Done with Domasi and on to Lilongwe

Not much happened at Domasi for the rest of my time there. Olivia, Margo and I went to Nhkotahota one weekend for Olivia’s early birthday party. A few of her friends met us there as well. It was there that Olivia received a puppy for her birthday…I’ve come to decide that it is the best and worst give ever. I mean who doesn’t like a puppy? And he loves to cuddle. On the other hand he is a Malawi dog, which isn’t entirely safe and other assortment of problems. Luckily I was only there for a few days before I left Domasi for good.

On the 24^th my time teaching at Domasi came to an end. It seemed like the month went far too quickly. My last lesson I gave a super short assessment. The kids had to write a short essay about one of the following topics.

1.      Locomotion in Fish

2.       Locomotion in birds

3.       Types of Muscles

4.       How muscles bring about movement

5.       The different kinds of Joints

6.       The different kinds of skeletons

7.       The structure of human bone.

I didn’t give anyone below a 50% because it was my last day because I was feeling generous. A few of them definitely deserved it also…The test only took 25 minutes of the class time, so for the last 15 we just talked. It was very spur of the moment. I was saying good bye and then someone asked me a question and it went from there. It was nice to have a talk with the kids as a friend instead of as teacher, superior figure. Some of them were thoroughly shocked to learn that I was only 19.

The administration also gave me a little far-well party as well. Since it was Olivia’s birthday as well we had a joint party. It was actually more like a picnic. We sat outside ate cake, cookies, bread, tea and soda. It was a formal farewell from the teachers. After which all the teachers tried to convince me to sell them my stuff. I had to insist multiple times I didn’t want to sell my computer.

Silas picked me up that same day and I had a farewell day with him and Margaret. We went and had a nice lunch at the Hippo Lodge and then went on a short safari. I got to see elephants, antelope, warthogs and much more. Malawi isn’t known for its wildlife so it didn’t really compare to other countries like Botswana, but for $2 it was totally worth it.

Silas also invited a few friends over for dinner that I had met over the course of my time there. We had a literal feast. I also got to cook a chicken starting from the beginning. I won’t gross you out with the details but I’ll put 2 pictures:

Before:

 After:

After dinner we all said our little thanks and that we really enjoyed each other and what not. That day was a really great way to end my time in the southern region. Silas and Margaret would always refer to me as their grandson. At first it was just a joke but by the end I cared about them. Silas was almost like the grandfather I never had. I’ll miss them for sure.

The next day I got the bus up to Lilongwe for the final part of my trip in Malawi. In Lilongwe I am going to be doing legit mission work. Tad Juma is the Youth Director for the Nkhoma synod of the CCAP. I’ll be working with him and some of the people in his office doing mission work. Tad picked me up from the bus depot. I learned pretty quickly that the next day I was scheduled to speak at a CCAPSO meeting. CCAPSO is a student Presbyterian organization among secondary schools in the country. I was supposed to be talking on higher education and career building. My first response was to say no, but I didn’t come halfway around the world to stay safely in my comfort zone doing only was I wanted to.

The night before the event I spent about 2 hours preparing my sermon.

The next day Kennedy (one of the youth department employees) and I got public transport to Madisi Secondary School. When we got there I was a little blown away. It was complete sensory overload. First off Malawians, have an obsession with blasting music to the point of going deft. Also there were about 200 teenagers there all dancing to the music. Not like a school dance or anything, they were all just dancing to themselves.

After sitting there for a while I was the first one to speak. Kennedy stood next to me and translated the entire time. I wasn’t used to talking in front of so many so I muddled my lesson a little. I got my message across and people told me good job though! For a first time I called it a success. I prayed about it so I guess God came through for me. The next two speakers after me definitely did better than me but considering I was a 19 year old American kid and they were legit church workers and pastors I wasn't surprised.

I’ll be doing this kind of thing for the next two weeks until I leave for home on June 11^th. Wish me luck!

Cape Maclear

Cape Maclear

Since Malawi has so much to offer aside from the places I am staying it can be nice to travel within the country a little bit. This past weekend a few friends and I decided to travel to Cape Maclear. If you Google it you can find out a lot about it. It’s one of the touristiest spots located at the bottom of Malawi.

