Another Work Day
By Julie Dunaiskis
On May 14th, we travelled to Mbidi School to continue our painting work where we left off last week. The school kids were away for a holiday so we missed having them around and hearing them playing but our work continued. Norma, our paint captain, had all our activities planned out so we could start running the minute we got off the bus and that we did! We were only 6 in number today due to a couple of people being under the weather but Norma was determined that our small number could and would get everything done. The school classroom which was being used as a storage room since the end of March when the supplies arrived was our first initiative. Norma who had cleared a path on Thursday through the lumber pile noticed that the lumber had returned and we were unable to paint one side of the classroom. Not to be hindered, she soon enlisted some locals to help move the lumber to the middle of the room. Norma, Karen, David and I primed all the walls and waited for them to dry to continue with the 2nd coat and the start of the 3rd coat. We then went to the other classrooms and started to paint the ivory 3rd coat which made a huge difference to all the rooms. By lunchtime, all the rooms had now been painted and mostly completed except for some small finishing touches. One of the schoolrooms got a new blackboard and the other classrooms got a start on new paint on their existing blackboards. Norma was so proud of what the painters had done today.
Great job, Norma!
Chris was even seen hammering some of the desks together while co-coordinating other activates. Not to be outdone, Andrew was “up on the rooftop” doing the set up for the skylights on one of the classrooms. This evening, we were treated to a speaker, Dr. Clement Chilima from the Forestry Research Institute of Malawi.
A few interesting notes:
– 34% of Malawi’s land is covered by forest – ½ of the land
-the forests supply 93% of Malawi’s energy needs
-there are 5,000 plant species and 150 of them are only found in Malawi
-deforestation happening due to population increase, poverty, wood fuel demands, market failures and forest fires (June, July, August) which are the most threat and most devastating
-Malawi is the most densely populated in sub-Sahara Africa
-there is a 1.6-2.8% decline in forests each year
-communities are trying to help out by promoting tree plantings, nurseries and provide incentives to plant trees
– with everyone’s help, the decline in forestation will be saved
Hi Julie:
We are all very proud of you.
I have a question though, how come that I do not see you in any of those pictures?
How do you like the food?
I hope you kept a detailed journal.
Wishing you a safe trip home.
Vicki