Potato, Potahto

During the first week of each new term I am supposed to record the final grades for my students. As I tally grades between my spreadsheet and my hard copy mark book, I always have to do the reconciliation of names. This happens every term and it drives me absolutely crazy. Who knew how difficult it would be just to record a score for the right student? This is a problem here in Malawi for several reasons.

1) It seems like all kids here have between 3-4 names, and they randomly switch between them on homework, quizzes and exams. One kid will go by one name the whole term, then on his exam will use a different combination of names (like the first name and then one of their middle names, without their surname) and totally throw me off. It doesn't help that certain names like Precious, Chisomo (which means Grace), Mphatso (which means gift) and John are common here, so you can't always figure out who is who if you only recognize one name.

2) Kids also like to switch between the English and Chichewa versions of their name (like Mphatso and Gift), so sometimes I have to use my Chichewa dictionary to record a homework assignment. This is a good way to learn new Chichewa words, I guess. But annoying when you are working under a deadline.

3) The kids also switch up the spellings of their names. They will add letters or subtract letters, seemingly on a whim. Based on my observations, there is no one correct way to spell your name in Malawi.  I see this happen with students as well as with the teachers. I'm not really sure why.
= Maybe it is because Chichewa is considered more a spoken language than a written one, so spelling isn't considered as important? For example, I've seen three different spellings alone for n'gaiwa, the whole-grain maize which is a staple food here in Malawi.
-Plus in Chichewa the "l" and the "r" are interchangeable.  You can literally pronounce either one with an "l" or an "r" sound. That makes spelling those words a challenge. Which makes recording grades a nuisance for me.

The coolest example of a student changing their spelling was a girl with the surname "Leonard". She always spells it like that now, but on my intial attendance sheet the first day of class she spelled it Lynard, like Lynard Skynard. I don't think she knows who they are, but it made me smile.

A sidenote on spelling of names-- I tried using the school register lists during the first term to get the correct spellings, but those were actually worse. The way kids register for school is that a parent meets with the Form Teacher, and verbally provides the parent's name, student name, student age and the village where they live.  Since it is all verbal, the teachers that register the students just spell the name however it sounds to them. I never hear any confirmation of the spelling. (The l/r things comes up big time during school registration. I see lots of Arfreds). So trying to make out the messy scrawls of my students on their notebooks is actually more accurate. Maybe. All in all though, it's not a big deal because the spelling of names just doesn't matter here.  Well, to anyone except to me.

4) Kids like to write nicknames on their notebooks, and then all of a sudden pull out their real name on the last exam. That happened just recently with a student that had gone by "Junior" all term. Then all of a sudden he writes "Raphael" on his exam, and I was wondering who this new student was, until I saw the common surname. And saw that Junior was missing a final exam score. You have to be Sherlock Holmes to be a teacher here.

5) The class roster changes a lot. Kids change school a lot here, and there is no formal communication to the teachers of this. In a class of 80 students where only 1/2 to 3/4 show up on a regular basis, it is hard to know who is missing or new. So when I have a student that did not take a test, I don't know if they were absent, changed schools, or just randomly changed the name they wrote on their paper. It can be frustrating.

Here are some examples of the ways kids change up their names:

• Blessings Chimanga vs Blessings Chimanga Hornest vs Ernest Mphatso Chimanga (adding in new names, dropping others later-- why????)
• Supuni, Spoon (switching between the Chichewa name and the English translation)
• Justin, Justine (adding in an extra letter)
• Swally, Mswali (changing spelling)
• Vincent, Vinsenti (changing spelling, adding a letter)
• One of my students just wrote "Lee Gangsta" on his notebook, but that turned out to be just his nickname.  Yeah, thanks. You are getting a zero, buddy. Just kidding...

So my mark book is full of cross-outs, and my spreadsheet has an extra column for "Other Names" and somehow I get by. It's funny because I used to be such a stickler for spelling people's names correctly. I considered it a matter of politeness and respect. But I have been living in Malawi so that has required me to adapt to my host country while I am here. So in that spirit, I spell my name different here too (Stesi).  And I even switch between the English spelling and the Chichewa spelling of my name a lot, which really confuses the other PCVs, but the Malawians don't seem to mind. Integration!

