 |
 |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
 Jenny Wagner 7/15/2008 2:32:42 PM
Farewell Zomba
| |
| |
Well, I only a few minutes tonight, as it is time to get packing. I can't beleive it is already time and today sure has been full of tears and farewells, but mostly celebrating. We were presented with beautiful, and unexpected gifts. It was a wonderful day. A week ago it seemed like we had been here forever and now it is hard to beleive I will be on American soil in a few days.
| |
 Amy Ambrose 7/11/2008 1:20:41 PM
| |
| |
After a wonderful two day ?weekend? at the safari at Camp Mvuu, today certainly felt like a Monday. However, it turned out to be a wonderful Friday! Since we were out of the schools the past two days, today was the first day, to our knowledge, of the feeding program. The school is not able to provide food for these children so we surprised our school officials about two weeks ago with a $100 donation to be put towards a porridge which would feed over the 1,000 children twice a week for roughly seven months. When we arrived to the school this morning at about 9:30 AM, some of the village women had been on the school grounds since 6:00 AM preparing the porridge. Starting with the first graders, which they call standard one, the children came out one grade at a time with their own cups that they had brought from home and one by one were fed. After everyone had been fed, we witnessed some of the little ones scrambling back to the buckets where the porridge had been and were scraping the sides to get every last drop. Since this was quite a big ?to-do?, a lot of the village people had come to join in our celebration. One thing that absolutely broke my heart was when I saw an older man trying to persuade one of the younger students to go back to the buckets to get a second helping so that he could have some food. This was quite a touching experience and we are all very moved to be a part of it. Our hopes are that the incentive of food will entice more of the children to come to school on a more regular basis.
Monday or Tuesday of next week we plan to surprise our school officials with another overwhelming donation from friends and family of over $3,000 to add to the program!! With this amount of money we also plan to add some kind of protein to the porridge which as of right now only consists of maize (corn), sugar, salt, water, and a little bit of milk. I can?t wait to see the looks on their faces!
| |
 Mandy Juraschek 7/10/2008 12:33:52 PM
Safari Adventures in Liwonde National Park
| |
| |
Yesterday we left at 8a.m. to go to Liwonde National Park for our Safari and night in a chalet. We were met at the entrance of Mvuu with a boat to take us across the river to our ?campground?. With in minutes we were met by our safari guide Samuel who gave us a brief land safari before lunch. He was very knowledgeable pointing out the different types of plants, trees, and flowers. The first animal we came across was a baboon! The safari lasted for about an hour and half and was filled with impalas, various birds and eventually we came across a herd of elephants! Samuel reversed very close to them close enough for one of the elephants to ?mock charge? us. Incredible! We switched with the VT group go back to the campground by boat. That was intense! We saw crocodiles that appeared to be at most 6 feet a way and tons of hippos! Lunch was served followed by some time to rest in our chalets (which had a water front view.) My chalet was right in front of where the hippos enter into the water (we heard them in the night walking, eating and calling, along with various other animals). We a good part of our safari was spent in the Rhino sanctuary where we did not see any rhinos but did come across 5 zebras and lots of waterbucks! We made it back to the river just after sunset; it was astonishing, the reds, pinks, and oranges reflecting off the water. The stars came out in full glory; we were able to see clearly constellations and Jupiter! We saw only a handful of animals at night some porcupines, warthogs, elephants, mongoose, and rabbits.
The next morning we were woken up at 5:30a.m. to get ready for our walking safari. This gave us the opportunity to see plants, birds, and insects we normally wouldn?t notice. It was very informative. After breakfast we went on another long water safari that gave us more opportunities to get up close to crocodiles, hippos and even elephants! It was an incredible experience!
On the way back to Zomba we stopped by two markets that I am pretty certain met the selling quota for the year!
| |
 Jennifer Jones 7/4/2008 4:16:40 PM
Happy Independence Day!
| |
| |
Greetings from Zomba, Malawi, and Happy 4th of July!
My name is Dr. Jennifer Jones. This is my third year serving as a study abroad coordinator to Malawi. Malawi is known as the Warm Heart of Africa, I believe this title fits Malawi well. Everyone goes to great lengths to make us feel welcome and cared for here. Malawians have big hearts and rich spirits.
This year, I am working alongside Dr. Patti Talbot, as we host five excellent, young RU students on this Malawian adventure. It has been a privilege to learn with and work with such intelligent, caring young ladies.
