From anabiyeni@yahoo.com
Tue Sep 2 14:16:23 2003
Subject: Trying to Teach at a TTC
Moni nonse! 12 August 2003 or thereabout
I started teaching Cohort 9 as soon as I returned from my holiday in Ethiopia in early June. I missed the first couple weeks on holiday, but the other lecturers assured me later that I didn't miss much. The first week was just like at secondary school; you are lucky if half the students show up. Adrian was happy about that. With Mr Chibwe also gone the first week, he covered science for all 14 classes on his own, which often meant combining two classes into one. I've done that a few times and it's not easy. It's impossible if you want to do practical work. Each class ideally has about 40 students. The second week, second selection students were announced to replace those who never showed and they took a week or two to arrive. By the time I showed up, school had more or less settled down to normal. I started with five science classes, 3 hours each. I decided that's the perfect workload for me. All of my students are women now. It feels strange not to be teaching a co-ed class. I haven't decided whether I prefer single-sex or co-ed classes. As usual, some students participate and ask questions and others don't speak English. I'd been at school less than a week when Adrian dumped his classes on me to travel with his mother and sister who were visiting from England. I met them very briefly and am told they enjoyed their three-week stay. So for two weeks, I struggled to teach 10classes and learn the first residential's science syllabus at the same time. The first eight units are methodology: how to organize practical work, write lesson plans and schemes, and prepare teaching and learning aids using locally available resources. Most of it I'd figured out over the years, but purely by trial and error and by observing others, and I had no idea how to explain it to someone else. I spent a lot of time in the first weeks begging Mr Chibwe for help. Usually, he responded with, "But you know this. I've seen you do it." Unfortunately, that did not help me teach it.
Meanwhile, I had noticed that neither of our IFESH volunteers were around. When I asked if they had ended their contracts a month early, I was told that they had both disappeared in mid-May. (I left for Addis at the same time, but literally everyone knew where I was and more or less when I'd be back, Ethiopian Airlines having a terrible habit of rescheduling flights at the last minute.) Rumor held that Michelle had transferred to Lilongwe TTC without authorization from IFESH and without notifying Kasungu TTC, except that when the principal called Lilongwe TTC, they said the transfer had gone through, but she had never shown up to teach. Roshi, my friend from training who stayed in Lilongwe after Peace Corps to marry a Malawian, sees Michelle occasionally and told me that Michelle, now fired by IFESH, is living with her boyfriend and former student. I've never met him, but one of his wives is my student now.
Alvin reappeared during Week 5 and announced that he'd had a wonderful time gallivanting around southern Africa, then completely failed to teach or do much of anything else until his contract ended a month or so later. His only explanation for leaving without telling anyone was some nonsense about a warning from the US Department of State saying if he (as a US citizen) left home, he should keep a low profile and tell no one where he was going or how long he'd be
gone. Such a warning does exist -- it's probably posted on the State Department web page if anyone wants to read it -- but it doesn't say, "Don't notify even your workplace when you disappear." By the end of this, the principal told Hazel, our newest VSO, that he likes VSO and Peace Corps, but he never again wants another IFESH volunteer. He feels they are too irresponsible and unreliable. I hear more stories about them than about any other past or present
volunteers though. Maybe the rest of us are just very boring. More on Hazel later.
Week 5, we were notified that due to mis-scheduling in the Ministry of Education, the Teaching Practice would be Weeks 7-9 instead of the usual Weeks 13-15. In typical Malawi fashion, teaching stopped abruptly since no one knew how to take this information. The justification was that students would need time (2 weeks) to figure out what standards (grades) and subjects they were to teach and prepare schemes of work. To my knowledge, none of the lecturers finished
their subjects' required methodology part of the syllabus. A few dedicated teachers, myself not
included, held night classes to cover the rest of the material. I spent most of those two weeks in the science labs, assisting the 90 or so students (of about 540 total) who would be teaching science in Standards 5 to 7. Science is not taught in Standards 1 to 4 (health is covered in General Studies) and Standard 8 was exempt since they are preparing for their end of primary school exam, the results of which determine whether or not they will go on to secondary school. Most of the students were reluctant to seek help from Adrian or me. We demanded that they speak to us in English and that they think about what they were writing instead of mindlessly copying the science teachers' guide, which had plenty of errors anyway. Worse, many would whine that they did not have a science teachers' guide and therefore they could do nothing. It's true that we had less than 10 science teachers' guides per standard, but there were plenty of other books, including their student handbooks and the science pupils' books, which they could use. Mr Chibwe agreed with us about the books, but would discuss nearly everything with them in Chichewa, unless Adrian or I decided to be jerks and asked the students to explain to us what they were talking about. I did not mind assisting with schemes; it was a lot like being a writing center tutor again.
