Hello!
So I forgot my camera cable and can't upload my own photographs of the kids for you to see, but I'm stealing some from the Littlefield Home computer for the time being so you can get a chance to see what I see every day...
I have been responsible for teaching the youngest children who are in standard 1 (sort of equivalent to our first grade) for the past few weeks...Mostly just the boys come to class because the girls seem to be too busy helping the older women with laundry or caring for babies to attend class. Yes, even first graders are babysitters here. It's not uncommon to see Dija, one of the youngest girl orphans, carrying a baby on her back wrapped in a scarf (called a shitenge) when she comes to class.
We have been doing the alphabet, counting, learning colors and shapes, and most recently articles of clothing. We play a lot of games like duck, duck, goose, hide and seek, and sing songs. I'm teaching them "I like to eat, eat, eat, apples and bananas" as well as "I believe I can fly." It's sometimes extremely frustrating when none of the kids are paying attention or they start fighting but some days one or two kids seem to understand what I'm trying to get across and that makes me feel like I am accomplishing something. It’s definitely more tiring teaching a 2 hour class that you would think!!! After classes are over I am wiped out.
Usually, the kids go to school in the mornings and then we teach them for 2 additional hours in the afternoons. Most of the kids are years behind where they should be in school—we went to their “moving-on” ceremony last week (on their last day of school) and found that most of the kids failed their classes this year and will have to repeat their grade over again. I guess this is pretty common for the district we are in, which is very poor and has the worst schools in the country. Even the kids who did move to the next grade have mostly C’s and D’s on their report cards.
The school our kids go to is a single block, meaning two class rooms with maybe 20 desks in each classroom. What’s ridiculous is that this school serves over 500 kids, so many have to have class outside, and who knows if the kids even show up to school—no one here keeps track. So we hold the additional classes in the afternoons to try and give the orphans at Littlefield a “leg up,” so to speak, since the schooling they are getting is not what it should be. Now that school is out, we will be holding a 2 hour class in the mornings and then doing some fun activity with them in the afternoons—arts and crafts or sports or something. We have been working on a mural in the boy's dorm and I have been playing a lot of soccer with the boys! They school me though they are sick nasty at soccer!!
If you want to read more about the kids, my friend Kelley has set up a super cool blog with bios and beautiful photographs of the kids (She is a professional photographer, or as the kids call it “fat grapher”). The link is http://kelleyriley.tumblr.com
Friday, August 13, 2010
Friday, August 6, 2010
Monica!
Monica. That’s what all the children call me here because they can’t say Marika. The kids range in age from infants to 15 or 16—the oldest kids are away at secondary school (that’s equivalent to our high school). The kids are sooooo cute though I love them all.
So I will tell you the story of one of my little friends named Ibrahm. Last week he came into the main house and was pointing to his mouth, so we look inside and he has a back molar tooth completely rotting out. So this past week we decide to take him to the Machinga district hospital in Liwonde, which is an hour car ride away and is the largest hospital in the district. We also take a few other kids who are sick or need to see a specialist for hearing or glasses. Our transportation is a big pick-up truck and so 4 Americans and five kids pile in the bed of the pick up truck and we take off down the bumpy dirt road that leads from our orphanage to the main highway and Liwonde.
A little ways down the road a man from our village flags us down. His sister is sick and he is wondering if we can take her to the clinic too. We stop and wait for his sister, meanwhile he has transferred a pile of sticks, pots and pans, and a small suitcase into the bed of the pick-up. It looks like he will be spending the night in Liwonde after we drop them off at the hospital. His sister is carried into the bed of the pick-up truck because she is too weak to walk herself. She is all skin and bones, and from the looks of it very sick and she cries as we drive down the road from the bumps and jolts of the truck.
