Tea Party in Thyolo

With just a few weeks left of my PC service, I'm trying to tick off those last few things on my Malawi bucket list. Visiting the Satemwa tea estate in Thyolo is one of those activities I've been wanting to do. So today me and a few of my PCV friends headed over there.

Tea is one of the major exports of Malawi. But that's kind of misleading because while agricultural is the major industry here, it is mostly subsistence agriculture, specifically maize for nsima.  The tea that is produced here is primarily grown in the Thyolo and Mulanje Districts in the south. There are a number of large tea estates, mostly European-owned. Malawians work in the tea fields picking tea, and some grow tea and sell it to the estates as well.

Satemwa is a well-known company here that sells their own blends of coffee and tea in the major grocery stores throughout Malawi, like Shop-Rite and Chipiku Plus. My favorite is their Earl Grey tea.

When you visit the estate you can have a lunch at the Huntington House. The house was built on the estate in the 1920s.

Lunch includes one pot of tea or coffee. I  ordered the oolong tea, which was really tasty.

They had two lunch options. I ordered the veggie quiche and salad. The salad had lots of arugula which I loved. There has been a serious lack of raw greens in my life these past two years. The quiche was really good too.

And a real chocolate brownie for dessert! I'm always skeptical of chocolate desserts in Malawi because they usually disappoint, but this was the real deal.

After lunch we explored the garden area around the house. There was a manicured yard that looked like it could have been the site of a croquet game. Alas, there were no gophers nor flamingos to be found, so no croquet. (Yes, everything I know about croquet I learned from Disney's Alice in Wonderland).

Here I am in the tea fields. Around the tea estates it's hectares and hectares of these bright green fields. Quite picturesque.

Back in PST Again

I’m so excited to welcome the new Peace Corps Trainees for the Education Sector! They arrived last month and started their Pre-Service Training (PST) here in Malawi. Here is a photo of them that was taken at the airport when they first arrived:

Some of the currently serving PCVs in my group were invited help facilitate the training for the new arrivals, including me! So a couple weeks ago I headed up to the Kasungu District in the Central Region and found myself back in PST again.

The house I stayed at in the training village had three rooms, with a mud floor, an outdoor kitchen and chim, and an outdoor straw bathing area. No electricity here, so I had to heat my bath water and cook over a charcoal mbaula. Which I learned how to do that week, with the help of my fellow PCV Tally, who was also facilitating sessions with me. She is a mbaula expert, and makes excellent peanut butter cookies over her fire. I plan on trying that back at my site soon. Here is a photo of my morning pot of water for coffee and hard-boiled eggs.

The Chichewa group near the house I was staying in let me sit in on their language classes a few days during the week when I didn’t have to facilitate technical sessions. It was nice to get a refresher, and I was able to pay more attention to the whys of the grammar rules instead of just the whats since I know more now. They were learning about how to answer basic questions about themselves like where they are from and where they live. That will be really useful for them because I get asked those things in Chichewa all the time. I can say, “Ndimachokera ku America mu mzinda wa California” (I am from America, from the state of California) in my sleep.

The week I was there was heavy on technical sessions, so Tally and I had a lot of work to do, along with the PC Technical Trainers Denis and Geoff. We worked with the trainees on Malawian curriculum and syllabi, lesson planning, teaching in classrooms with limited resources and student-centered learning. We also did a session on teaching English as a second language. Both Tally and I are science teachers at our sites, but really all PCVs are English teachers because we teach our classes in English. We provided tips on delivering content in a way that ESL speakers can understand, like making sure to speak slowly and clearly, writing things down and defining new words. As someone learning a new language myself, I know how important those concepts are. I often wish people here would use some of those methods with me.

Here is a photo of the trainees in the hall during a session. The facilitator is our Associate Peace Corps Director (APCD) for Education, Michael Kumwenda.

This was a really fun week to facilitate PST because besides all the technical sessions, we also had a luncheon. All the host mothers brought in lunches for the trainees to share with everyone, and the trainers prepared dishes to share as well. It was a basically a big potluck. There were so many dishes to try. Tally made chocolate brownies which were delicious. I also had nsima because I don’t get to eat it very often anymore. There were also cooked greens, potatoes, cooked cabbage, rice, beans and lots of other local dishes.

The trainees are a wonderful group. I had so much fun spending time with them, and I am looking forward to working alongside them as fellow PCVs. They find out their sites tomorrow and they will swear-in at the end of August. And the PC wheel keeps on turning...

Chocolate Biscuits

I had a serious chocolate craving, so I went to the local msika (outdoor market). I ended up with these chocolate cookies, or as they call them here, chocolate biscuits. Biscuits, you ask? Well, let me explain.

Malawi used to be a British colony. While the country has been independent since the 1960s, you can still see subtle signs of the British in the culture and language here.

A few examples-- tea is quite popular, and oftentimes breaks are referred to as "tea breaks" (even though Fanta might be served instead). They drive on the left side of the road here, and the steering wheel is on the right side of the car. BBC News is on the television (so I've heard) and on the Malawian radio.

This photo is from my first week in Malawi when I was at the training center. Each day we had tea breaks with little snacks-- so nice.

English is one of the two official languages of Malawi, but the English they speak is closer to British English. (English English?) So french fries are chips, college is university and cookies are biscuits. Flashlights are torches, chalkboards are blackboards and erasers are dusters. To tune into the BBC station you would turn on your wireless. And I'm always having to check the textbook to make sure I use the local spellings for words like colour, haemoglobin and sulphur. Oh, and "herb" is pronounced with an "h".

I guess this is why whenever people meet me here, they usually assume I am British or Scottish. There are British VSO volunteers and Scottish church organizations in the area, so that's actually a reasonable assumption.

So how did I get on this topic? Oh yeah, chocolate biscuits. Everytime I say "chocolate biscuits" it brings a smile to my face because I think of this Eddie Izzard comedy bit where he tells the story of plane ride he took where they gave out cheap cookies. It's quite funny. I used to listen to that show over and over with my sister back when I was in college (or should I say, university). I think it was from his "Glorious" show. If you get a chance to listen to it, I recommend it.

Cheers!

Happy Independence Day, Malawi-Style

I had my first American holiday here in Malawi. On July 4th we celebrated with a cross-cultural cooking demo here in the village between the American Peace Corps Trainees and our Malawian Trainers and host mothers. We each prepared locally available foods according to our cultures. So us PCTs made guacamole (they grow avocados here, and they are HUGE), mashed potatoes, potato curry, veggie kabobs, fruit salad (they grow bananas here too) and chocolate cake (the cocoa was imported, but it is chocolate so it is okay). The Malawians prepared potatoes in several different ways, including a potato salad with peas that was really good, pumpkin leaves with sinjiro (ground peanut flour), African bread (similar to  cornbread) and lots more. Everything was cooked over an open fire, even the cake (you put the lid on the pot and then put some smoldering sticks on top so it cooks evenly).

The amayis (host mothers) were amazing and even the food we cooked was only possible because of their help. They helped us start our fires, find kindling, and always seemed to know what we needed before we did, whether it was fresh water or a potato peeler. It is like an amayi superpower. So thanks to all the amayis for the delicious food!

Also part of the festivities-- four PCTs slaughtered chickens for the meal. Those chickens ended up on the grill, which was manned by Americans and Malawians. You can see that there are chicken intestines wrapped around chicken feet on the grill. There is also a head too. And no, I didn't try any of that.