Volunteer Inidicted

In wake of the weblog post, "Obituary", there was much confusion as to the authenticity of the report.  This confusion and public outcry has drawn the attention of the authorities and led to a formal indictment of the contributor of the post.  Ms. Kateri is now facing two counts of inappropriate humour for the subtleness of the post and its morbid nature, one count of misplaced humour for the telling of an inside joke in a public forum, and one count of defamation of British electrical standards, a law in Malawi held over from the colonial period.  In the midst of the charges, Kateri has resigned from her post as the English and Typing Professor at Bakhita Technical College leading many to suspect she is guilty, however,  all Canossian institution employees are required to resign under such circumstances.  Sr. Evelyn, principal of the college, said that she accepted the resignation with a heavy heart and wants to remind everyone that Ms. Kateri is innocent until proven guilty. 

 

"Kateri is a valuable asset to this organization.  She has made many contributions to the school and to the country of Malawi.  We will cooperate with the authorities in any way we can upholding the rule of law in this great nation.  We are firmly convinced of Ms. Kateri's innoncence and hope the trial will vindicate her reputation.  I, for one, believed the joke to be very appropriate and hilarious." - Sr. Evelyn, Principal

 

Even if Kateri survives the trial, her reputation will be forever damaged makeing it difficult to return to her classes.  It is suspected that she will be relocated to a less high profile position as a nutritionist at the dispensary in Nsanama for the remainder of her service period.

 

While he has yet to be formal charged, the proprietor of the weblog, Mr. Andrew, is still at risk since many believe his pleas that he was unaware of the post and its content are quite lame.  He will likely face a backlash from his actions of distancing himself from someone in his own community especially somone as adorable as Kateri.

Finals

It is final exams week here at Bakhita.  Actually, last week was exam week for the college which means I sat watching my one student take two 3 hour tests.  Very Exciting.  I could have graded it over her shoulder while she was taking it in order to get it out of the way, but decided against it.  The secondary finals should be a little more interesting.  For finals, all of the students are put in the hall together and they take a test in the morning and in the afternoon, two hours each, for a week.  A teacher is assigned to oversee each of the forms for each of the tests. 
The rule is you are not allowed to oversee your own exam.  I'm not sure why, but I guess its so the teachers don't help the students do better on their exams.  It does make answering questions about the exams difficult because if something is confusing or there is a mistake then we have to run all over the school to find the teacher to get things straightened out.  The first term I was assigned for the Chichewa exam so I didn't have a clue how to answer even the simplest questions about the test because, well, it was in Chichewa so I differed to the other teacher on duty for everything.  For the computers exam I get to take care of myself because it involves a practical and theory section of the test and two different groups so there is some extra coordination required.  After the exams we are on our summer break.

Obituary

RETURNED VOLUNTEER DIES BY ELECTROCUTION

 

An unnamed volunteer had only been back in the United States for 2 weeks when she met her untimely demise. She had returned from the small African country of Malawi after two years of service there and found difficulty readjusting certain small details of American life. Unfortunately one such detail cost her her life.

 

During her two years in Africa she became accustomed to sticking metal objects into electrical outlets in order to plug in European appliances. At first wary of such a forbidden action, she soon became used to sticking whatever object was closest - pen, tweezers, keys, screwdrivers - into the "ground" of the three holes in the socket.

 

After two weeks back in the US this unfortunate volunteer had a temporary lapse of mental function during which she reverted to what had become habit. While attempting to plug in a toaster, she jammed her last key into the third prong above.

Power Loss

It didn't take long to realize that the power here in Balaka was not entirely dependable, especially during the rainy season when it went out almost twice a week particularly at inopportune momments.  This for the most part was not much more than an annoyance, but added an unwanted degree of uncertainty in our ability to give computer exams.  Since April, the power has been more or less reliable, but it still feels the need to demonstrate its ability to subvert cooking plans and various power dependent activities from time to time.  However, when the power goes out before finals week when its time to type and turn in the exams it could cause some worry, unless of course you are like me and weren't interested in having the exams finished on time anyways.

Water update

Our hot water is fixed...for now.

This Week In Balaka

The Form 3 students have been complaining that they have nothing to show that they are actually learning computers.  An obvious and fundamental lesson in computers that would be perfect for such a situation is printing.  The difficulty in teaching how to print is that it requires the prescence of an actual printer which my "computer lab" is unfortunately lacking.  This week I worked it our for them to save letters they had typed to their parents on a floppy disk and use the printer in the secondary office.  With the class size as big as it is and the size of the office being...well, the size of an office, I had to take the students groups of four.  It just so happens that the office is on the other end of the school and just about as far away from the computer lab as it can be so I got a little extra exercise this week walking back and forth.  I told them they needed to walk to the office at least as fast as I was (they have slow poke issues) and it was funny watching them struggle to keep up.  Some were dissappointed that the colours they chose didn't show up even though I explained many times previously that it was a black and white printer, but they got over it quickly and were really excited to use the printer.