We reach the hospital and I get in the dentist line with Ibrahm. I don’t speak much Chichewa so it is tricky for me to figure out which line to stand in since there are three leading to the one door of the dentist office. I chose one randomly and it turns out to be the right one because we go inside and a nurse is there to write down Ibrahm’s name on a log of patients for the day. Then he gets two novicaine shots in his mouth and we return to outside the office to wait in another line—this one for tooth extraction. The line is about 20 people long and now that Ibrahm has been in the dentists office he knows what's coming. He won't look at me or talk to me and he is PISSED! The dentist shows up and the line starts moving....quickly! After 10 minutes it's Ibrahm's turn and as soon as we get inside the dentists I see why the line is going so fast: The dentist has patients lined up and he just goes from one chair to the next pulling out teeth with his pliers in an assembly line. Ibrahm's tooth is so rotted away that when the dentist goes to pull it out it just disintegrates in his mouth. Ouch! He's a brave little guy though and he barely cries. All I can think is how if it were me in the dentist's chair I would want more than a few novicaine shots and tylenol to help me through a tooth extraction. The dentist tells Ibrahm "see you next week" because he has to have two more teeth pulled. so it goes.
The moral of this story is the kids here are very brave, they don't complain or cry, and are generally very happy-go-lucky. As soon as we got back to the orphanage, Ibrahm was back with his buddies, playing in the dirt and I think he forgave me for taking him to the dentist because later that night we read together during "reading time" and he sat on my lap and fell asleep.
I will try and upload a picture for you guys to see some cute faces:
So I will tell you the story of one of my little friends named Ibrahm. Last week he came into the main house and was pointing to his mouth, so we look inside and he has a back molar tooth completely rotting out. So this past week we decide to take him to the Machinga district hospital in Liwonde, which is an hour car ride away and is the largest hospital in the district. We also take a few other kids who are sick or need to see a specialist for hearing or glasses. Our transportation is a big pick-up truck and so 4 Americans and five kids pile in the bed of the pick up truck and we take off down the bumpy dirt road that leads from our orphanage to the main highway and Liwonde.
A little ways down the road a man from our village flags us down. His sister is sick and he is wondering if we can take her to the clinic too. We stop and wait for his sister, meanwhile he has transferred a pile of sticks, pots and pans, and a small suitcase into the bed of the pick-up. It looks like he will be spending the night in Liwonde after we drop them off at the hospital. His sister is carried into the bed of the pick-up truck because she is too weak to walk herself. She is all skin and bones, and from the looks of it very sick and she cries as we drive down the road from the bumps and jolts of the truck.
We reach the hospital and I get in the dentist line with Ibrahm. I don’t speak much Chichewa so it is tricky for me to figure out which line to stand in since there are three leading to the one door of the dentist office. I chose one randomly and it turns out to be the right one because we go inside and a nurse is there to write down Ibrahm’s name on a log of patients for the day. Then he gets two novicaine shots in his mouth and we return to outside the office to wait in another line—this one for tooth extraction. The line is about 20 people long and now that Ibrahm has been in the dentists office he knows what's coming. He won't look at me or talk to me and he is PISSED! The dentist shows up and the line starts moving....quickly! After 10 minutes it's Ibrahm's turn and as soon as we get inside the dentists I see why the line is going so fast: The dentist has patients lined up and he just goes from one chair to the next pulling out teeth with his pliers in an assembly line. Ibrahm's tooth is so rotted away that when the dentist goes to pull it out it just disintegrates in his mouth. Ouch! He's a brave little guy though and he barely cries. All I can think is how if it were me in the dentist's chair I would want more than a few novicaine shots and tylenol to help me through a tooth extraction. The dentist tells Ibrahm "see you next week" because he has to have two more teeth pulled. so it goes.
The moral of this story is the kids here are very brave, they don't complain or cry, and are generally very happy-go-lucky. As soon as we got back to the orphanage, Ibrahm was back with his buddies, playing in the dirt and I think he forgave me for taking him to the dentist because later that night we read together during "reading time" and he sat on my lap and fell asleep.
