Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002

From: Abby Stamm

Subject: term 1

Moni nonse!

Term 1 is nearly over. I gave my only exam on Wednesday morning. Only 15% of the students passed, all girls. But I get ahead of myself.

I arrived at site two and a half weeks late due to midterm medical and midterm IST. I had thought I would be teaching Integrated Science in Form 2, continuing with the same class from last year. I had already told my school I refused to teach Form 4 Biology. For those of you who did not hear my dilemma, I was teaching an unresponsive class of about 90 students in two streams. Most of them spoke little to no English and were learning nothing from me.

I learned that I would teach not Form 2, but Form 1 Integrated Science again. That was fine with me. I won't have to prepare the Form 2s for the exams now or worry about finishing the syllabus on time. I will just teach English and pretend it's science again like I did last year. This class is much slower than my classes last year. I have one stream of about 35 students. Most of the students who participate in class are girls. The three main troublemakers are boys. Two behave most of the time now, though one does everything in his power to get out of taking notes and the other asks questions just to get attention. The third boy cannot sit still and tries to chat in the corner with his friends. I now routinely move him to the front and sit him on the floor if he still gives me problems. The rest of the students sit a bit too passively, largely because many of them still do not speak much English or understand my accent.

Instead of teaching Form 4, I am supposed to be teaching Form 3 Life Skills (civic education and HIV/AIDS) and a new Form 3 course called Science and Technology because I am the most knowledgeable in half the topics and the most resourceful in finding people who can help me with topics I don't know. Unfortunately, the Form 3s have not come yet, and are not expected until the beginning of Term 2. We will also be getting a new stream of Form 1 students, so the two streams will be a term apart in lessons. I am not looking forward to that.

I have no idea how many periods I will be teaching next term. This term, I taught only five periods and whatever periods I could steal. Stealing periods is usually easy, since half the teachers only teach about half of their assigned periods. The only problem is that I am often competing with Mr Binali, who also likes to steal periods. I estimate that I will teach between 15 and 25 periods next term.

I can't think of any interesting stories. Outside site, I spent a weekend in Blantyre for a southern region Gender and Development meeting. I took day trips to Zomba and Mangochi. I visited other volunteers in Balaka, Phalula, Ntaja, Mbera, and Luchenza. I saw Harry Potter. One of the new volunteers got a pirated copy of the Harry Potter movie, so I have seen it now. I am looking forward to seeing a high quality copy when I return to the States.

Other news from Ulongwe: In January the new teacher, Mr Sakwiya, died of tuberculosis ("definitely AIDS" according to my counterpart), so even though I had literally met him twice, I went to the funeral. Catholic this time (the only other one I have attended was Muslim), but the burial was in Thyolo, so I did not attend.

Crime is up. Three of my six neighbors have been burglarized. I have hired a night watchman, who also occasionally does yard work. I do not keep anything of value out where anyone can see, so I have not been targeted yet. In many places, village justice demands that if someone is caught stealing repeatedly, his hands be cut off. They tend to die relatively quickly. In Ntaja, a man lost his feet as well. In Phalula, I am told a woman killed her own grandson for stealing her maize. I am told the crime is due to hunger. The government cannot import maize quickly enough or in large enough quantities to feed all of the people. What they do import is sold at the agricultural centres, so the ones who benefit are the ones with means and money. Vegetables are much cheaper, but Malawians tend to consider nsima/ugali (maize meal gruel of sorts) the only real food. In Kasungu, a woman sold five of her children to feed the other three, then the youngest died anyway. Also in Kasungu district, the tobacco plantation owners are tricking poor village boys from Balaka and Dedza districts into going to Kasungu to work on the plantations or fish in the reservoir. They are then fed maybe one nsima patty a day, or about 3 kwacha. The prediction is that next year's hunger season will be at least twice as bad as this year's. The rain has been erratic, with two weeks of hot dry weather followed by a day or three of pouring rain, a pattern continuing since sometime in January. As a result, the maize is not growing properly and many crops are dying.

I am now sponsoring three students. The government discontinued its bursary for poor students this year. Apparently, it never honoured last year's bursaries anyway. As a result of this, the hunger, and the doubling of school fees, many students could no longer afford to come to school. Among them were the top boys in Form 2 (Sapuwa Nsapela) and Form 3 (Benard Kenyengwe) and the second top girl in Form 2 (Sawu Phiri). The cost per term is now MK670,00 with a one-time additional fee of MK250,00. I do not yet know the cost of the national exams, but I am estimating close to MK1000. Once the worst of the hunger season is over, more students may come, but I doubt it.

At my house, I have planted about two dozen new trees, including mangos, acacias, jacarandas, and papayas. My big old papaya died and took down half my fence with it. Did you know papaya trunks are spongy inside? Fortunately, I had two more papayas that started growing when I moved in, one male and one female. They are now over twice my height. One jacaranda that started growing the same time is just as tall. I also gave some trees to my school, which has now planted about 100+ trees around the grounds. Ulongwe II Primary School boasts over 300 trees planted this year. I had nothing to do with any of this, but I think it is wonderful.

Basi. Now I am off to Tanzania for a few weeks. First Zanzibar, then Lake Victoria. I should be back at site by 14 April, the day before Term 2 begins.

Abby

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To contact me:

Abby Stamm

PO Box 43

Ulongwe, Balaka

SE Africa

Mail has apparently been unreliable lately. The only Christmas letter or package I got was from my grandparents. Postage from here has doubled in price, to about 70 cents. Postcards are now the same postage as letters.