a bit o' fun

Hey friends family and whoever else might be around and reading,

In honor of Sarah leaving me here and the first year rapping up (September 23rd I will have been here for a full year!) I just wanted to dedicate a blog to some fun stuff and forget about the nitty-gritty for now. I am sitting at the Teacher’s Trainer’s College in Kasungu and having trouble seeing the mountain which the town is named for because of all the haze and dust in the air. When the rain is not around everyone’s favorite pastime is to burn garbage. Therefore Malawi gradually turns into what you would expect from Mecico city or LA only not as grey – just hazy. By the by, the aforementioned mountain comes from a Chichewa word. If you would like I will let you guess what this word means ….. no guesses? Well when you put the prefix ku- in front of a word that means little. –sungu comes from the noun which mean pimple or zit. Kasungu, then literally means little pimple. If you have seen the mountain then you can gather where they get the name from.
Here is a list of my favorite Malawian names – I am not kidding I know all of these people. Keep in mind that most of the time “L”s are “R”s are interchangeable. This first group is funny from the exchange of the letters and after that are just plain funny. Gradess, Gelsom, Lowlence, Mollis, Halord , Grolia, and Frolence. Then we have Esnart, Eveless, Loyder, Loveness, Goodluck, Mel Gibson, Giraffe, Rejected Stone, Obvious, Washington D.C., Whisky, Archangel, Henery and his twin brother Henury (from Ali’s class), Nashion, Diet, Gribetta, Funny, Happy, and then my student who on the same test spelled his name Alinaphy and Alinafy.
At a future date I will have a list of my favorite words that they say when the letters are mixed up (e.g. do you think Barack Obama will win this eLection?). I do want to say that I am not making fun of my friends here, I just find this amusing and thought u might want to see another aspect of the culture that we experience here.
Life has been good (aside from Sarah leaving and adjustments there) and I am really excited to come home at the end of November and see everyone before coming back for my last year!

a bit better

Hey everyone! I just wanted to throw aout a quick mesage that like all Peace Corps volunteers i have ups and downs and the last blog was me venting during one of the down periods. Life is a bit better now and things are pretty good. I will talk more next time, but i wanted to say dont worry about me (for now) hehe! luv ya!

Full of Frustrations

Hey everyone (by everyone I mean the 2 people who read this blog – so hello you 2 lovely people.)

Sorry it has been so long, but I haven’t been very motivated to do a blog… for that matter I haven’t been very motivated to do much of anything. Some mornings I wake up and say “if I don’t go to school today it wont matter…same difference.” Now this isn’t true but many days it feels that way. My form 2 students just took an end of term test with a whopping average of 41%. I had one student with a 94, three with 80s and then it goes straigt to 64. the worst paper was an 8. The thing is that the exam wasn’t even that difficult. It was Vastly easier than the test they will take to pass form 2. It is very difficult here sometimes.

One of my favorite things about teaching in the states is when the students have an epiphany experience and are able to go beyond the material. That doesn’t happen here at all because my students (who are great people by the way) have so much trouble with the language very few of them have a chance to understand something as complicated as chemistry or physics.

Dr. Erfan – part of the amazing medical staff we have in country – told me that I am exhibiting some depression symptoms. He said that a big part of my frustration here is my expectations. I thought that I came with some high but reasonable expectations, but I am realizing that they were too high. Dr. Erfan told me that I need to adjust my expectations about my time here and then like where they are at. I am working at that but it is not easy.

I don’t want it to sound like everything is negative here. I am really excited about a blood drive that I am starting in my village. I am also taking 15 students to a workshop for the blood drive in a nearby town. It should be a lot of fun.

Either way, I am glad that the term is over and I get to travel around Malawi for a bit again with my good friends and the love of my life. It will be a good break although I am bummed that Sarah will be leaving at the end of August. I have loved having her here as we get to know each other better and I have to constantly pay her money to act like she is really in love with me. It seems like a great investment.

Well, I don’t have much time for much more, but I wanted to throw out an update for anyone who is interested. Please keep me in mind and pray for me if u are the praying kind of person. Please keep in touch, whether by phone, letter or electricity. (for the first two look at previous blogs and for the latter mrmartinteacherman@hotmail.com or facebook me). I will be in Lubbock almost the entire month of December and would love to see anyone who is around. thanks yall!

Sarah and I are heading to visit an AIDS clinic close by to see what it is about and about helping out so I will let u go. Tiwonana Anzanga (see u later friends!)

