Seventh week teaching

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On our way back from the airport on Saturday, there was an accident between a motorcyclist and a cyclist. We, (Shelby, Justin and I) were on bike taxis and we went back to make sure everyone was OK. The motorcyclist had cut his face and ear quite badly, the cyclist had a small cut on his leg. The bike had a buckled back wheel, the motorbike had some minor damage. Shelby took a photo of the motorcyclist’s face and sent it to the doctor at the local hospital, and we managed to persuade a passing car to take him to the hospital. He didn't want to go, he wanted to stay and argue about who was going to pay for the damage. The cyclist looked a bit chastened, but whether that was because he had caused the accident, or because he was less hurt, or just because the motorcyclist was a lot more vocal, was unclear. There were a few witnesses, a couple of women in the field and other passing cyclists, and Shelby said the talk was that the motorcyclist had been going too fast, but he felt the cyclist hadn't got out of the way quickly enough. There's no accident investigation here. The cyclist gave the motorcyclist's friend 1,000 kwacha, which probably wouldn't pay for the damage, but would be more than he earned in a day. And with his rear wheel being damaged, he wouldn't be able to earn anything.

We'd seen George and most of the site workforce up at the airport. They were at the bank trying to get out their wages which should have gone in, but hadn't. George was busy phoning the Landirani office, trying to sort it. It seemed strange seeing, them up there. I nearly didn't recognise Irene, the library assistant, she was wearing a dress with spaghetti straps, her hair in braids, no chitenje, or headscarf. I always take my chitenje off at the airport too, it seems more appropriate. Though I wear it all the time in the village, and teaching. I've bought five; three of which I'm having made up into knee trousers, a jumpsuit, and a dress. One i use to put on the floor for the children to sit on, if I'm teaching outside, and one I wear. I feel a bit undressed if i forget to put it on, though I've always got my knees covered,

In the library there was a gecko that one of the builders was trying to kick out. I went to pick it up, and the ungrateful beggar bit me. I suppose I should have picked it up by its tail, instead of carefully cupping my hands round it. That made made me drop it and it ran back in the library. I got it later, though, and picked it up by its tail this time.
I wish I could feel the same way about spiders as I do about frogs and lizards - which I can cheerfully pick up; it would make life here considerably less stressful.

I was starting to precis Romeo and Juliet for Chikondi as he thought the pupils would find it difficult, and it's one of their secondary school set books. Then I realised the book already had precised it. One or two sentences at the beginning of each scene said it all. He'd realised there were detailed notes on each scene, translating Shakespearean English into modern text, but had missed the simple sentence, that actually explains what's happening. I think Romeo and Juliet is particularly wordy. I saw it in the summer in tne back garden of a pub, and I remember thinking at the time, ‘Oh, get on with it,’ even though the acting was superb. The prologue ssys it hopes that the skill of the actors will make up for deficiencies in the play.
Anyway, I'm quite glad to be saved that chore. The next thing is to plan questions for the book we're going to read at the book group. (Thank you Pat, for the two signed copies of Leaving Home, about a Malawian boy who leaves his city home when his mother dies, and goes to live with his aunt in a village like this one. We're going to read that at the book club.)

I've just been for a walk round the site, everyone is busy working, trying to get buildings finished before the rains come. George, the site manager is so skilled at getting everyone focused, and as well as this site, he's supervising work at the new Landirani office site. He's also going to help me to put up boards in the classrooms. I'm going to get the teachers to help too.

I'm trying to keep memories of what I'll miss when I leave; there's the sky, sunsets, stars.moon, and the outside life. The sky is particularly interesting just now; there's quite a few clouds, and Sunday night they made the sunset quite different. A dark purple stream of cloud across the horizon looked like a range of mountains, with white cloud, tinged tangerine above that. I love washing my face about 6am each morning, outside under a blue sky, birds singing, maybe the sound of voices from families in the fields; cooking and eating in the open; how everyone is so friendly and greets you as you walk about.
The sparrows that are nesting in the thatch, and wake at sunrise and fly about under the eaves. One of them pooped on Shelby when she was in the bathroom.
The wonderful taste of a cup of tea, when you've had to wait till you've lit the fire, filled the pan, waited for the wood to catch, blown on the sparks to fan the flames. It tastes wonderful after waiting so long, though there is a distinctive woody, smoky taste, which may be Malawian tea bags, or the open fire. I won't miss the ants that are sometimes floating in the tea.
A colony of ants is building a nest between the table and the kitchen area. A few of them are running in and our of a hole in the ground depositing, grain by grain, darker sand from a lower level into a ring round the hole. Sometimes at night they pull a leaf onto the hole, but not always. They are very small ants, much smaller than the ones that stung me the other day when I inadvertently stood on a nest while i was chatting with George, but bigger than those that get in my tea.
There are sparrows here, and birds slightly smaller than sparrows, but with bright blue chests. Some of them nest in our roof, and sometimes perch inside on the open rafters, though I can't see what they look like through the mosquito net.
There is plenty of wildlife to see here but not much that's really wild, though there are snakes here. Goswing, one of the night watchmen showed us a snake he'd found in his kitchen here at the site. He'd killed it with a stick and a brick. I suppose I should wear closed in shoes at night. Though i don't walk round the site at night anyway.

