Since the trip to Lake Chuffing Turkana we’ve been very sensible and stayed mostly on tarmac, actively avoiding revolutions and areas of death-inviting desert. Sorry to be dull. But here’s a quick country-by-country summary of dos and don’ts for those who are interested:
Kenya - do attend a British Ambassador’s reception and attempt to drink the bar dry but don’t get upset when there’s no Ferrero Rocher. Also don’t forget your giraffe suit when going to meet with the giraffes.
Uganda - do go white water rafting at the source of the Nile. Don’t go to the toilet at the border crossing as you might find someone peering under the door looking for a lesson in mazungu reproductive anatomy.
Rwanda - Do look at the Congo but don’t expect any Umbongo. Do enjoy Kigali and all its cosmopolitan appeal. Don’t go to the genocide memorial, you won’t be able to sleep for days afterwards or look anyone in the eye.
Tanzania - Do go look at the marvellous islands. Don’t drive across the country for six hours at night in the rain with only one headlight as the local pedestrians like a litre or two of neat cane spirit before an evening stroll and tired lorry drivers like to have a little sleep at the wheel. And don’t try to get your air con fixed in Dar Es Salaam. In fact don’t try to do anything in Dar Es Salaam.
Mozambique - Do go, it’s totally ace. Don’t expect tarmac. And don’t use pigeon Spanish to ask a mud hut village chief if you can camp in his domain when you’ve already woken up the entire population with your diesel engine. And when the chief turns you away don’t get buried up to your axles in mud and have to be winched out by some Irish legends while the locals gaze on in bemusement. Then don’t try to pay someone who you think is the chief for the damage you have done to his village and create a baying lynch mob. And finally don’t drink with the Irish, but you knew that already.
Which brings us to Malawi, the inspiration for the trip. We never actually meant to drive from London to Cape Town. Malawi was originally the sole destination. But a certain member of the team may have got it into her head that you need a car in Africa and therefore we should drive there from the UK. We thought it would only take a couple of weeks but then we also thought our tent didn’t have windows until we got to Ethiopia so what do we know. The result was we turned up a month or three late. But we’re on Africa time so that’s actually a few days early.
Malawi’s tagline is ‘the warm heart of Africa’, and nothing could be more apt. Apart from maybe ‘the warm and really quite damp heart of Africa’. We arrived at the peak of rainy season to be met by three days of solid rain, which at least made us feel at home. Not that we needed the weather for that as there was bunting (yes, bunting, not for Wills and Kate but for us. Well, for any random visitor who happens to pop along but mostly this time for us). There were also the 17 welcoming ceremonies, first from the teachers at the school where we are volunteering, then from the local chiefs and community members, then from the kids who have some kick ass welcome songs going on and pretty much from every person we’ve ever met here, to the extent that at the end of the first week we were exhausted without having even taught a lesson. Highlights included: being picked for the school football and netball teams (yes, it is a primary school, but some of those 12 year olds are pretty damn tall); also performing the nutbush (copyright Christopher Sensible Cairns) at the school disco; and being forced to eat an entire chicken’s face including its eyes.
Chisala School, where we’re teaching, lies 7km down an unprepossessing dirt track off a winding tarmac road near the lakeshore in northern Malawi. The school was built by a very energetic friend, Tanya, and has around 500 pupils, or ‘learners’, drawn from a catchment area of subsistence farmers and tea pickers. Most people live in mud brick houses with no electricity or running water. We like to think they’re poor but ‘appy but there’s quite a lot of bodywonk, a 20% HIV infection rate, rampant alcoholism and many other signs of deprivation so there might be some wishful thinking going on there. Certainly there’s much absenteeism down to the kids having to help their parents with farming, childcare, etc. This means many kids having to start late (up to 82 years late in one recent case as primary education is free at any age) or repeat years several times, which leads to an odd mixture of ages in the classroom with little kids being taught alongside lads that look old enough to be their fathers.
Clearly this is exactly the sort of challenging educational environment in which to throw two 32-year-old teenagers with absolutely no teaching experience, no preparation and no knowledge of the local language. Despite these potential handicaps the headmaster, Mr Banda, seemed to have absolute faith in our ability to teach a wide range of subjects from Bible Knowledge to Agriculture. As the only subject PB felt she could handle was English, and only then because that’s the language we speak, this lead to a slight panic. But she had reckoned without our secret weapon: Gregg’s beard. The facial hair that had graced his chin without interruption of blade or comb since December finally came into its own as Gregg became the superhero known as Maths Teacher Man.
