#2016 Part 2, Malawi

Teaching about dinosaurs with worksheets

It's almost 6 months, since I blogged something about my actual stay in Malawi and, more especially at MOET. After an extensive travelogue, I thought that a few updates and stories from my last months in Malawi should be interesting as well!

With the beginning of my third and last term at MOET, I decided to diversify my teaching in Standard 6 a bit, adding the subject "English Language" to my responsibility. Previously I had just taught "English Grammar", which is really important for the children, but rather unexciting to teach. My new subject gave me a lot more freedom concerning the choice of topics, educational games and the use of our new projector.
The most exciting lessons were definitely those about the Malawian Parliament, in which the children learnt about the way a parliament works, read some simplified speeches and in the end wrote their own, to have a real Malawian-Parliament-style discussion.
In their speeches, most of the children commended the good roads (true, I think!) and the good schools (definitely!!) in their constituencies, whilst criticising the government for the shortage of food and the bad police. It was really lovely to listen to the speeches of the good students, and to the great ideas they had for Malawi! Another highlight was the introduction of worksheets, "Can we really write on the papers, John??" about dinosaurs, of which they have never heard of before.

Since I was given full responsibility of English in Standard 6 during the last term, I was also responsible for preparing my class for their End of Term Examinations in that subject. It was a bit more scaring than it initially sounded, because the headteacher and an examination board usually create those exams, to have an unbiased overview of how each class has really progressed in the last year. After a few days of uncertainty, I was quite relieved to see that my kids had done really well and the vast majority of them passed the headteacher's exam.

English exams

Another highlight of my stay was meeting a group of asungus in front of Mangochi's "People's Metro" supermarket, who, as I learnt later were the famous UK band Rudimental and a group of other artists playing at a festival in CapeMaclear 2 days later. Seeing the possibility of avoiding an overcrowded truck, I asked them if they could take me up to my school, what they - like any western band with a couple of UK/US no. 1 hits probably would have done - accepted.

Piers Agget from Rudimental an me

Having forgotten my big bag of laundry in their minibus, I had no choice but to take one of the overcrowded matolas (pickups) to the venue at CapeMaclear. A choice, that has apparently been made by half of the other volunteers from South-Eastern Africa as well. Even more surprisingly, I met a South African, who told me that she is part of a group of 4 girls volunteering at Palm Beach since August 2015, which is just 15km away from MOET! It was her as well, who told me that Rudimental was scheduled to play later that night. Slightly more intimidated than the last time, I approached the group of which I now knew Rudimental was part of, to find out that my laundry has made its way to a room in their lodge. After a night of partying with an uncountable number of volunteers around, I went to their lodge and had a few Fantas with some slightly hungover artists including some Rudimental until someone found my laundry bag maybe an hour later. On my way out, I was lucky enough to get a photo with band member Piers Agget as a remembrance.

  "Recovery of stolen property"... Due to the mysterious disappearance of my credit card after returning from CapeMaclear, I was shortly tempted to ask Dr. Dungu, whose services I found being advertised in Lilongwe for advice, but unfortunately his or her phone number was partly covered so that I had to call my bank instead to get the card replaced. What a shame!

At MOET, I am quite used now to show people around the school grounds together with Patterson or the head teacher. Normally, I always skip the garden part as I reckon myself as being quite clueless in anything agricultural. This time, I decided to participate in the tour with Kerry Ann, who stayed at MOET for 3 weeks. I was quite stunned by a technique, which consists of pipes that suck in water from a small canal, transport it uphill and then down to the garden-level again without a pump or electricity or magnetism or whatever. Seeing this for the first time, I asked Patterson if he had invented this elaborate system just to be told that these so-called syphons were invented by the Egyptians about 3000 year ago. Still in disbelief, a curious but clueless Johannes pulled the pipe out of the water to find the hidden pump which resulted in slightly bugged but still amused garden workers needing 20 minutes or so to restart the flow of water.


My second project for this term was a rather sporty one: After MOET got a new locally made table-tennis table, I started training a group of eight Standard 5 learners (who never played table tennis before) every Thursday in front of the library. After a few weeks, they knew all the basics and the better ones even beat me once or twice! In the end, all of them were ready to show off their skills on "Sports Day" in a tournament-style competition, which was clearly won by Kelvin Nakopo.




My last memorable event here should have been our Thumbi Island trip, which is a long-time MOET tradition to bid farewell to their volunteers. With a pickup full of cabbages, tomatoes, rice and some meat we started our journey to CapeMaclear surprisingly punctual. We means most of the teachers, our cook, the director and of course Rowan - a volunteer from London, who fortunately joined me volunteering and traveling, leading to a lot of fun during the last 4 weeks of my stay!
The clear highlight of the trip was the snorkelling, for which only a few of the attendants were brave enough. Notwithstanding my horrible snorkelling experiences from Mozambique, where my oversized flippers and leaking goggles lead to an uncomfortable flippers up - head down situation, with me drinking a lot of salt water, not seeing a single fish and feeling a bit like being part of "Titanic", I decided to give snorkelling another chance. With all the gleaming blue and orange fish I could see everywhere around me, my "Titanic" memories were quickly forgotten, and I felt like being part of "Finding Nemo". Memorable and really atmospheric!

