Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003

From: abby stamm

Subject: changing sites (from december)

Dad,

Sorry this letter is so late. It is to be forwarded. Summer School will be even later...

Changing sites 16 November 2002

Monday, 11 November, was my last official day at site. I had given both of my exams, Life Skills in Form 3 and Integrated Science in Form 1, on Thursday. I was still marking them Friday morning when someone came to my door with a letter stating that my presence was requested that afternoon for a farewell party. Since the headmistress and half the other teachers were away, I was rather surprised. She was sick in Blantyre with her family and most of the others were

marking JCE (Junior Certificate Examinations, to pass from Form 2 to Form 3) exams in Zomba or somewhere. I went anyway of course and brought candy and biscuits like I always did for these things, along with my camera and the last few books I had to return to the school's library. The party consisted of a prayer at the beginning and end, a few speeches (including a short corny one by me because I had no idea what to say), soda and biscuits (both of which I barely

touched; I'd already eaten and wasn't hungry - the biscuits tasted a bit like cardboard and I don't like to drink more than one bottle of sprite a day), my photographs, and the presentation of the gift. They gave me a huge wooden statue of an elephant mother and baby. Sorry dad, I did not bringing it home because I had no clue how to pack it. It can decorate my house in Kasungu, where it makes a very nice doorstop.

On Saturday, I went to the weekly market in Ulongwe, but it was the start of the hunger season so there was little worth buying. On Sunday, I went to Mandatatu (literally "three graves") to buy baskets. It's the cheapest place around and only a ten kwacha ride from my house. I found a few huge ones I liked and caught a matola home (a pick-up truck, in this case full of sacks of - maize? fertilizer?, so I sat on top of the sacks) and another passenger helped me hold my baskets. The rest of the time I packed, marked exams, and recorded and calculated scores.

Notable Form 3 student responses to questions:

And we can prevent it [HIV] by using a condom, obtain sex, and avoid razor braids, pine to each other. - Aaron Amos

One of my weaknesses is that I do not pray when eating. This problem can be solved by praying to God to give me a sense of memory for me to remember when eating. And chatting with friends who like praying. - Elizabeth Kalimba

The local cultural practices helping to spread HIV are: (i) prostitution: Due to poverty most of the girls have many sexual partners for them to earn a living. This is 100% effective to spread HIV. - Benard Kwenyengwe

Bakili Muluzi should not run for the third term because his plans and ideas to rule the country is expired. He is busy building houses for the rural chiefs while they are hungry. How can people live in a good house while they have nothing to eat? We need him not to run for third term so that he has to think for another plans. We need another new leader with another new ideas. - Major Matola

I would expect my lover to tell me if she has HIV since it is good to become aware of the problem and find ways of solving it. If she don^Òt, then it simply shows she doesn^Òt like me. She wants me to die. - James Sanena

I don^Òt expect my lover to tell me that he has HIV because I already slept with him and if he told me that I am going to be uncomfortable every day of my life. - Emily Mankhokwe

I wish all of you to vote for Bakili Muluzi during the third term, because this man brought to us freedom of speech, the right not to be tortured, free primary education, and others. Do not vote to the other people except Dr. Bakili Muluzi in 2004. May be this freedom can be continued. - Daud Juma

The freedom of ... human life has been often violated in Ulongwe. Most of the people has just do things for their own ideas, eg. If there caught a criminal, they just kill without reported that case to the police. In fact, we found a thug somewhere we must report to the police. Only the police their can assist us. - Elias Chimbali

Integrated Science is just not conducive to fun answers. The other teachers say "Ah, that class, it is too dull." I say they never learned how to think creatively. As usual, depressingly few students passed in Form 1. Over half passed in Form 3. I have to keep reminding myself that this is not because I am a bad teacher. Such results are sadly typical in CDSS's.

