Mtsiliza

This school was our “urban” school, a 20 minute drive from the house. The past session actually visited this school but only taught one standard because it is such a large school. We taught standard 6. We were also forewarned of the rugrat problem, since there are a lot of them. Our first day though, we were spared because it was a national education day and most people actually don’t come to school.

Doing parachute games was an ordeal. It was extremely windy and dust got everywhere. Literally to the point where it was in our teeth. Glad I had sunglasses on to somewhat shield my eyes, but I don’t think I’ve ever been dirtier because my face looked like I’d tanned three shades. Our class (ages 11-14) was really smart, much more knowledgable than the homestay school. They saved us a lot of explaining, even at points where we expected them not to know things. Because they are situated in central Lilongwe there is probably a lot more NGO traffic there.

The second day was a million times worse. There were a lot more rugrats. And not only were there a lot more of them, but they were brats. Evil. In one class a kid threw a lit match through the window. The team leader got stones thrown at him and got his lunch torn out of his hand. All the kids were climbing in the trailers and on the cars the whole time. Usually it’s safe to leave our things in the classroom but our translators advised us not to. The worst part was during negotiating sex, where we try to create an intimate environment, we couldn’t even hear ourselves talk. Now I understand why some of the headmasters go around with giant sticks to keep kids away. It was just utter chaos. We skipped morning and afternoon games because it would have been too hectic.

Perhaps another one of the saddest moments I’ve experienced here was during the anonymous question part of negotiating sex. One of the questions we got was “what should I do if my father is raping me?” Another was “what should I do if my parents invite a man with HIV into my house to rape me?” It’s really hard to answer a question like that, partly because of the shock but also because there is only so much we can say. We can recommend that they seek help, either from the police or a trusted friend. But these poor girls are so shy, who knows if anything is really going to change for them. Apparently this man who goes around raping girls is known as the “feci.” It is a cultural practice for him to rape girls once they’ve started menstruating in order to “cleanse” them. And they know this man is HIV positive! It’s so ridiculous and upsetting. I emphasized to these girls that in some instances they can be more knowledgeable than their parents, because the parents are the ones encouraging this to happen. It was so odd being in this city school where you’d think kids would be better off because there are more people around and more law enforcement, but it’s just the opposite. On a lighter note, one of our questions was “if a girl hasn’t gotten her period yet, can a boy get her pregnant if he is menstruating?” That one was fun to explain.

On our third day it was a lot quieter because: there were other white people at the school! It was weird because this was the first time we’d run into another group doing volunteer work. They were a missionary group who was taking people to clinics to get tested. For the first time, we added a tree-planting section to our curriculum. I felt like the environmental curriculum was really effective at this school, because the kids recognized deforestation was happening but that people didn’t do anything about it. Usually when we ask them to define deforestation someone says “cutting down trees carelessly,” but these kids were so smart that we didn’t even hear that come up.

On our way from the class to our planting site, I heard some yelling behind me. I turned around and thought I saw big particles of dust, but it turned out to be bees. Our translator yelled “get down Mindy!!” so I pulled a duck and cover. It was more exciting than scary or anything, I think the whole thing lasted 10 seconds. Once at our planting site, we explained what conditions were needed for a tree to grow and how they would pick good planting sites in the future. All of the kids are responsible for watering the tree everyday and we made a calendar which we leave with the teachers. We planted cassia trees. I really enjoyed this part of the curriculum, partly because the students did all the dirty work, but also because it was a way that we could leave our mark. I think they walked away with a sense that tree-planting was easy and effective.

Tonight we went out to eat for the first time at an Italian restaurant. It wasn’t exactly Italian food, but it was a chance to get some meat. It was pretty good. It’s crazy because I’ll be home exactly two weeks from today…everything has gone by so quickly.