Working in at camp in the villages is intense and wonderful.
When we drive up, the kids come running from all directions singing and jumping. They crowd around the door and reach out for high fives and to hold our hands as we get out of the bus. We usually head straight to pee after the 1.5 hour ride (after bad coffee - grrrrr says Brett). That means we go behind a reed screen to find two holes in the ground and tons of flies. Luckily it is so hot that, despite drinking 64 oz of water during the day, we don’t usually have to pee again till we get home (not sure if it is psychological or because of dehydration!!) Then we run to the field for morning games (and anytime, anywhere we run the kids follow in droves.)
We are only allowed (by the Ministry of Education) to teach grades 5-8, so grades 1-4 have to sit outside of the circle (which kills me – so I play games & sing with them later). We sing lots of repeat after me songs. They get so into it – they sing and dance and GRIN the whole time. Later in the day I always catch on of the little ones singing our songs to him/herself and they light up when I start singing it with them. Then they split into their groups with our volunteers to do games with a parachute and trust games like circle sit and trust walk. We also teach the kids how to throw Frisbee and to play Ultimate.
Our volunteers then take the older students to their classrooms to teach our curriculum. This includes 3 main subjects, HIV/AIDS, the environment, and empowerment. The HIV/AIDS part includes the ways to contract HIV, the differences between HIV and AIDS, how to protect from getting HIV, how to keep healthy so HIV doesn’t turn into AIDS, myths about HIV/AIDS, etc. The environmental section includes deforestation (causes, effects, ways to prevent), soil erosion, population control, building and testing solar ovens, and tree planting. This is a tough section because most people in Malawi, and all villagers use wood for cooking and heat. Gas is way too expensive to be a viable option. I will send some amazing and scary stats later, but it is weird to not see any big old trees – the only trees anywhere are small. Our volunteers use fun, interactive games to help students grasp concepts and to test their comprehension. Each class also works on creating a presentation about one of these subjects to perform to the community and village elders on the last day. Their singing, dancing, and creativity made that a really wonderful time.
The empowerment section takes place on the 2nd day of camp. The students break up by gender and age to discuss topics about gender empowerment and sex. Our volunteers teach about reproductive systems, what getting your period means, pregnancy, forced sex, making choices to protect yourself, and how to create a support network for themselves. Discussion about any of these topics simply does not happen in this culture. Girls do not know what is happening when they start their period. Mothers, grandmothers, aunts, etc do not pass this information to girls. This leaves the girls with so many questions and of course so many ways to be susceptible to misinformation, especially when it comes to sex. Both genders believe that it is only the man’s decision to have sex and whether or not to use a condom, and sex is most always seen as a transaction. Men/boys will approach girls for sex, and offer some sort of incentive such as food, money, grades, passing their 8th grade test (to be eligible for high school). This was of course hard for all of us to hear and understand. It is also hard for us to not go in and tell them that it is wrong. But that isn’t our call to make. In the reflection group I am leading with the volunteers, we try to remind ourselves how we would respond or feel if a group came in and told us that our ways of doing things was wrong. Our job is only to open the discussion, educate, and encourage honest discussion. It is also interesting to think about it in this way – if the girls and women are not taught to enjoy sex, or taught that they shouldn’t enjoy sex, then wanting to “get something out of this” isn’t that weird. In some ways sex is always a transaction when we look at it in that way. During the empowerment time both gender groups do role plays about these situations and talk about the implications of them. They are encouraged to think of alternative ways of looking at things. They also have a change to ask anonymous questions. Here are some examples:
“What should a girl do if a teacher forced her to have sex, she got pregnant, and now the teacher is pressuring her not to tell?”
“Do I have HIV?”
“Why would the teachers want to have sex with us?”
“Why does my period come in the form of blood?”
“Does the egg break when having sex?”
‘Where does HIV come from?”
“Can you get HIV from having sex with a cow?”
You can imagine the circles we spin in our reflection discussions!!! I think those sessions are helping all of us – not only is this a very different culture in general, which can be tough to process, but we’re getting in there and talking about sex and gender issues on top of that. Having that set time to talk and process together has been great for me.
