Fashion in Malawi

One of the aspects of Malawi that I find very interesting is the fashion. People here view clothes very differently than we do in America.  Looking "stylish" is definitely not a priority and people's philosophy seems to be "if it fits, wear it." Regardless of color, style, saying, or amount of holes. There are some who do put effort into looking nice. For example, the teachers at my school are always in collared, button down shirts with ties, and sometimes suit jackets, even in the 100+ degree weather. But for the most part, people don't care what they wear. 

All of the clothes here are second hand from America or Europe. In the major cities there are "clothes stores"- equivalent to a Goodwill or Salvation Army- but in the villages you buy clothes from the market, in piles or folded, on tarps on the ground. Since many of the clothes are from America it is not uncommon to see a Malawian walking around with a shirt that says "I ❤ New York" or "Red Sox". In my village in Kasungu I saw a women wearing a St. Augustine FL shirt! I was really excited and went up to he to explain that that is where I'm from. She was not as excited as me. To her it was just a shirt and she was just wearing it so she wouldn't be naked. 

I've seen girls wearing old princess Halloween costumes, women wearing used bridesmaid dresses, and men wearing pink leopard print pajama bottoms as everyday, casual outfits. The one fashion trend that does seem to exist here is Obama clothes. Malawians are pretty obsessed with Obama and his face, or his name, is on almost everything. Shirts, bags, belts, chitenjes, soap, gum etc. the quality of these products is not always great though, and sometimes his face is distorted or his name spelled wrong. 

The other issue I've noticed is that, since most of the shirts have English written on them, and most people here can't read English, people end up wearing shirts that are not appropriate for them. Either not appropriate for their age, their gender, or not appropriate in general. I often see boys wearing shirts that say things like: "princess" or "I'm a big sister!" or "proud grandma". Adults wear shirts for elementary school field days or other people's family reunions. And then there are the just plain inappropriate shirts. My neighbor in Kasungu once wore a shirt that said "I'm the guy you have to blow to get a drink around here". I thought about telling him that he shouldn't wear that, but really didn't want to explain what it meant. Recently I saw a young girl wear a shirt that announced "I have perfect breast a beautiful body so I realy don't need a asshole like you" (mistakes included). Again, skipped the English lesson for that one. And my favorite shirt I've seen so far was this one that I found at a market:

Chifundo

I am not a pet person. And I am definitely not a cat person. But somehow I have found myself the owner of a 4 week old, tiny, white kitten. This is how it happened. One day last week I woke up to find that, overnight, a rat had eaten half of one of my bananas an chewed through my phone charger. (Stupid rat. It caused a lot of problems and I couldn't charge my phone for a couple of days.) I went to the head teacher of my school to ask for advice. Specifically, where I could buy rat poison or traps. Instead, I was told that one of the other teachers had kittens he was giving away and I should take one. I hadn't really wanted pets here, mostly because I didn't want to worry about them if I left my house for the weekend or on a trip, but I told him I'd think about it. Apparently he took that as "yes! I'd love a kitten" because two days later a guy shows up at my house with a cat in a burlap sack. Being that I've never had a cat before, and have previously made a point to avoid them (I can actually count the number of times I've even touched a cat) I was a little worried about what to do with it. I texted one of my friends, who also has cats in Malawi, and got a lot of advice from her. So, now I have a pet. She's actually really cute, and it's kind of nice to have some company around my house. I wanted a traditional Malawian name so I asked my friend to pick out a name for her. He decided on 'Chifundo' which means 'mercy'. I think 'Wamisala' would fit her better, it means 'crazy', but I guess I'll stick with Chifundo. 

Chifundo

I am not a pet person. And I am definitely not a cat person. But somehow I have found myself the owner of a 4 week old, tiny, white kitten. This is how it happened. One day last week I woke up to find that, overnight, a rat had eaten half of one of my bananas an chewed through my phone charger. (Stupid rat. It caused a lot of problems and I couldn't charge my phone for a couple of days.) I went to the head teacher of my school to ask for advice. Specifically, where I could buy rat poison or traps. Instead, I was told that one of the other teachers had kittens he was giving away and I should take one. I hadn't really wanted pets here, mostly because I didn't want to worry about them if I left my house for the weekend or on a trip, but I told him I'd think about it. Apparently he took that as "yes! I'd love a kitten" because two days later a guy shows up at my house with a cat in a burlap sack. Being that I've never had a cat before, and have previously made a point to avoid them (I can actually count the number of times I've even touched a cat) I was a little worried about what to do with it. I texted one of my friends, who also has cats in Malawi, and got a lot of advice from her. So, now I have a pet. She's actually really cute, and it's kind of nice to have some company around my house. I wanted a traditional Malawian name so I asked my friend to pick out a name for her. He decided on 'Chifundo' which means 'mercy'. I think 'Wamisala' would fit her better, it means 'crazy', but I guess I'll stick with Chifundo. 