Sometime during the preparation for Teaching Practice, the newest VSO, Hazel, arrived. She is now teaching Maths and trying not to get too frustrated over the students' poor academic skills. She despairs that their department is one of the few that have not finished the first handbook yet. Worse, she says, the only academic material in it is addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. She and her husband Dave previously spent two years at a TTC near Livingstone in Zambia (near Victoria Falls), where, she says, at least the students knew English. Dave also stays at the TTC, but he volunteers at the Division Education office for the northern districts in Central Region. (For the geographers, that's Kasungu, Nkhotakota, Dowa, Salima, and Ntchisi.) The office is in Kasungu boma. After Teaching Practice, we also got three new lecturers from Lakeland College in Wisconsin. They are here for six weeks doing their teaching practicals. Then they will officially be transferred to wherever the Ministry wants them to be for the next few years. One, Anthony Mwakikunga, has taken over one of my science classes. (Adrian refused to part with any of his on the grounds that he'd be bored to tears with fewer than 15 hours of classes per week. I agreed, but am glad for one less set of exams to mark.)
So how was Teaching Practice? Extremely stressful. It lasted for three weeks. There were five centers and each center contained five to seven schools. I was ass igned to Mtunthama Center. We had five schools, Chitenje Primary, Chamwabvi Primary, Tchesa Primary, Vikwa Primary, and Mtunthama Primary, and about 100 students. At the beginning, the lecturers were concerned about the students at Tchesa and Vikwa because the students stayed alone at the school and all of the regular teachers lived far away. Vikwa had one watchman; Tchesa had none. We tried to move the students to other schools, but they refused to leave. I met one of my favourite students from Cohort 8 at Tchesa though, which cheered me up a bit. Later, vandals started visiting Mtunthama Primary almost nightly and stole windowpanes at first, then they tried to get into the classroom where the students were sleeping. In attempting to chase them away, the headmaster got his teeth bashed in by a well-aimed rock and the watchman consistently failed to catch them. Later, they vandalized the water pipes, so the students had no running wa er for the last few days.
I lived with four other teachers and the driver and cook in Chiwengo Village, about halfway between Mtunthama and Kasungu. (For the map-lovers among you, Mtunthama is not quite an hour east of Kasungu.) Chiwengo Village was built by the first president of Malawi, "his excellency, the life president," Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, for his extended family and close associates. It contains a school and the houses have both electricity and indoor plumbing. About the time Banda died in 1997, his family kicked out the close associates and appropriated their property. Now many of the houses are rented and the family lives elsewhere. The man we rented the house from lives in Lilongwe. He had not paid his bills lately, so we had to bargain with Escom and the Water Board to get electricity and water respectively. Electricity was not much of a problem, but the water took two of the three weeks to arrive. Since we had an indoor toilet and an overflowing latrine out back that none of us wanted to go near, the bathroom constantly smelled. Not fun. It felt a little like when the well would run dry when I was growing up and we'd haul buckets to the bathroom.
The others in the house included Zelipa, the cook, George, the driver, and four teachers, Mr Chibwe, Mr Banda, Mr Themu, and Mr Mlamba. Zelipa is a widow and she is raising two sons. The younger boy is at the Mua Mission School for the Deaf in Salima. The older boy is in Form 2 or 3 at a boarding school. George lives in Lilongwe normally and was not happy about spending three weeks away from his family. His favourite food is roasted mice, which he ate several times during the three weeks, hair, bones, and all. He told me this hoping I would be disgusted like any other azungu, so he was a little upset that I found it no more distasteful than eating a cow (I like cow meat less than any other meat I've tried). He informed me after I lost my temper yet again that I am much harder to live with than Adrian. I found that comment amusing and so did Adrian when I told him later, but otherwise I didn't care. I concluded that being cooped up in a house with five Malawian males, no privacy, and nowhere to go (except for work) for three weeks does not work. The entire third week I was moody, irritable, and otherwise not a fun person to be around. Since apparently my company is otherwise wonderful, or so the other teachers told me later, they were all shocked at my behaviour. I had half expected it and could not understand their surprise.
