Nov 21
Is it bad that I am happy that I will never have to teach my English class again? We had our final party yesterday (I had to promise them I would throw them a party if they actually came to class for the rest of the term, the joke was on me when the project leader shortened their term by two weeks). The class took their final exams on Thursday and can you believe it they all passed! They all passed because it was a pass/fail test with the fail line set at 50%. I was a little disappointed in the classes overall exam scores, but the ones who truly never came to class and just don’t care that much were the ones at the bottom and there was a clear separation between them and the students who actually tried. I passed back their exams right before the party and the ones who never came to class started to challenge me on some of the answers. In class we had covered certain material like figures of speech and parts of speech. Now you have to realize that I only introduced material that was very simple. A problem from the beginning with this class was that they would find other answers outside of the material that I was teaching and be like “well what about this? This book says this is a type of noun,” or “Paul we found these things when we researched on the internet, not the things you told us”. I tried to explain to the students several times that they could find a million different things on the internet or in different books, but the material that I was teaching them was what they needed to look up and study. I asked one of the students who was challenging me, “where did you learn this?” She replied, “in another class”. I am seriously worried about some of these students. On December 7, they start their student teaching term for 11 months, and some of them can’t understand why they got marked down for answers that weren’t covered in class, and WEREN’T ON THE EXAM STUDY GUIDE I MADE FOR THEM THAT HIGHLIGHTED WHAT MATERIAL WAS GOING TO BE ON THE EXAM. Ahhhhh!!!! I wanted to walk out of the classroom and scream after this brief exchange. At the end of the party they students thanked me for teaching and said that they would never forget my kindness and generosity, then they asked me to say a few words. All I could think of was a couple of things that I had wanted to say to the 5 of them that actually tried hard and came to class, the ones that will be great teachers and will help develop the educational system in Malawi. I said that I applauded them for what they are doing and the thanks should be given to them. Good teachers are so important to the growth of Malawi and the rest of the world, after telling them how I felt blessed to have the chance to work with them, I challenged them to always work hard and push themselves every day. Like I was saying before, I wanted to say these words to 5 maybe 6 of the 10 students. I really do believe they can help make a difference in so many children’s lives, and people’s lives in the surrounding villages for that matter. The other students, I wanted to give them an entirely different speech, that might have made them remember me in a slightly different light, but after I had some time to cool off, I realize now that if those students don’t change their act very soon then they won’t be teachers. The system will spit them out just as quick as it let them in. Malawi is looking for real teachers, not wannabes that are just looking for the next paycheck. Just when I was starting to think that all hope was lost for not just these few students, but the majority of the class…!!!BAM!!! A renewed since of hope popped up and hit me in the jaw! A since of hope and encouragement that came from 2 students later that night who I had a discussion with about 9/11 and GITMO. They were curious about GITMO and how the events of 9/11 affected GITMO. I went over some facts with them and then we had a great talk about the Middle East. I was shocked at how informed and intellectually challenging the students were about certain issues. The hour that we spent together renewed my faith that there are one a few bad apples in this bunch. Most of these students are going to be great teachers.

A few corrections from previous posts:
The Malawian gov’t had to borrow $50 million dollars to solve the gas problem
The play that I saw at BAF was called The Frogs, it was an adaptation of Aristophanes’ The Frogs and it was performed by NANZIKAMBE.
The two new DIs have arrived. They are Hannah from South Korea and Aumi (I know I spelled that wrong, but her name sounds like (I-U-ME)) from Japan. They got in last night, and wouldn’t you know it the water pump is broken again, so there has been no water for 3 days. I feel really bad for them that there is no water. I can imagine how I would have felt it there was no water when I got here.

Obama
The people here love that a black man is the president of the United States, but they don’t understand that I love that Obama is the president of the United States. They look at me like I just insulted their mothers when I say that I voted for Obama or when I say Obama is my president. One of the students that I discussed GITMO with asked me, how does it feel to be ruled by a black man? I kind of shook my head a little and said a president is not a ruler, my president, your president are our leaders. I tried to explain that a president in a democracy is not like a king or dictator, but a leader of the people. This is something I will have to further discuss with the students in a larger group discussion. Speaking of Obama, I ate my first piece of Obama bread today. It was really good, I joked with a few other teachers that Obama was giving me strength to be here at Amalika. So I should probably explain to you about this bread situation, there isn’t an actual bread that’s name is Obama bread. The people here have given nicknames to the two main types of bread here in Malawi. There is Obama bread which is big and soft and tastes very good, and there is Osama bread that is small and very hard. So the people say Obama bread is for everybody so it is better than Osama bread.

Rain
The rains have officially started. It rained a few times this past week, all of Friday night, and now we are have a huge storm as I write. I took Aumi and Hannah on a walk today and as we got to the first pre-school I wanted to show them I could see the sky starting to get gray and black, so we turned back towards Amalika. It was crazy, as we walked the storm just stalked us. Every step it felt like the storm was getting closer behind us, but when I would turn back to look at it, it looked like it was still a mile away. Then right as we got to the make shift bridge where we cross over a stream I turned around and the storm was right on top of us. The sky swelled with dark ominous clouds and it started pouring. I had a blast in the rain. I wasn’t actually in the rain, but I had a blast during the rain storm, I actually made very good use of my time. I filled up a bucket with water so I could flush my toilet, I filled up a five liter jug and 2 one liter jugs so I can shower for the next few days, and I used the time and extra water that the sky gave us to mop the crap out of my floor. I mopped my room floor like 5 times until it was immaculate. I was very proud of myself, I accomplished a lot… it was a very eventful day. Tomorrow I will go into town in the morning with Aumi and Hannah. Hopefully the money exchange place will be open on Sunday. I need to also pick up a few things at shop-rite since the party pretty much cleaned out my stash of snacks. I hope to meet up with Lawrence and Grisham tomorrow, but we will just have to see. Water is my main concern so it is great when I am able to get a ride home from them b/c then I can buy mass quantities of drinking water. I am just keeping my fingers crossed that the car will be on time and we can get into town in the morning, but only time can tell.

P.S. Dear Titterington Family, i love you all, but could you please take me off the list serv for messages like "thanksgiving menu an count". My Thanksgiving will consist of Nsima and maybe beans...if i'm lucky.