Madalitso

Thought that I'd introduce you to Madalitso or Mada as everyone calls her. Mada is the daughter of a couple who have worked for my host family on and off over the past few years. (Mada's wearing my glasses in the picture on the left.)

Madalitso's family lived in our house while it was being built and stayed on for some time after it was completed. Mada and her sisters were part of the family for a while, and Phyness (my host family's matriarch) sent Mada to preschool. Mada really enjoyed preschool and loved to come home and share the alphabet amongst other exciting things.

Mada is seven now, and she and her family live a five minute walk from where I stay. Sometimes in the evenings after work I walk over to her house to visit. They have a small house in area that's shared with several other families. They use candles for lighting and charcoal for cooking. They have a well for water. I'm usually welcomed with hugs when I go and visit.

When Mada's family moved out of Phyness' compound they didn't continue sending Mada to school. Education is fairly inexpensive in Malawi. It's supposed to be free, but books and uniforms are necessary and they are not included in the government's free school program. Also, sometimes the education available at the free schools isn't of the highest quality because these schools have very large classes. I was talking to a primary teacher in training and he said that he expects to teach between 50 and 150 students. Imagine a class of 150 grade 1 students! Bedlam!

I decided that I would help to send Mada to school because my host family said that she was very smart and that it was a shame that she wasn't going to school. Mada has started grade 1, but she's behind her school-mates who are two years younger than her. She visits me most Sundays for the little extra help that I can offer. She's learning to speak English very quickly (all school is taught in English). She started responding to my questions almost immediately after she started school (which is much, much faster than I can claim for my Chichewa skills).

She's still working on learning the alphabet and learning numbers, but there's progress. My only hope for her is that she will be able to choose where she wants to go with her life. I think a bit of inexpensive (for me) education will go a long way towards giving her that kind of choice.

Thanks for reading.

A Wedding... nope not mine!

This weekend I got to attend a Malawian wedding ceremony. I finagled the invitation through other volunteers who are working in Lilongwe. The groom was a co-worker of my friend. However, despite the fact that no one knew who I was I was given 'guest-of-honour' status along with my friends -- which in this case meant that we got good seats.

That's the bride and groom on the left. Neither of them look very happy, but apparently that's part of the ceremony. I haven't managed to find out why that's the case yet. Occasionally, the groom accidentally cracked a smile though so I knew everything was ok.

There wasn't too much romance involved in the ceremony. The bride's family presented the groom's family with a hen, and the groom's family presented the bride's family with a cock. And then there was quite a bit of dancing.


The people on the left are dancing and showering the newly married couple with money. We were told to take lots of small bills to the wedding so that we could take part in the dancing and showering of money. I took lots of 20 Kwacha bills (about 20 cents) and I did some dancing. They even played special music for the 'Canadians' to dance to because they didn't think we could get down to Malawian music.

All in all it was a pretty good time.... and the kids definitely had fun.

Next up are preparations for a visit by our projectdonors AGRA. This means that I had to postpone my trip north. I'll probably head that way in two weeks time.


Happy Canada Day to everyone back home!!!

Photos and Stories

Report Aftermath...
Our department is relaxing in the happy glow of a report submitted just on time. We're tidying up a few loose ends and doing a little bit of planning for the next few months.

I'm currently planning for a trip up to the north of the country next week. I'll be visiting the office in Mzuzu and spending some time in the field. I'm looking forward to some time in village. Hopefully I can shadow one of our agrodealers and learn a little more about what it's like to do business in Malawi. I might even make a trip to visit another volunteer (and good friend) in Misuku in the very north of Malawi. Andrew's working for a fair trade company called Mzuzu coffee and his placement is very remote. Apparently only Mzuzu coffee vehicles and the ambulance make trips to Misuku. I've got my fingers crossed that I'll make the trip.

Other news...
Well, in the absence of other news I thought that I'd share some pictures. The first two were taken at a big field day a month or so ago. I was a big hit because I had a camera. I took lots of photos - the problem will be if/when I see these people again and they start asking where their photos are.

The first photo is of one of the women who organized the field day. She was very insistent that I take her photo and managed to shoo away other people long enough to get a photo by herself... well mostly by herself.

The second photo is a bunch of boys at the same field day.

The third photo is of Tokafe. She lives at my home. She's belongs to Bob, the guy who cooks and cleans at our house. She isn't actually his daughter but the family looks after as though she is part of the family. When Bob and his wife married and had a child they were given Tokafe to look after. This is very common in Malawi. My co-worker Khumbo just got married and had a baby and she already has three children from her extended family who live with her. As she says, if you're doing well in Malawi then you have to look after members of your family who aren't doing as well as you are.

Tokafe is super cute and very shy. For the first month or so, she would hide every time that she saw me. I couldn't quite figure out how to make friends with her until I bought her a teddy bear (a puppy) at the market. Now we're good friends and she loves to wave at me whenever she sees me.

The picture is of Tokafe taking a bath. She's not too fond of baths at all... but she has a better reason than most. That's cold water in the bucket.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the pictures.

One convention, one report, and two retreats

So, I've been absent for a little while... but I do have a really good excuse - I've been busy!

A convention...
At the end of May we had over a hundred and fifty agrodealers in town for a two day conference. They came from all over Malawi (ok Malawi really isn't that big, but still) and attended all sort of workshops. We had speakers from business, banks, universities, a government secretary, and other big wigs. We had a reception (with some dancing - my first dancing in Malawi - yay!), we had an award ceremony, and we had lots of food. I think everyone had a good time, both agrodealers and CNFA staff. I was one of two people heading up planning of the convention, so by the end of things I was pretty exhausted (but happy).

A retreat...
Right after the end of the convention I headed to Senga Bay for an EWB convention. It was fun and work combined in almost equal proportion. The work was pretty easy though, the people were fabulous (20 of us from all over Malawi and Zambia), the sessions were outside in the sunshine (a good number of them were on the beach), and monkeys came to observe how we were getting along. The food was pretty spectacular. We hosted a bake off that featured pizza, carrot cake, and a mexican dinner with fresh guacamole. Mmmm....

A report...
It's semi-annual reporting time at CNFA. This means that we in the monitoring and evaluation team have been putting all of our energies into a long report that will make its way to our donor AGRA (Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa), which receives most of its funding from Mr. Bill Gates. Reporting is a fact of life in development - that doesn't mean that it's fun though. (I'm just about to leave work now and it's just after 8:30pm).

Another retreat...
Last weekend the CNFA staff headed off to Senga Bay (yup, I was there two weekends in a row). We spent the weekend reviewing the activities of the past year and planning for the upcoming year. I think it was a pretty productive couple of days... and I managed to sneak in a few swims and walks along the beach. I was suprised how much I missed being by the water, but hopefully I've managed to stock up on lakeside time for a little bit now.

Hope you enjoy the pictures of the lake.