Well the World Race Team (WRT) has finally arrived here in Dzuwa! J They arrived safe and sound Dec 6th and have been such a blessing already! One of their first activities here was making pala for my Dzuwa school kids. The Wednesday after they arrived the women who were supposed to be cooking that morning didn’t show up because they were too busy working in their fields (this is something that will be a constant battle during the rainy season). So Esnart, the WRT, and I decided that we were going to try to tackle the task of making pala for the kids. What a feat! I am so amazed by the women who cook everyday because it is a ton of work! It took 15 of us to do what 2-5 village women do every morning. We carried all of the supplies to the school, started the fires, and filled the 2 HUGE cooking pots with water (making multiple trips to the water pump). Then once the water was hot enough we added the maize flour and then took turns stirring until the pala was thick enough to serve. The smoke in our cooking shelter is ridiculous! We have 4 windows and a door and yet standing in the shelter for 5 minutes is an almost impossible task with all of the smoke. It literally feels like your eyes are going to fall out they are burning so much and it is very hard to catch your breath. But we managed to complete the task thanks to everyone’s hard work. Both the kids and teachers reported that our pala was delicious! Wahoo! J We even had requests for us to be the permanent pala cooks! Ha! The WRT also helped me put on a game day for my standard 1 kids the second to last day of school. This was a BLAST! We did a bunch of different relay races and all the kids got candy when we finished. We have been practicing the concept of a relay race the entire year so it was so great to see how much progress the kids have made to actually be able to have a game day!
Holiday Break:
Friday Dec. 10th was the last day of school for term 1. In total I tested orally one-by-one question-by-question 84 of my standard 1 students (which on the one hand is sad to me that more didn’t show up but on the other hand I don’t know if I could have handled any more kids!). I handed out my homemade report cards on the last day of school for the kids to take home to their parents. Who knows how many will actually make it home but I at least wanted the kids to be able to see their scores. One of my fellow teachers whose son I have in class actually came up to me and gave me a HUGE thank you which was a huge surprise and gift of encouragement. I think that many of the teachers had tons of doubts about my ability to teach the kids so it was VERY cool to hear him thank me for how well his son did on his exams and how much he has learned. Yay God! Overall though I am sooooooo thankful for a break from school!!! Pray that I would get good rest these next couple weeks and that I would be able to prepare well for the start of Term 2, which starts January 3rd.
News Flash:
As of about 9pm Malawi time on December 15th 2010 my little village of Dzuwa entered into a new era. We now have internet access!!!! OH MY!!!! Yes it is still true that we don’t have running water or electricity but we have internet! Hahaha! When running off of solar or generator power we are able to turn on our router here and have wireless internet so I am actually posting this sitting in my room in the village J Its not as fast as internet in Kasungu but it will allow us contact with the outside world during the worst months of the rainy season when we are basically trapped here in the village. Praise the Lord for providing the money to make internet possible!!!
Well I can’t think of any more super exciting things or random comments to share so I guess this is the end of my post. Thanks soooooo much again for all of your prayers and support. I am completely blown away by all of the messages I receive from people giving encouraging words and saying you are praying! Even people from other countries that I have never met!!! God’s kingdom is just sooooo amazing!
Finally I think my 2 biggest prayer requests right now are for continued protection from sickness (there have been some bugs going around here…1 JTW staffer is down with malaria and 2 WRT girls have been diagnose with dysentery)…also for prayers for Christmas and being away from home…I am excited to be able to be here to experience a Malawian Christmas but I am very sad to be away from my family…pray that I would really be able to be present here and soak up every minute of Christmas in Malawi.
P.S. A HUGE CONGRATULATIONS TO MY LITTLE SISTER JAMIE FOR GETTING ACCEPTED TO FURMAN UNIVERSITY!!! WHOOT WHOOT!!! If you see her give her a big hug and say congrats!!! J I am soooooo proud of you Jamie!!!!
P.P.S. Check out new pictures on my Facebook!
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