Transatlantic Pen Pals

Did you ever have a pen pal? I had a couple growing up, and I really enjoyed it. So when I found out about the Worldwise Schoolprogram during my Peace Corps application process, I was really excited to participate. The program matches PCVs with a teacher in America, and their students can exchange letters. This lines up perfectly with Goals 2 and 3 of Peace Corps, the sharing of American culture with our host country, and vice versa. Unfortunately, Worldwise Schools had some technical difficulties the last couple years, and the three attempts I made at signing up came to naught. Colii also tried to sign up a couple times, and never heard back from them. (Side note - they have restructured the program and made improvements, so hopefully it will work much better for PCVs and American teachers in the future. It's such a cool idea.)

Luckily, Colii and I are PCVs, so we are practiced at having to be creative and resourceful to get things done. We decided to have the students in my Library Club exchange letters with the students in her Health Club. We had all the kids write letters, and then we matched them up together.

The Moldovan Pen Pals

               

The Malawian Pen Pals

I even gave my students a little one-page info sheet on Moldova, with a map and a photocopy of a postcard I got in Soroca when I visited there. Colii passed on some Romanian phrases to me, and I included those on the sheet as well. The Romanian phrases have really caught on, and now I regularly hear “Buna dimineata” and “pa pa” at school from my Malawian students! Even from kids that were not even involved in the pen pal program.

Letter writing was a great way for the students to practice their English and writing skills. It also taught them about another country. Sharing the culture of your host country with the people of your PCV friend’s host country isn’t one of the three PC goals, but it sure was a lot of fun!

Farewell to the Library Monitors

We had our final Library Monitors meeting at school this week. The Library Monitors are a program I created at my school where two students in each grade level are trained in how to use the library, and then assist me each week during their class’s library time. The kids have done a great job all year, and have really taken on a proactive role in the library. They go around and help the students find books, they put away the returned books, they make sure there aren’t too many students in the library at one time, and they come to me to reschedule library periods that fall during a school holiday. Plus they translate for me a lot, which really helps me out. Library has been my favorite part of my service, and they have been a huge part of that. So our last meeting was more about celebrating them and thanking them for being so amazing!

Since it was our last meeting, I started them off with a little library quiz. I divided them into two teams, and gave them a list of questions to answer using the books in the library. Both teams finished in about 20 minutes, then we went through the answers for both—perfect scores! I was so proud of them.

Next came the the certificates. I made certificates for each of them, with the hours they worked in the library as well as their training hours listed. I gave them a little speech about the importance of their role in the library, and how much I appreciated them, and how I hoped they would continue to work hard next year after I am gone. Then I gave the certificates to my Co-Librarian Mr. Kapira, and he shook their hands and gave them out. He also thanked me for all my work in the library, which meant a lot to me.

The Library Monitors showing off their certificates

Then it was time for biscuits and Fanta! Because in Malawi, you can’t have a meeting without biscuits and Fanta. (Side note—this is different than a party in Malawi, which means chicken and rice and Fanta, plus lots of music and dancing.) While they were enjoying their refreshments, I passed around a bunch of free magazines that I had gotten from Peace Corps during my service, including the Peace Corps Times and Worldview magazine. I let each student pick one to keep. They really liked them, and asked me questions about some of the articles and pictures. One student saw an ad for Geico with the gecko logo on it, and asked me what that was. So I told them it was a gecko, similar to the house geckos we have here in Malawi. Then they taught me the word for gecko in Chichewa, which is “nalimata”.

We took some group photos of them, and I promised that I would print one to put up on the library bulletin board. This is the one I think I am going to go with:

And that was our meeting. Thanks for all your hard work, kids!

Fun with Encyclopaedias

(That's the British spelling of encyclopedias. Those extra letter a's are really growing on me).

As an Education PCV I have a number of education objectives I can choose from for my primary projects. One of those objectives is increasing the use of the library. I didn't realize how much I would love this project! It is definitely my favorite part of my service.

I am the Co-Librarian at my school, although at this point it is pretty much just me by myself. The other Co-Librarian is also a teacher and an administrator which leaves him very little time for the library. So what is a PCV tasked with sustainability to do? Train the students!

We had two library prefects in Form 4, but nothing in the other three forms. So I put up a notice asking for students to help me in the library. Now I have six Library Monitors in addition to the two Library Prefects.

It has been such a blessing having their help in the library. They help students find books, put away book returns, monitor the students in the library, and translate for me when a student has a problem. They also let me know if we are low on certain books, and pass on announcements about the library to their classes. In return, the Library Monitors get to use the library during any free periods instead of just their assigned Library Period.

I am also training the Library Monitors in the use of the library as a resource. We meet about twice a month to discuss library issues and learn about the library. So far I have taught them how to use a table of contents, glossary and index and how to find the different books students need.

Yesterday's meeting was about the use of encyclopedias and dictionaries. My school library has two sets of World Book Encyclopedias and about four dictionaries, but students rarely use them. I am hoping to change that, and the Library Monitors are a big part of that.

Our meeting ended with a competition. I divided them into two teams and gave each team a set of questions to answer using the encyclopedias and dictionaries. The first team to answer all five questions correctly won stickers and Pez candy (thanks Mom and Paul)!

Here are the questions:

1) What is the population of Belgium?

2) What is a hoopoe?

3) Which country grows the most potatoes?

4) Who was Socrates?

5) What does "prose" mean?

Here they are researching the answers:

They really seemed to enjoy the game, and I think they will start using these books more. Now I hope they will tell other students about them too.

During our meeting we also decided to form a Library Club that is open to other students. Then we can train them in the library too. The term is almost over so I am hoping to start that next term.