Permaculture Fieldtrip

Two weeks ago we organized a field trip that took us to a school and two homes that are practicing "Permaculture," which stands for permanent agriculture. The basic idea is a lot of intercropping of indigenous plants that work well with each other, improving the soil and groundwater without any chemicals, and a well thought out design for water harvesting and composting right outside your school door and home. On this trip we included the Headmaster of both the secondary and primary school, the Group Village Head (she's in charge of 11 other chiefs), a community member, two teachers, four students, and the two of us. Our role now at this point is to continually encourage the schools and individuals to start practicing permaculture now that they have the idea. There has been a dependency on chemical fertilizers, government vouchers, and one, nonindigenous crop (maize) for too long. Things are changing here in many parts of Malawi, but very slowly, and this field trip hopefully openened some eyes.

Rainy Season

We are so happy it is the rainy season again here. I have never loved rain so much as I do in Malawi. Not only does it provide relief from the heat (temporarily), but also it makes it much easier to get water. We just put all of our buckets, basins and pots under the tin roof to collect all the run-off.


We (as in all of Malawi) are appreciative of the rainy season because the crops are growing. Unfortunately, until harvest time, this is also called the Hungry Season. Not a day goes by that we are not asked for food which creates a lot of guilt and frustration for us. There are so many reasons to pray for rain.

A Vote of Thanks!

Thanks to all the many donations we have recieved from friends and family over the last year we were able to put together a "2009 Teacher Starter Kit" for each of our 9 teachers. In their bags they got: markers, crayons, scissors, glue, construction paper, rubber bands, and stickers. The teachers loved it!
Here is Mr. Gulumba, one of our geography teachers, and his homemade map and his new supplies.




Here is "A Vote of Thanks" that Mr. Matalulu, our deputy headmaster, wrote us.



All the the duct tape that has been sent has been used to repair library books as well as hang signs in the classrooms.



Of course I have also enjoyed all the supplies. Here is a sign for my Girls' Study Club. Basically it is an hour that I open the library to girls only to encourage them to come in and use it. Very often they feel intimidated by the boys and are hesitant to come in.


It has been a while since we were able to thank specific people on the blog. A lot of people have donated school supplies and yarn for the knitting club. Some of our recent donors are: Fritzes, Fields, Filos, Doug and Joan, Brad and Lonnie, Jack and Bonnie, a woman from Grandma Rolig's McDonalds Coffee group, Dvoraceks (also included toothbrushes and toothpaste) and Wahlbergs. I hope I am not forgetting anybody since the last time we posted about it! We appreciate all of it! Not to mention the wonderful letters and care packages that have sustained us while we are so far from home. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Grandma Rolig

For lack of pictures of Grandma on hand, I've taken one from my sister-in-law's blog, where there are more, if you are interested. When we said our goodbyes before we left for Africa, we all knew it might be our last on this Earth, hoping that it wouldn't. We had a long, loving embrace with some tears, reminding each other of the good times we had together, especially at the kitchen table playing scrabble. Grandma inspires me with her will to live how she wanted to live, freely golfing and driving (up until just a few years ago), making new friends all the time at McDonald's, volunteering thousands of hours over the years, living in her own house, and loving us kids to no end. We miss her and love her very much, but we are blessed to have spent such quality time with her for so long. She was 95. One more thing I'll never forget about Grandma is her competitiveness without apology. I think her last words to me cautioned me to remember that she won the majority of those scrabble games. Isn't she cool?

Mid-Service Training

We just returned from our mid-service training in Dedza. Each volunteer invited one Malawian counterpart teacher to join the training. We were able to bring two from our school. Brian actually presented two of our workshop sessions which other volunteers claimed were their favorites. :) We also had some cross-sector training in permaculture, beekeeping, and leading wildlife clubs. Our counterpart teachers were really appreciative of the training and we were glad they were there. Plus it was fun to hang out with our group which doesn't happen very often as we are spread out all over the country.

New Year's Pics

Here are some pictures of our beach picnic on New Year's Eve. Our friends, Sarah, Austin, Judy and Susan are pictured (another friend, Audra was there, but not pictured). We all brought care package treats and wine to the beach for happy hour.

Happy New Year!

We had an enjoyable New Year's on Lake Malawi at Nkhotakota Pottery with some friends. We don't have the camera on us but hopefully we will get some pics up. We our in town because we are headed off to our mid-service training in Dedza, where we did our pre-service training. We will be there for a week and we all have a counterpart Malawian teacher with us. It should be fun. Then we are back to site for a new school year. We are pretty much teaching the same things. Brian has one English class and his teacher development duties and I am teaching social studies and life skills. We are looking forward to our second year of service.
Happy 2009!