Lab#2 Photosynthesis

Yesterday I did a lab with my form 3 bio class. We were testing 2 different leaves for the presence of starch; a green leaf and a yellow leaf. The hypothesis was that the yellow leaf wouldn't have starch because it doesn't have many chlorophyll to perform photosynthesis. The lab itself went very well. The students were engaged, they followed the procedures, and the results were exactly what I had wanted. The lab reports, however, were much less successful. 

Last week we learned how to write lab reports. I discussed the format, what sections to include, and exactly what each section should contain. So this lab we were going to practice and work through the entire thing together. I wrote the purpose, materials, and procedures on the board so all they had to do was copy them. As a class we generated a hypothesis and that too I wrote for them to reference. After the lab we discussed the results. So all they had to do was come up with a conclusion. I even prompted them with that by writing: "the green leaf showed that it had starch because..." 

When I got the lab reports, they were a mess. The format was nothing like I taught, sections were in any random order and some on completely different pages. Some had the word "hypothesis" written three times but no actual hypothesis to go with it. Some of the conclusions were good and a few were pretty impressive, but most were like these:

"The green leaf showed that it had starch because..."

"First stating we can boil the water and because of boiling water the green leaf has starch."

"Photosynthesis to make food to green leaf but the yellow leaf has no starch because of there not make they food."

"The green leaf is chlorophyll."

And my personal favorite:

"Do not become yellow."

First days teaching

I have finally started teaching! After being in Malawi for over three months, I have officially started my job at Dzenje community day secondary school teaching form 1 math and form 3 biology. The first classes consisted of me introducing myself, getting laughed at every single time I said my name (I asked why but I still don't understand why the name Ms. Germany is so hilarious), discussing the class rules and procedures, and answering questions about America. Here are a few of the questions I received:

How many children do you have? (0)

What are the major cash crops in America? (Ummm...)

Why does America have so many wars? (Wow ...because... politics?)

Do people in America eat nsima? (No)

Are there black people in America? (yes)

Why is America so famous? (Probably because of Michael Jordan )

I made up a lot of answers. 

The classes after the first day have not been much easier. The biggest challenge is that the students barely understand English. It's not as hard to teach the form 3 class, but in form 1 I have to talk very slowly, very loudly, and annunciate everything. And they still don't understand. We started a unit on sets and grouping, so I was giving examples of ways to group things. I said that we could group the class into boys and girls and asked all the students who would be in the girls group to raise their hands. I got blank stares. "Ok." I repeated it very slowly while gesturing wildly, "raise. your. hand. if. you. are. a. girl." Of the 50 girls that are in my class, 3 girls and 1 boy raised their hands. It's going to be a long term. But pang'ono pang'ono (little by little) they will better understand me and teaching will get easier. They are a great group of students and overall I'm really excited about my classes. 

School starts everyday at 7:30 and the day is broken up into nine 40 minute periods with two breaks. The first break is tea time! 😃 Tea and bread rolls are provided for us in the staff room. There are only 13 staff at the school. 11 regular teachers and the deputy and head teacher, both who also teach subjects. Unlike in American high schools, the students stay in the same classroom all day and the teachers switch between rooms when it is their period to teach. There are only four classrooms (one for each grade) and about 100 students in each class. I have a pretty easy schedule this term because I am new, so I only teach 11 periods a week. When I'm not teaching I hang out in the staff room and read or work on lesson plans. Even though my house is less than 20 feet from the classrooms and I could easily go home between periods, I like to sit in the staff room because I often talk to the other teachers and practice my Chichewa. I also get a lot of interesting questions from them about America. Today I was asked if I had ever heard of a place called McDonald's. So I explained about fast food restaurants and the types of food people eat in America. The entire staff was amazed. At least I'm teaching something. 

A Sunday. And a wedding!

5:30 I woke up, same time I do everyday, started a fire, cooked some oatmeal for breakfast and got ready for the day. 

