(*Click on pictures to enlarge*)
Corrupt Government Officials:
Remember how when I first arrived in Malawi I had to apply for a work permit/visa? Well when they granted it to me I was only given 6 months of clearance to work in the country...which by the time it was issued meant that it expired at the end of May. So the week before my permit expired we travelled into town to drop Elliot off at the airport and then we stayed an extra day so I could get my permit extended. I was expecting to walk into the immigration office, fill out the necessary extension papers, and then pay an extension fee of about K10,000 (~$70)...but as is typical in Malawi everything didn't go as I expected. When I arrived and met with the immigration official he informed me that I could not just extend my work permit but that I had to totally reapply for a new permit! This meant I had to fill out the large slew of papers again, travel to an internet cafe to write and print a cover letter, find a place to take my passport pictures, and take out K20,000 extra to pay my total fee of K30,000 ($200)!!! I was soooo mad and sooo frustrated when I found all of this out because all I wanted to do was extend my work permit not get an entirely new one. It took all of my self control to not go off on the immigration official yelling at him saying "WHAT?!! This is ridiculous! I shouldn't have to go through all of this again! You are just a corrupt government official doing this because I am a white person and you just want my money!!! Grrr!!!" Thankfully the Lord gave me enough self control and wisdom to realize that this guy has the power to deport me and helped me keep my mouth quiet. Finally I collected all of the components I needed for the application and returned a few hours later to turn everything in and was granted a new work permit...but it took me a long time to calm down after my visit with the immigration officer.
Visiting Lucia:
The last time I was in Malawi in 2008 I made a super special friend named Lucia. I called her my Malawian BFF. She was one of the older kids in the Katundu feeding center (one of the centers where we worked) and was often times the song leader. Its very common in Malawi for singing to be in the call and response format so she was the lead caller. During my time there I loved sitting next to her to try to learn the words to some of the songs she was singing. At one point she realized that I was still struggling with the words to one particular song and pulled me aside to teach me. So we sat together on a rock for about 25 minutes while she just kept repeating the words and then having me sing them until I had learned the entire song. Then later on in our time in her village she came to visit the house where we were staying with some of her friends to teach us all more songs. We had a really special connection and so coming back this time I was very excited to see her. I decided to wait a while before I visited her because I wanted to learn some chichewa so I could actually talk to her in her own language (that was my biggest frustration during the time I spent with her last time was that I couldn't actually communicate with her!). After a very long wait I was finally able to visit her in May and it was soooooo exciting! We drove to find her at the secondary school where she lives and takes classes. It was so amazing to see how she still remembered me after two years! When she came out of her dorm we ran to hug each other and she said to me "Stephie I knew you would come back!"!!! Lord you are so great! Even though we didn't get to visit for very long I really enjoyed getting to talk with her in Chichewa and hear about her school and how classes and the choir are going...she even showed me around her small bunk room that she shares with 29 other girls!!! Eventually we said goodbye to one another and hopefully Lord willing we will see each other again!