A Malawi Update - Kasungu Style

Well all my faithful friends, allies, and enemies, the time is long overdue for a blog update. I honestly don’t even know where to begin so much has happened since my last blog. Well, I guess I will just have to try. I have been at site for about a month and a half now. It is a very big house with an indoor bafa (shower room) which is quite a luxury to be able to take a bucket bath indoors every morning. I have a very nice pit latrine as well that collects all the fecal matter in a very deep hole like it was intended. Man I cant believe these people think Malawi is underdeveloped.
Anyhoo, at the house I have a wonderful lady named Fanny who comes over every day to help me around the house. By help me around the house, I mean cook, clean, and do laundry. She also checks on my dog and cat while I am away (like right now). My daily sustenance is rice, one egg per meal, and tomatoes and sometimes onions. Then I throw a little garlic salt and Velveeta from my wonderful mother and away we go to the fine dining of Malawian cuisine. I also come into town about once a week to have a good meal at my favorite restaurant in Malawi called Heaven’s Mouth or K.J.P.’s. There I can have a good burger, steak, pizza, or my favorite, steak & stout pie that I save for special occasions.
Sometimes I eat breakfast of mphala (porridge) ndi nsinjilo (with peanut flour) that is pretty tasty. If not then I head to school by 7:30 and teach for a bit and then have tea and bread at 9:30 and then teach some more. I then head home for some scrumptious and aforementioned rice, egg, and tomatoes then finish out the school day by 2 pm.
Although the workload is not difficult in the sense of having a lot of it to do (I can’t tell you how much free time I can have sometimes) it is the most frustrating teaching experience I have ever had. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I have learned a lot about myself and some things I need to work on (like patience and love) and it has helped my teaching style develop.
The frustrations of teaching in this beautiful country are many an unending. The hardest for me is my student’s English ability; or rather lack thereof. And when I say lack thereof, don’t underestimate how bad it is. I have asked, in both my Form 1 (Freshmen), and Form 2 (Sophomores), the following question (keep in mind that when you teach in Malawi you develop a “special English” where you e-nun-ci-ate ev-e-ry syll-a-ble so the stu-dents can un-der-stand you whil speaking slowly so they can keep up. If they can’t, don’t expect them to tell you they don’t understand until you ask them a question!) “A molecule is made up of atoms. What is a molecule made up of?” this was followed by 4 responses in a row of “I have no idea.” Now imagine a full week of this and you can probably capture a bit of the frustrations that that I am discussing with you.
Another egregious annoyance is that every single one of my 130+ Form 1 students are sitting on the dirt floor in a room with no chalkboard, an uncompleted roof that leaks horribly though the gap when it rains and windows that they wired shut so I wouldn’t open them anymore (because who the duce would want to open freaking windows if it gets hot or dusty which it would never do in Africa of course!).
So like I said frustrating but I am learning a lot. The students are progressing and I imagine that some of what I teach them is sinking in. A big problem in Malawi, however is the fact that Malawians have a hard time with free thinking or doing anything beyond memorization. So they can many times answer a simple question, but the moment I ask “why?” every single student freezes, chuckles shyly, and sits down because they cannot answer. I am working on them as they work on me and the Lord is teaching me quite a bit through these kiddos.
Well on another note, Sarah, my beautiful and amazing (although she is dating me so probably a bit crazy as well) girlfriend is arriving in-county on the 15th of March and will be staying with a fellow teacher until the 30th of August. I don’t know if can tell you how excited I am to have her here. I miss her terribly and it will be great to have another “azungu” here with me; especially one that I love so very much.
I want to close up this blog, but I will end it with one funny story: I sometimes give my students an opportunity to ask me any questions that they would like about anything. They usually stick with questions about America, Sarah, and my preferences. Some of them stray a little bit to my obvious expertise about karate and Arnold Schwarzenegger. In two classes I have been asked about both the governor of California and karate. My favorites were “I heard it is true that Americans are very good at karate, how is this so?” and “I was watching Judgement Day, and have heard that Arnold Schwarzenegger is the governor of California. But in the movie he was cutting into his hand and it seemed metal and man. How is this so?” I am not going to lie; I cannot stop laughing at some of the questions.
Well all you crazies out there, I hope all is well and that I will be able to talk to soon. Please call I would love to talk and thanks to everyone who has sent letters and packages. They make me oh so very happy. If you are thinking about sending your favorite Peace Corps Volunteer that special something this holiday season might include DVDs (both movies and tv shows), CDs, junk food of any type especially involving sugar, cheese, protein, or something crunchy, and anything else you might think might be fun or useful. Ok so I am done with the absolutely shameless begging ( I hear Malawians say every day “give me my money.” So I think it has worn off on me!) but I love y’all and ill catch you soon. Peace out from Spencer H. “too bad my middle name is not Howie because then it would rhyme with Malawi” Martin.