There is also an orphanage in Chiwengo that is affiliated with Children of the Nations, a Christian organization. The orphanage invites American volunteers for a few weeks every summer. I met about 15 volunteers total, but usually there were around eight volunteers. The third week I spent more time with them than at the house, assisting with their Bible camp on Thursday afternoons and their evening evangelism sessions. Nice and welcoming as they were, I realized that I must be pretty desperate to escape the house if I was using evangelism as a distraction. When they weren't evangelizing, we played Hearts for hours and of course they wanted to know all about Peace Corps. The two students living with them from the African Bible College in Lilongwe were very good cooks too. One Thursday, they decided to make Jesus bracelets with the 70+ orphans and all the other local kids that showed up at Bible camp for something to do. I had never heard of Jesus bracelets, but I could handle handing out beads and tying bracelets onto wrists while someone else explained. For those of you as clueless as I was, Jesus bracelets contain six beads, yellow, black, red, white, green, and blue, and each colour represents a stage in Jesus' life. Afterward, they gave me a bracelet and I brought it back to show my housemates. Mr Banda, a fellow Catholic who promised months ago to bring me with him to church and still has not done so, ended up with it and wore it as a ring since it was too small to fit around his wrist. He had his own explanation for the colours though. Mr Chibwe just observed, "That is definitely an azungu gift." The other four teachers had roughly the following duties. Mr Chibwe was in charge of Mtunthama Center. He did all the scheduling and tabulated and averaged all the students' grades after they were observed. He also kept track of which students were authorized to leave their schools, when, and why, and tracked down errant students. I talk about him all the time it seems, so I won't say more just now.
Mr Themu was the overall Teaching Practice deputy coordinator who somehow got assigned to our group. He was fun. He usually talked in English when I was around, even if I did not request it. Often in the mornings, I would wander out to the verandah while waiting for breakfast to find him polishing his white pick-up truck with great care while discussing politics and current events with Mr Banda in English. When I asked, he told me some things just cannot be said in Chichewa. One of his favourite stories was about the first President, Dr Banda. He said Dr Banda would always give his speeches in English so he could not be misquoted in translation. I was never told if his speeches were translated properly into Chichewa.
Mr Banda was the deputy in charge of Mtunthama Center (no relation to the former president; Banda is a very common name in Malawi). In his free time, he reads everything he can get his hands on and studies linguistics. I was reading a Neil Gaiman book that Hazel had leant me before Teaching Practice and left it in the vehicle at one point. I returned to find Mr Banda reading it and translating the book review quotes into plain English for Mr Themu, or maybe they were debating translations, which was possibly more entertaining than the book itself. Later, as he was reading Chapter 2 or 3, he informed me with complete conviction, "I have decided something. Door [the main character] is a lunatic!" I have never heard any other Malawian use the word "lunatic" and found it very funny. A few days ago, he left for a five-week linguistics training in South Africa, Cape Town I believe. He said he lived in Cape Town once before while serving in the Malawi Navy, so it would be a little like going home. Since Malawi has the third largest lake in Africa, I guess it makes sense to have a navy. I think the naval base is in Monkey Bay, Mangochi.
Mr Mlamba was the treasurer and food person. He always greets me with "Hello, neighbor!" since his house is next to mine. His wife visits me occasionally. She grows popcorn and gave me some, but I can't get it to pop properly without burning it. One day, I went with Mr Mlamba to the Mtunthama vegetable market and I could hear people commenting in Chichewa. Being a foreigner, I am rather used to this and generally tune them out. But Mr Mlamba was listening and found what he heard very entertaining. Later he told me they were trying to figure out our relationship to each other and finally concluded we must be married, to which I said, "Good, fewer marriage proposals." Like most males I complain to about it, he is amused that I am so annoyed when strangers ask me to marry them or have sex with them or whatever. If I wanted a certain food, usually fruit or beans, he tried to get it for me, but otherwise he mostly got on my nerves.
