First Week of School

Time for Chemistry Class. We write our own lesson plans with a syllabus and two textbooks for Chemistry, and for English, Math, and Life skills Ryan has textbooks and one syllabus. English is an extra stressful case because as long as students pass 6 classes they can pass to the next grade, but one of the classes they pass must be English. Ryan sits in the room with the other STEM teachers, and Sasha sits with the Humanities teachers despite only having Chemistry. There are two other women in her office of four people however and it has been very interesting to get to meet women who can and will speak English instead of just the men like we have met so far. She is covering different tests for anions and cations, which involves some somewhat dangerous chemicals like undiluted hydrochloric acid and a Bunsen burner. Justice (the other Chem teacher) and Sasha went to the teachers lounge where all the chemicals are kept, put on some gloves and a mask, and set out ensuring the chemicals we did have would work as expected as they were quite old. We have maybe a quarter of what the textbook asks for, but we muddled out some representative tests. Other teachers would come in for water and watch us try to find a chemical that burned another color for awhile before laughing and leaving. When done we cleared off the supplies, he promised to toss the chemicals out in a safe way -which likely means behind the school- and wiped off the tables with our used gloves. No paper towels anywhere. Later that day, a school lunch was served on that table.
Each Wednesday, a school lunch is served organized by our predecessor, Joanna. The teachers came by the lounge (yes the one with highly unhealthy chemicals) and helped themselves to Nsima, chicken, and cabbage. The Nsima (pronounced just Sima) is flour and water made into thick patties. Sasha watched other teachers easily pick up the Nsima from a large pile, then tried to grab the edge of one and burned her fingers. It was extremely hot, leaving her fingers very pink for a few hours. The History teacher laughed and just grabbed it for her. We sat at Ryans desk then realized we had forgotten the forks. Then noticed nope, we are using our fingers. The grab with one hand, then roll in a ball and dip into the sauce. They noticed us watching and showed us in slow motion the simple steps. Ryan grabbed and rolled it with two hands to much laughter. He tried rolling it another way with both hands “One hand! No, one hand!” finally we got it and started eating like pros. This is how you are welcomed in Malawi, someone serves you nsima. The principal came in and told us not to eat too much, it will expand in our stomachs and they will have to roll us to the hospital.
The social studies teacher, Ben, asked Sasha about polygamy in the states. She said it is very rare, and was surprised at his surprise. He showed her the textbook they were covering of Western culture. In the first introductory page it says “When a man wants to take another woman, he is encouraged to divorce the first one and remarry.” He says that is very unfortunate for the first wife, in Malawi if you want another wife you just take another one. Upon further questioning we learn the difference is that in the States, a woman gets half of the stuff, whereas in Malawi the man always gets everything.

Sasha taught her Chemistry class with the exciting flames. She wrote the equation up on the board and tried to read through it. We keep coming across the problem of not knowing if a question is insultingly simple, or way over a students head as they give the same blank look either way. They made it through the formula, so Sasha lit a match in one go (yay!) and lit the very temperamental gas stove that was acting as a Bunsen burner. After putting the gloves on she moved to turn it up, then accidentally turned it off. She had to light it again, this time it took 4 match strokes. The stove gives off a somewhat orange flame, which made the vibrant orange flame burning K+ gives somewhat less exciting, though the students were still interested. At the end of class, she took a photo of each student and had them write their name down to learn names as Ryan had done. They were very excited for photos, and each had a pose. There were many requests for group photos and selfies at the end. When it came to pack up, the students stay seated at their desk until the teacher leaves the classroom. Even when dismissed they will just sit and watch you clean up. When leaving many do hop up to offer “Madame! Would you like help? Let me carry this” which is very helpful, although I do not like “Madame”. In one of Ryan’s classes after an in class assignment one of the students, upon realizing that she would have to turn in what she wrote, promptly ate her work and simply said she didn’t have it when I came around to collect. That is shyness on another level.

The language is very difficult. We like to have it written down, but there are many silent letters. Each part of a word means something different as well. For example, the greeting “Mwadzuka Bwanji” is the greeting “how are you” that you may use only in the morning. So it is more like “How did you wake?” with “Bwanji” being loosely translated to “How”. Adding “Bwanji” makes it into a question, and it means different things in other scenarios. The “Mwa” means “you” and “adzuka” is woken up. The response “Ndadzuka Bwino, Kaya inu?” “I have woken well, and you”. Sasha figured this out after comparing this and the evening “Mwaswela Bwanji”, which will be a very tedious way to learn the language. Everyone is very excited to teach us but the sounds are unfamiliar and we cannot simply memorize so many words, we need the break down like above. There is almost nothing online to help, only guides to phrases and people have difficulty explaining the break up of words. Luckily, the Chichewa teacher came yesterday and she was able to confirm the above.

After class our visitors were two girls around 7, with a baby tied to ones back. They always begin by yelling “Hello” around the corner and before we can see them so we have time to eat any biscuits we have out. We must yell hello back, and this goes back and forth a few times before they peep around the corner. We complimented each others necklaces and looked through binoculars until the girl with the baby jumped shocked with water dripping between her legs. Turns out the baby had gone to sleep and peed, and we all had a laugh with many high fives. This seems the way to show something was quite funny, you high five or in other ways touch hands. She peeled him off her back, and the other girl tied him on hers. Then continued on, the pee drying in her skirt, to throw rocks at the green mangoes. We hope they do not take too many, we want some ripe ones by November. They appeared again with a large squished peanut- looking fruit. “Kulapa” or something. They peeled one open and gave it to Sasha. It tasted not unpleasantly like a sour date with a huge seed. We picked up our new outfits today, we walked through town and people are still not used to us. Each kid will still wave “Helloooo!” “Bye!” every time we pass. We made it to the tailors which is one room, smaller than some dining tables we have seen. There are three walls with the fourth open to the street, and inside is magazine photos of people in colorful dresses, pants, and shirts as well as piles of completed fabric and one very old mechanical sewing machine. There was already around 5 women inside and the man at the sewing machine. We followed our neighbor inside and the temperature went up around 10 degrees. We tried on our new outfits, Ryan’s fit perfectly but the zipper would not go up all the way on Sasha’s. He took the skirt and spent around 5 minutes adjusting it, while a woman breastfed her very active child who would also get up and hand us scraps and fabrics and rocks from the dirt floor. We paid our 4500 MWK (around $7) total and flaunted our new outfits all the way back.