This week, we have worked at Malemia Primary School. The school culture is difficult to describe. For a glimpse of where we teach each day, imagine a classroom with no desks, no electricity, 150 smiling students, and ten textbooks. The children are happy, yet they wear torn clothing and have no shoes. They love to be at school, and they greet us each morning with their bright smiles. They are so precious.
Our typical school day:
We arrive at school by 9:30am, and we conclude around 1pm each day. We then walk for about a mile (maybe more) to the Malawi Institute of Education, MIE, to hold class. On our walk to MIE, we are always accompanied by a parade of students who stroll with us, holding our hands all the way. We hold class from 1:30 ? 3:00pm.
We then ride the bus to Zomba-town to buy water, shop and/or to eat at our favorite restaurant, Tasty Bites. We walk to Annie?s Lodge, which involves another mile-long walk. By 7:30pm, we have eaten dinner and prepare for the next day at school. Most of us are in bed and asleep no later than 9:30pm each evening. We are certainly getting our exercise and rest here.
There is so much to learn, and we are at the mid-point of our program. Time has flown. Tomorrow we?ll go to Mount Mulanje, the third highest mountain in Africa. It will be a great day!
| |
Jenny Wagner 7/2/2008 12:22:13 PM
Mwadzuka bwanji (good morning!) | |
| |
Things continue to go well here in Africa. ?Teaching? is not quite what you may be picturing (or what I expected, no matter how hard I tried not to have expectations). I did get to read, Brown Bear, Brown Bear looking at me to the children yesterday. The seemed to be completely captivated by the pictures and my teacher, Mr. Mwanga, is a very helpful translator (the older kids understand a lot more English, but I am in standard 2, which is on the level on pre-k in the states, and they just stare at my stark white skin, ha). Then I used jump ropes and we counted the number of jumps, then added them together. They really loved this, too! Today they took an exam for the ENTIRE DAY, but I had a chance to take field notes and am learning lots of interesting things about the school system and the children and the community.
The children tug on my heart strings every day. They never cease running after our bus in excitement. Attendance has gone up since we have arrived and I have really enjoyed observing the children. I just want to note a few things that I have observed. The children put everything in their mouths due to malnourishment; they suck on plastic bags, like the dirty cement steps, and chew on sticks. I am anxious for the feeding program to get on the move, which should be happening very soon. Another behavior that I have noticed is that these children are the most resilient little people I have ever met in my life. They are constantly beating on each other, full fisted blows to the head. I have only seen two children cry from these hits, and if they cry you know they are hurt. I am learning more everyday and doing my best to process it all!
After leaving early from a bit of chaotic day at Malemia Primary School, we all walked two miles to Malika Church. Their choir had prepared a song and dance show for us. As always, the music was wonderful and the dancing puts us all to shame! It was warm and welcoming and well worth the four mile round trip. We seem to bring with us a following of children from all of the villages around. They want to speak with us, hold our hands, sing songs with us, or just faithfully walk at our sides. It is much easier to keep perspective when you are in the midst of children facing so much adversity and forever smiling and cheerful. A little boy taught all about mango and banana trees as we walked home and he carried his bike tire on his arm.
| |
 Patti Talbot 7/1/2008 1:17:10 PM
News from Malawi
| |
| |
We spent another morning at Malemia Primary School. The students seem to be getting fairly comfortable in the classrooms there despite the extreme differences in what we see in our schools back home. Dr. Jones and I are working on ?library time? following the schedule usually maintained by a fifth grade teacher at the school. Ordinarily, he must leave his class to take library books to the students during their scheduled slot, but since we?re here and ready to help, we offered to take over this duty for him so that he can remain with his students for a few days.
We have found that we must adjust our expectations considerably during these library sessions mostly because of the language barrier. While we might have extensive learning objectives at home, our goals at Malemia tend to focus on getting books in children?s hands, allowing them some time to look/read and trade with their classmates. At the end of the lesson, we have been sharing a little book about bubbles and blowing some bubbles that we brought from home. They seem delighted. We are hoping that the interaction itself is valuable and that they gain a little something simply by hearing us speak to them in English and smile at them.
With the help of the school administration, we have also targeted a group of 10 girls in standards five and six with whom we hope to match American pen pals of their own age as well as adult mentors who will encourage them from afar as they enter the preteen years. This is the time when so many children in Malawi drop out of school for a wide variety of reasons. We plan to meet with this group of girls daily while we are in the schools in order to build the relationships needed to maintain such a program over a long distance.
