Saturday 28 August: school plans and a well dedication

This day had a very slow start. We were all various extents of tired and sore, but we were able to sleep in a little, and then spent a long time waiting for a ride to the village. Liz, our leader, had gone ahead with Mwalabu and Bonongwe to meet with a surveyor and get plans ready for a school in another village. Eventually, Mwalabu came back for the rest of us, and took us to visit the site of the school for Matawali village. Here we learned about the second half of the brick making process as well as a bit about the education system in Malawi.


To finish the bricks, they are stacked into a solid structure like this pictured above. Well, solid except for the small openings on the bottom where the fire is stoked. The stack of bricks, called a kiln or oven, is then coated in mud for insulation and topped with grass. This is a job that men do. They stay up all night for a day or two, stoking the flames on the structure. When the grass on top catches fire, they know the whole kiln has been fired and is complete. They let the flames die out, and let it cool for a few days. This stack has about 54,000 bricks in it.

We talked about the school project with a few elders, one of whom only said one sentence of English the whole time: "You can call me Corpse." I kid you not.


Corpse in the middle

To be a teacher in Malawi, one goes to a teachers college and is then placed in a school somewhere in the country with little to no say. They can quit, of course, but otherwise have very little choice in the matter. Apparently the one thing they all want is electricity in the provided housing. People don't mind teaching in village schools so long as there is electricity. School plans almost always include teacher and headmaster housing. Here in Matawali, there would also be space for recreation. This land was donated by someone in the village.

This meeting took place under what was clearly the tree of the day: a kachere tree.

A type of fig, this type of tree was traditionally where chiefs would hold meetings, because of the awesome shade. This tree in particular was easily over 30 feet around. In a place like New Jersey, a tree that size could be 400-500 years old. With Malawi's climate, I'm going to guess it was probably a bit less, like 250-300. Still. Ridiculous. Imagine all of the things that have happened around that tree. Nearby was the remnants of a structure that Corpse told us was built in 1912. Part of me wonders if he constructed it and that's how he knows that. (He told us that year when we asked how long they have been making bricks this way. His response was, "Well, that building was made in 1912, so at least that long.")



The rest of the day was spent at a well dedication celebration. There was a lot of singing and dancing for a while, followed by many speeches. The dedication itself involved a "ribbon cutting", VIP's President Bob cut a string with a small pair of scissors. Everyone cheered as the chief drank the first cup of water pumped. Safe, nearby water supply. So awesome.

We were given gifts of a rooster and a sack of bananas. They told us this was so we would not be hungry during our long journey home. I'm not sure if they were joking or not, but we were pretty amused.

These people prepared lunch for us, which was very similar to our lunch in Kalino. I ate with a man named Felix who spoke some English, Liz, our leader, and a woman named Jeannie, who is exactly my age and could not wrap her mind around the fact that I am not married and do not have children. It was interesting to see just how different life is. She has a six year old and a two year old. She got married before she was 18. That's security there. Security here is me getting a masters degree and not having a husband or children.

After lunch, I went with Charlie back down to the well to take some pictures. There were a bunch of children there, playing and reenacting the ribbon cutting with imaginary scissors and string. They would count, in English, "3... 2... 1..." and then cheer wildly as one child walked through the makeshift fence to the well. Charlie was having trouble getting a clear shot of it for the VIP documentary, so I whipped out my camera to distract everyone.



This photo cracks me up. Everyone is pushing and posing. I have quite a few versions of this shot, but this one is the most meaningful to me, because the young mother jumped in the back. At first, I was kind of annoyed, because I'm thinking, this is something children do, and you're ruining their shot. But then I realized... she is a child.



It was a really good day in the village. It's amazing to see the progress happening and the excitement surrounding it. It was also nice to end a little early and have a leisurely dinner back at Namangazi. A dinner that included our gift... I personally handed him over to the cook! (...but did not eat him myself, which I almost wish I did have a little-- I have way more confidence in the way that chicken was raised than in our own meat industry in the United States... but that alone is not enough to get me to eat meat.)