Monday, for some reason, the school was shut, which I found out when I got there. So instead, I dealt with the rubbish. At home the only problem i have is making the lodgers understand what can be recycled, and what can't, and putting it in the appropriate colour bin. Here, we can compost food waste like veg and fruit peelings and tea bags. Meat and bones goes down the chim (chimedze - pit loo) so the dogs don't demolish the compost bin to get to it. Nothing is recycled apart from beer bottles which can be returned to the shop or bar. Everything else is burned or dumped - tin cans, beer cans, plastic bottles, plastic bags, etc. Glass and plastic bottles are used on the site as a building material. Set into rammed earth, they let in light. Trying to burn everything else is a headache, literally: after the last session my sinuses felt really inflamed. So not having to teach this morning i sorted through the rubbish. It needed it anyway, one of Bear's friends had pulled it all apart. Foil and silver coated items won't burn well and plastic is horrible to burn, so I washed any of these that needed it, and put it into strong carrier bags to make a football. Kids here make their own footballs with carrier or binbags, and tape, string or linya. I've made four this morning. I've also washed several tin cans which, if we get some hardboard from George, we can make into little stools. Squashed beer cans stuck on the bottom of polystyrene meat trays make little trays, plastic bottle caps have been washed and the nursery can use those for sorting and counting. We've already stuck bottle tops on cardboard as table mats for the pans. (The bottoms get black from the fire, and we don't wash the bottoms, just the insides).
There really is a gap in the market here for recycling. Tin can recycling surely can be fairly lucrative?
I've also stuck pictures of animals onto paper which I will get laminated, then cut into four piece puzzles for the nursery. I showed them to the nursery assistant, ‘What's that?’ she said pointing to the penguin, so I said I'd label them all. That took a while. It's not just a case of looking in the dictionary. They only have names for the animsls they are familiar with, and not even all the African animals. I had a picture of a meerkat from Botswana, which is not that far away, and there were some in Zambia, just west of here, but Malawians don't have a name for them. They don't have a name for pandas, seals, cheetahs, tigers or gorillas either. There's a long sentence in the dictionary, giving a basic description. Penguin is something like ‘a bird that doesn't fly, and swims in the sea and lives in Antarctica.’ It all seems very vague. If they have a Chichewa name, I wrote it. If they didn't, I wrote the English name, and put the description in Chichewa on the back.

The painter who is painting the sentences on tne school wall came to get paid though he hasn't quite finished. Shelby said she'd have been a harder nut and refused to pay till he'd finished, but he came up with why he needed paying today and assured me he'd finish tomorrow. The deputy Head vouched for him, so I trusted him. I'll have his guts for garters if he doesn't finish. On Tuesday I started taking Standard 5. The teacher was quite old and the kids were very raucous. They were all shoving at each other in the doorway to be chosen to come, and he was shoving them back in. They were like animals, but when I had my group of 16 out of the classroom, I made them line up quietly, and they were like lambs. I asked Chikondi about the teacher, and apparently he drinks and is often out of the classroom. When I collected the second group, I asked him to tell the children to sit down before choosing the group, but he let the melee carry on, so when i collected the third group, I said I wasn't taking anyone until they were all sitting down quietly and I would choose who would come.
This third group I took in the outside annexe, on three of the mats I'd bought, as a large group from the younger classes had arrived at tne library when their school time had finished.
It's wonderful how children and adults are now coming in regularly. Sam Palmer, Heather's son made a swing seat out of bamboo that hangs outside and it often has a few children sitting on it looking at books.
Wednesday was another holiday so I went into the CBCC, (Community-based Children's Centre) and took them in a few materials, and showed them some books that they will be able to boorow from the library. There were only four children in there, because of the school holiday, so i played the lotto picture game that I've been using with lots of groups. One little mite posted one of the pictures between tne floorboards, so I had to come back and try to draw a replica so the game will still work. It's going to be kept in the library too, with some teachers’ materials. I trust Chikondi to look after things more carefully than the school staff, so hopefully I can use them again when I come back.
I spent the day sorting through teaching stuff, as I'm on the downward stretch now.
Thursday I took the rest of Standard 5 in groups; the last group consisted of seven girls - six 14-year-olds, and one ten-year-old. After the story we did some dictionary work, and I noticed that two of the older girls could hardly spell simple Chichewa words, and their friends helped them. I'd wondered about reading difficulties. In the UK I think 3℅ of the population is dyslexic, so presumably it's the same figure internationally.
Each of the groups I showed some of the painted sentences on the school wall and asked them some of the questions.
I tried doing a simple play of the 3 billy goats gruff, with one group, but I'll need to do a complete group readthrough first. So I typed up the play so I can get multiple copies laminated. I've given a few sets of simple plays to the library, so I would like to get some of them enthusiastic about trying them out. After school I walked down to the shops for bread and tomatoes. The Head stopped me and asked where I was going. It seems strange sometimes, a different culture; Malawians are very hot on greeting each other with a ritual of ‘how are you, I am well, are you well, thank you’, and if this is omitted it is rude, but their questions about ‘where you are going, and why, and what have you got in your bag’, can seem very intrusive, but it's just part of the interested culture. Shelby has her new boyfriend coming for the weekend, and she asked George about how she would be perceived in the community. He said it would be fine if he stays in our compound of Sam's viilage, but that if she was going to the vilage shops, to leave Justin behind, rather than walking down tne high street with him, past all the groups of gossiping men or women. (When I say ‘compound’ I don't mean a gated community, there are no fences. Just the area where the buildings are going up. The builders and workers in tne garden are used to Westerners, they even got used to Steve wandering about sometimes without a shirt on, though when he wanted to sunbathe in his underpants Shelby and I made him stay in our personal fenced-round garden.)
Anyway, after the Head had asked me all about my shopping, he said he had noticed the difference in the learners, that they were speaking more English, and that I had helped a lot and he hoped I would come back again. I was glad to hear that, as sometimes I think I'm not having much impact, other than getting the kids into the library. This is itself is lovely to see - seeing kids engaged with a book, reading to themselves and showing each other things in the pictures.
I've given the pencils and exercise books to the Head and he will give them to learners who don't have any.
On Thursday there was some thunder and a few spots of rain, enough to drive us indoors,though it only lasted a few minutes, and I could leave my washing outside.