Except on weekends, when I buried myself in books or beadwork, we spent the day observing our students as they taught at the primary schools. Normally one or two of us would spend a day at one school observing as many classes as possible. I observed two to six students a day, either in the senior classes (5-7), which were taught in English, or the English classes among the juniors (3-4) and infants (1-2). Most of the time, I observed senior classes. Most of the lessons were mediocre and they all run together after a while, but a few stood out. I observed one girl at Vikwa in Standard 6. She was teaching Religious Education in English, or trying to, but her language skills were very poor. The reason I remember her is that she had a lot of energy and tried her best to get the pupils involved. Later, she told me that she has been teaching infant classes in her home school. Infant classes are in Chichewa and I am sure she does very well. Unfortunately, in this country, it does not matter how dynamic you are. If you can't speak English, you are a lousy teacher. Another student, at Mtunthama Primary, was teaching Standard 4 English. One of her objectives read, "Pupils will be able to express dissatisfaction." After observing the lesson and missing that part, I asked her about it. "Madam," she said, "I did it. I did exactly what the teachers' guide told me." After a few more questions, I determined that she had no idea what "express" or "dissatisfaction" meant and that, not wanting to appear ignorant, she had not asked anyone. So within the framework of the lesson plan, I tried to teach her first how to make the objective clearer, then how to address it.
Mr Chibwe had a mantra during teaching practice that he told every student he observed: "The teachers' guide is not the Bible." I amended it to include: "Burn the teachers' guide!" I must have been thinking about Fahrenheit 451, or perhaps the banned books in Galileo's Daughter, which I was reading at the time. Only one student asked me for assistance. While we discussed her lesson afterward, Standard 7 Agriculture at Chamwabvi, she said, "Madam, the lesson was awful and I don't know how to fix it." She clearly knew the material, but like me, her difficulty was in figuring out how to explain it at the students' level in an interactive way. I did my best to advise her, mostly by encouraging her to write more on the board and use more visual aids, and I think she is one of the few who actually listened to my advice. Another student at Chamwabvi, in Standard 3 English, began her lesson by asking if pupils were afraid of certain animals. All of them so far had answered (parroted?), "Yes, I am." Then she asked one girl, "Are you afraid of hyenas?" The girl said, "No, I'm not." The student was a bit flustered and told the girl she had to parrot, "Yes, I am," which the girl dutifully did. I asked her later why she told the girl to lie. It had not even crossed her mind that anyone would say no. Needless to say, that girl was my favorite pupil in that class.
As part of the post-lesson discussion, I always began by asking the students how they felt about the lesson. They had to tell me at least one specific positive thing and at least one specific negative thing. The standard not-very-specific positive response was, "The lesson was good because pupils were very participatory and answered questions." I ignored the fact that 90% or more of the questions were recall and often the answers were written on the board. The standard negative response was, "The pupils failed to understand because the lesson was in English" or "Class ended before I could cover ____." I no longer remember the school or subject, but one student told me, "The lesson was awful. There was nothing positive." I had to agree that overall, it was pretty bad, but she had a nice visual aid and had tried hard to involve pupils. For some reason, the students never think about what they do right or wrong. They only think about how the pupils respond, maybe. Adrian told me later about a student he observed. While they were discussing the lesson, the student complained that she did not have a teachers' guide to use. He asked what she had been using then. She said the pupils' book. He responded that given how good her class had been, clearly she did not need the teachers' guide and the pupils' book seemed to be working fine.