I will try and upload a picture for you guys to see some cute faces:
Thursday, July 29, 2010
adventures: part 1
Hello!
I finally have access to the world wide web woop woop! Here is a fun story from Malawi:
Two days ago we took a trip to Blantyre (the biggest city in Malawi) which is about 4 hours from Chigamba and our orphanage. We left early around 7 am and got to the city to do some shopping at shop rite (an american style grocery store) and to go to immigration to extend our visas. We also went shopping at the open-air market and got apples and oranges, avocados, and veggies which was nice because for the past 2 weeks I have eaten just white rice, beans, and one time a piece of chicken. It is hard to get fresh foods in our village because we are so far out in the country!
So we leave Blantyre just after dark (6 pm here because it's the winter time) and we are on our way home down the single paved road in Malawi which will take us back to Chigamba. Keep in mind that this "highway" is barely wide enough to fit two cars on it and has no light whatsoever. All of a sudden--boom, flat tire. We get out of the van (6 women, 1 child, and our cook John) and go to call triple A--oh wait that doesn't exist here. A few guys on their bicycles stop to help us change our tire (luckily we have a spare under the van) but our jack doesnt work. We experiment lifting the van ourselves by the back bumper--no luck. At some point, two policemen stop at our van to ask us what has happened and they literally look like they are from a clockwork orange. The policeman is holding his handcuffs out like he's about to use them on us and the woman cop has her baton out and ready to strike. We are afraid but they leave....
So eventually we get the spare tire on our van and guess what--it's flat and we can't drive on it. We all pile in the van anyways and creep down the road a couple hundred feet until we get to a small roadside stand with a light on it where we stop and more men crowd our van to help us fix the tire. At the point we are hungry so we get some fresh fried "chips" from the roadside stand and chow down while John and the Malawians work on our tire. We also encounter an old man eating mice--yes, mice with the fur, teeth, tail, arms, legs, everything intact--and we take his picture. We also notice that the roadside stand offers fried chicken heads as a snack--yum!
We go back to the van and the men are trying to patch our broken tire with plastic bags and sugarcane. I laugh because I am positive this will not work but....what else do we do? Eventually we walk across the street to a "boys club" which is the Malawian equivalent of a bar (except no women allowed). It is a hut with a small coal fire and nice, cold carlsberg beers (cold drinks are not common in rural Malawi). We drink beers with the Malawian guys at this hut for a few hours and listen to sean kingston and have a fantastic time!!!!! EVentually, John comes back over to us to let us know our tire is FIXED! They have patched it with a corn cob. No joke. a corn cob.
We leave and actually make it back to Chigamba, to my utter astonishment. The corn cob tire is still on the van today and doing well...
That's all for now! I have to get off the computer but everything here is REALLY GREAT and I'm having a good time.
xoxo
Marika
I finally have access to the world wide web woop woop! Here is a fun story from Malawi:
Two days ago we took a trip to Blantyre (the biggest city in Malawi) which is about 4 hours from Chigamba and our orphanage. We left early around 7 am and got to the city to do some shopping at shop rite (an american style grocery store) and to go to immigration to extend our visas. We also went shopping at the open-air market and got apples and oranges, avocados, and veggies which was nice because for the past 2 weeks I have eaten just white rice, beans, and one time a piece of chicken. It is hard to get fresh foods in our village because we are so far out in the country!
So we leave Blantyre just after dark (6 pm here because it's the winter time) and we are on our way home down the single paved road in Malawi which will take us back to Chigamba. Keep in mind that this "highway" is barely wide enough to fit two cars on it and has no light whatsoever. All of a sudden--boom, flat tire. We get out of the van (6 women, 1 child, and our cook John) and go to call triple A--oh wait that doesn't exist here. A few guys on their bicycles stop to help us change our tire (luckily we have a spare under the van) but our jack doesnt work. We experiment lifting the van ourselves by the back bumper--no luck. At some point, two policemen stop at our van to ask us what has happened and they literally look like they are from a clockwork orange. The policeman is holding his handcuffs out like he's about to use them on us and the woman cop has her baton out and ready to strike. We are afraid but they leave....
