CAUTION! The information below is not for young audiences.
Today we visited the Msigalaria Secondary School, the
Machingan Teacher Training College (TTC), and attended a lecture at the Malawi
Institute of Education.
CAUTION! The information below is not for young
audiences.
Today we visited a secondary school that is funded by the Dr. Joyce
Banda Foundation (the current president of Malawi). The school is for orphans and is called the
Msigalira Secondary School. The name
means those who are left behind and this school is specifically for orphans. We
arrived 15 minutes late at 9:15. We had
to make sure to leave by 10:30 to make it to our next destination by
11:00. This has been common practice so
far on this trip. Arrive late and
apologize, rush to get to our next generation, skip lunch, and skip
dinner. We are all so tired from running
around that when we get to our next meeting, we are all falling asleep. I feel
that this is so rude but we are so tired we can’t help it.
I had the opportunity to observe a
geography lesson at the secondary school.
They have 12 teachers (a lot for Malawian standards) and only 200
students in forms 1-4 (9th-12th grade). All the uniforms are supplied by the Banda
Foundation as well as the salaries of the teachers. Even though this school seems to have more
resources and a cleaner appearance, the teachers all seem to be students
teachers. It seems that nobody stays in
the teaching profession. The government
spends so much money to train teachers but they are not able to retain
teachers, what a waste.
In the geography lesson we observed,
there were 50 students with one student teacher. The teacher had previously drawn a map of
Malawi using chart paper and markers. The teacher reviewed the meaning of
population and how population can be broken down by gender, race, religion, and
age. The lesson focused on the different tribal groups of Malawi. Students were instructed to recall the names
of the tribes in small groups. After the
groups were finished, the teacher had students came to the map and place the
name of the tribe on the correct place on the map. This was a great lesson but as all the other
lessons that I have observed in Malawi, I found it lacked any deeper
thought. While each lesson seems to
involved reviewing a previous lesson, small group discussion, and a closing, it
seems that all the lessons revolve around recalling facts.
Back in the van, I asked a teacher form the other group to explain what they learned in the culture
class. When I looked back at her, she
was crying. Another participant said
that she did not want to talk about it, and passed her journal for me to
read. Their lesson involved a lecture
about cultural practices in Malawi and especially the Yao tribe (we were in the
Southern region, the home of the Yao people). These cultural practices include
rituals revolving female and male circumcision called Dust Cleansing. Also,
cultural practices such as Death Cleansing and situations in which a male is
sterile.
Dust Cleansing is an activity that
occurs after a male or female circumcision.
My professor explained that when he was 8 years old. Boys or girls are taken into the jungle away
form the rest of the village. At this
time, they are circumcised (male=removal of the foreskin, female=removal of the
clitoris) and then taught about sexual practices. After this “dusty” two weeks in the jungle,
they go back to the village and bathe.
Then they are encouraged to further clean themselves by having sexual
intercourse with many different partners.
With HIV and AIDS being prevalent in the Malawi, these cultural
practices are very dangerous.
Death cleansing is a practice where
when a man dies, his brother is encouraged to marry the widow and take care of
her. This is a major problem because if
the man died of AIDS, it is probable that the woman of also infected. This practice can wipe out an entire family.
Also discussed was the issue of
“Hyenas”. If a man is sterile and is not
able to impregnate his wife, a “hyena” is called to step in and impregnate the
woman. This is a paid service. The name
“Hyena” was chosen because the animal comes out at night. If a woman is the
cause of infertility, the husband may take another wife and then they raise the
children as a group.
Next we visited Machinga Teacher
Training College (TTC). Here we had a
greetings and introductions. Then we toured the campus. There were no students present and we were
told they were eating in the cafeteria.
We arrived at 11:00 and left at 2:00.
3 hours seems like a long time for the students to being the
cafeteria. Hmmm. Like some of the other places we visited, I
felt like they were putting on a show for us.
They had a resource room with students created materials such as posters
that could be used to teach. However, we
have seen very little of this in any schools. We were also shown a resource
room with some small textbooks produced by the Malawi Institute for
Education. I was told that these books
were for student teachers to use when planning lessons for the demonstration
primary school. However, they did not
look like they were used very much.
We met the lecturer for Special
Needs students who are training to become teachers. We were told that he deals with Visual
Impaired students and Deaf students. We
saw a scanner and a computer that prints braille books. We also saw braillewriter machines. I asked the Special Education Teacher some
questions, trying to figure out what kind of sign language is used. The exchange is described below.
Me: Do the
deaf students sign I was told.
Special
Education Teacher: “Yes”.
Me: Do they
have interpreters?
Special Education Teacher: “Yes”.
Me: Who are the interpreters?
Special
Education Teacher: All the lectures sign
so the students are included in the regular classes.
Me: What!?!
The principal
of the TTC intervened and explained that there was only one student with a
hearing impairment and she did not use sign language, only a hearing aid.
I think there
is a cultural difference here. We were
told that sometimes when Malawians say “Yes” they mean “No”. What a confusion!
Between meetings, we stopped at a
restaurant to eat lunch. We were dropped
off there while our lead professor went to get money from the bank. While there we realized that we only had 40
minutes until our next appointment and we would not have enough time to
eat. While we were waiting for our ride
to came back, a mouse ran across someone’s foot and we all screamed. Even though we saw a mouse, we still went
back to the restaurant for dinner. I
ordered vegetable samosas, my staple since I have been in Malawi.
After dinner we started our ascent
of Mount Zomba to stay at the Ku Chawe Inn.
This is a Sunbird Inn that is affiliated with the hotel where we stayed
in Salima called the Livingstonia Beach hotel.
The Ku Chawe is very nice. It has
a Colorado feel with lots of flagstone and chilly, foggy air. If it weren’t for the palm trees and
baboons, I would think I was in Estes Park.
I am
sharing a room with another teacher and the heater in our room is not
working. We asked the porter to come and
build a fire and that was very toasty and warm.
The electricity kept going out but only stayed off for 20 minutes or so
at a time. One of the times when the electricity went out, I stepped outside on
the balcony to look at the stars. They were so clear and vibrant; I could see
the Milky Way. I was a little nervous
about the animals on the mountain so I quickly went back inside.
This is the
day I have been waiting for this whole trip.
Today we visited the Mary View School for the Deaf. As we pulled up to the school, I could see
some kids sitting around signing to each other.
Just seeing the kids sign made me feel at home. When they saw our van pull up, they pointed
and signed “white people”. Just like the
hearing kids, the deaf kids noticed that first. We got out of the van and I
went right over to the kids and started to sign. They we so hap ta signed and
we had fun trying to understand each other.
They fingerspell using ASL and the majority of the sings they use are
ASL. They also use a mixture of British
signs, Malawi signs, and gestures. They
signed some things differently like the letters “f”, “x”, and “t”. Also, the days of the week and the numbers
are different. I was able to learn the
signs for Malawi, Mangochi, and a few other towns in the area. 