8:00 left for church with my neighbor, Sarah, and my head teacher's family. They go to a Jehovah's Witness church where Sarah is a sign language interpreter for a deaf man that attends. Malawian sign language is very similar to ASL so between the little Chichewa I know, and the few signs I recognized, I was able to follow about half the service. The deaf man's name is Joseph and, since he also knows a little American Sign Language, I was able to talk to him for a while. I think the rest of the congregation was dumbfounded by the azungu (white person) signing, and I got a lot of stares. But by now I'm pretty used to that.  After church we went outside because Sarah wanted to take a picture with me. Others were watching us and, before I knew what was happening, a line had formed and I was taking a picture with almost every person there. I felt like a celebrity. Or a meet-and-greet Disney character. 

2:00 I attended my first ever wedding! Although I have never been to an American wedding, I believe I can safely say that this was not at all similar. It felt more like an outdoor concert or an all-village picnic. There was a makeshift stage set up in the middle of the primary school field and a huge crowd gathered around it. There was a mosh pit type set up where people danced in the middle of the crowd. More people were scattered, standing and sitting, throughout the field talking. There were the food vendors, who are usually at the market, selling water and snacks. On the stage, the bride and groom sat, while an MC played music and yelled into a mic. From what I gathered his main job was to collect money and people danced up to the stage to donated to the new couple. The MC announce each donation and the total amount received. The entire time I was there the bride and groom stayed sitting on the stage, watching the people in the crowd and looking thoroughly bored and unhappy. It made me wonder what the circumstances of the marriage were and whether they wanted the wedding at all.  The event started at 2:00 and I stayed for about 2 hours. At some point I was handed an adorable child named Eliza and I held her for a while. It is now almost 8 and I can still hear the celebration from my house in full swing, with no signs of wrapping up soon. The wedding was the first village event I have been to and it was really cool because, even though I still got stared at a lot, many people knew who I was and came up to greet me or talk. And all of them tried to get me to dance. Which I did not. 

5:30 my bed, which I ordered about a week ago, finally arrived! The carpenter just finished it today and rode it to my house on the back of his bike. I wish I had taken a picture because a twin sized bed strapped to the back of a bike is really an unusual sight. (But apparently not as unusual as a white person at a wedding). I'm really excited about not sleeping on the floor anymore! and now my room smells like fresh cut wood and sawdust, which I love :)

7:00 my head teacher's daughter came over to my house with a bag full of food containers. Her mother had cooked me dinner and sent me over a picnic of eggs, vegetables, and nsima. So I poured myself a glass of wine and had a lovely relaxing dinner by lamplight (because at this point it is dark and I have no electricity). 

7:45 I am now getting ready for bed and looking forward to my first day of school tomorrow! 

This is a plea for mail!

Hi all! Now that I'm settled into my new home in Mulanje I have a permanent address: 

Dzenje CDSS 

P.O Box 57 Mbiza Luchenza

Malawi, Central Africa

I will still receive mail sent to the peace corps PO box but the new address is probably more reliable and much faster. Please send me mail! And get all your friends to send me mail too! I want to hear from you and feel better connected to America. I get no contact with Americans on a daily basis and very little with English speakers, so any communication is extremely cherished and greatly appreciated. I cannot stress how special receiving a letter is to me here. If you'd rather avoid the post office (especially since international mail rates are ridiculous) send me an email. If you don't already have it my email address is rgermany03@gmail.com and I'm able to check it about once a week. If, however, you are interested in sending a care package, I will love you forever and here are a few suggestions of items I would like:

•Any American food!-don't worry mom, I'm eating well, but I really miss a lot of the American snacky stuff I can't get here

•granola bars

•dried fruit

•candy (specifically twizzlers or Swedish fish. If you know me you know how hard it's been with no twizzlers for almost 3 months! Lol)

•Mac and cheese packets

•cheese flavored anything or anything even resembling cheese. They don't have it here and it's my favorite/ staple food in America 

•water flavorers (i.e crystal light packets, Gatorade powder)

•pictures of your pretty face! I didn't bring enough and I miss seeing everyone

•entertainment such as sudoku or crossword books, magazines, small puzzles, etc. (I have a lot of free time)

Can't wait to hear from you!

P.S Aunt Fern and Uncle Andy: I've started hanging my cards on a string like you do in your office and they decorate my house :)