Before lunch the students talk about sanitation and practice hand washing as a group. They all run home to get their plate and cup, then they come by class for us to serve them food. They usually have to go home and try to find some food, so this is a big treat for them. We serve nsima – “see-ma”, which is kind of like dense grits, with some sort of “relish” with is. The relish is either a cabbage and tomato sauce (reminds me of Chinese food), beans (very yummy – much like Caribbean beans with sauce) or meat cooked in water and oil (looks totally gross – we don’t eat meat at all while we’re here – all it takes is one look at the many cow or goat carcasses hanging for sale on the side of the road to curb that appetite!!) The kids go crazy for this stuff – they sing songs about it and all report that it is their very favorite food. They turn their noses up at our “weird” PNB & J sandwiches, and think it is hilariously weird that most of us don’t like the nsima or only eat the relish.
The rug rats all hang around during lunch hoping and/or hustling for some nsima. I saw many students sharing with their younger siblings, which was so cute. I also watched the little ones scheme with the older ones to get their plates after the older ones ate so they could try to get in the line. We have so far had plenty of left over so we can feed the little ones (thank goodness – it would kill me to turn them away after they line up and watch the older ones come out with full plates or bowls.) Feeding the little ones has been a tough experience for me. We don’t have enough to give them each their own helping, so we circle them up and put a big plate of nsima and a big plate of relish in the middle and they all go after it. I hate to say this, but it was like watching hungry dogs eat in a pack. The second day was even worse because we fed them outside. The bigger kids where pushing the little ones out of the way, the kids were fighting, some would grab a big slab of nsima and try to make a run for it, the kids were picking it up out of the dirt and eating it – oh it was so awful. A couple of us lost it later that night when we talked about it in reflection. Yesterday was better – we had a translator assure them that everyone would get to eat, but if they fought, no one could eat. We had them line up single file youngest to oldest. We let 10 in at a time to sit in a circle and have their 2 plates. This worked much better. The little ones were so sweet and shared with each other. The older ones still got a little crazy, but I’m sure they are starting to get that impossible to satiate hunger of adolescence. Oh, and the kids are so little for their age. I’m sure this is due to poor nutrition (when the favorite food nationally is ground corn!) The 4 year olds look 2, the nine year olds look 6.
On the second day one of the teachers asked me to help one of her students. His name is Steven. He is 10 and was born with HIV. His mother died from HIV. He lives with his grandmother and older brother. His younger sister was adopted. He took his ARV medicine that morning without food because they didn’t have any. He was very sick, and the teacher wanted to know if I could give him some food. Steven wouldn’t eat until he washed his hands (a big deal for HIV positive people, so they can stay healthy.) I took him to the building we use for lunch and got Brett to unload our nsima and supplies. (This building by the way isn’t being used for classes because half the roof had blown off, and they don’t have the supplies to fix this one.) I put a plate of nsima in front of this sweet child and he looked at me with this sad and desperate look on his face and ran out the door. He threw up 5-6 times in the grass. Then he came back in and did his best to eat. I got a translator so we could tell him to slow down. But he was scared he couldn’t take it with him (enter sound of my heart breaking, yet again…) So we found a bag for him to take home some nsima and meat and encouraged him to just drink some of the watered down sweet drink we bring that they love. I talked to the teachers later in the afternoon about the problem of taking ARVs without food. That expensive and vital medicine was in the grass behind the food building instead of in Steven’s body. The teachers said because he is an orphan, he often doesn’t have any food. So, it is wonderful and amazing that Steven has access to this life-sustaining medicine, but he doesn’t have enough food to take the medicine so he doesn’t throw it right back up – uggggg…. So frustrating.
Steven (the one on my lap – Brett says, “Can you believe he is 10!?) came back the 3rd day feeling much better. His teacher said he did take his medicine that morning and had found some food. Notice he brought his cup and plate that 3rd day incase he could get more nsima. He found me as soon as I got off the bus. We held hands as we walked to the circle. A little one tried to get in the circle, and Steven saw a bigger kid push him away. He went and got the little one and pulled him in – first between me and Steven, and then Steven looked at me and my hand, and put the little one on his other side so we could say beside each other.
Brett says:
Also on the third day World Camp brings about 200 trees to plant and distribute to the students, village elders and teachers. We planted 20 at this first school. Amazing to watch the kids use their home-made hoes to dig the holes in the hard red dirt. They are defiantly comfortable with that type of work. Their classes gathered around and sang their group song while they took turns digging. They took great care in planting them and made a ring out of bricks to mark them. The bricks will hopefully help them survive, grazing livestock just roams everywhere. The trees were a big hit, everyone was very excited. We found the trees at a nursery that the government owns. They worked out to be about $0.50 a piece. A native tree called Cassia (red and white).