Kukolope ndi Ana

(Chichewa translation: Mopping with the kids)

Yesterday afternoon the kids came over to hang out. We practiced our English colors (Petro knew "khaki"!), the words for feelings (they love acting out "scared" and they get wild when we practice "happy") and ate mangos and these small black fruits with pits that they called "nanyole". Then I brought out a game of Snakes & Ladders that I found at Shoprite in Blantyre. They got bored with it pretty quickly and we moved on to looking at books.

Then they started telling me to mop my porch because it was dirty. I said I didn't want to, and that it didn't bother me. They kept insisting it needed to be mopped, so that it could be "kuwala" (to shine).

The kids are not OCD-- it's just that a clean home is very important in the culture here. And with the cooking and washing and the chim being outdoors, that means the yard is also considered the home as well. Which is why sweeping the yard and keeping the grass short is so important to people here. The women sweep and mop their homes everyday. At school the kids sweep and mop everyday too, even in Primary School. Which means the kids are well-versed in basic cleaning skills.

So when they told me to mop, and I said I didn't want to, they begged me to let them do it. Well, what could I do? I gave them a mop and a bucket and they set about mopping my porch.

Gender equality-- boys can mop too! Petro started the mopping.

They shared the work, I mean fun. Here is Fanny taking a turn:

They were really proud of their work. I thanked them in English and Chichewa, then I brought out a little oatmeal for them as a thank-you. They loved it!

Mango Alipo

(Translation: mangos are available. In Chichewa "mango" is both singular and plural, and "alipo" means available or around or here.)

Even though I have been eating mangos for a couple months now, it hasn't felt like mango season because the giant mango tree in front of my house didn't have any ripe fruit yet.

All that has changed now. Throughout the day I hear ripe mangos falling into my yard. And I find this:

They lay in the grass like yellow Easter eggs, just waiting to be eaten. Which I am doing my best to comply with, but it's difficult. (What a great problem to have, right?) Today about eight mangos fell to the ground. I grabbed a couple for myself and gave the rest to the kids. They love them! I'm eating them Malawian-style now, mango skin and all except the pit. They are so good!

There aren't too many strangers climbing the tree to get ripe mangos now. The kids told me the men did that last week while I was away. Mostly the women come with long branches and bamboo stalks to knock out the ripe mangos, or the kids throw rocks and unripe mangos to knock out the ripe ones. It's a big old mango party here!

I was thinking about making something with them, like mango coffee cake, but we're having a bit of a heat wave now so the thought of standing over a fire for hours is not appealing. Anyways, I'm too busy marking exams and preparing final grades for school. Our new term starts on Monday, 4 January (that's how we write dates here). But there are still a fair amount of mangos to ripen, so maybe later this week.

And a Happy New Year

Hello, 2016! This year will start in Malawi for me and end in the good old US of A. It's kinda hard to believe.

New Years Eve in the village is like a big party. There was music late into the night, and people were out and about, laughing and talking into the wee hours.

When the kids came by this morning, we all wished each other a Happy New Year in English, and talked about our Christmases. Then we decorated a little  Christmas tree, since I didn't have time to do it before I left for the holiday. They got a little carried away with the stickers.

Then we collected fallen mangos, practiced some English vocabulary with the flash cards I made, and I gave then some biscuits. Cuz it's a holiday after all!

In the afternoon I went to my neighbor's house to chat. They were preparing their New Years meal of chicken and rice. These are both expensive foods for villagers so they are usually only served on special occasions. They gave me a small piece of chicken to eat since I said I was making beans and rice for dinner. It was boneless and soft, and I have no idea what part it was except it wasn't a wing or breast. They use the whole chicken here, feet and all. It was well-cooked and tasty. Then they gave me a mandazi (donut) to take home with me.

For dinner I made lentils and brown rice and veggies. It took a long time to cook on the hot plate, but it was worth it. And I made extra so I could share some with my neighbors too. They said it was "kucoma" (tastes good).

Oh, and this evening I saw the first toad of the year! It was two inches long. So cute-- look at it's little feet!

