard of this) with a few free places for children who can't afford school, sponsored by the fee-paying students.
[Side note: Government primary schools are free in theory, but in practice it seems some have introduced special fees (non-optional as I understand it) for various ridiculous things which means that pupils have to pay on a termly basis or they are not allowed to attend. It's not a huge sum, but it is more than many families can afford – especially when some have many children. Also, government primary schools are HUGE. Upwards of 90 pupils per teacher, and the teachers don't necessarily always turn up! Primary school is from ages 6-14 give or take, but you can't progress up a year until you pass so there can be quite an age range in the class. Lessons are taught in Chichewa for the first four years, but then in English for the rest of school.]
Back to the Elim school...There are eight classes (one per year) and eight teachers (one of whom is the head!) Lizzie helps out in standard 5 – this is the first year which is taught in English, and the class teacher is the headmistress who seems to spend much more of her time out of the classroom than in it. This is understandable as she has many duties as the head of the school, but is an absolute joke for the class who, until Lizzie joined them, were often left on their own with nothing to do and no idea when the teacher would return. Now that Lizzie is helping out with that class it means they're never left without a teacher, but the teacher has left in the middle of quite a few lessons, expecting Lizzie to carry on where she left off. Now this isn't a problem for some subjects, but when this happens in the middle of an agriculture lesson it can pose a slight problem for her! An interesting observation is that many schools have non-uniform days every Wednesday purely for the practical reason that most pupils can only afford one school uniform so they are given Wednesdays as a laundry day! I taught my very first lesson whilst I was there – I tried to introduce them to the concept of symmetry. In hindsight, this wasn't my best decision. Symmetry is one of the more descriptive topics in maths, and my chichewa is definitely not up to that standard! When asked how it was Lizzie simply said it was OK. Not sure whether teaching is something I should be pursuing after all!
After my few days at the Elim school I returned to Chimwemwe to begin my health monitoring programme. There was a slight hiccup at the beginning when I realised I had forgotten a tape measure, but I was saved at the last minute from having to make one using a ruler and paper! It went pretty well, although I was surprised at how few children there were for it, but it made the day a slightly less stressful experience! I was pleasantly surprised by the results – most children seemed to be of a fairly healthy weight (although a lack of reliable scales or accurate dates of births does make the results slightly suspect!) with only a few children in need of particular attention. The other surprise was that every single mother of the 35 children weighed claimed to be HIV negative. Given that there is a 20% incidence of HIV here in Malawi, and this was a selection of people from one of the poorer areas of Malawi you'd expect to have a few positive results so I'm not entirely sure what's going on there, or how to deal with it, but I'll find a way :)
The fuel situation out here is interesting, to say the least...! When we first arrived back in September there were no problems with fuel at all as far as we could tell. After about a month living here, the fuel crisis hit. It was much worse for Diesel than for Petrol (absolutely no idea why) but there were long queues for each. In October we queued for over four hours to fill up the tank in our petrol car. It stayed like this pretty much the whole time until mid-January, with occasional periods when petrol was fairly easily obtained. Then, totally out of the blue, the whole problem ended. For a month from mid-January to the middle of February both petrol and diesel were easily obtained, with no fuel queues to be seen anywhere! Then, a couple of weeks ago it returned, but this time around petrol is more tricky to get hold of than diesel. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to this, except a huge lack of forex in the country, and the situation can completely change over night!
Another funny observation which I don't think I have yet remarked upon is that in the Chichewa language, the letters l and r are basically interchangeable. On my daily walk to the feeding centre I go past the Mudi Frorist, I've driven past a Groly Shop a few months ago, many English words which are used for names are spelt funny (Chality, Frolence, Maly etc.), and I've been in a pre-school where the 'Dairy Routine' is painted up on the wall!! It's a good cause for a giggle every now and again.
Last week I successfully completed my 48 hour fast. Thank you so much to all of you who sponsored me! I'm really looking forward to spending it on the children, and I'll upload photos onto here of what the money is used for. (If you haven't already, and want to, you can still sponsor me – if you email me at julietheyes@gmail.com then I can send you my bank details and you can do a bank transfer, or alternatively you can post it to my sister – address on request).
And last, but by no means least, Vic has joined us at last! Along with Dan. They arrived safely on Sunday evening, and the whole Heyes clan is now back together again at last :)
Love,
Juliet/Julez x
No comments:
Post a Comment