After school, we were honored to have another drumming lesson with Innocent, the head teacher at Malemia. He promises to help us for a few minutes each day while we are with them. From there, we went to our daily class meeting at the Malawi Institute of Education where we were able to meet Edward Nkoma. Mr. Nkoma is the student sponsored by Radford University as he attends Domasi College to earn a Bachelor of Education degree. He expressed great gratitude for our support and wishes that we relay his thanks to all in the College of Education and Human Development at RU who helped to make this possible for him.
We are looking forward to our first and only full week at Malemia Primary School!
| |
Mandy Juraschek 6/30/2008 1:19:08 PM
Our first school day :) | |
| |
Today was our first full day at Malemia Primary School. I have the privilege to work with two grades 1st and 4th. I?m thrilled to be in the classroom learning how the teachers work as well as getting to know the students. Some of us spent the day observing our class and the rest of us got to teach a subject or two. I taught English to my first graders by pointing to objects and having them repeat the English word I also would make faces to show different emotions. (Theatrics is very helpful when communicating with a language barrier). The children seemed to really enjoy it as well. I learned that the younger grades do not practice writing very often because they tend to loose their pencils and pens; so instead of writing she gives them that time to play. We sing lots of songs in the classes, some of them familiar others completely new. In my 4th grade class I read them a book on the Rain forest and the children got really involved in the story saying ?No? when the animals were in danger and ?Yes? when the story was looking up. After the children are dismissed I went into the office where I found Dr. Jones, Dr. Talbot, and Alisha talking with Innocent who is the head teacher of the school. We were asking him questions about himself and Malawi and discovered he is a very good drum player! He vanished but returned quickly with two drums thus our first drum lesson began!
Our time in the school went by quick we left in around 2 to walk up to Domasi School to meet the rest of our group in a classroom. Today we discussed the issues women face here in Malawi.
Our evenings will mostly be spent preparing for our classes the next day (Today I made an Alphabet set for the classroom wall). I?m am delighted to be here in Malawi and have found the experience so far to really challenge and grow me. I?m ready to plan a return trip here :).
| |
 Vandy Pullen 6/29/2008 9:48:49 AM
hello
| |
| |
I really do not know where to start. I have enjoyed myself so much since I have been here. We went to the school for the first time last week, but I did not teach anything. I do not think I have even seen that many students at one time. It was crazy!! One first standard (grade) class had 120 students enrolled. Because it is winter here and it was market day, there were only about 50 students. Everything has been very overwhelming. The students love us and are so happy that we are here. The students are great and I plan to learn so much from both them and the teachers there. I am very excited. Tomorrow I will be teaching Science. The students will be learning about the ear. I am working with a six grade class but I am nervous and I hope to do I good job.
| |
 Alicia Neely 6/28/2008 9:42:54 AM
A Relaxing Day!
| |
| |
The entire group was excited to be able to sleep in today and enjoy our first day of relaxation. We have been running all day, every day and are finally getting settled into Annie's Lodge. When we woke up this morning we decided to go into Zomba and visit the market. The market has anything from fresh food to CD's and clothing to hardware. Some of the group went to buy fabric at a local store to take to a tailor so they could have dresses made. The fabrics to chose from are all exquisite and makes for a tough decision. The walk, or more like hike, from town back to Annie's Lodge is approximately a mile all uphill. It is a nice chance to get out and see downtown Zomba, and get some exercise too! The rest of the day the plan is to have no plan. We are excited to have a relaxing day and recuperate for the coming week. We have a lot of planning to do for our first real day of teaching in Malemia. Stay tuned for more...
| |
Amy Ambrose 6/27/2008 1:14:37 PM
| |
| |
A wise source sent me this quote and we all feel as if it fits this trip perfectly.
"Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living." ? Miriam Beard
| |
Amy Ambrose 6/27/2008 1:06:28 PM
| |
| |
Today was our first official day in the school (Malemia Primary) and all of us agree that this is the most amazing experience we have ever been a part of. This morning, before we got to our school, we went to another school to deliver backpacks that the National Council for Social Studies bought for these children. We delivered the first batch to the eighth grade classroom and before we knew it, they were singing and dancing all around the classroom to show us their acceptance and appreciation. It was so moving to come to grips with the fact that these children were SO excited over a simple backpack. It was quite an incredible experience.
