Thursday, November 19th - Mchinji to Lilongwe, Malawi

We were up early again this morning and packed and down for breakfast at 6:30 and departure at 7:15.  This was our last high school and the last day of our official Canadian Humanitarian trip.

We drove for about 40 minutes and then Aaron decided we had to turn around because we must have missed the road.  We had indeed but it wasn't too far back, and it was easy to miss because their sign was knocked down and we never would have noticed it.  Luckily the school was just off the road about a quarter mile so we weren't more than five minutes late - not that time seems to matter much here.  We started at 8 a.m. each day but sometimes people didn't show up until 9 as they "thought we meant Malawian time".

Gandali Community Secondary School has 11 teachers and 350 full-time day students.  In the afternoon they have an additional 300 students in the "open" program.  I now realize that the "open" programs are not necessarily for adults.  They are for secondary school students who didn't have high enough grades to get into one of the full-time secondary school programs.  The curriculum is the same and the teachers are the same but the time frame is shorter so I'm not exactly sure how it works.  The teachers don't get paid any more if there is both a regular and open program at their school.  At Gandali, instead of working 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. for just one program they now work until 6 p.m. to cover the second program.   At 6 p.m. it gets dark so they can't go much beyond that point.

Gandali was definitely the poorest school that we visited.  The area and the setting looked familiar, including the water well and pump right near the school.  The buildings looked the same but inside it was different.  The form one classroom (grade 9) was the most notable difference as it had no furniture and the students were sitting on the floor.  There were also two classrooms that were used at times and we used one of them for our presentation.  It was definitely open air with just stick/reed walls about 5 feet up and a thatched roof.  There were narrow benches in it and a lot of broken chairs.  Some better chairs had been brought out for us to sit on and it was quite lovely sitting near the door with the breeze blowing through.  There were chickens roaming freely through our classroom and a pig wandered past the door at one point, followed later by a heard of goats.  The presentation went well though and I think the school will start an entrepreneurship club at some point.  I also think some of the teachers will likely start their own small businesses.  We had five teachers attend this session.

After the presentation we drove back to the main highway and stopped at a small restaurant for lunch - chicken and pumpkin leaves and nsima this time as they had no rice.  I don't eat the nsima and don't particularly like their pumpkin leaves so it was a pretty light lunch so we then went to the store and bought some snacks to eat in the car.  We then drove to Lilongwe with just one stop at another school so Lynn and I could use the bathroom.  It was just an outdoor drop toilet so not that pleasant.  However, the one for teachers at the school was the same so no luxury there at all.

The drive was beautiful again.  In the background there were occassional mountains or hills.  There were trees throughout the landscape but mainly it was flat to rolling land.  At times the land is very dry and sometimes it looks like great farm land.  In many place the land is already plowed and ready to plant as soon as the rain arrives.  In a few places planting was already done and small shoots were appearing.  We had that one afternoon rain shower on Monday but nothing more so most of the farmers are still waiting.  Blantyre, on the other hand, had a heavy rain and wind storm that caused flooding and a lot of damage.  That water is expected to flow quickly to Chikwawa and cause flooding there so they have warned people there to leave the low areas.  Chikwawa was where we were in the first week and it was exceedingly dry so it's hard to believe it might soon be flooded.  

We drove past a lot of small villages and towns - many of which are just large extended families living in one location.  The homes are sometimes brick and sometimes mud/straw.  Most have thatched roofs but some have tin.  In many cases the roofs are in very poor condition and almost non existent.  I guess this is okay during the dry season but it won't provide much protection when the rains come.  As usual there was lots of pedestrian traffic along the highway and in the towns.  The Malawians seem to walk continually - well, except for in the afternoons when they do a lot of sitting around in the shade relaxing.  But I guess that's allowable if you walk for miles to get to school or work or your fields and then back again.

We arrived in Lilongwe about 3 p.m. and checked into our hotel. I relaxed for a while.  Lynn went for a walk to check out the area.  She has way more energy and likes the heat a lot more than I do.  Today was about 33 degrees and the next week is to be higher.  By then we should be at the lake though so we'll have a really nice way to cool down.  Our hotel has a lovely shaded seating area with a yard behind so a nice place to relax and work.   We had dinner at the hotel - fish and boiled potatoes and vegetables and it was really great.  Who knew that plain old potatoes could taste so good?  We did some computer work as we finally had good internet connections and then I was off to bed early.