Three medical issues arose around the time of Teaching Practice. The first was a result of my own stupidity. The day before leaving for Teaching Practice, I discovered that I only had two weeks' worth of doxycycline (antimalarial medication) left and no time to go to Lilongwe for more. I called Evelyn, the PC medical secretary, and she arranged to send some with Jake Farnam, an Environment volunteer who was returning imminently to his site in Kasungu National Park. He promised to drop it off at the Kasungu District Forestry Office (DFO) on the way, which he apparently promptly did. The only problem was that being in Chiwengo, or visiting schools all day, my first chance to visit the DFO occurred almost a week later. When I arrived, I learned that everyone had gone to a funeral for the day except a man who knew nothing about packages. He told me to return next week. When I managed to visit the next week, I met the District Forestry Officer (also DFO), who said that she knew about my package, but the woman in charge of packages had locked them up and stayed home to care for a sick child. The DFO lives in Mtunthama, so she promised me that the next day, she would send for the woman, get my package, and bring it to Mtunthama Primary, where she would leave it with my students until I could fetch it. Two days later, Mr Mlamba retrieved it from the students for me when he went to observe classes there, two days before my supply would have run out.
The second medical issue had nothing to do with me at all. One of our students at Vikwa was about nine months pregnant and decided it was time to have her baby, so she left without telling anyone except a couple other students and went back to her family in Dowa. This was the end of the second week. With the moderators coming the third week and no idea how to track her, we were a bit concerned. Correction, I wasn't concerned -- it wasn't my job and this is about when my moody phase set in -- but Mr Chibwe and Mr Themu were. They managed to track her down, admitted her to Kasungu District Hospital, and arranged something with the moderators so she would not be penalized.
Before I continue, the moderators were a group of four people who visited all of the Kasungu TTC Teaching Practice schools in the third week and randomly observed select students. Among them were the principal of Blantyre TTC, someone from the Ministry of Education, someone from the Kasungu Division Education Office, and one more that I forget now. Half of them had never taught before to my knowledge, so I don't understand what gave them the authority to evaluate the students' ability to teach. Worse, whatever grades they gave overrode the ones we had given. The students need to pass Teaching Practice in order to get their teaching certificates in another year or so, so since the grades were slightly arbitrary anyway, we made sure that everyone passed. The moderators did not fail anyone fortunately, though they did change a few grades. They would not say whose and the students are never told their grades, though no one could give me an adequate reason why.
The third medical issue had nothing to do with me directly. The first day I visited the DFO, Mr Chibwe told us that a fellow teacher, Mr Magai, had been admitted to Kasungu District Hospital. All I knew about him was that he could speak some Kiswahili. I had found this out by accident one day when I was talking to myself in Kiswahili, probably annoyed about something, and hadn't expected anyone to understand, so I was surprised when he answered. Anyway, I wanted to see him, so I tagged along when Mr Mlamba and Mr Chibwe went to visit him. Mom and dad, I don't know if you remember the women's ward in Dedza. This looked about the same, only darker because it was evening, which just served to make the place look depressing. Mr Magai was alone, if you ignored the 50 or more patients lying on the other 35 or 41 beds (a multiple of 6; he was lucky to have one) or on the woven mats on the floor and their various visitors. I don't like hospitals anyway and was uncomfortable in such a crowded marginally clean room with people coughing, choking, and hardly breathing around me. We were in the men's ward. The few other women were visitors like myself. Mr Magai was glad to see us, but he had little energy and no appetite. Still, he tried to drink something in small sips, probably oral rehydration fluid, and told us he was doing better than when he had been admitted. The only symptoms I recall now are numbness in his extremities and pain in his lower back or side. Mr Chibwe gave him a few kwacha before we left and I'd have done the same if it had occurred to me to bring any.
I visited Mr Magai again the next week with Mr Mlamba. I don't remember why Mr Chibwe did not join us. If anything, Mr Magai looked much worse, though he insisted that he was feeling better and would soon go home. I kept the thought to myself that with so many sick people around him, he'd probably be better off at home. At least this time, he was surrounded by family and trying to eat the dinner they had brought. He said the numbness had long passed, but the pain was still there. This time I remembered to bring a little money and Mr Magai's father identified me as the madam who had given him 50 kwacha, which embarrassed me a bit. Mr Mlamba appeared relieved that I had remembered some because he had not. Of course a bag of sugar or some other practical gift would have served just as well if I'd had time to buy anything. The Sunday after we returned to the college, I visited Mr Chibwe and asked after Mr Magai. He had gone home for a few days, but on Sunday morning, he had been readmitted to the hospital. Two days later, he died there. I was upset because I had not had a chance to see him again. I showed up for class on Tuesday morning and was confused when my students failed to come to the lab. After sitting for 15 minutes or so, I went to investigate. I was told first of Mr Magai's death and second that the rest of the classes were cancelled for the day so teachers could prepare for the funeral. Never mind that Mr Magai's family was in Dowa and had yet to be contacted. I hate when class is cancelled anyway, whatever the reason. As it turned out, the funeral was not until Thursday and few teachers and fewer students attended. Had it been in Kasungu, I would have gone, but I had no desire to go to Dowa and I really wanted to teach. Those who attended said it went well though.