 

Also this week, Fr. Andrew and Fr. Oswald from Nkhota Kota were on their way to Blantyre to buy 500 shoes for their primary students so they stopped in for a couple of nights.  Fr. Andrew always makes things interesting and Fr. Oswald really enjoyed playing UNO after dinner.

Hot Water

Our water heater is finally fixed.  We have a solar water heater on top of our house that really hasn't work very well since we got here.  Occasionally, I would get a warm shower and even less frequently it would be hot.  It wasn't really a big deal until the cold season arrived.  With temperatures getting down into the fifties at night and heater not really working that well, the showers were mildly jarring.  The typical shower resulted in convulsions that lasted for most of the duration of the shower.  But as the weather warmed up, the showers become a little more tolerable.  Then one night, just before bed, a stream of water started rolling off of our roof.  Apparently, a hose or pipe in the heater had broken and was emptying the tank so we climbed to the roof and turned off the valve.  Now when we said we didn't have any hot water it wasn't that the water coming out of the hot tap was cold, there wasn't any water coming out at all.  The showers returned to their previous frigid temperatures.  We eventually got a plumber to come check it out.  He was an older man with a bag of tools, a very old looking pair of cover-alls, and a Mickey Mouse hat.  He climbed up on the roof with a ladder that would have easily gotten someone expelled from shop class.  He then walked around our tin roof wearing socks.  To make it situation even more interesting, he later asked us for a chair on which he stood on the roof while working on the heater.  Safety precautions weren't much of a priority for this guy.  Anyways, he fixed the heater and later that night it broke so he came back the next day and fixed the heater and that night it broke so he came back and fixed the heater.  The heater broke again this time before he left so he went up and fixed it again only to have it break again that night.  We gave up for awhile.  Then another plumber came out to take a crack at it and our water heater is finally fixed.

 

Update:  Before I had a chance to send this post our water heater broke.

Kateri is Leaving

It is official, or at least as official as anything gets around here.  Kateri is leaving.  The original plan was for her to be here in Balaka for two years, but that time is getting cut short.  She is moving approximately 70 kilometers away to Sanama.  There is a Canossian mission there where she will be working in the medicine dispensory and the nutrition unit.  The move is in response to the unsatisfactory placement of Kateri, educated in Sciences with plans of attending medical school, as an English and Typing teacher.  While I think she did an excellent job in the ill-fitting position, she expressed her desire for the Sisters to find her a more suitable task.  The sisters, in their on going pursuit to match people to their vocation as well as get the job done, were happy to find something better.  The new position looks like a good match and Kateri is excited to be going. 

Full Recovery

Gary has fully recovered from his bout with malaria. (Wait a second, didn't he already recover, like, two weeks ago)  We thought that the first case of malaria in the community was extremely mild and uninteresting but as it turns out...we were wrong.  About a week after he was diagnosed, Gary felt fully recovered and went back to work in the school.  He felt fine for the whole week and didn't have any problems until Friday when the symptoms returned with avengeance.  We were gettting ready to go on the field trip for the college and Gary was curled up on the couch with no intention of moving.  He later went to the doctor a found out the malaria was still there and got some stronger medicine to take care of it.  The medicine caused his ears to ring so he couldn't hear anything and at night he had some mild hallucinations.  People talking in his head and such.  After about a week of not much more than sleeping all day, he is finally returning to full health.

What's on the Radio?

Malawi radio offers a wider selection of programming than television.  I don't know for sure how many stations there are but they are scatter pretty evenly across the dial.  The music stations play a variety of music throughout the day.  So much variety that it is nearly impossible to predict what is going to come on next.  The majority of songs are either Malawian, Hip Hop, or Rap, but that doesn't stop them from playing just about anything.  One day I was listening and the station went from a Malawian band (reggaeish) to 50 Cent to an old time country song to Skid Row.  We were in a Restaurant in Blantyre waiting for Sr. Evelyn to pick us up and the whole time was like listening to American pop radio in the early 90's.  There are also the news and talk stations.  The BBC World broadcasts 24 hours a day on the radio so we can always get updates on international news.  I think one that is the most interesting is the station that chants passages from the Koran.  It's the Muslim station and they don't chant all the time, but I'll occasionally catch someone chanting/singing from the Koran in Arabic.