Since Monday was a public holiday it was a perfect weekend to go. I also taught a class at night on Wednesday, to make up for the Friday that I was going to miss. Since I don’t otherwise have class on Thursday I didn’t feel bad about going on vacation.

I left on Thursday morning, and first went south to meet Owen in Blantyre for a night. In Blantyre we stayed at a lodge called Doogles. It’s the most well know joint in town. It’s a great place to go and have a good time but not if you want to sleep… It’s a local hang out space with a great area, so at night it gets pretty busy.  Owen and I hung out there for the night catching up and having a few drinks. We also managed to get a little sleep.

The next morning we got an early start at around 8. That’s when I got to experience the joy of third word public transport in all its glory. In Malawi most of the public transport occurs in mini-buses. They don’t exist in the US but image a car about the size of a minivan with 4 rows of seat super close together. Usually you are in a minibus with about 12 other people but today it seemed like luck was against us. The number of people was constantly changing. At least it was 12 people but we maxed out at 27 people in the car at one point. Now ride that for about 6 hours.  Not to mention most Malawians don’t shower that often…Luckily we didn’t have to switch buses. Sometimes people are forced to switch into another bus, or ride in the back of a pickup for a little. We managed to get all the way to the Cape Maclear turn off in relatively good time. From there Owen and I hitched a ride the last 20 km,with a guy driving a sugar truck, to our lodge.

There we met Rachel, her friend Jill, Josh, Fika, and Mia, all who knew Owen previously. I ended up becoming good friends with everyone aside from Jill. I also met a bunch of med students doing research in Malawi.

The rest of that first day we didn’t do much. We swam in the lake, went to a local club place for a few hours then went to bed. The local club was fun because it was essentially 100% expats dancing to anexpat DJ. Man, were there some characters dancing… One man was literally in a rainbow dress, with Tevas and socks on.

The next day Owen, Josh, Mia, Fika and I rented kayaks and snorkels for five hours. We kayaked out to an island a km or so off the shore where you could snorkel. The snorkeling wasn’t amazing but the fish were all really small and beautifully colored. That is what Lake Malawi is known for; its biodiversity. After a quick lunch we kayaked over to a peninsula we saw and went cliff jumping. There were a few great spots where I could show off my backflips. The water at Lake Malawi is beautiful. It is very clear, and a perfect temperature year round. It provides perfect relief from the sun and heat. 

After hours of kayaking we were all absolutely exhausted. After a quick snack and shower we all took a nap. After that we went for dinner, which was quiet possibly the longest dinner of my life. Customer service isn’t a priority so it took 90 minutes to get out dinner. Which we ate in ten. I taught all my new friends the movie game, which they seemed to get a kick out of.

After a long dinner we went to another lodge where we were meeting the med students. We were only there a few minutes before a boat arrived to pick up the med students. It turned out they were invited to a birthday party down the lake. Not having anything else to do we hopped on the boat as well. It was a little sketchy because none of us really knew where we were going, who the guy was or what the party was going to be like. It turned out to be a regular beach party. We arrived and there was a fire with locals playing on drums and a bar. The birthday boy (Thomas) was also paying for everyone’s drinks. There we sat for a few hours talking and enjoying the fire. I even grabbed a drum and joined the circle of drumming Africans. We went back and fell into bed around 1am.

The next day (Sunday) we were all not operating at 100%, so we just relaxed. There was a pontoon raft about 100m off the beach shore which we swam too and hung out for about 2 hours. I laid in a hammock for maybe an hour. We had dinner. Not much really happened that day. At night we sat on the beach with a drink and watching the sun set. It was a refreshingly uneventful day.

The next day I got up at 7 to find out a different friend staying at Cape Mac had found me a ride home! She had had a crazier night than me and met a guy traveling back to Zomba the next day. He offered the take her, and she smartly put my name in there as well. So Robin took me and Margo home in his comfortable car in about 2 hours and 45 minutes. Then our good fortune continued when we got a ride up the hill in the bed of a pickup truck.

It was at the house that our luck ran out. Margo and I had left the key with Olivia in Cape Mac. It wasn’t the end of the world though. We called Billiot who forced his way into the house by breaking the lock.