Fortunately, Mr Magai's death was the last major disruption for a while. I guess it worked out well. That week many students were absent anyway because they wanted to visit their families after Teaching Practice ended. I am still over a week behind in my classes, but at least a few of the students are following the material. If I ask them to come to the lab for extra classes during free periods, they are usually pretty good about showing up, if I ignore that they are five or ten minutes late. We just finished a crazy week of invigilating midterm ("minor") tests. I missed half of it for reasons I will explain later, but since what I was present for exhausted me, I'm sure I would have been completely worn out if I'd been there the whole time. That week, classes continued as normal, from 7:30 to 3:30 with breaks for tea and lunch. Then we held exams from 3:45 to 6:00. Each day, there were two exams, each an hour long. Between both regular classes and exams, the students had no energy. I remember several falling asleep in the middle of science class. It didn't help that most of my classes at the end of the week were almost entirely lecture and the science exam was not until Friday. Adrian wrote it, but it was something I might have written given the chance. All the students had to do was write a proper science lesson plan and draw an accompanying chart. At least the charts are fun to mark.
The minor tests are part of the Ministry of Education's Continuous Assessment Program, which I do not understand, so that's all I can tell you. We are supposed to have four marks in each subject by the end of the residential. I foresee three. We don't have time to mark any more. The first Continuous Assessment assignment for science was an improvisation project. The students had to make a rain gauge, wind sock, grasshopper cage, convection box, or spring balance and write a simple accompanying report. A few were good and many were falling apart. The cages were cute and would have made beautiful birdhouses if they were a bit stronger, but most had big holes in the side for doors with no way to close them. They were made entirely of maize stalks and reminded me a little of Lincoln Log houses. The convection boxes had the opposite problem; there was no way to open them to light the candle, with the exception of one student whose convection box had a clever sliding cardboard door with a clear plastic window. The funniest report read, paraphrased, "To measure the amount of rain in the rain gauge, remove the funeral [funnel perhaps?] and insert the ruler." Two or three students made their own maize stalk rulers (or "lurers" according to some) to use.
If I have not mentioned it, in Chichewa, "L" and "R" make the same sound and are interchangeable, so most students feel that they must be interchangeable in English as well. I discovered at some point that the word for this is lambdacism. Andy, a PCV in Balaka, uses argon (Ar) and aluminum (Al) to teach his students the difference. I'd do the same if I could
teach the Periodic Table here. If it isn't taught in primary schools, then I can't teach it, though. Kit, a former PCV in Mulanje, used election and erection. Maybe I could work that in somehow.
31 August 2003
I played hooky for a few days to go to Lilongwe for medical ("Sheila's out of town until September; unless you're dying, come back then") and to Dedza for Camp GLOW. Camp GLOW was fun. It's an acronym for Girls Leading Our World, a program started by PCVs on eastern Europe I believe. Katie Crawley, a health volunteer in the south, learned about it somehow and decided to hold one here. She arranged for about 50 teenage girls to attend and learn about women's health, sexuality, and empowerment. Around 10 Malawian women served as group leaders to keep track of the girls and translate if necessary. Everyone involved thoroughly enjoyed it. Since I was on the organizing committee, I was invited for a couple days out of the week. Due to medical, I missed the day I'd intended to assist in facilitating a session, so all I got to do was observe and help cook. For the latter, the cooks were thankful since those who were supposed to be helping kept disappearing.
