Mankhaka Primary School

I have another post about Dedza in the works but I just wanted to share this with everyone, particularly all the teachers we know.

Today we headed to a village about 30 kilometers outside Kasungu to collect the data from the team there and check on their progress.  When we got to the village, the team was finishing up their last interview so we decided to park and wait for them instead of slow them down by tagging along.  We ended up parking in a field opposite Mankhaka Primary School.

As soon as we pulled up, we were greeted by these curious kids.  Some had just finished class and others were waiting to go in.

I started talking to the one of the teachers and he offered to take me around while I was waiting.  This is where they sometimes have class when it’s too hot.

This is the outside of the school houses.  There are 4 buildings with  a total of 8 classrooms.

William, a teacher, showed me the inside of one of the classrooms not in use.

And then he showed me the inside of a classroom that was in use.  This is a 4th grade English class.

Seems like a lot of kids in the classroom right?  Well there are, there are 80 kids in this class.  A little nuts right?  Well how about this, there are 860 kids at this school and only 6 teachers.  SIX!  There aren’t enough teachers so kids only go for about 3 hours a day.  Teachers teach multiple grades and classes and a total of 9 classes a day.  The teachers a provided a really run down house and paid a little over $100 a month.  Yes, just $100.  But you know what?  They come to work everyday and the kids come early and sit outside the classrooms eagerly waiting for their turn.  They seem really excited about school and it’s heartbreaking that only about 10% of these kids will actually go on to high school.

I was telling Bertha (my colleague) about this and she decided to conduct a quick history class while we were waiting for the team to return. 

The kids seem genuinely interested.  But then they caught sight of their reflections on the car and that was the end of the lesson.  This was the first time most of the kids had actually seen their entire reflection. 

I think of all the kids back home who skip school or complain when they have to do actual homework and feel sad.  The kids at Mankhaka Primary School are beating down the door to get into class only to find there isn’t a teacher, desks or books in there.

Dedza – Day 1

After 2.5 weeks of training and planning, we finally get to go into the villages and watch our all-star teams work at helping to reduce the malaria burden in Malawi.  We decided to leave the city and check out some villages outside of the town of Dedza. 

I wore something I thought would help me fit in but I don’t think it helped. 

I pretty much had this entourage of kids everywhere I went. 

It’s harvest time and this is maize flour drying in the sun.  They use it for nshima which I think is like grits but more paste like.  You eat it like you would rice or nan – to accompany stews, chicken or anything else you can think of.  They’ve also been harvesting beans.

Before…

After.

Home. Sweet. Home.  A family of 6 lives in this little house. They were nice enough to invite us in but 10 in there was cramped.  Instead we sat outside and chatted.

The work our teams do are done via a PDA.  This is the first computer these two kids have ever seen.

I decided that if Born shoes ever wanted a spokesperson, I would do it for free.  I’ve been living in these flats for over 20 days and they are still going strong.  I jumped across a creek, walked through mud and around about 8 neighborhoods in the village today and they were still comfy.  They need a good cleaning though.

I’ll have more pictures tomorrow when we go back for the second phase of work in the village.  I can wait!

EET-SUM-MOR

After a very long week, I finished work early Friday and did a little shopping.  My first purchase was this

I saw them last week at Shoprite (chain grocery store from South Africa) and I knew I had to go back and get them.  I hope the shortbread is good but even if it isn’t, it’s worth the $1.

After buying my snack, my colleague Bertha who’s from Lilongwe took me to a locally owned fabric shop to look at traditional fabric.  The women in Malawi still wear the traditional chitenji (cha-ten-gee), a 2 meter long piece of fabric wrapped around the waist.  Until about 15 years ago, it was illegal for women to wear pants.  Women would wear a chitenji over their pants.  A lot of women still so do that today.  Most women use a chitenji to make a sling so they can carry their baby on their back.  The fabrics and colors are stunning. 

The particular place we went to had mostly green and blue fabric.  I’m not sure if colors are seasonal or territorial.  I have seen many women with beautiful yellow, orange and red print chitenji.

I picked up 14 meters (about 14 yards) of fabric for about $18. 

Bertha wanted to have a dress made and of course I jumped on that bandwagon.  I bought 6 yards of the fourth fabric from the left and will some of it for a dress.  We took our purchases to area 9 (neighborhoods are numbered) to an beautiful woman who was going to turn them into custom made dresses.  They will be ready on Wednesday before I leave.  Aren’t the fabrics stunning?  They are hand dyed and all but the middle are made in Malawi.  The middle one is from Tanzania.  I didn’t notice until about 10 minutes ago.

So the question is, what am I going to do with this fabric?  I have a few ideas. 

1. Use them in a quilt

2. Cover a headboard with them

3. Table runners and place mats for us and as gifts

4. Framing some of the prints and hanging them up or stretching them over canvas

It’s obvious that I’m thinking of using the colors as palette for one of the guest rooms.

What would you do with the fabric?  I’m open to ideas. 

Band-Aid

A few months back, I told you about the band room.

It was one of the unique parts of our house which really made it something special and told you about who we were and what we liked.