All in all a great week! The only downfall is the fact that I probably have Schistosomiasis now. The chances of contracting when swimming in the lake is like 50%. It’s not a big deal though because I take the medicine in 6 weeks and it kills it if I have it.

Tough life living in Malawi!

I’ve been teaching at Domasi school for about three weeks now. As I said before I’m teaching form three biology (junior year). So far I’ve enjoyed it. I teach at least 1 hour a day and some days I teach about 3 hours. It varies from day to day. The other teachers are full time and teach a few hours each day, but since I’m only a temporary teacher I only teach a little during the week.

Since the class that I teach only gets a few hours of instruction a week, it takes a little longer to get through topics. So far I’ve been able to get through one topic. I finished the topic of respiration on Monday. This includes aerobic and anaerobic cellular respiration, respiration in fish, humans and insects and other things of that nature. I was almost fun to relearn it. But at the same time I wasn’t an expert by any means and the kids would ask me tough questions sometimes. Most of the time I am able to give them a relatively acceptable answer but sometimes I just half make it up. Am I a terrible teacher? Probably.

Almost all the time I know what to teach and do teach them. There are always the few who obviously don’t need any instruction, but most of the kids seem genuinely interested in learning. Except that African learning is different from the developed world. We put an emphasis on understanding and analytical thinking while they purely memorize what I tell them. They don’t really LEARN it in the sense that we mean. That difference has made it hard to teach because of our different ways of thinking. For example, if I write something on the board I tend to paraphrase to make it easier and quicker. But it really confuses the kids. I had to literally write everything out for them. It’s just a different way of learning.

After finishing the chapter on respiration I gave a test. I didn’t really anticipate the amount of time it would take to grade the tests. I have 124 students and it literally took nine hours to grade the tests. In the end the grades ranged from 12% to 92%. This is the test:

1. Write the reactants and products of the following reactions (both chemical equations and names are acceptable:

a)      Aerobic tissue respiration

b)      Alcoholic fermentation (anerobic)

c)       Lactic acid fermentation (anerobic)

2. What are three of the four differences between anaerobic and aerobic respiration?

3. How do small organisms such as diatoms and amoebas perform gas exchange?

3. Describe the process of gas exchange in humans.  

Breathing in

Gas exchange in aveoli

Hemoglobin

Exhalation c02

5. Describe how the following two chemicals are transported in the body.

a)      Oxygen (O₂)

b)      Carbon Dioxide (CO₂)

6. What body part regulates breathing and how does it work?

7. What effect does exercise have on breathing? 2

8. Answer the following questions about carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning.

a)      How does it occur?

b)      What are two things you can do to treat a person suffering from CO poisoning?

c)       What are two ways to prevent poisoning?

9. What are the three main things in cigarette smoke?

10. Describe how respiration occurs in Fish.

Open mouth and water entry

Close mouth up buccal

Water out

Gas exchange

11. Describe how respiration occurs in insects.

12. What adaptations do fish and insects have.

Do you think you could take it and get above a 50%?

Anyway, since Monday is a public holiday I decided to take a long weekend and head up to cape maclear. Right now I’m in Blantyre with owen, and we’ll head up there tomorrow. So expect another blog post soon!

Zomba and Domasi

After my week long stay at Likhubula house in Mulanje I went back to Zomba to stay with Silas at the theological college. The dean of the college, Gertude, had one or two things she needed help with and seemed to think that I could help out with.

What they had me doing was creating an excel worksheet with all the grades from the first semester for all the students. I was the one who decided to do an excel document because they wanted me to do it in Word, but that would have taken much, much longer. Because computers in Malawi are still a relatively new thing, they weren’t computer literate enough to figure compile all the data in a timely and efficient manner.

In total there are about 120 students and each year takes about 5-6 different classes. What I had to do was take all the exam grades and then all of the cumulative averages for semester, then do a weighted average to find the final semester grades.

It wasn’t that difficult, I just had to short through a mountain of paper to find the grades.

It took me about 3 days to do the whole thing. So, by Friday I was completely done. I had planned to stay in Zomba central for a few more days at Silas’ house. We were thinking about going on a safari about 45 minutes away where I could see elephants, hippos and other animals (no rhinos though, those are too rare). However, Silas had to go to a meeting that he didn’t originally plan on attending so I had to go to Domasi school on Friday.