Maths Teacher Man soon realised that he had but one mission in life: to get every child in standards 6 and 7 to learn their times tables up to 13. And a very popular mission it has proved too due to his use of sweets and biscuits as bribery learning incentives. These were a necessary if morally dubious part of the teaching armoury because, despite us being told that the older kids were taught exclusively in English, the little blighters couldn’t understand a word we said.
This is partly to do with our accents, which are different from the African English that they are used to. But also because, although all of their exams, textbooks and lessons are in English, which is the country’s official language, their grasp of it is a little ropey. Their mother tongue is Chitonga, a tribal language spoken by a few thousand people in an area about the size of Derbyshire. Until they’re ten years old they’re taught in Chichewa, the other national language. Then suddenly at Standard 5 everything changes to English, which might as well be chicken for all that these kids understand it.
Nevertheless, a sweet and biscuit budget close to the country’s GDP soon had them multiplying and dividing with gusto and with their daily English lessons requiring them to practice copying Madam Polly’s pronunciation they’ve all got a good start in developing a Derby accent. And the little kids don’t scream as much when we pick them up so I think they’ve got the message that white skin won’t burn them. Or maybe they’ve just got used to Gregg’s beard. Whichever way, now they’ve unfortunately realised that we don’t actually have any superpowers they’ve got right on with the important business of being cheeky little buggers. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but I’m not sure that applies to 50 ten year olds mimicking your every utterance and falling about laughing. However, compared to UK brats these kids are absolutely delightful and mostly do exactly as they’re told, particularly if you threaten that they won’t be allowed to come to computer lessons if they don’t behave.
Any slight teaching challenges are more than offset by the joy that is morning assembly. The Malawian national anthem is sung, in English, each morning together with a variety of inspirational marching songs that soon banish any Kuche Kuche (the local brew) after effects and encourage even the most fervent anti-student to happily indulge in some footing (walking) or trotting (running) to the nearest classroom. ‘Bless our leechers (leaders), each and everyone’.
And if the kids are a bunch of right little characters, the other school and village members are just as colourful.
There’s Mr Banda, the headmaster, a larger than life character with two wives and a strong desire to convert the mazungu to a Malawian diet of nsima (maize mush) and boiled fish; Mr Zimba, the standard 8 teacher, who went on strike a month before the final exams leaving Michael, a 23 year old architect and fellow volunteer to be form teacher; Douglas, the school librarian, who likes us to take him to the local pub (a bench outside a shack owned by Solomon the short-changing Man United fan) for Kuche Kuche time but doesn’t like to stay out late because around 11pm the local witches come out to play. The pub is opposite the yeller family’s compound. The yeller family being an enthusiastic group of individuals who like to shout at the car every time we drive past, Colman style. Though their compound includes a burnt out shell from where the first wife burnt her new co-wife’s house down so maybe it’s not just cars they shout at. Then there’s Chisala’s own Jay and Silent Bob, Kelvin and James, perpetually stoned or off their faces on 4p sachets of cane booze, though apparently James nearly died of TB last year so maybe he should lay off the smokes. This is a mere snapshot of the world that is Chisaladale or East African Enders.
It’s difficult to get through the village without at least fifteen stop and chats in the morning on the way to school and plenty more on the way home again. The fact that we have driven all the way to Malawi to educate their kids is a revelation to the local folk received with extreme gratitude. If you don’t have time for a chat then a wave is essential which turns the daily commute to work into something akin to a royal wedding parade.
Malawian hospitality really is something else. People with very little are eager to share whatever they have with us, usually exotic vegetables that we have no idea how to cook. For a whole month we were given three pumpkins every day, which led to some inventive ways of using the orange goodness. Top tip: don’t parboil the pumpkin before trying to turn it into egg and chips. .
Acceptance into the village community has been an eye-opening experience. A recent sick day resulted in the entire teaching staff taking a full day out of their weekend to walk the six miles to our house, just to check our well-being. Community is essential to people here – a good old sticky beak makes the world a far more fun place to be, as well as providing necessary support when times are hard. The idea of not knowing your neighbours and getting involved in their lives is not just alien to them, it frightens them. It takes a small amount of adjustment before you realise that perhaps they have a point.
