We were once again up early and loaded the van with the garbage bags of clothing, school supplies and sports equipment that we wished to leave behind with Tadeo at the Habitat office. Nancy wore a "I heart Canada" t-shirt to serve us breakfast in.
Kevin mentioned that we will stop at Chitikale on the way home for the people that wished to buy some of the cloth wraps that the women wear as skirts. This worked out great as a number of us had planned 'operation monkey' for Thursday evening. (Operation monkey - buy some local beer and have one after our official last day of work).
We were off to the village and our school village at our usual time and made the stop to buy eggs and actually met George the brick supplier at the store.
We headed to the Nsanjam F.P. School in Thuchila on the way to our celebration.
Driving up it was incredible to see so many children, again they fought to get close enough to wave and touch our hands. The headmaster came out and he asked us to join his staff for a welcome.
He informed us that it is a co-ed elementary school (Tadeo told us it has a great reputation) with 1475 students registered and 15 teachers (you can do the math on that one!!). The teachers all dress in suit and tie and females in dresses as it is government protocol to do so. When asked what concerns they have and older teacher (Moses Mangwaya - 30 years teaching experience) that they have 3 main concerns:
school supplies - the government is to provide one notebook and one pen to every student but the shipments rarely arrive on time, or at all (a neigbhouring school gets theirs from Unicef).
sports supplies - they have 2 soccer balls (we brought them 2 more and 2 skipping ropes)
infrastructure - the 15 buildings housing these 100 students have dirt floors and no desks, the facility has 10 portable latrines for the students. They have one map of Malawi that the entire school shares.
The schools services several communities and students walk from 0.5 to 4 km to get there and so during rainy season they also have attendance concerns above the regular absences due to illness and orphan status.
The students were happy to show us their notebooks and most have a dry erase tablet that they carry with them. On the drive off I noticed that they had a water supply system that I had recently heard about. It looks like a merry go round that the students play on but is actually a water pump (sort of a horizontal water wheel) as the students push it around it fills a holding tank with water.
on to the celebration!
As we drove up a group of drummers started playing and the ladies and kids began dancing. The music was excellent and our thoughts of performing the bird dance paled in comparison. We were amazed at the hip and butt action that the dancers of all ages exhibited. We joined in and after about 4 songs we even managed to drag Robin off of his scaffold to join in. Two young boys dressed up in corn skirts and performed a traditional type of dance. The drummers then had to leave to perform at a wedding and loaded up their equipment onto a bicycle and off they went. We were not sure what to expect next and were awaiting a few more dignitaries before the official start. We ended up doing the hokey pokey with some of the kids and it was a huge hit so we also did if you are happy and you know it.
Then it was time to officially begin the celebration and a group of teenagers brought out some home made instruments (drums, a slide bass, banjo) and proceeded to blow me away with their talents. They were so good!
There were speeches from several sources (habitat, OVC, the chief) and all blessed God for our presence and help with the house and Juma. They told us to please return again and to encourage others to do the same and they blessed our safe journey home.
We presented Grandma with a Canada polar fleece blanket, courtesy of Sue L, that we all signed and pressented a soccer ball to one of the boys - Shorai had the photo of Grandma and her grandchildren with her and did not make it, so she will have it delivered to them this week, Deb bought a pretty hand carved frame to place it in.
It was very joyous and it made leaving the site much easier than I expected.
We drove away on last time and were quite quiet on the drive to Chitikale. (Limbani had a rough trip - hit a dog and a prairie chicken on the way home - weird that it should happen on our last day)
In Chitikale we made our purchase of some Kuche Kuche beer (500 ml bottle costs 61 cents US) and headed to the lodge.
We had a final meeting with Shorai, Tadeo and Limbani prior to their heading back to Blantyre. Tadeo and Shorai both spoke so well and again thanked us for coming, hope we return and thanked God for bringing us to Juma and asked that he watch over our journey home. (Habitat expects to be done their builds in the Mulanje district by next July)
Back to the dorm for a beer and an opportunity to socialize and then to supper. Nancy made pizza for our farewell dinner and a cake for dessert!
Sunday, July 18, 2010
School visit Thursday morning and final Celebration
link to photos for July 15th