Over the past few weeks, as Catherine has been abroad, I’ve been working on finishing out the band room.  After some minor crises involving flooring (or lack thereof) I finally finished it last weekend.

We used some 3/8” interlocking rubber floor tiles (from Rubber Flooring Inc.) for the majority of the space.  The idea with this flooring is that I won’t be scratching wood floors with amps, basses, and chairs for the band when they come over to practice. Ideally, you fit them together really easily, but we had to customize them a bit to make them fit.  I think it actually turned out really well:

The rubber tiles are amazing.  No glue needed—they just fit together and their weight and size holds them securely to the floor.  Very cool.

To make up the entryway for the band room, we ordered a set of carpet tiles from Flor. We based our design on the "Cut-A-Rug” style, and after cutting some rug, we have our entry floor:

The installation was also fairly easy after the initial cutting, just used some of the supplied Flor Dots.  Very cool stuff.

The rest of the room has been scattered around our house in one place or another so after about 47 trips up and down our stairs, I’ve located most of the music room boxes.

I created a little listening center:

The rest of the room is storage for my instruments.  I’m still figuring out if I want them all out or not, there is a closet on the other side of the listening center where I can store stuff when the band is over for practice.

My next step for this room is to try and soundproof a bit more.  There is significant soundproofing in the walls and on the floor and ceiling, but I want to make some window plugs to avoid as much sound bleed as possible; and I’ll also need some interior soundproofing to try and make the room a bit more “dead.”  The whole thing is moving along nicely.  Now, if I only had more time to practice!

A Break From It All

My trip to Malawi didn’t come at the best time.  We’re just finishing up the loan stuff for the house, trying to get finish the last few things before final inspection and Micah’s parents had planned to visit this month (actually they are at 4024 now). 

On the other hand, I was a little excited to go to Malawi.  I’d never been and am always up for checking out new places.  Plus, I’d get to actually participate in a little field work which I never do when I travel.  I mostly take care of new office admin stuff.  Not super interesting or exciting.  But most of all, I really just wanted a break from the house.  It’s been a long 2 years with the house and the wedding.  For a while I thought I may not get through either.  Work, wedding, new marriage, building permits, dadtractor, loans, DPD, KITTIES – it was a lot.

Of course, the work I do on the road is really, REALLY similar to the processes of building the house.  I forgot that until I got here.  I’ll tell you about that later but in the mean time, have a look at lovely Malawi…

On the road and headed to the beach!

Malawi is SO green.  I didn’t expect it.  And it’s so hilly and lush.  We’re in the car hence the action shot.

Hello beaches on Lake Malawi!  The sand was SUPER hot but the views were beautiful and I hear the water was a perfect temperature.  I actually didn’t swim because numerous people told me there’s a little bacteria in the water than make 50% of swimmers, um, urinate blood.  Yep.  I hung out on the beach instead.  The entire lake isn’t like this.  This part is easily accessible from the capitol and has a pretty good size city 8 km away.  I suspect that has to do with it.

Ah…it was a really peaceful day.  A really lovely ride, a warm beach and pretty good meal.  I could get used to this. 

Of course, I’m back in the city and back to planning and procuring – my favorite.  Procuring is my way of talking about shopping that isn’t fun. :)

Why?

Why did I have to be in Malawi when the Liberty of London collection went on sale this weekend?  I’m not usually super girly in my decorating tastes, but I do love color and great prints. 

I did manage to snag a few things online today including this

Surprise, surprise, I wanted the yellow and black bowls.  I’d take any of the others (besides pink) but they were sold out.  We have plain white plates and I’m always looking for accent pieces.  I like the platter they had and may ask Micah to pick it up along with a few of these

I think it would be cute in the master bathroom.  I could put cotton balls in it. There are a few other things I’d love but I have to see them in person or they are sold out online.  I have my fingers crossed that my local Target will have some things left when I get back, but I won’t hold my breath.  At least I got the bowls, a dress and some cute loungewear.

Anyone else take with the Liberty of London collection?

Home Away From Forty 20 Four

If you’ve been following along lately, you know that I (Catherine) am out of town and in Malawi for most of March. 

When I travel for work, I don’t like to stay at fancy places.  My general rule of thumb is if local driver would be uncomfortable pulling up to the place, I probably shouldn’t stay there. 

While I’m in Lilongwe, I’m staying at the Ufulu Gardens in a suburb.  The place is great, probably the nicest I’ve stayed at in Africa, and it’s bigger than a few of the apartments I’ve lived in.

Here’s the view from my screened in window

My “kitchen.”  Very fancy.  They cover everything with netting to keep the bugs away.

The sitting area.  Yes, there is a sitting area where I can entertain my imaginary guests.

 

And the bedroom/entrance

Seriously, the place is bigger that a couple of my past apartments.  I do really like it but it may be that I move to place closer to the city center and one that has internet included in the room rate or at a cheaper price.  It’s about $4 an hour for the internet. 