When I got there, there it was the end of the school day. I walked around met some of the teachers and students. Everyone was very friendly and seemed glad enough to see that they had another (white) teacher. Westerns have a reputation for teaching differently making the kids enjoy it a little more.

On Saturday and Sunday I did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. The too other volunteers here were still on holiday in Zambia, so I had the place to myself until they got back. Since there was also no internet and very spotty service I had nothing to do aside read, watch movies or wander. I wandered a little but the sun was really hot so that didn’t last long. On Saturday and Sunday I also kept busy by going to see a soccer game at the local field. I also cooked, which passed some of the time as well.

I know. I live an exciting life right?

The two other volunteers arrived on Sunday. Their names are Olivia and Margo. Olivia is technically from France but lived in England for the past eight years, and Margo is from Australia. I realized pretty quickly that we were going to get along pretty well. Both of them were very easy going and had a good sense of humor. Both of which are necessary when travelling, especially in Africa.

All three of us went to go see the headmaster to see what I would be teaching. He said that I would be filling in for either Olivia or Margo where-ever needed. That wasn’t really going to fly with me. I didn’t want to teach one class a week and do nothing the rest of the time. I came to Africa to do something new that put me outside my comfort zone, and learn from that. With that in mind I went on a search of a class to teach.

I could have taught elementary school but that’s more difficult because their English is pretty terrible. That left me with the opportunity to teach secondary school, which is the equivalent of high school, through that isn’t the case intellectually. In most cases the kids are a few years behind and tend to learn at a slower rate. That’s not always the case though. One of two kids are very bright! Which can be a  problem...  they ask me tough questions I don’t know always know the answer too.

After some search I found out Mr. Black was looking for someone to take his Form 3 biology class. I accepted the challenge.  In form 3 (junior year) there are two classes both containing, wait for it, 70 kids. Yep. I’m teaching over half of my graduating class in just two class rooms.

Monday was a public holiday so no classes. Tuesday I told Mr. Black I’d like to teach his class. Wednesday I observed his class and was introduced. Thursday I would have started to teach but there aren’t any bio classes on Thursday. So finally on Friday I was able to teach for the first time.

When I observed Mr. Black teach, he was just starting the topic of respiration. He taught aerobic respiration. I was going to pick up with anaerobic respiration. The material to teach isn’t terribly difficult; it’s just a matter of reviewing it the night before. For example, during respiration I mention glycolysis but don’t mention the Kreb’s cycle or anything difficult.  On Friday I had to teach a double period, which means I had to fill 1 hour and 20 minutes, for both classes. It may seem short but for someone who has never taught before it’s an eternity.

During that time I was able to get done with tissue respiration and also gas exchange in about an hour. For the last 20 minutes I decided to have a competition. Whoaaaa bad idea. I had this picture in my head of what I did in high school. Two teams each with a player at the board trying to write the answer quicker than the person next to them. Wrong. Try two kids up at the CHALK board, no clue of the answer, and 68 other students yelling at them the answer. I’m pretty sure you could hear us all the way at the top of the mountain. At least the kids had a fun time.

That was four days ago. I taught again on Monday again. I find that I get excited about teaching. I enjoy teaching bio because I get to relearn everything in the process of preparing my lesson plans. That surprised me a little. After not having any schooling or homework for close to 11 months I’ve realized how much I miss it and enjoy it. Go figure.

Aside from that I’ve officially been gone a month. It doesn’t nearly feel that long.

 Taken at Mount Mulanje

 Multi-tasking. Eating sugar cane, carrying a baby and balancing a load on your head.

Mount Mulanje

As I said before the first place I’ve been staying is at Mount Mulanje. The name of the place I’ve been staying at is Lukhula House.  I had previously thought that I would be working here or helping out around the place but it’s turned out to be more of a experience the culture and holiday.

One of the great things about staying here is that there are two Scottish gap year kids in addition to me.  Rachel and Owen have been teaching here in Malawi for two months and will stay in Malawi for 4 months and 6 months respectively. We get along REALLY well. They have been able to show me around give me someone to hang out. We’ve been able to become good friends as a result of it.