Just along the road from Chisala is Kawalazi Tea Estate, formally owned by British colonial types and now operated by Global Foods. Tanya, in her infinite persuasiveness, had somehow scored one of the former ex-pat family houses for volunteers’ accommodation, which was a total result as it’s connected to mains electricity and has toilets you can sit down on. We’ve somehow ended up with a full-time staff of three: Joyce, the monosyllabic housekeeper, Mr Gumby the Mr Bean-esque monkey-killing gardener and James Banda the nightwatchman who spends most nights staring into the flames of his fire, wrestling with unspeakable demons. Incwe, an agraphobic five-month-old half wildcat is in charge of everyone, though is somewhat neglectful of his role of Chief Pest Control Officer. He’s caught a few of the bats that live in the master bedroom (sorry Mads and Rob, he was too late for you) but the mice are winning the war. The house is surrounded by fruit trees, which means fresh lemonade every day and a not totally successful foray into marmalade making. It’s like the chuffing good life round here, I tell you, but with significantly more Kuche Kuche.
Kawalazi is a funny little world in itself, full of tea pickers shipped in from southern Malawi who barely survive on what they earn. A typical journey into school might include picking up a broken down taxi driver who has somehow got his ancient Datsun along 10 miles of serious off road terrain before the exhaust has fallen off; then being flagged down by two policemen with a ‘tea leaf’ (boom boom), hands bound together with a cable tie, who they try to cram into the dog cage in the boot as this will prepare the ‘crooked man’ for jail, whilst whooping as they hang off the outside of the car. The weekend after payday at Kawalazi is a scene of utter and total carnage as the workers get off their faces on the cane booze sachets and fall into roadside ditches in scenes which make Derby city centre on a Saturday night look like civilized café society.
On one trip up to the Kawalazi clubhouse we were befriended by the most enthusiastic man in the world and keen footballer, Pitman. He talked Gregg into handing over one of our footballs and in doing so we seem to have resurrected the entire local football scene as despite being completely obsessed with the sport no-one but us actually has anything round to kick. Attendance at daily training is now a must in preparation for the weekend game with a crowd big enough for a Conference league match. A recent penalty scored by fellow mazungu Michael led to a pitch invasion of joyously large proportions.
Mazungu, by the way, is the word used throughout Africa to refer to a white person. The reason we know this is that any time we drive at all off the beaten track we’re greeted by hoards of kids chanting MAZ-UN-GOOOO, MAZ-UN-GOOO at us. Mr Banda’s told us to shout NFIPA (meaning black face) back at them but we’ve got a feeling this might get us lynched so instead we try a bit of Tonga, maybe some Chewa, Swahili if the situation’s looking really desperate or most of the time just run away.
Long weekends, of which there are a number, have been spent along the Lake Malawi coastline. A mere 45 minute drive from the village takes us to a clear water beach paradise akin to an Indian Ocean but without the salt. Beer at 40p a bottle and T-bone steaks at a pound each definitely help to ease the work day stresses, particularly now we’ve realised about charcoal stoves and firelighters. They’re ever so good, you know, and mean you can cook dinner within 20 minutes as opposed to three hours of pointless hissing at stubbornly unlit wood followed by having to ask a local if they could possibly light our fire for us.
It’s very difficult to do justice to the last two months with one of these new fangled blog type things. Teaching the kids has been incredibly rewarding. They began looking at us with total confusion but a mere 2 months later they’re taking the piss because what you’re teaching them is too easy. But we’ve also got just as much fun out of living in this totally different world, where there’s no telly, no Internet, no tarmac, not much of anything but yet people seem a whole lot happier than they are at home. It’s makes you realise what’s really important in life. Which is, of course, cheese. We can live without online newspapers, Match of the Day, an oven, why even a stand up toilet can be fun sometimes. But the lack of a reliable supply of the hallowed yellow stuff has left a hole in our lives that only a return to the corrupt, jaded, wasteful capitalist society of the west can fill. Which means that at the end of term we’ll be packing our Tuppence and setting off on the road again to Cape Town.
However we’re super keen to find new volunteers to take our places. The school has 500 kids but only 5 paid teachers which means that even without teaching qualifications a motivated, moderately educated volunteer teacher goes a long way to reducing the odds that these youngsters have stacked against them. So if you know anyone who might be interested in coming out here then get in touch and we’ll explain some more.
Also, the work that Tanya has done to build the school on such a limited budget is really quite amazing but the multitude of projects that she has on the go require more funding. So if you feel like donating anything please visit our justgiving page www.justgiving.com/grollyfreekle or donate directly to the charity www.xpand.org.uk. Even a pound goes along way as the charity runs on a 5% overhead charge compared with the 50 – 60% that some of the ones with which you are more familiar, so any money you donate/raise will be put to good use and we promise not to spend it on cheese.