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| Lucia and I in the bunk room...all of her roommates were going crazy shouting "azungu azungu" (white person) and trying to gather around me to touch me! It was insane! And as this picture was being taken some girl had her hand on my butt! :-0 |
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| Lucia & I |
Surprisingly out in the bush of Africa there are no janitors to take care of the classrooms at school...a big shock I know! haha:-)...so as a part of our morning routine my kids have to sweep out our classroom (which gets very dirty everyday) before we start class...I get a HUGE kick out of this because as my kids are on average around 5-6 years old they have not mastered the most efficient ways to do things yet. Its also very funny to me because it takes sooo much energy on my part to get them to do it! You would think that after an entire year of sweeping out the classroom every morning that the kids would actually remember to do it...NOPE. Every morning I still have to round everyone up and tell them to get brooms and start cleaning. After I send the kids out to get brooms (aka some branches from the bushes outside our classroom) I then stand there shouting "Tiene Tiene Jangu Jangu" (Let's Go Let's Go Hurry Hurry) because if I were to leave them to their own time schedule they would stand there and pick branches literally ALL DAY! After I have rounded up enough to get things started I stand there in the big dust cloud that arises, watching them laughing because every kid tries to sweep the dirt in a different direction. Even after multiple lessons on how to sweep the kids still don't understand that everyone should try and sweep in the same direction! :-) It is soooooo hilarious!!! Eventually after sweeping the dirt piles all over in a thousand different directions it eventually makes it outside and we can start class :-)
The Last Day of School:
Remember how I was planning a last day of school party for my class? Well as it ended up the team I had hoped would be there to help me with the party didn't make it in time so I wasn't able to do everything I had hoped to do...I had to cut out all the games and just stick to food BUT the kids still really enjoyed it! Thankfully Macdonald was there to help me otherwise there is no way I would have survived. Once my class arrived we all went inside our classroom where we had scones (similar to dinner rolls), sobo (a special flavored drink), and twizzlers, as well as played with balloons (which they call baloome). Everyone was sooo excited that they were very hard to control. Imagine 50 super excited kindergartners (sadly not all of my class showed up) inside running around and then the ENTIRE rest of the school looking in through our windows! It was insane! I am soooo glad the kids got to enjoy a party like that but holy moly I will need a long break before I try and tackle something like that again. Here are some pictures :-)
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| Making funny faces waiting to go in to the party :-) |
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| Everyone seated so nicely! |
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| Twizzlers! |
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| Maiwawo with her scone, twizzlers, and sobo |
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| Some kids loved their twizzlers and others didn't and tried to pass them through the windows to the kids outside who had their hands through the windows trying to grab at things! |
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| Baloome! (aka Balloons!) |
This story is probably one of my all time favorite memories/stories during my time in Malawi. In the village, besides walking, the main way to travel is by bicycle. To travel from Dzuwa (my village) to Santhe (where I catch a minibus to other locations) I would frequently ride a kabaza (bicycle taxi). This ride takes about an hour...and after an hour of sitting on non-padded metal bars riding down very bumpy dirt roads you are very very excited to arrive in Santhe. Anyway one day I was setting out to Santhe to catch a minibus to Kasungu where I was going to stay with Ron and Ulemu for the weekend. I had my computer bag, my backpack, and a plastic bag of cooking things (Ulemu and I had some big baking plans) all loaded on me on the back of the bike. There were also 2 huge 40 liter plastic containers tied to the back of the bike b/c we had just found out that there was some gas available in Santhe that we needed to buy right away (we were in a gas shortage) before it ran out. So our night guard, Mr. Kondwani, was going to bike me to Santhe, drop me off, buy the gas, and bike back to Dzuwa. After I and all of the stuff was carefully settled on the back of the bike we set out. We were riding down the road when all of a sudden we hit this huge bump and the bike completely tipped over backwards and I got thrown off with all of my suff into a thorn bush! It was hilarious! I wasn't hurt thankfully...my backpack provided a little cushioning for me to land on...but ended up covered in thorns on my back and behind. Mr. Kondwani helped me up but as I will still holding all of the katundu (stuff) I was unable to de-thorn myself so Mr. Kondwani had to pull them all off of me....which is hilarious b/c that is something you would not typically see a malawian man doing as men and women don't ever touch each other in public. It was soooo funny!!! So after I was de-thorned we just climbed back on the bike and set back out for Santhe. :-)
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| I wish I had a picture from the story above but I didn't have a camera at the time...this is me on the return trip home....this was the most I ever carried on a bicycle...when you have this much stuff most people just get a second bicycle but I didn't want to pay for another one...so if you can see my backpack and another bag are tied to the back behind me and then I carried my computer bag on my lap and three other grocery bags...one with apples, one with four 500ml water bottles (which the bag decided to break open half way through my journey and I still managed to not lose any), and one with a box of cereal and a 2kg bag of flour!!! I barely made it back with my arms still attached! |
Thank you for your wonderful posts, Stephanie! I finally had time to read this one, and wanted to let you know that I also met Lucia the summer of 2009 at the JTW conference! She was in the group of Ministry of Hope kids that sang at the conference. She is an awesome girl!
ReplyDeleteI hope you're enjoying your time back in the US, and please keep up the blog entries!!
Ally