So eventually we get the spare tire on our van and guess what--it's flat and we can't drive on it. We all pile in the van anyways and creep down the road a couple hundred feet until we get to a small roadside stand with a light on it where we stop and more men crowd our van to help us fix the tire. At the point we are hungry so we get some fresh fried "chips" from the roadside stand and chow down while John and the Malawians work on our tire. We also encounter an old man eating mice--yes, mice with the fur, teeth, tail, arms, legs, everything intact--and we take his picture. We also notice that the roadside stand offers fried chicken heads as a snack--yum!
We go back to the van and the men are trying to patch our broken tire with plastic bags and sugarcane. I laugh because I am positive this will not work but....what else do we do? Eventually we walk across the street to a "boys club" which is the Malawian equivalent of a bar (except no women allowed). It is a hut with a small coal fire and nice, cold carlsberg beers (cold drinks are not common in rural Malawi). We drink beers with the Malawian guys at this hut for a few hours and listen to sean kingston and have a fantastic time!!!!! EVentually, John comes back over to us to let us know our tire is FIXED! They have patched it with a corn cob. No joke. a corn cob.
We leave and actually make it back to Chigamba, to my utter astonishment. The corn cob tire is still on the van today and doing well...
That's all for now! I have to get off the computer but everything here is REALLY GREAT and I'm having a good time.
xoxo
Marika
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
T minus 5
Music in Malawi
The musical genre of Kwela originated in South Africa in the 1950s and became popular in Malawi around the 1960s. Kwela is described as "a happy, often pennywhistle-based, street music from southern Africa with jazzy underpinnings and a distinctive, skiffle-like beat." If you are thinking "what the heck??" -- you've heard it before, because it features prominently in Paul Simon's Graceland (one of my favorites albums!). To the left is Donald Kachamba, a popular Kwela-style music artist from Malawi.
In the 1980s, a dance rhythm called "Soukous" AKA the African Rumba evolved in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and quickly exploded over the continent. In Malawi, Soukous was transformed into it's own variety called Kwassa Kwassa, which is referenced in the song "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa" by Vampire Weekend on their 2008 album.
I tried to find some kwassa kwassa moves on youtube but all I got for you is this poor quality video. Just watch for a few seconds to see them break it down:
In the 1990s, gospel music became popular in Malawi and more recently, reggae (interesting shift?). In 2004, a major music festival called "Lake of Stars" began on the edge of Lake Malawi which is similar to Bonnaroo/Lollapalooza in the USA. This year's line up includes: The Noisettes, Peter Mawanga, Sally Nyundo, Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly., Tinashe, Eddy Temple-Morris, John McClure, Afrikan Boy, Goldierocks etc.
Some of these bands I have heard of, others....not so much, but I know off the top of my head at least two are American, so there must be some American influence on the music scene in Malawi in this last decade.
Malawi's only internationally known musical artist is Esau Mwamwaya who collaborated with a British DJ on a track called The Very Best. I find it off-putting that the DJ is called "Radioclit" but you can listen to the song below.
That's all folks!
xoxo
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
T minus 6
Today's latest installment will be about health care (yes, probably not interesting to you but interesting to me!)...
Health Care
Life expectancy in Malawi is 51 years for women and 49 years for men, primarily due to the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS, malaria, cholera, and other illnesses in addition to health care limitations.
Malawi has a system of socialized medicine which has the goal of providing free basic healthcare to all Malawians. However, there is a large patient base, a limited number of health care professionals and limited availability of medicines and treatments. All of these factors lead to difficulty in obtaining health services for individuals in this country.