Monday was my last day with the students. I turned the marks over to the form masters, who kept trying to give them to someone else to put on the progress reports. I had filled out the Form 3 reports myself, complete with the Chichewa comments on the noteworthy students' performance, but no one could find the Form 1 reports on Friday, so I left a disgruntled Mr Mbewe with the list. Presumeably he eventually used it to fill out the reports. Monday morning was the last

assembly of the year, so I did my little goodbye speech, then after the assembly I completely disrupted exams by taking photos of the students. I didn't care and no one else seemed to either. Malawians, especially young or poor ones, seem to go crazy when you pull out a camera. It was fun. I felt a bit foolish, but apparently I was entertaining. Just before leaving, I gave transport money to the two students that I sent to Summer School. It was awkward knowing that I would not be replaced, and being furious about it, but feeling I could not say anything to my school until they got the official letter. If the letter had come, it had not been read. (The headmistress was in Blantyre recovering from her most recent illness, as I said, and no one else liked to read her mail.) Officially, the Ministry of Education declared my school too good to require another volunteer. Decent lab and library and teachers with some level of qualification above the T2 (primary school teaching) certificate. Basically, the reasons I had felt I was able to accomplish something. I have no idea if that is what the school was told. Then I left for Lilongwe.

I spent the next four days in Lilongwe, arguably against my will. My intent had been to arrive Monday, get a letter from the Ministry of Education from Dora, and continue to Kasungu to visit the Teacher Training College (TTC) on Tuesday. On Monday Dora told me, "The man I need to talk to about your extension, Mr K-something, has been out of his office every time I contacted the Ministry, but I think both you and Dana have been accepted." Dana is a soon-to-be-fourth-year education volunteer who is teaching at the Bembeke TTC. I asked if my site had been verified. She said the Ministry knew I wanted Kasungu and had no reason to send me anywhere else, the other choices being Blantyre, Lilongwe, and Karonga. I vetoed the first two because they were in cities and the third because it was too far away from Lilongwe. Dora told me to come back tomorrow. Tuesday was the same. Wednesday, Dora finally reached Mr K on the phone (an improvement; their phones and internet had been down for a long time, so the only way Dora could reach them aside from letters that they may or may not read was to show up there). Mr K said we had both been accepted and I would go to Kasungu. Dana would remain at Bembeke. Dora asked how soon he could get us the letters. For reasons unclear to me, I needed to bring the official letter with me to visit the TTC. The only problem was that the man who signs the letters was out of town ("In Salima today, but he may go to Blantyre tomorrow, then somewhere else..."), so with me sitting in her office begging for the umpteenth time to let me leave Lilongwe, Dora convinced Mr K to give her unofficial official letters the next morning so I could leave by noon. Wishful thinking. The next day, the computers crashed, so he did not give them to us until late afternoon.

I was not idle this entire time. Erika Linnander, Abby Rivenbark, and several others were busy preparing for summer school and I assisted where I could. Erika declared me the official "Records Keeper" by virtue of the fact that I have a computer, like to type, and know how to use Excel. I did little typing before summer school though; the others were too busy borrowing my computer to type letters and design certificates. The certificates had been designed last year on the Macintoshes at the Peace Corps office, but the copy place had a PC and the documents did not translate properly, so they had to be redesigned by yours truly for Word 6.0, a trick when I have Word 97 or 2000 and my computer's an atrocious actor.

Friday morning, I headed to Kasungu. I had called the night before and was told the principal was out, but would be given my message. I was assured that if I called from the boma, a vehicle would pick me up. I reached Kasungu boma after waiting forever for transport, then befriended a woman who ran a telephone bureau, Beatrice. She helped me call the TTC (teacher training college). The man who picked up the phone informed me that no vehicle could come for me because they were all at the funeral of the son of one of the lecturers. I had been led to believe that the TTC was 10 km or so from the boma, but though I walked at least half that far by getting lost and missing the turnoff, it was not more than 3 km. At the TTC, only the head of Sciences was there to meet me. I gave him the unofficial official letter that declared me a "Peace Crop Voluntter" who taught science. That pleased him, but I felt out of place learning that the two VSOs (from Volunteer Services Overseas) already teach science. I said I would consider teaching other courses once I had seen the syllabi. This will not happen until January, when I return from home leave.