Happy Thanksgiving from Malawi

Just like last year, Thursday started like just a normal day. I went to school and taught my classes, well class, since my second one was cancelled so the students could hear a motivational talk about blood transfusions.

But in the afternoon my friend came by and the festivities began. I was planning to cook over charcoal because the power had been out all day, but it came on around 4pm. It was a Thanksgiving miracle!

The menu was mashed potatoes and a Sprouts pumpkin soup that my Mom had sent in a care package. (Thanks, Mom!) I also had picked up some green beans (ziteba) from the village market, so our meal was looking pretty festive. And then we got a little crazy.

I had picked up some chive flavored cream cheese the day before in Blantyre, and without refrigeration this was probably the last day it was edible. So we threw that into the potatoes.

Then we poured the heated soup over that, and topped it off with our lightly cooked green beans.

This was the delicious result:

(It tasted better than it looks, I promise).

We were both stuffed after our meal, as is appropriate on the holiday. It was a good day. And this marks the end of my last Thanksgiving in Malawi. I'm looking forward to a dinner with all the fixins back Home next year!

Thanksgiving is a time to say thanks, and I have a lot to be thankful for. I'm thankful to Colii for this crazy PC adventure we are on together. I'm thankful for my site and my school and that I get the opportunity to experience all this. And I am so thankful to all of my family and friends and for all your love and support and letters and emails (and care packages!) while I do this. I miss you all so much. Ndathokoza kwambiri (I am very thankful).

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

It's Quiz Time

I just gave the first quiz of the term in my Form 2 Physical Science class. The topic was acids and bases.

Continual assessment is something that both PC and the Malawian Ministry of Education encourage. I assign weekly homework which I collect and mark, and then try to give a quiz at the end of each unit. Then there will be an end of term exam on all the topics we covered throughout the term.

I have a rewards system where the top three students get maprizes (in Chichewa the plural of something often has "ma-" at the beginning of the word). Usually I give school supplies, like pens or pencils or notebooks. This time I gave a small notebook and a little certificate. Aren't they cute? My Mom sent those to me, along with the stickers. Thanks, Mom!

I try to structure my quizzes this way:

- at least one question on a basic concept that we repeatedly covered in class

- about 10-15% percent of the questions require critical thinking and cover the more complex material we covered

- about a quarter of the questions require the student to apply the knowlege they learned, such as a word problem or calculation

- the rest of the questions can be answered by memorizing concepts from the lectures (definitions, properties, etc)

That is based on the traditional bell curve and the Malawian grading scale, which is different than the U.S. grading scale:

A 80-100%

B 70-79%

C 55-69%

D 40-55%

F 0-39%

The mode of my quiz was 5, or about 37%, and more than half the students failed, even with the more lenient grading scale here. Also, about a third of the class was absent. This is all pretty typical for a CDSS, the rural, underfunded schools that all PCVs teach at. Still, I was encouraged that a few students got the critical thinking and applied knowlege questions correctly, and I had some new high performers this time around. Hopefully they liked the certificates and stickers and this will keep then motivated to do even better next time.

One Year in Malawi

As of last week I have been in Malawi for a year. It's crazy how much has happened to me in such a short time. To celebrate, I had dinner with a group of PCVs at a fancy restaurant in Blantyre. I forgot to take photos, but let me just say three words-- "garlic cheese loaf." It was a really fun night, and I felt really lucky to be here and have this incredible experience.

So now it is time to celebrate on the blog. In sixth grade we had a writing assignment that went "I used to _______, but now I _______". It was supposed to be a way to reflect on how much we had changed during elementary school. So I am going to borrow that idea to describe some of the changes that have happened to me this past year.

I used to speak English and a little Spanish, but now I speak English, Malawian English, and a little Chichewa. (My Spanish has mostly been displaced by my new language. Pobrecita).

I used to drink tap water, but now I only drink water that has been treated by filtering, boiling or adding WaterGuard.

I used to wash my hair everyday, but now I wash it once or twice a week.