Dinner was a disaster. The volunteers made Mexican food and half the girls would not even try it because it was not what they are used to. After dinner, they held a big bonfire. The girls learned how to make pseudo-smores, enjoyed torching marshmallows, and taught us various Malawian dances. I enjoyed that part, but was exhausted by 8:30 pm. There was a mattress for me to sleep on, but no one knew where to put it. Fortunately, since the full time Peace Corps trainers were there finishing reports on the health training, Esther the logistician invited me to sleep on her floor. It was much warmer and quieter than the lounge, where I'd tentatively planned to sleep. The next morning, they distributed T-shirts and I earned one for my small part, then Shober, a health volunteer, and I headed back to Lilongwe.
Two weeks ago, Adrian and I were looking forward to the first uninterrupted week of classes in a long time, so we were both angry when we learned that monday afternoon's and Tuesday's classes were cancelled. Why? President Muluzi was planning to visit one of the mosques in Kasungu district for a ceremony of some kind. He wanted to woo Kasungu's muslims, who do not like him. He would be flying in and out of Kasungu's tiny airport anytime on Tuesday. Since the airport is next door to the TTC, our students were "requested" (ordered) to prepare traditional dances to impress the president when he landed. For some reason, they needed from 1:30 pm Monday to sometime in the morning Tuesday to prepare the dances, even though they had all mastered them under the Banda regime and had not forgotten them. The president arrived about 1:00 pm. I did not see him, but did see the exodus from the TTC as I was returning from shopping in the boma. A completely wasted morning in my opinion. He returned around 3:30 pm to fly to Lilongwe. I didn't attend that either. Those who did go said they could not see the president anyway, but the dancing was very good.
Last week I completely wore myself out trying to cover all of the necessary material before the exam. On top of teaching, I also attended a seven-day workshop on HIV/AIDS organized by Adrian and Mr Mlamba. It is called Mzake ndi Mzake (Friend and Friend) and is designed to teach the participants how to be HIV/AIDS educators. It's a good idea and the program is developed by Kamuzu College of Nursing. It is also frustrating because every session is based on discussion and role plays, but of which are terribly boring in excess. (I admit, I like variety.) By the end of Day 2, I was bored. After starting by saying we would not be lectured at, both Adrian and the demonstration school headmaster (whose name I can't spell) proceeded to lecture for most of 1 1/2 to 2 hours. By the end of the second session, I requested to assist with the next session partly out of boredom and partly because it was on human sexuality, which I enjoy teaching. And I knew some fun games to play. I ended up facilitating the session on my own, with some help from Mr Chibwe, and it went very well. I was asked to facilitate the fourth session, but refused because that session is all facts and it would be much more fun to just read the thing on our own. By the end of the fourth session, the participants decided I was their favourite facilitator, I think because of the games, so they requested that I facilitate the next two. The first was on assertive communication.
We played a game in which the teams had to come up with assertive and relevant responses to comments related to HIV/AIDS. The students loved it. Adrian read half of my lesson plan beforehand and criticized me about not following the book. I was following the material, just conveying it using games instead of just discussions, so I could not understand his problem. Besides, he did not attend either of my first two sessions. He did attend my third session, on condoms, and never told me afterward what he thought of it. I included female condoms, which are not in the book, but everyone was curious about them. The first half went very well, but by the second half, I was losing focus, so I felt it went poorly. The participants I spoke with later said it was fine though. I did not attend the last session, partly because I did not want to be roped into facilitating it and partly because I had work to finish before coming to Lilongwe. I was told later there was a debate that went very well about whether or not HIV/AIDS education should be taught in the villages. By the end of this, apparently I am now a certified Mzake ndi Mzake facilitator (I guess I trained myself) and I think I enjoy facilitating much more than teaching.
This week is final exams (major tests) at the TTCs and I'm in Lilongwe organizing Diversity sessions and waiting for Sheila (PCMO) to return from overseas. At least I am not missing classes. Dana is also here. She is a fourth year volunteer teaching at Bembeke's St Joseph TTC. We spent yesterday chatting about teacher training and she filled me in on the gossip. It seems Cohort 10 will start in mid September, my school will be co-ed again, the students will be MSCE holders (kind of like having ahigh school diploma), and teaching practice will start Week 5 instead of Week 7. Or maybe the Ministry will completely change its mind in the next week and a half.
For those of you starting the school year around now, I wish you well. For everyone else, enjoy.
Abby