The team were extremely busy the final days Thursday and Friday and then leaving for home Saturday and finally arrival in Toronto on Sunday afternoon safely. The blog will be updated later in the week. Keep watching for the final update from Chris. Thanks.
By Karen Baker
Wednesday morning began as most of our days have with breakfast, picking up Agnes (our wonderful site cook) and the carpenters, and heading to Mbidi to work on the usual tasks – painting, carpentry and other assorted work we are asked to do or see needs to be done. Our workday was short however as we headed to Blantyre for a bit of shopping and a Rotary meeting.
Cleaned up and fed, we headed south to Blantyre and were treated to some history and geography lessons along the way. After 25 years in Malawi, our host Paul knows the country well and can point out who owns which farm, what new construction is on the horizon and who comes from where. After 90 minutes of bumpy travel on Malawi’s first paved road (which is being widened), we entered Blantyre and stopped at La Caverna(Mandala House). This is an Malawi archive museum, bistro and curio shop owned by a Malawian couple. The art was beautiful and we all left some money in the till. The group enjoyed a drink on the patio after our shopping was complete and then ventured on foot to the city market. Julie and Norma bought some sneakers for one of the men who hangs around the school and wanted Norma`s shoes, and Karen and Abi went looking for 18 backpacks for the new academic scholarships we have created at Mbidi – one for each boy and girl in each of the 9 classes at the School. By the end of our trip, each will be filled with a workbook, ruler, pen, pencil and lollipop. We did manage to find the bags for about KW500 each ($2.00).
When the stores and market began to close (about 4:30 – Islamic prayer call), we trekked up the hill to Mount Soche for a drink and eventually to attend the Rotary meeting.
The meeting began at 7 pm with much socializing and a typical Malawian dinner (chicken, rice, nsema) followed by Chris` presentation on the 2010 Misangu School project (a 20 minute video) and an impassioned presentation by Peter and Elaine for Rotary Saskatoon who are also in Malawi working with 47 villages. Elaine had the room in tears by the time she was finished and everyone appreciated the passion and commitment of their counterparts from across Canada. The Limbe Club presented our team with 8 plastic chairs, kindly donated from Rotarian Chestan of PK Plastics in Blantyre, to give to Mbidi School so that the teachers will finally have some chairs to sit on. When we arrived, there was one broken plastic chair with 3 legs that sits on a box – not so good for the posture and also hard to share among 10 teachers.
The meeting was closed at 10 pm and the now tired team made their way to the bus for the somewhat quiet ride back to Zomba and Annie`s Lodge for some shut eye before embarking on our full and final day of work at the school on Thursday. We even get to sleep to 8 am tomorrow.
By David Creighton
Thick fog shrouded Zomba Mountain this morning when we trooped to breakfast before a round of visits to Rotary/Emmanuel International (EI) projects. For the first stop our minibus cruised past our Mbidi School site, students waving puzzledly (“why aren’t they stopping?”), to the village of Kumbewe, where EI’s Thomas Sambiri would present the first workshop (of three) on sanitation. We stopped first at the borehole well, where a series of women and girls pumped their 20 litre buckets (weighing 20 kg each), loaded them onto their heads, and marched off (20 litres is the recommended limit as greater weights can cause long-term damage to the neck). In 2008 150 such wells were financed by Toronto Rotary that contributed $50,000. This Kumbewe well was installed in 1997.
The village sanitation committee consists of five in-charge members plus another ten members-at-large, who take the workshops and disseminate what they learn. After the three-day workshop, EI monitors the committee’s activities about twice a month. In preparation, the Rotarians covered their hands in silver ‘glitter’ that would represent “germs” when they shook hands. And immediately the reception committee and their husbands came to shake all our hands. The two village chiefs made appropriate greetings, followed by rhythmic clapping and Thomas launched his workshop.
After he and villagers arrived at definitions of hygiene, they discussed its importance—to prevent the spreading of infections—and how germs spread, followed by the various recommended practices to prevent same. Pictorial illustrations accompanied. Thomas demonstrated these techniques, including the two-cup method of drawing drinking water, the “tippy-tap” for washing hands after using the toilet / before preparing food. This simple device is made from a plastic water bottle pierced by a straw. One blocks the straw to fill the bottle, then loosens the top to let water out, simple but ingenious. The women concluded with a song about the items required in an hygienic home: kitchen, toilet, clothes line, etc, la-la-lala, and everyone was treated to sodas and rolls.
Our next stop was at Mpinda village, a Muslim community that was renovating its borehole well, but as we were running well behind schedule, we did not spend time helping as originally planned. The villagers are rebuilding the well’s apron and removing a concrete washbasin they consider unsanitary—too close to the well. From there we returned to Zomba and lunch at the home of our EI hosts, Paul and Helen Jones. What a lovely hacienda they inhabit!
Our final visit of the day was to the Misangu School, that Rotarians/EI had helped extend and renovate during the 2009 (Brian Edwards and Chris Snyder) and 2010 (Andrew Robertson and Chris) Sweat Equity trips. So a sentimental journey for them and an eye-opener for the rest. As students were preparing to write their national exams, they were home cramming and not at the school today.
Head Teacher Gaviston Midesa, Standard 8’s Maxwell Chisambi (also sports coach) and juniors teacher, Miss Mesa Raji, provided warm welcomes and talked about the school’s history at length: Presently there are 1,953 students, 13 teachers, and 11 classrooms (versus 1,600 students and 8 teachers in 2009). Attendance statistics alarmed us visitors: there are more girls than boys in the first 6 years but by Standard 8 the boys are double the number of girls, due largely to early marriages. In addition, of the 80 students who pass the leaving exams, only 15 are selected for secondary school, where they face the further obstacles of school fees (MK 12,500 per term, of three terms), long commutes (16 kms by bicycle, for those who have one, or walking if they don’t); school uniforms, text books, etc. about $300 per year in a land where there is little money. Scholarship is not an easy road in Malawi.
We then toured the solar-powered water tower, surrounded by a recent plantation of guava and mango trees, already 2 metres high in their first year! We were invited in to the homes of several teachers, homes renovated during the 2008 and 09 trips. These simple houses are now surrounded by lush gardens and well stocked with bags of maize and rice. We then inspected the classrooms the Rotarians had completed, sparse and needing some wall washing, but in full service.
Afterwards a Rotary-sponsored student in Form I (equivalent to first year high school), Iwalani Joseph, who aspires to become a doctor, appeared for greetings, interviews, photos; then a community volunteer during 2010, Richard X had a reunion. And Felicia, “one of Malawi’s last polio victims” drove her hand-operated tricycle up for a service inspection, and the warm greetings. Though we did little physical activity, except riding on challenging roads, we were all tired out when we arrived home at Annie’s Lodge for dinner.
