Football

Last term I created and started coaching a girls football team at my school (It's really soccer). Sunday we have our first match against a school in a nearby village, so to prepare for the game we decided to hold a friendly practice match today, teachers versus students. There was a lot of question as to which team I would play for. Would I be with the girls since I am their coach and obviously a girl myself? Or would I be on the all male teacher team? Since the teachers needed more players anyway, I played with them. 

After classes I went up to my house to change and get ready. As soon as I returned wearing my jersey and trousers all the students still hanging out in the school's courtyard started yelling and cheering. We walked to the field where the entire primary school, our school, and half the village were already gathered. After a few warmups and a lot more cheering, shouting, and laughing, the game started. I played defense and did pretty well. At first I was pretty self conscious, I felt like there was a giant spotlight on me with about 500 people watching. I did, after all, stick out of the crowd. But as the game progressed I relaxed and had a lot of fun. I was, however, still concerned for my feet and ankles. The field we played on is hard, uneven, dirt with random patches of grass and plenty of rocks and holes. I, at least, had some protection. Half of the players weren't even wearing shoes and walked away with a good number of cuts and scratches. 

During the game I felt very worldly; I was an American, playing in Malawi, wearing a Nigerian team jersey, while people shouted German at me. (Even though they tack vowel sounds at the end of every other word, people here consistently pronounce my name Madam German.

The teachers won the game 4 to 1. But the best part was after, as I was walking off the field, one of my students handed me a note that read: "Madam Germany, you are doing the best please keep the fire going".   😊⚽

Student tutor

Today after school I was invited by one of my students to go to her house for dinner. Idah is not one of my smartest students, she has a lot of trouble with most subjects and does not speak or understand English very well. She is 20 years old and repeating form 3 (the equivalent of high school junior year) for the second time. But she is definitely one of the most ambitious and hard working. She constantly comes to me for help with problems or to define words that she doesn't understand. She wanted me to come to her house because everyday after school she voluntarily helps tutor primary school children that live in her area. I went to help them with their English. After walking for about thirty minutes, and of course greeting every person we passed, we arrived at Idah's house where students were already studying. All of the children were around ages 5-14. None were wearing shoes, and all looked positively terrifyed of me when I walked up. A neighbor was sitting on the porch helping the younger children with their letters. She had an old window shutter that was being used as a chalkboard and helping students trace and write the letters of the alphabet in the dirt. Some of the older students were working on math problems in their excersise books. The chickens and goats running around the yard didn't phase them at all, but at one point, when a plane flew by, everyone stopped what they were doing to stare and point excitedly at the tiny dot moving across the sky. After Idah and I ate we took over the lessons and taught some English. The kids sang the alphabet song, the days of the week song, and a months of the year song. They pointed out and named parts of their body. Then I attempted to teach them some colors. I pointed out a blue chair: "mpando ndi blue!" And green grass and a shirt: " maudzu ndi malaya ndi green!" They repeated the words, but didn't seem to understand the concept. So instead we started to talk in Chichewa about things we like. I told them I like teaching, I like Malawi and America, and I like my family, and I asked what they liked. The group of 6-10 year old girls told me that they like to cook nsima and pump water. It was a strong reminder of the tough lives and gender inequality that these young students face everyday. After the lessons I said goodbyes and headed back to my house. I admire Idah so much for all that she is doing to help these students everyday, and I will definitely be going back to help when I can. 

Christmas/ New Years

Merry Christmas! Happy New Years! I'm finally back home after about a month of traveling around Malawi. I fully intended to write posts while I was on my vacation but, as you can see, that didn't happen so I have a lot of catching up to do.

 I left my village the first week of December and headed to the capital for in-service training with the rest of my group. We had meetings and workshops for 9 days about teaching, camps, clubs, and living in Malawi. It was really nice to be back together with the whole group. After IST I decided to go back to Kasungu and visit the host family I stayed with during training. Appropriately, I saw them on the 6 month anniversary of our coming to Malawi. Can you believe it's been 6 months! Two years is going to fly by. After Kasungu, I travelled with a few friends to a beautiful lodge on lake Malawi where we camped for a few nights, ate delicious food, saw monkeys, and painted some pottery. 

Next on my journey, I headed to a friends house on the northern lakeshore where I spent Christmas with 6 other friends from my group. We made cinnamon rolls for breakfast and opened presents around our tree made from a mosquito net. The others were complaining that it wasn't snowing, but for me the hot weather made it feel a little like home. I missed the big family parties and spending time with everyone, but my Christmas here was still fun and I'm glad I got to spend it with friends. And at the lake :) 

After Christmas I went south to another friends house. While there we decided to check out one of the national parks and do a safari. We got to see warthogs, some kind of antelope thing, monkeys, hippos, and crocodiles!

New Year's Eve I spent with a big group at Palm Beach! (Not in Florida. I wish it was) I went on a sunset booze cruise where we ran aground 3 times, saw some more hippos, and someone almost drowned. Everything turned out ok though and we all had a ton of fun. 

And now I'm back in Mulanje. It's nice to be home and sleep in a real bed! Today is the first day of term two so now I'm just writing lessons and preparing for a great term!

Thanksgiving 1 & 2

Term one is over! I made it through the first three months at site, the part everyone says is the hardest. Even though the days seemed to drag on, looking back it feels like the time flew by. In a few days I will be leaving my village for a whole month to attend training in Lilongwe and then travel around the country for Christmas and New Years. 

Last week was Thanksgiving and, although it was difficult being away from home, it was a good one. I ended up celebrating the holiday twice, with two thanksgiving dinners and two great days with friends. 

Thanksgiving part one I spent at a friend's house in a district close to mine. About ten people from my group met there and cooked dinner together. Despite the lack of ingredients and having to cook over charcoal fires and hot plates, we managed to make a full, traditional, delicious meal. After dinner we spent the evening hanging out and playing cards and it was one of the best days I've had here in Malawi. 

Thanksgiving part two took place at Mulanje golf club on Thanksgiving day. After classes on Thursday I rode my bike into town for the dinner. I assumed it would be just me and a few other PCVs from around the area but by the time dinner started at six there were over 50 peace corps volunteers, NGO volunteers, and other expats from around the country. I only knew a few of them so I got to meet a lot of new people. That night I stayed at a friends house in town with plans to bike home the next morning, but a group got the idea to hike the mountain the next day and I couldn't pass up the opportunity. So the morning after Thanksgiving a small group of friends and I took a day hike up Mt. Mulanje to a beautiful waterfall. The water was freezing but we jumped in anyway and swam. 

It wasn't the traditional Thanksgiving that I'm used to, and it was definitely hard not spending it with my family, but I still had a great holiday and I am very thankful that I am here in Malawi and have wonderful friends to have shared the day with. 

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.