I used to be a vegetarian, but now I eat meat when I feel it is safe and has been properly cooked (usually only in a city restaurant or cooked by a PCV.  Or when I get it in a care package. Beef jerky is like my new favorite food.)

I used to wake up to an alarm clock, but now I wake up to the crowing of roosters (and sometimes the mooing of cows).

I used to think powdered milk was gross, but now it is like sweet nectar when I put it in my coffee and cereal and hot cocoa.

I used to wear jeans everyday, but now I wear skirts and chitenjes, and only wear my jeans in the city. I still love them though.

I used to use a shower, a sink, a washing machine and a flush toilet, but now I use buckets for washing stuff and my toilet is a pit latrine (aka the chim).

I used to be blissfully unaware that cockroaches shed their exoskeletons at several points in their lifetimes, but now I have seen direct evidence of this in the chim. And I have the photos to prove it.

I used to mostly recycle my trash, but now I burn it. I still compost my food waste though.

I used to drive a car, but now I walk or ride mini-buses or bike-taxis to get around. 

I used to think it would be cool to move to another country someday, but now I want to live in America forever and just visit other countries.

I used to think I had the best family and friends in the world, but now I *know* I do. I love you guys! Thanks so much for all the letters and packages and emails and phone calls. It means a lot.

Cheers!

Live like a PCV for a Day Challenge

It's June, and that is a special occasion here on the Peace Corps Sisters Blog. In June of 2014 both of us left our family, friends, jobs and homes in the USA to travel across the world and become Peace Corps Volunteers. It's been quite an adventure and we have had fun sharing our experiences with all of you on this blog. So many things have changed for us, like the way we bathe and cook and get around and even the way we speak.

To celebrate, we have decided to offer up a challenge to all of you! During the month of June, we want each of you to live like a PCV for a day. Choose one activity from the list below, and do it for one day. Then let us know (with a comment to this post or an email) about how it went for you.

Live like a PCV for one day during the month of June! Pick one of these activities to do for one day:

• Take a bucket bath using water that was heated on the stove
• Treat your drinking water - boil & filter all water before you drink it or brush your teeth with it
• Use only candles or flashlights after dark
• Only use water from your outdoor tap for one day
• Wash all your laundry by hand and dry on a clothesline
• Pee in a bucket after dark
• Go without electricity
• Go without refrigeration
• Take only public transport and sit next to a stranger
• Walk to an outdoor market and buy all the vegetables and grains you will eat that day

During your day, why not greet someone in one of our local languages?

• In Chichewa, you can say "Muli bwanji?" (how are you?).  The typical response is "Ndili bwino" (I'm fine)
• In Romananian, you can say "Bună ziua" (boona zeewa) which means "Good day".

3 Months at Site

Another PC milestone! It feels like it has gone by pretty fast, and yet when I think back to the beginning of the term it seems so long ago. I feel really comfortable in my house, my village and at my school. I've met a ton of people, improved my Chichewa, rode many, many mini-buses and taught over 150 high school students about science. I'm feeling really excited about the next phase of the school year and my journey as a PCV.

My new roommate. He prefers level surfaces, unlike the wall-scaling lizards.

What is the funniest thing that happened to you so far?

Last week I was kneeling down while talking with some of the three-year old girls that live near me. They were asking me things in Chichewa which I only partially understood. They pointed toward my abdomen and said what I took to be "belly", only they said it like "bay-lay". I said, "Yes, belly." Then one of the girls reached forward and grabbed my breast through my tank top! And it dawned on me that she was saying "bere" which is Chichewa for breast. So I laughed and said, "Eee (yes), bere!"

What surprises you about your host country?

One of the biggest surprises has been how much is actually locally available. Yesterday I saw spaghetti noodles in my local village market. There are stationary stores in every trading center that sell chalk, erasers, rulers, notebooks, pens and other school supplies. I can get bread and Coca-Cola, peanut butter and M&Ms. Even Orbit gum and Lay's potato chips are sold in the Boma. And that's not to mention what is available in Lilongwe or Blantyre where they have stores that look like something from  America. Which isn't to say these things are common. I don't think most people can afford these items, and I certainly have to watch my Kwacha and follow a budget to afford some of these on my stipend. But I never expected to see most of these here.