Friday I went into town to get work printed, photos printed, laminating done, and to book my flights. It was all a bit complicated, involving going to the Landirani office, travel agents, airlines, stationer's etc. And it started to rain. Not very hard, but irritating that I've brought an umbrella and waterproof from the UK and left them in the village. It's not cold though and it didn't rain hard. I had intended to stay in a tent at Mabuya, partly because its only $9 a night, compared with $30 for a chalet. The tents look comfortable, with proper beds and bedding, but after it started raining I thought I have enough experience of camping in the rain from the UK, I really don't need any more, so I upgraded to a proper chalet with cement flooring from my chalet to the loos, an important consideration for night time loo trips in the wet.
I've got two of the outfits I've had made up from chitenjes, the dress and the below-the-knee shorts. I love the shorts, I hope the dress looks OK, I haven't seen it on me yet.
A meal that I haven't need to cook or wash up from, and a hot shower, is the luxury that Mabuya offers, as well as a bedside light and WiFi, and a full English breakfast the next morning. I did the rest of the chores Saturday morning, the Sam's Village booklet looks quite good, and the abc charts are laminated. I got a tuk tuk to the airport, a bit blowy, but an experience, and cheaper than a cab, and then two bicycle taxis for me and all the stuff I had.
I got back just at 2pm, when the book group was due to start, but Chikondi was late, and we waited till 2.45 until we had about 5 people. It went OK, people seem keen to come, but they want us to do the set books from secondary school, Romeo and Juliet and Smouldering Charcoal, a novel written by a Malawian about two families set in a corrupt African state. And the group asked for questions that there are correct answers to, in the text, rather than, ‘Why do you think that character...?’ type of questions.
Anyway I've started reading the Smouldering Charcoal book, and for the first chapter about the drunkard father with a sixth child on the way, I think we can ask the group to make a family tree with ages and names. Also, to promote the English speaking aspect, we can ask what type of husband/ father is he and list a load of adjecttives that they can select from. I'm conscious that one of the group is my regular bike taxi rider who wants to improve his English, and I want to make the group work for him too.
I shall only be here for the next two Saturdays, and then Chikondi will run it on his own.
We've been productive round the house today; Justin suggested the handle of the broken broom could be used to pr up tne bamboo s reem we have as a sunscreen over the picnic table. Steve prped one side on wood screwed to the table, but didn't have a post to do the other side. Then Justin suggested tne tiny bit of brush left from tne bottom of tne broom could be used round the fire in the kitchen. Shelby and I devised a cover for the loo roll by the urinal, as the last one got wet in the rain. We used half of a large water bottle, with a spindle through the middle.
Then I've been very productive on school stuff. I cut up tne animal pictures i had laminated, but had to sellotape all the cut edges. I've made up three water bottles, one empty (quiet and light), one half full of bottle tops (medium heavy and noisy) and one filled with sand (medium noisy and heavy). I'm going to go into the CBCC this week, and give them the picture puzzles, show them some charts amd board books that will be in the library, and show the staff a couple of activities, I've made up two little balls, one covered in silver (a crisp bag turned inside out has a silver lining: it's ghastly to burn and gives off thick smoke,but filled with a few bits of packaging it makes an attractive squashy ball). The photos i had printed came in a strong pink bag, so I've made that into a ball top. I'll get them to pass it round and say their names, or name an animal or something you can eat. To be frank, any activity that gets them thinking rather than just parroting what the teacher says, is good. Like I've said before, I can't change the curriculum, I'm just trying to tweak it a bit. Though I'd love to get my hands on the twerp who wrote the textbooks, and just ask him what the learning intention is, and where is the relevance, and the continuity, and how about all the mistakes?

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