Tonight, the lodge is throwing us a movie night so we are all getting ready to head down to see what awaits us. Since we have been on the go for almost a week now, we are all looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend. Annie?s Lodge is absolutely beautiful, far beyond any of our expectations, so sleeping in a little bit these next two days will not be a problem!
| |
Jenny Wagner 6/24/2008 1:25:06 PM
We Made It! | |
| |
Good evening, as it is 7:20pm here in Malawi. After an extensive trip to get here, I think we all agree that we couldn't be more thrilled. We are having a great time getting to know everyone in our group of 18.
We went to a sustainable farm today call Freedom Gardens. It is an absolute work of genius. It is difficult to explain unless you see it, but they have an extensive system of irrigation to water 10 acres of organic farm with NO pumps or generators, just trenches and gullies. It was fascinating! It was like the Garden of Eden, peaceful, calm, serene and everything you need to survive. They had eggplant (very cool looking thing), papaya (powpo locally), cucumber (which we eat like an apple), mango, avocado, corn, beans, veggies, and so much more. We are waiting for dinner now at our hotel. Tomorrow we will head to Zomba after a few stops along the way, including a place where they make paper out of elephant dung and a pottery place.
We met a man from Kenya today (Ochieng) who is studying the Freedom Gardens so that he can build a sustainable farm in his town in Kenya. He was wonderful and he and another man taught us how to eat sugar cane, first by biting off the VERY tough outer woody layer then chewing on the cane. We had a traditional Malawian meal which was pretty good. I wish we could have stayed there longer. The adventure continues...
| |
Jenny Wagner 6/21/2008 8:04:55 AM
Leaving for DC | |
| |
Good morning! Yesterday I was visiting with some friends and as we left I said, "I have to get packed. I am going to Africa tomorrow." I was stunned at my own words and couldn't help but think of how amazing that sounds. I almost caught myself thinking, wow! That is awesome...I want to go to Africa! I am...what?!?
Anyway, I am excited to meet the children. I hope my creativity is ready to work hard to teach them in lots of ways. Although I am unsure about many pieces of this trip, I am sure that I will learn from them in more ways than I could ever teach them.
We are leaving for DC in a few minutes to go to the Spy Museum with a friend who lives there, then lunch, then Malawi! Safe travels to all headed to the airport and hope we can entertain the rest of you with wonderful stories yet to come!
| |
Amy Ambrose 6/20/2008 10:50:35 PM
| |
| |
Hi! My name is Amy Ambrose and I just graduated from Radford this past May as an elementary education major. I have always wanted to be a part of an experience such as this and I am so excited that it is actually happening! We've all been preparing for this for months now and I'm sure I can speak for every last one of us when I say that I cannot wait to begin this journey!!!
| |
Patti Talbot 6/20/2008 5:25:32 PM
To Malawi We Will Go | |
| |
Hello! My name is Patti Talbot and I'm setting off with Dr. Jennifer Jones and a terrific group of RU students for a month in Malawi beginning tomorrow, June 21, 2008. We'll be teaching along side the teachers at Malemia Primary School for nearly a month.
For the last several days, the group has been feverishly packing to get ready for our big trip. Lots of email messages have been flying among us as last minute questions occur to us about what to take and how to pack so we don't set off alarms with the TSA. Our lists contain very practical "school clothes" that fit appropriately within the culture we'll be entering as well as lots of medical supplies for every conceivable problem we might run across from stomach aches to insect bites.
Thanks to many of you, we are also loaded down with school supplies to share with the teachers and children at Malemia Primary School! We also have financial support from many among you, including our families and friends, who want to assist us in continuing the feeding program that was begun by the study abroad group who went to Malawi in 2007.
We leave from Dulles at 8:30 tomorrow evening and will arrive in Lilogwe, Malawi on Tuesday, June 23rd after an overnight stay in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
My head is spinning with many questions about what we will learn when we get there and questions like "Will I be prepared?" "Will I have anything to offer?" "How will this experience help me to grow as an educator and as a person?"
Stay tuned. There will be much more to come from all of us.
| |
Vandy Pullen 6/20/2008 5:23:18 PM
1 more day!! | |
| |
Hello all!!
My name is Vandy Pullen and I am a senior at Radford University. I am graduating in December and I am an education major. I also am a member of the women?s basketball team at the university. I wanted to go on this study aboard trip because it would be a great experience before I really go out in the world and become a teacher. I am very excited to travel to Africa but I am also very nervous. I have never been out of the country before so this will be something very new for me.
It is a day before I leave and now I am just stressing out making sure I have everything for my trip. I feel as though I may have over packed but I do not want to forget anything. Other than that, I am just ready to get over there and see what it will be like.
| |