View of Thumbi Island from Cape Maclear

Having spent most of the last 13 months at MOET, I feel quite quite weird now about leaving a place that has over time become something like a second home for me. Nonetheless, I'm quite certain that I'll return at least for a few weeks as soon as the circumstances of studying in Germany allow!

As my last picture I chose something very dear to my heart: The "Green Corner" restaurant in Makawa somewhere between Mpemba Cottage and MOET that became a haven for me every time I was to tired to cook for myself.

#3rd + 4th month (October + November)

#3rd + 4th month (October + November)

By now it has already been 2 months since my last blog entry in the end of September, how time flies!

The beginning of October started with a pleasant diversion from my daily routine here at Mpemba. On occasion of the Day of German Unity, the German embassy in Lilongwe invited all volunteers to a garden party at the house of the ambassador on 3^rd of October. As I am the only volunteer at MOET by now it was really nice to meet some other Germans, and to hear about their projects which are spread all over Malawi. After finishing our duty of helping to prepare and serve some small snacks and drinks in the beginning, we could enjoy the party as well. They served real bread, bacon, “Wiener Schnitzel”, “Currywurst” and lots of other things that German expatriates and volunteers like me were missing a lot!

The garden of the residence

At MOET I had the chance to go deeper into the philosophy of Permaculture at a special 2-days “Permaculture Training” for all of the MOET staff on the weekend. We learned about the principle of “everything must at least serve in 2 ways”, which means that you should not just throw away things like empty bottles and plastic bags etc. after using them once but reuse them. Additionally we were taught about ways to use the resources of nature sparingly and about sustainable ways to plant vegetables, like using a growing bag. In the practical part we even did one growing bag ourselves and I had the chance to plant my own seedling! Every morning when I go to the Standard 6 classroom I can watch it growing a little bigger J

The growing bag we did. Later we added the seedlings

The next week will be very important for the learners, as the “End of term one examinations” are taking place in all subjects and for all Standards from 1 to 8. As I have been teaching English Grammar in Standard 6 for almost 4 months now, these examinations will also be quite suspenseful for me. I really hope they will show that my teaching has had at least some impact and that the students will do very well in answering my questions. 

“My” Standard 6 students J

I just wanted to take a photo of what I have written on the board... but every time I take out my phone, a group of learners suddenly comes to the front to pose for a photo :D

The last weekend was a very nice one, because the class teacher of Standard 6 invited me to his home for lunch. We were eating “Nsima” (maize porridge, the Malawian national dish) with sweet potato leaves and freshly caught fish from Lake Malawi. Afterwards we hiked a small mountain (“Koche Hill”) next to his house and he was quite proud to show me some pieces of the Malawian infrastructure like a big water tank, which is supplying all of the surrounding villages with treated drinking water and a very high mobile phone tower by the Malawian network TNM. On our way back, the class teacher of Standard 5 surprisingly joined us and we went the way back together with him.

Well, hiking can be dangerous in Malawi at times. You must take care of your steps, if you don't want to fall down an edge, when the way suddenly stops.

#2nd month (September)

#2nd month (September)

My second month in Malawi is already over and the first thing I have to write about is that it’s getting hot! As the end of the dry season brings temperatures of up to 36° it gets really hard for me to cycle my way to school under the relentlessly burning sun every day.

This makes me realise how hard the everyday life in a tropical country has to be for the local population in this very poor surrounding. 36 degrees in a country where you live in mud huts and you have to do all your journeys either walking/ cycling or in an overcrowded minibus is definitely something different than living in well isolated houses, working in air-conditioned offices, shopping in air-conditioned supermarkets and moving between them in air-conditioned cars or trains. The good thing about the heat is that I finally started to appreciate the only-cold shower in my bathroom which is great to refresh myself after coming home from school.

Sadly, the beginning of this month was quite unpleasant for me as I was ill and I had to stay in bed for a whole week. Fortunately, Patterson has been so nice to drive me to the hospital in the next village (Maldeco) where I was given an injection and medication for a few days. Many thanks to Patterson, his wife Rose and as well to the headteacher Charles, who visited me regularly to have a chat and to check if I am recovering properly.

The biggest thing around MOET in September was the “Lake of Stars”-festival that took place this month. It is said to be Malawi’s biggest festival with many international artists from in- and outside of Africa and is hosted by the nearby Sunbird Nkopola Lodge, which is just a 3 minutes’ drive away. It lasted from Friday to Sunday. Although I was only going on Sunday it was an unforgettable experience as almost all volunteers who stay in Malawi came together for this occasion.