With them I’ve experience some of the real Malawi. We’ve gotten public transport to a local market, which consisted of a bike taxi and oversized pick-up truck. It was definitely dangerous but if I constantly think like that I won’t be able to experience and learn like I have.  With Owen I played a pick-up game of soccer with some local Malawi kids on a dirt field with no shoes. We also went cliff jumping at a waterfall up the river and swam in the lukhubula pools. It’s been nice to make friends and experience how the people here live.  I also schooled them in Monopoly twice. We also set a car on fire by mistake. But that’s a longer story for another time.

I also climbed Mount Mulanje and slept on top one night. I’ve done some tough hikes but this might be one of the hardest in recent memory. At times I had to use my hands and feet to climb up the trail. It was more or less a constant uphill climb for 6-7 miles. Once I got to the plateau on top it was really worth it. I made some friends with some Norwegians at the hut I stayed at as well. One of the most fantastic things about staying at the top is the stars. It was a pitch black night with an infinite amount of stars. The only downfall was that I couldn’t walk straight for three days.

I also ran into someone who grew up in summit and graduated from SHS in 2006. SMALL WORLD.  

Tomorrow I’ll be off to Zomba where I’ll be for a few days before I start to teach! Owen and Rachel made me really excited and nervous to teach! At first I was a little unsure if Malawi was the right place for me but I’ve realized it definitely is.

L to R (mike, rachel, owen, me)

 bike taxi

hut porch

sunset plateau

Africa. I’ve been in Africa one week and it has already changed my view of it completely. I realized I was kind of naïve on the subject of Africa.

I’m not afraid to admit I thought all of it was either a desert, like the sahara, or expanses of nothing with a few trees and animals. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I’m currently in Malawi, one of the poorest countries in Africa, and the world. I realized how big of a difference between the summit bubble I had become accustomed to again as soon as I landed in the airport. First of all the immigration is a two guys in loose-fitting suites hand-writing visas. Then the baggage claim was small and ghetto. Which didn’t work considering there were three planes that arrived around the same time. Those three planes were about 75% of the daily traffic of the airport. You walked through the open air customs line to find yourself at the entrance of the airport. The entire place is about the size of a gymnasium.

While driving to our guesthouse we noticed long lines at the gas stations. It turns out there are gas shortages, so you park in a line and wait for up to 5 days until the gas or diesel truck arrives. Or you can buy it on the black market. But you have to be careful cause sometimes the gas is cut with paraffin.  

There are also rolling black-outs. I’m currently in Zomba and every night at 5 the power goes out for about 2 hours. BUT other than that I’ve enjoyed Malawi.

After getting over my initial paranoia about mosquitoes and being mugged I learned how nice the people are. Everyone will smile and wave if you wave. People introduce themselves regardless of the situation. The culture itself is just very friendly.

While in Malawi I’ll be doing a few things. First I’ll be helping out at Likbula house, which is a retreat center in the shadow of Mount Mulanje. After that I’ll help out a the Zomba Theological College. I might do a lecture of two, which caught me totally by surprise. Then I’ll go teach at Domasi Mission School. Finally, I’ll end up in Lilongwe doing youth ministries with the surrounding villages and schools. It’s exciting to know I’ll be constantly busy.

Along the way I’ll do a few fun things like climb mount Mulanje or go on a safari. The only real hurtle is the astronomically high cost of gas. But the president of Malawi died today so maybe the new president will be able to get things back in working order!

I didn’t proof read this so sorry about the bad grammar or spelling.

-Ben

It's Time for Africa

I really suck a writing blog posts. After my trip to New Zealand it became too much of a hassle. My last post was about Thailand. After Thailand I went to Hong Kong for a month and worked as a intern/lab assistant at a marine biology lab that was part of Hong Kong University. During the weekends I would hang out with my brother and sister-in-law because they lived real close to where I did. I had a lot of fun.

That was almost 2 months ago. I got home on February 6th after more than 4 months away from home. I quickly realized that while I missed home and having my own bed-room and what not it wasn't all that great to be home without most of my friends. I had one or two around but they weren't free all that much. So February was kind of a bust.

I took a 1800 mile road trip out to Indiana and back which was a fun way to spend a week and a half! Even though I ran out of gas on the highway...

