Welcome to Malawi!

Hello from Malawi! Jesse and I have finally arrived at the Malawi Children’s Village and are beginning to settle in. The travel from Portland was very long: 4 hours to Atlanta, then 8 hours to Dakar, and another 8 hours to Johannesburg where we got to spend the night at a fancy little hostel complete with animal print fabrics and a swimming pool. The next morning we boarded yet another flight to Lilongwe (3 hours this time) where we were met by two folks from MCV who drove us the 6 hours back to MCV. Whew! I am so glad that we won’t be traveling again for quite some time.

Our first day here (yesterday) we awoke early (5:00 am) and after a scrounged breakfast of fried potatoes, we stepped outside of our house to be immediately greeted by Jim, a caretaker here, and given a tour of the campus. The facilities they have built here are amazing. I am so impressed by all of the land they use to grow food for the people that MCV supports. The school is very new and professional looking and I am looking forward to begin teaching there tomorrow. I have been assigned year 3 mathematics and year 4 biology.

Arriving during the rainy season has allowed us to see Malawi at its most beautiful. Everything is lush and green here and I fell like I have arrived in a tropical paradise. The heat, however, will take some getting used to. Yesterday I lay on the cement floor of our house trying to soak up its coolness. It must have looked ridiculous, but luckily no one but Jesse was there to observe.

Our house is wonderful. It has one room with a curtain dividing the bedroom area from the kitchen area. There is even a bathroom with running water, sink, shower, and flushing toilet! There is electricity, which we hope to not need to use too much. The money we raised for a new building has gone to renovate an existing building so that female students have a place to stay. The students had previously been sharing the guest house where we now live, but conditions were too crowded for this to be a permanent solution. This then allows them to use the guest house for us and future volunteers. I am glad that they were able to use the money for a construction project that they needed.

I am amazed by how much life surrounds me here. It’s not just the number of people, although it is strange to be surrounded by so many going about their work to keep MCV running. It’s the number of different birds that I see and hear and the many species of plants growing everywhere. It’s the ground covered by ants and other insects when I look down and the constant clucking of chickens in the coop next to our house. I have found that the chickens serve as a good dawn wake-up call as do the critters roosting in our thatch roof that make a huge racket as the sun comes up. The first morning this happened I sat straight up in bed, thinking it was a burglar coming through the window.

Life here is interesting and new. I look forward to writing more in future posts when I can. The internet is not available at MCV as we thought it would be since they can no longer afford to pay for it. So, it may be quite a while before I can post another update. Until then,

-Jes