What do you love about your host country?

I love how friendly and helpful everyone is. Pretty much everywhere I go I meet someone that is willing to take a few minutes to show me around, help me find something or just chat for a few minutes. I hear "Takulandirani" (Welcome) all the time here.

And it's not just with me. Malawians are friendly and helpful to each other too. When we have a visitor at the school, everyone that walks by will greet them. And if someone just picked pumpkin leaves, all the ladies will get together and help peel them. It's just a very communal, friendly culture. People really care about each other here.

What cultural customs have been most difficult to adapt to?

Money is very out in the open here, which I am not used to. If I buy something usually the first question will be, "How much did it cost?" And people will ask things like how much I pay in rent, which I consider a bit inappropriate unless I know them pretty well. Also when you tithe at church you are expected to go up and put the money in the basket up front where everyone can see. At weddings and parties it is similar. Sometimes they even write down what you gave and read it out. I'm used to a bit more privacy with regards to finances. I don't usually talk about money or how much things cost myself, but I try to put it in perspective and just go with it here.

What is your favorite word or phrase in the local vernacular?

Right now it is a tie between "ndathokoza, which means "I am thankful" and "kaya" which means "Who knows?"

What did you eat for dinner last night?

I had a fried egg on a piece of toast with sautéed onions and tomatoes. And a delicious mango for a dessert.

What foods do you miss the most?

Salads and smoothies. It's been so hot here and those were my summer go-to meals. I would love a fresh Greek salad with romaine lettuce and a strawberry smoothie made with yogurt. Mmm, strawberries. And ice! Cold ice on a hot day would be wonderful.

What do you wish you brought with you?

A laptop, a portable speaker, more tank tops, a good Biology textbook because sometimes I don't trust the Malawian textbooks I am using, sticky tack, and a whole suitcase of food. Especially Clif bars and stuff I could just grab and eat on the go.

Which do you prefer-- a shower or a toilet?

I don't have either at my site, but if I had to choose I would go with a nice shower. While a cool bucket bath on a hot day is quite refreshing, I never feel like I get 100% clean. I am really starting to appreciate how amazing showers really are. I mean, you just turn a faucet and water comes out at the temperature of your choosing, for as long as you want? Sounds like paradise.

Ndikudwala

I've caught my first cold in Malawi. All I want to do is stay home and sleep right now. But I have classes to teach and there was a problem with my house that I needed to take care of today, and I had no food so I had to go to the trading center. Plus the kids keep knocking at my door wanting to chat. They are really persistent too. I guess I can sleep over the weekend...

Back home when I got sick I would drink lots of orange juice with those Emergen-C packets and/or powdered greens, but ndilibe (I don't have any). I'm making due with drinking lots of water and tea with honey. Also, Peace Corps provides us with a number of useful items in our medical kits so I've been taking the sore throat lozenges, cough drops and ibuprofen from my kit.  No tissues here so I'm using toilet paper instead. (They probably sell tissues in the big cities, but there are none to be found around here).

Greetings are a big part of the culture here. When you are sick, you are supposed to let people know by modifying your response to the greetings. So when someone asks, "Muli bwanji?" (How are you?), instead of responding with "Ndili bwino" (I am fine) you should say "Ndili bwino pang'ono", which roughly translates to "I'm a little fine", indicating all is not well. Then you explain why. I tried this yesterday since it was obvious I was sick. Of course, now all my neighbors think I have malaria. The way they explained it to us in PST is that in Malawi, non-medical people blame malaria for a lot of different illnesses because it is a common ailment. Kinda like how we might say we have the flu in the U.S. without going to a doctor and getting properly diagnosed. For the record, I do not have malaria!

Today I had a coughing fit in my Form 1 class which was fun. Imagine a dry cough and then your eyes water and your throat is burning, while 90 pairs of eyes stare at you. Then I tried to speak and my voice was all hoarse. They thought that was hysterical. Luckily it came back after a few minutes and I was able to finish the lecture.

I'm home now so I'll try to rest while I can. Let's see what my immune system makes of the Malawian cold virus.