A great thing about it was, that a lot of MOET students who could otherwise never afford the almost 50£/60€ for the 3-days entrance have been invited to an AIDS awareness show the day before the festival started, and in the end Lucius Banda (one of Malawi’s most famous musicians!) played a few of his songs. The children were so happy!

MOET itself has been experiencing a very international time this month, with many visitors from all over the UK. Starting with Jennifer and Kelvin Woodwards, a couple from the mid east of England and good friends of the director Patterson Majonanga who were doing a tour through Malawi during their first visit to this country. They have been supporting the school from their homes for a long time and continued to do so while being here. On their last day here they were distributing a vast amount of shoes to the learners as well as kitchen utensils and some sports equipment.

The second visitors from the UK were a group of event-management students and their professors from the University of Edinburgh who came to Malawi for 10 days to volunteer at the Lake of Stars festival as a part of their studies. They were very interested in seeing the “real Malawi” beyond the international festival and truly impressed by the work MOET is doing. In the end, after visiting the permaculture site, they were so nice to give some seeds to the school that will grow well in the Malawian climate. 

Women equality and AIDS awareness programme at Lake of Stars' main stage

Jennifer and Kelvin Woodwards from the UK and their donations

Students from Edinburgh introducing themselves to MOET learners and teachers.

They were discussing differences between Malawi and Scotland, and to the discontent of the students they came to the end that one of the main differences is the fact that Malawi is independent :-) 

The danger of this snake that was about to enter the office through

a window could be averted. 

#1st Month (August)

#1st Month (August)

Sunday, 30th of August

Hello, and a warm welcome to my blog! For those who don't know me: My name is Johannes Lau, I come from Germany and from the beginning of this August I will be doing a voluntary service at MOET school (Mangochi Orphans Education and Training) in Malawi for 1 year.

I will be following Kate as a volunteer here, and luckily I have had a few days of overlap with her and her sister Ruth so they could explain me the most important things I need to know in order to survive in Malawi. Lucky me!

Exactly a month ago today I arrived at Lilongwe airport, being quite tired after a 40 hours journey with two stopovers. At the airport I had to wait quite a long time for my luggage, but as it arrived and I proceeded to the exit I was given a very warm welcome to Malawi by the school's headmaster Patterson Majonanga and his wife Rose. I could find the two quite easily because Rose was holding a paper saying "Johannes MOET".

I enjoyed the sunbeams on my skin, as we drove on a bumpy road to the house of a friend of Patterson, who was introduced to me as "The Professor". He turned out to be a quite rich man, who was not just a professor but the vice chancellor of Malawi's University! We had a great lunch, including rice and chicken (You have to remember, that rice is so expensive for the vast majority of Malawians, they can only afford to eat it at Christmas!) as well as some Fanta.

Afterwards we I just wanted to withdraw some cash at an ATM machine. A very quick thing I thought but not in Malawi, if you have a MasterCard. So we had to drive around Lilongwe and wait in several queues for 1 or 2 hours to find a machine that accepts my card (many say they accept MasterCard but in fact they don't).

As we arrived at my "new home" it was already dark and I felt a bit uncomfortable because of the mosquitoes. You can't imagine the unforeseen feeling of safety a mosquito net can give you!

On my third day here, most of the children in the village already knew my name without me having even told one of them apart from Patterson ... Seems to be like people in Malawian villages talk to each other a lot more than Germans do.

Sadly, after some nice days and evenings with Malawi-Style food cooked by Kate and Ruth they had to back to the UK and now I am the only volunteer here.

Finally the day has come to begin my work! My first task was to teach computer skills to former MOET students who are now at secondary school and come back here to receive extra tuition. What a dedication of both, the students and the school - you can really see that MOET cares and that the students are eager to learn! Sadly in the beginning only 2 out of 6 of the new computers were working because there was no extension cable (as Kate wrote). But after going to Mangochi with Patterson to buy one, the children can now enjoy the comfort of working with 6 computers at the same time. You see your support is needed. Every little helps! (Thanks to Tesco for telling me every time I'm in the UK :-) )

P.S.: I am posting this one quite late because during the last 3 weeks I was participating in an introductionary seminar for volunteers by the Franciscan Nuns near Mchinji (west of Malawi). There we learned malawian things like how to cook on fire (their national dish Nsima, which is a porridge made out of maize), how to wash with hands and some basics of the Chichewa language.

Thanks a lot for your interest, I will keep you informed with a monthly blog entry from now on.

A few first impressions:

Kitchen of Mpemba Cottage

Cows at Makwas main road

The "big bus" connecting Makawa and Lilongwe in 5 hours, or sometimes in 9 hours

Welcome sign at Lilongwe airport, baggage claim

The view of the lake from the volunteers' house