When March rolled around I had a lot more to do. I helped out a little with the high school musical and many of my friends were home from college.

But that's all old news! Whats new news is the fact that I will be flying to Africa TOMORROW! Yayyy
I'm 100% sure what  I'll be doing while I'm over there but I'm sure it will be different and exciting! I'll post again when I know for sure whats going to happen!

Thailand Part 3

Since I'm sitting in Hong Kong airport and Thailand was a month ago I'm just going to put it past me. The following pictures are at the end out the Thailand part of my gap year. I leave it up to you to create stories.

Thailand Part 2

I left off on the over-night trip to Chang Mai with the fam. Originally the train was supposed to be 13 hours long, with a departure at 7pm and arrival at 8am. We got in at 3pm, making it a 20 hour train ride. My story is fragmented, but from what I understand it’s because the original engine pulling our train caught on fire. I remember seeing the entire train staff running up to the front in a panic and feeling the train stop. That was about 3 hours into the ride. After being stopped for a good hour and seeing all the conductors chilling outside on the platform, Chris, Zach and I decided to get off and go to a local shop to get some food. The conductor assured us the train wouldn’t leave without us. However, about 15 minutes into the meal we hear and see the train pulling away. Without us. I dropped everything and ran toward the train, hoping to stop it. As soon as I got there the station operator told us that it was coming back and not to worry. It still freaked us out, and when it was coming back we hopped on, just in case it didn’t stop. When we got back to our cabin the rest of the family had no clue we were left at the station.

When we did get to Chang Mai, it was much more pleasant than Bangkok was. It was smaller, cleaner and more tourist friendly. We checked into the guesthouse and then went on an adventure. We walked around, and had dinner on the waterfront. Then we went in search of some real authentic Thailand Muay Thai boxing. We eventually found it, where we watched a few matches. We saw an American tie a Thai fighter, and an Australian WRECK a different fighter.

The next morning we got up early and got a bus to Elephant Nature Park. I was really hoping to be able to ride an elephant, but apparently that’s bad for them, and since the place we were going is a sanctuary for rescued animals that wasn’t going to happen. Bummer. But during the day we fed the elephants, washed the elephants and watched them. It doesn’t sound like a lot of fun but it was. Most of the time the elephants are so gentle and loving. The older ones can act as grandmothers, and they enjoy being petted and fed. Also trunks are amazing things. I’d seen them before but watching the up-close and personal amazed me. It’s just this one huge articulate muscle.

We stayed there for two days, before going back to Chang Mai and a different guesthouse. Problem was they didn’t have our registration. Luckily it was an American who owned it and we eventually got things sorted out. It was somewhere is this confusing transition that my camera was either stolen, or misplaced by me. That night we went to the famous Sunday night street market in Chang Mai. It was one of the most overwhelming experiences of my life. The market was HUGE. It stretched for miles packed full of people and stalls selling everything from salted strawberries (yuck) to jackets for your dog.

The next day Chris, Zach, Dad and I went mountain biking. It destroyed us. Chris convinced us to do the hardest and longest trail they had, of which the first 25% was straight uphill. We literally pushed our bikes for the first hour because it was impossible to ride up. After that is was more fun and mostly downhill. It still took 2 hours longer than it was supposed to though because we messed around too much. On multiple occasions we had huge spills. My spill was particularly spectacular. I was in first in a heated race down the mountain when I hit an edge and ate it hard. I fell sideways and rolled like they do in movies when they jump out of cars. I rolled off the road and started to roll down mountain before being stopped by a bush. Luckily aside from a few cuts I was unharmed, but I can’t say the same for my knee pads…

After a long, but fun ride we got back to the guesthouse, got Thai massages from blind people and had a nice dinner.

The next day we rented vespas, which was scary and exhilarating at the same time. It was awesome to drive a motorcycle but scary to drive on Thai roads. We drove to lake nearby and had some lunch. It was  like drinking lava. It was the spiciest, hottest meal of my life. Chris literally got light-headed because of it. After that we headed back to Chang Mai and eventually to the airport to take a flight back to Bangkok. It was a short 1 hour flight. Then we got on another over night train headed south toward Khao Sok and Phuket.