The Pets are Growing

What we have been doing lately...

As you may or may not know, as Peace Corps Volunteers we are highly encouraged to have secondary projects. We have a lot of freedom to decide on a project but obviously it should fit the needs of the community. They could be IGAs (Income Generating Activities), youth clubs, HIV/AIDs prevention, access to clean water, etc...
With the help of Willows Community School we will be working on a couple secondary projects through Friends of Malawi. The first is at our own school, Matenje C.D.S.S. About half our students are boarders. By this I mean they all sleep on the floor in an empty room without beds or mosquito nets (we live in an area with a HIGH risk of Malaria). We (and by "we" I mean "Brian") have started to gather estimates from some local carpenters to build bunk beds for our students. We are also hoping to buy nets, books and sports supplies with some of the money.
Because of the generosity of Willows Community School we will also be able to use some of the money for CampSky. CampSky is a two-week long summer school program that Peace Corps Volunteers put on every year. Here is a link to last year's description. CampSky. This is a great opprotunity for students from all over Malawi and we will be telling you more about it in the near future. I (as in Kristy) have taken on a leadership role with it so it will also be considered one of these secondary projects.
This past week we have recieved more donations that I would like to recognize. School supplies came from Ann F., and Hillary and Dan M., and again from Andy and Amy F. Thank you so much!!! My students started using some of the glue last week to make paper beads in art club. Since I am on the topic of adhesives and donations, another thing we seem to be using a lot of is duct tape. We brought a roll for our own purposes and were left on by another volunteer, but we have found they are very useful at school. I use it to hang new English words on our word wall and to repair books in the library. Plus I think we all know there are 1,001 uses for duct tape.
Again, I want to remind people that things move very slow in Malawi so I am sorry if we don't have pictures up of things we are doing with your donations right away.
Oh, I should also tell you about a couple new clubs we have started. Brian has started Careers Club for the Form 4 students. They are researching careers in Malawi and the steps they need to take to get there. So far he has been working with small groups of boys, but I think we can get some girls if we make a seperate club for them. I have started a Girls' Study Club. Basically it just means that for one hour a week I limit the library to just girls. I started it because I never saw the girls coming into the library. I figured there was a reason for it. I suspect it is because they are intimidated by the boys. I have had about 20 girls coming each week. I also notice they seem a little more relaxed and sit more comfortably without being worried about showing a little knee every once in a while. :) We also just found a jigsaw puzzle and are thinking about starting a Puzzle Club soon. The kids were so excited when they saw the box they ripped it open and wanted to start putting it together. They have never had enriching activites like that in primary school. We might add these types of things to our school's wish list (puzzles, games, etc.).
On that note, I just wanted to add one more thing- the Flat Rate Box. Check with the post office before you mail anything that costs over 37 dollars in postage. I haven't mentioned it earlier because I didn't expect for people to send packages that heavy, but some have and I feel bad for not telling you about this money saver. Okay that is all for now.
Love, B & K
P.S. Anybody interested in being a pen pal for some students? Their English is really low, but 3 or 4 students have asked about writing to people in America. I would rather set them up with a young adult than a younger child. Let me know if you are interested.

29 and counting

At first I was a little sad to celebrate my birthday so far away from home, but when I learned that snow was still falling on April 26, I felt fortunate to not see it! Don't get me wrong, I missed snow this year, but not when it is almost May! We celebrated my birthday along with our friend, Spencer's birthday on the beach of Lake Malawi. I spent the whole day swimming in the waves. I felt youthful, carefree and clean (the beach and the water did wonders for my nasty feet). After all, I was celebrating my last birthday. Not in a morbid way, but isn't every birthday after this an anniversary of my 29th? Now that we are here in Lilongwe, I feel like it is my birthday all over again with all the mail and care packages. Perhaps we should go away more often to be showered with so many letters, cards and goodies?!?! No really, we are so grateful for every piece of mail we get. It makes us feel a little closer to home. Thank you Thank you Thank you.

Cats, Dogs and Chickens

For just a short time we were owners of three animals. We were invited to one of our student's homes who lives near the lake, so last weekend the three of us rode our bikes to his parents house for lunch. As it is customary to do for special visitors, they set up chairs and a table outside for us in the shade and bought slightly cool Fantas (quite amazing when there is no electricity) and biscuits (cookies) for us. Then we biked a little further to the lake while his mom cooked us lunch. When we returned we had a few options for lunch. Options? Come on, this is Africa you take what you get! So we ate nsima, rice, hard-boiled eggs with tomatoes and usipa (basically minnows). We feed usipa to our cat and dog, but I couldn't bring myself to eat the head and tail of the usipa, but I will testify that Brian ate them whole. I made him do it more than once just to blog about it. After lunch we sat with the family a little longer and offered a pack of gum and a Dakota Communities purple glitter pen courtesy of Jack and Bonnie Rolig. In exchange they gave a us a big bag of peanuts from their garden, baobab tree fruits and a live chicken. I won't lie, I was actually excited to get a chicken. You may remember that we had biked to our student's house, but that was no obstacle to get the chicken home. He simply strapped it to the back of the bike and we were off. Compared to massive amounts of firewood, furniture, whole families and goats, a chicken on a bike was no big deal until it tried to make a break for it half way home. Our student was quick to catch it though and we were off again. When we got home we were a little unsure what to do with this chicken. We contemplated keeping it and getting more chickens to raise, but then we decided a cat and dog were enough responsibility. Plus we were both just freaked out about picking it up. Hopefully I can get a video up of it. So anyway, being the hypocritical meat eaters that we are, neither of us was willing to kill it, so we had our worker do it. I have to admit that after the initial killing, the process was quite interesting. We just kept the "good parts" and gave our worker the things Americans throw out-head, feet, intestines, neck, butt(?) and some other internal organ that she said was her brother's favorite part. Needless to say the village chicken was a little tough compared to our hormonal American chickens. We may be sticking to rice and beans for a while. We are also grateful for all of our processed meats and protein sources that have come in care packages. (Thank you, thank you, hint, hint).

Shout Out!

There are a few people who need a blog shout out for some really wonderful donations to our school. We have received some nice school supplies from Janet, Christine, Brad and Lonnie, Target Coon Rapids, Amy and Andy, Doug and Joan. We have slowly been introducing these gifts to our students as they are not used to such luxuries and might be overwhelmed to receive them all at once. Also, we are trying to teach them to care for these items so that they will last a long time. Art club has begun to sell our friendship bracelets to buy paper so we can start painting. This is helping the students with goal setting and a sense of responsibility.

Of course I can't go without acknowledging the HUGE fundraising efforts of Willows Community School who we loved talking to on the phone. Their huge gift is more than our students could ever imagine. For any of you who are following from Willows, please be patient with us as we update you on how these gifts get put to use. Things move very slowly in Malawi.

I should also give little shout out to some major life events that we have already missed while being here:
Kim and Rob had another baby boy, Tyler.
Kent and Lis had a baby boy, Elijah.
Jon and Julia got hitched!!! We were very sad to miss the wedding, but wish them all the best.
I also hear my cousin, Christine, is graduating from college next weekend! I am very proud.
We wish we could be there to celebrate with all of you.
Oh, I should also add that our nephew, Max, learned to ride a bike. We are looking forward to hearing about it in his next letter because he can write now too