Term 3 Begins

Classes are back in session and everything is back to "normal" (honestly I'm really not sure what "normal" means anymore or even if it is possible).  I was totally ready to get back to school, but as it turned out my students were ready either so I had a little extra prep time.  The students tend to drizzle back in over the course of the first two weeks.  In the secondary it isn't a problem because if a few students are missing there are still 30 or 40 to teach.  On the other hand, in my accounting classes there are only four students so if a few students don't show up...well, there aren't any.  I was up to 2 by the end of the week so I had a chance to review the term exam with a little more one on one attention.  Parent teacher meetings were today and they went well even thouh not many parents came.  I was hoping to have more form 3 parents because I had the lab open and students assigned answer questions about the class for them, but what can one do.

Retreat

Next week is our community retreat.  I am usuallly apprehensive about going on retreats, but am always happy that I went afterwards.  For this one it will at least be nice to get away from the school for a little while to gear up for the last, and longest, term of the year.

Chiswe Scourge

I may have mentioned before that there are termites everywhere around here, and they exist in great number as evident by the frequent termite mounds of considerable size.  Some of them are flying and go by the name of Ngumbi and the others are called Chiswe.  I have not received any reliable information on this, but I think they are just different "casts" of the same species.  The Chiswe are definitely responsible for the gathering of food and they are ravenous.  They consume any and all plant life they can chew up and carry down into their holes.  Sometimes they just bring their nest to the source as in some trees that are covered with a layer of mud underneath which the bark is completely eaten away.  Walking along the sidewalk I noticed that the grass was moving.  I stopped to look closer and it was chiswe that had cut down blades of grass and were carrying it to their hole.  As I was bent down I realized I could actually hear them working and it was loud.  I have become better at recognizing the sound and can catch it from meters away.  We put some logs to sit on around our monthly fire and the next day or so the chiswe had already begun building up mud around it so now we roll them to concrete gutter.  Gary just had a fence built around his garden to keep the dogs out made from reeds and he sprayed it with chemicals to keep them away.  It doesn't seem to be helping because he found them eating out the inside of the reads and they can be heard moving around inside.  The best, and possibly most hazardous, example occured one Sunday morning when we woke up without power.  We weren't too concerned since the power frequently goes out, but later we learned that the power was out because the chiswe had eaten through the pole leading to the school and it fell.  Luckily our school is made mostly of concrete and bricks.  The chickens that are present wandering around all of the villages help keep their numbers down there.  Also precautions are taken by painting trees and poles with lime and spraying chemicals on the corn supply so they can be slowed down, but I don't think they will be stopped anytime soon.

Visitor from Tanzania

Laura, a volunteer working in Tanzania we met in Rome, used her vacation time to visit us here in Balaka.  She is a nurse from Minnesota and has some experience in developing countries as she studied in the Dominican Repulic for a few months.  She is staying with two other volunteers: Jain, a doctor from India, and Ania, pharmacist from Poland.  Her experience seems a little more difficult than ours as she sees the affects of diseases and malnutrition up close.  I don't think I would do well in a hospital in Africa but she seems to be handling things well.  Her service if for one year so she will be goin home in a few months.  Her plans are to go to medical school and continue working in mission clinics.  We have been showing her as much of Balaka as we can while trying to get everything done for school before we have a retreat later this month.  She was very surprised how different Malawi is from Tanzania and couldn't believe how dry it was here.  She leaves today and is looking forward to a 30 hour crowded bus ride.

Noisy Neighbours

Before I came to Africa, I didn't think to much about excessive noise keeping me up at night.  During the first couple of weeks we heard drums being played in neighboring villages and thought it was awesome.  Now it is starting to lose its appeal.  Sometimes the drums go all night long and can be heard in my room with the windows closed.  But it isn't just people playing drums in the village next to us.  I guess we are close enough to town to hear the music being played at the bars or else someone in the small grass roof houses close by has an impressive stereo system.  Sure, all of this does keep me up at night, but it really wouldn't bother me all that much if I could go and join the party.  As it is, however, it isn't safe for us to be walking around after dark.  The road we live on is very dark and it is believed that all white people have money.  Plus, when you are walking down the road, they can see you, but you can't see them.

Straight Lines

The students here at Bakhita, whether they are in College, Secondary, from the village, or from the city, love straight lines.  They always have a ruler available or know exactly who they can borrow one from so they can seperate all of their answers with perfectly straight, clear, horizontal, and vertical lines intersecting at perfect 90 degree angles.  The answers they are outlining are...well,....sometimes they're good.  However, usually they are...somewhat...lacking in relevance to the question asked, and their penmanship is...well, it's bad.  But their straight lines, beautiful.

Chicken Udate

Very Tasty!

Sports Day

A few weeks before the end of the term we took a day off from classes and had a sports day.  The day included competitions between the three secondary forms and the college.  The team games included soccer, volleyball, and netball.  Netball is similar to basketball in that you play on a court with a hoop at each end, but there is no dribbling, just passing from player to player.  The interesting thing about netball is that I have yet to see a netball court with an actual net.  So far it has just been metal hoops on a pole.  After the student games were over we played a teacher's versus students game in volleyball and soccer.  The teacher won both, but I wouldn't say it was very pretty.  They also had individual competions in ping pong, shot put, pullups, and running.  The sisters raced in one sprint in full habits which was hilarious, and I think there is a picture of somewhere.  In the afternoon, the classes competed in relay competions like three legged race, wheel barrow race, and dizzy bat.  In one event, we had them balance a bucket of water on their head and walk from one side of the hall to the other.  To make it more interesting there was a bench in the middle they needed to walk across as well.  It was there best event.  The people here are just naturally good  or well trained at balancing things on their heads whether it is bundles of wood, bags of corn, or buckets of water.  For some of them it was like they didn't even have to try.  Form 1 came out on top and the college came in last place which they blamed on unfair judging, but think everyone had a good time.