Outside, after a brief tour of the campus, I met two more men, neither of which had been at the TTC more than three months. They helped me choose my house ...

tough choice, the one with or without the sewage problem. But for some reason the huge stack of keys could not open either one. The electricity and water to both were disconnected and had not been reconnected last time I called. That's an issue when the only "toilet" is a flushing one. No chimbudzi outside this time. Just before I left, I met the headmaster, who seems nice enough. Since I did not make it back to the road until past 4:00 pm, I would have preferred to stay the night, but no one felt hospitable enough to even offer me food, never mind a bed. So my very late lunch was roasted maize that I ate on the bus that I caught sometime past 5:00. I reached Lilongwe Hotel (the closest stop to the Transit House) about 7:00 pm. I jumped at every shadow in the dark streets on the five minute walk to the transit house and was not at all thrilled to find myself back in Lilongwe.

Update 15 December 2002

After Summer School, I returned to Ulongwe after a quick trip to Blantyre to pick up last-minute gifts and souvenirs. I arrived Saturday, much to the village's surprise (they had expected me Sunday at earliest), and spent the next two days packing. On Monday, Mr Mphwina came over to help me pack and was surprised to learn that the Peace Corps vehicle had not yet arrived to pick me up. He returned to the school to call them and learned that the vehicle had been postponed. It would pick me up tomorrow. It finally arrived after dark in the pouring rain, the beginning of the rainy season and a break from the oppressive heat. Natasha (logistics) and Henry (the driver) would stay the night in Mangochi and return next morning.

On Tuesday, I had just started cooking lunch when my neighbors came over to claim their bureau/dresser, which they called a "display", even in Chichewa. That was fine, except the thing is huge and takes half a dozen people to carry, a problem when my katundu was spread all over the floor and dresser in a definite order and my door is not large. So I said no, wait until I leave any time from now. They had some sob story about people moving in when I moved out and boys who could assist now, but not later. I pointed out that no one was moving in before I moved out, no one had asked me when the boys should come, and I wanted to eat my lunch, so go away. When they persisted, I asked to speak to my landlord, who knew that technically, the house was mine until December 15, so what's the rush? (This was December 9 or 10.) They went away, but I never saw my landlord. Apparently they were afraid to send for him, or afraid I was right. Sometime later, Mr Mphwina came with their plea. I explained the same to him, adding that I really did not want to become angry and rude, and by the way, I still had not eaten. They sent him one more time, then he apparently decided I was right. He had no business there and angering me would accomplish nothing, so he went home after we discussed moving the school's furniture out of my house after I leave. The vehicle finally came and almost took down the clothesline pulling into my front yard. I lost count of how many people helped Henry load the landrover, including the overflowing top. I took a break to chat with Mr Binali, who had been offered a scholarship to study education at a university in or near Kampala, Uganda. He is there now, but I do not yet have his address. I would like to visit him if I can get to Uganda.

The ride to Lilongwe seemed to take forever. We stopped there for the night before Henry drove me to the Kasungu TTC. Once at the TTC, we waited forever for Mr Banda, the one in charge of preparing my house. He showed up after noon. I moved in while Mr Banda and a few others repaired broken locks on my doors and moved in part of the furniture. I had running water, but no electricity. My second day of bread, honey, and lukewarm water, Mr Banda gave me a thermos of hot water so at least I could make tea. I left the morning of the third day and ran into one of the boys from Summer School along the way. We chatted until a minibus came. That was Friday.

On Tuesday, after a weekend of packing and wishing all the new education volunteers well at their sites, I left for the States. More on Summer School later. It's partly written.

Abby