I’m hoping to see more of Malawi than the inside of my hotel room, the conference center and customs clearing agents office (I’ll explain later).  I did get to drive to the Zambian boarder the other day and the views were AMAZING.  Hopefully I’ll make it to Lake Malawi this weekend.

p.s. there will be a few non-house, Malawi centered posts this month.  It’s the easiest way to show Micah and the Moms what I’m up to. :)

p.p.s. No, I will not be bringing home a baby.  No, I have not seen Madonna

Beauty and The Beast

Growing up, my brother and I were lucky to have wonderful parents who cared about us, fed us healthy snacks, and helped us get a good education. 

Rarely did they ask us to do something unreasonable or subject us to cruelty. 

That was before beauty bark.

Throughout our middle and high school years, since we moved to the Great Northwest, my parents decided to torture us with the peculiar annual northwest tradition that is beauty bark spreading.

We’d come home, usually in the early summer and realize with horror that under our basketball hoop there was now a menacing pile of beauty bark, threatening to ruin all that was good and holy in our lives.

For those of you who don’t know, beauty bark is just mulch.  A mixture of (usually) hemlock and fir leftovers that are ground to a consistency wherein the person spreading the bark manages to get it in his/her nostrils, hair, fingernails, ears, and other places one wouldn’t like a mixture of ground hemlock and fir leftovers.

On one hand I can now understand why it’s so popular.  It rains a lot in Seattle. This stuff is relatively consistent and cheap, and keeps plants and other things from washing away.

Sad to say that I now have entered that stage in my life where beauty bark is the logical solution to our landscaping problems. 

We live on a high slop and our GeoTech consultant (with some research from Catherine) suggested that layering the slope with beauty bark, then jute mat, then another layer of beauty bark would do the trick to pass the inspection and allow us to plant native species of plants that are low maintenance later on.

We’re pretty much done with the slope as you can see here:

it doesn’t look too bad.  Will look even better with plants on the slope.

Did I mention the smell of beauty bark?  Some people find it alluring and enticing.  I feel otherwise, but I can almost smell it when I look at this picture:

I can’t believe I gave in so easily.  I know full well that this will come back to haunt me.

Growing Grass – Before and After

This is what our front yard (street side) looked like before

and this

It looks like this now

and this

It’s a bit patchy but with a little water and sun, it should grow in nice and full.  I can’t wait to enjoy the summer in the front yard.  Maybe a little BBQ, a drink and a few friends?  We’ll need to figure out something for the empty lot to the north.

Growing Smelly Mary

Literally 24 hours before I got on a plane for a 34 hour flight, I decided to start some seeds indoors for our outdoor garden.  I’m gone for almost all of March which is prime indoor planting time.  I didn’t want to miss out on the tomatoes, tomatoes and tomatoes because I didn’t start them in time. 

In addition to 4 varieties of tomatoes, I also planted a few herbs to grow in the kitchen, some eucalyptus as an indoor plant, yummy flat Italian onions and asparagus.  Yes, asparagus.  It will be 3 years before we will know if our experiment is successful but I think it’s worth a shot.  I named the asparagus Smelly Mary.  Mary because the variety is called Mary Washington and smelly, well, because um, it makes your pee smell.  There, I said it.

I bought a few (or 40) biodegradable pots from Lowe’s and put them on a cart that can easily be moved around the house.  We get good light and because of our awesome windows, the heat stays in the house and it’s always warm.

I have my fingers crossed that Micah remembers to water them every other day AND that he posts some pictures as they grow while I’m away. 

Have you started your spring garden?  What are you going to grow?

Chalkboard Sticker DIY

I know it’s super trendy but I really wanted a chalkboard in our kitchen.  I like the idea of having a central place for us to share information like what’s on the menu for the week, our to do list and important dates coming up.

We bought some chalkboard paint at Lowe’s and the original plan was to paint the side of the pantry.  It seemed a little risky, so we went back to the drawing board.  Micah had suggested returning the paint and buying a premade vinyl chalkboard sticker from Etsy.  I liked the idea, but what if we messed up and the sticker stuck together?   We might not be able to salvage it.  I decided to give it shot and try making our own vinyl chalkboard sticker.

A few weeks back, I bought a $1 roll of Martha Stewart contact paper to use in the linen closet.  I had tons of leftovers, so I decided to use it for the chalkboard.

First I removed the backing off the contact paper and slowly applied it to the pantry.

Then I applied a light coat of the chalkboard paint.  I thought about priming but then realize we were out of primer and I was to anxious to start my project to wait to buy some.

It turned out OK without primer.  I ended up giving it another coat and doing a little touch up.  Using a little $1 artist paintbrush, I touched up the sides and edges. 

I had a few boo boos to fix.

I cut the bottom to finish it but I’m not entirely sure I like it.  I just needed to finish it some way.

I’m thinking of getting some molding and gluing it to the bottom of the chalkboard to cover up the waves and use as a chalk ledge.

This project was fairly easy, cheap and flexible.  I think the total cost was about $16.  About $14 for the paint (which I still have TONS of), $1 for the contact paper and $1 for a set of cheap paintbrushes for touch-up.  I really like that this isn’t permanent.  If we get tired of the chalkboard, we can peel away the contact paper, clean off the stick residue and we’re done.  Easy.

We’re already using the chalkboard…

I hope he updated this.  I will now be home in 23 days.