Approximately 80% of Malawians live in very rural areas, therefore the government has set up a three-tiered system designed to deliver medical care to this largely rural population. At the local level there are rural hospitals which to serve ~50 villages (close to 30,000 people) and are responsible for providing basic services such as pre-natal and post-natal care, birthing, early childhood care, malaria and parasitic treatments, and minor wound/fracture care. There are no doctors at these facilities, but there are nurses. As a part of this local branch of healthcare, there are "mobile nurse" units which travel to villages with the goal of providing health education to promote disease prevention through better hygiene and health practices in the villages.
If an illness/injury can't be treated at one of these small rural hospitals, the patient must travel to a district hospital. Malawi only has one district hospital per district, and these facilities have a doctor and better trained/more experienced staff and can provide surgical treatment, x-rays, blood work, and other diagnostic procedures that the rural hospitals do not have the capability of doing.
Finally, there are three central hospitals in Malawi which are better equipped than the district hospitals and provide the best level of healthcare in the country.
It is often hard for individuals to get transportation to a hospital when medical care is needed, and often times they will find that a hospital has no medicine upon arrival. In addition, hospitals are overcrowded and patients may have to share a bed or sleep on the floor. Sanitation in these facilities is often unacceptable by our Western standards.
There's so much more to say on the topic of healthcare, but I'll break it up and put up something else more exciting tomorrow! xoxo
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
T minus 7
Officially one week until I leave for Malawi! I'm going to be updating this week with different installments about Malawi for you interested readers.
Geography
Location: Sub-Saharan Africa bordering Tanzania, Mozambique, and Zambia.
Here's a more detailed map of the region:
Lake Malawi (also called Lake Nyasa) is the big body of water on the eastern border of Malawi. It is a huge lake ~365 miles long and 52 miles wide!
Running from North to South on the west side of the lake is the Rift Valley which is surrounded by a mountain range. The two tallest peaks are Zomba (7,000 ft) and Mlanje (10,000 ft) which are way taller than Mt. Marcy in the ADKs!
The capital city of Malawi is Lilongwe and the largest city and commercial center is called Blantyre and is located in the Southern part of the country.
On July 13th, I will fly from DC to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia (NE corner of Africa), where I will stay over 1 night. Then I will fly into the capital Lilongwe, and be taken in a car/truck to a small rural village called Chigamba (in the Machinga District) where the organization Littlefield Home is based. The Machinga District is the poorest district in Malawi, which is one of the top 10 poorest countries in the world. On the map below, it is colored red:
The official language of Malawi is English, however since I am in a rural area they will only speak the native language of Chichewa. Hopefully I can pick up some basic words!
More topics coming soon like: history! politics! religion! health! education! stay tuned
Geography
Location: Sub-Saharan Africa bordering Tanzania, Mozambique, and Zambia.Here's a more detailed map of the region:
Lake Malawi (also called Lake Nyasa) is the big body of water on the eastern border of Malawi. It is a huge lake ~365 miles long and 52 miles wide!Running from North to South on the west side of the lake is the Rift Valley which is surrounded by a mountain range. The two tallest peaks are Zomba (7,000 ft) and Mlanje (10,000 ft) which are way taller than Mt. Marcy in the ADKs!
The capital city of Malawi is Lilongwe and the largest city and commercial center is called Blantyre and is located in the Southern part of the country.
On July 13th, I will fly from DC to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia (NE corner of Africa), where I will stay over 1 night. Then I will fly into the capital Lilongwe, and be taken in a car/truck to a small rural village called Chigamba (in the Machinga District) where the organization Littlefield Home is based. The Machinga District is the poorest district in Malawi, which is one of the top 10 poorest countries in the world. On the map below, it is colored red:
The official language of Malawi is English, however since I am in a rural area they will only speak the native language of Chichewa. Hopefully I can pick up some basic words!
More topics coming soon like: history! politics! religion! health! education! stay tuned
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