End of 1st Term

We have now been in Malawi for more than 6 months. Sometimes its hard to believe that its already been 6 months, and other times it seems like working in Adrian was so long ago. Either way, we are doing well and very pleased with how things are going at our site. We have just finished our first term of school (we have trimesters) and now are back in the city to get some errands run and then next week we return to Dedza college to do more training. So, let me tell you about our first term.
School was scheduled to start on Janurary 5th. However, at that time the ministry of Education had not yet released placements of form 1 and 3 students. (In the Malawian school system, you test after 8th and 10th grade. To continue on you must pass. The students are then placed into secondary schools based on their performances. The top students get placed in fully funded government schools, the lower end of the passing students go to community day secondary schools, which is what our school is.) So the students didn't know if and where they had been placed, so they didn't actually start school until a week later. However, once they did start we had pretty good turnout of students and even got 2 more teachers, pushing us up to 8.
So a week late we started teaching, and it was rough. The form 1 students didn't understand a thing we said and there are 60 of them crammed into a hot classroom, so form 1 physical science and biology were dreaded classes for me. The form 3 students understood a little more but were very shy and did not like participating. We were very frustrated. Then Thursday of the second week of classes was a holiday, so wednesday evening when I was talking about class for the next day I was told, "Oh, we forgot to mention, but there is no school tomorrow." So we decided thatwe would celebrate Martyrs Day by cooking a really nice meal and eating good food. We headed into Rumphi the next morning (our closest "town," a little over an hour bikeride away) to buy groceries, and of course the only grocery store was closed for inventory. So we went to the market to see what creative meal we could come up with from there. We went with potatoes and eggs and headed home. We cooked up what might have been the best fried eggs and hashbrowns I've ever had. And for dessert, we had some freezedried blueberries and cranberries that my parents had sent for Thangsgiving, so we made ourselves a blueberry/cranberry pie. It was amazing, really. Check out the pictures and see for yourself. It tasted even beetter than it looked.
It turns out good food can really lift your spirit. We went back to school feeling a little better, determined to keep plugging away trying to make a smidget of progress. From then on, each week got a little better. The form 1's made (very) slow improvement in their comprehension, and the for 3's started to open up a bit. Zeb dropped math since new teachers had come in and picked up physical education (which I occasionally would assist with). He taught the students kickball, ultimate frisbee, and crab soccer, and attemped capture the flag (that one needs some work). We learned that playing with the kids is an amazing way to get to know (and like) students despite the language barrier. The students that are so frustrating in a classroom turnout to be fun, cooperative (well, not all, but many), willing to learn, and many of the upper classmen turn out to be great leaders. We've even taught the other teachers to through a frisbee, which helped to bond wtih them too.
We also started working with the form 4 students after school several evenings a week. They have better English skills and are just a fun, outgoing group, so that has turned out to be a lot of fun. We took them on a "nature hike" on a nearby mountain, which ended up as them guiding us in hunting mushrooms.
So by the end of the term, things had improved greatly. However, our garden has been quite the opposite. Just 4 weeks after planting we were picking radishes. After 5 weeks we had summer squash and zucchini, and 6-7 weeks green beans, romaine lettuce, acorn squash, cucumbers. For a good month we were eating fresh veggies every night and handding out surplus to our neighbors, who were quite impressed with the summer and acorn squash especially. Then the zucchini started to die off, then the green beans. Within the last couple weeks everything else has followed suit. We've asked around our neighbors and other volunteers but still don't know if its a disease or other pest or the heat or what. We had tomatoes and peppers planted later in a different spot that were just starting to produce when we left but seemed to be doing well, so we may try to replant when we return. So, for a while our garden was quite a success, unfortunately it didn't last. But overall I'm still happy with how it turned out. It was still worth the effort for sure.
Between the pie and the garden, we were culinarily (is that a word?) inspired and since have eaten pretty well. We've had some pretty good stir fries and salads. We've made lots of pickles and it turn that Tastefully Simple dip mixes made awesome pickling spices as well (thank you Aunt Linda!) And we even rigged up a nifty little oven. We've got a big pot wtih a metal lid and a smaller pot that fits inside. we set a few rocks int he big pot, put the small pot in, and put fire on top and bottom. It actually works quite well. We even baked bread that turned out as good as from a bread machine. We have also become soup connosoirs. Whenever we have leftovers, we can't exactly through them in th fridge for tomorrow, so we leave them out and the next evening add water and boil the heck out of it and have soup. It is also kind of interesting on how our perspective of food safety has changed. If something falls on the ground (and i mean ground, not floor), I think "well, its probably already been on the ground before I bought it," and pop it in my mouth. Everything has at least a little dirt mixed in it, and we've learned to chew carefully to find stones in the rice. A common exchange we have at home is
"Do you think this food is still good?"
"I don't know"
"Hm. I guess I'll find out in a few hours."
My favorite was a couple weeks ago I was eating a guava (they're in season now and they're everywhere). I took a big bite and then saw that there were worms in it. I thought, "hmm, there are probably worms in the bite thats in my mouth now, too," and then swallowed the bite. (I did throw the rest out though). Then that evening I told Zeb about it and he said "I did the same exact thing today." However, after the first week, we have super careful to NEVER drink water that isn't treated and filtered.
So anyway, we finished up the term in good spirits. Zeb is teaching some more english classes and lifeskills next term and is also going to try doing some teacher development work in our area because they just introduced literature into the english syllabus. I ended up shifting my classload around because nobody wanted to teach upper level math (including me! I can do math but I cannot teach it, so I'm one of those horrible teachers that just does the problems on the board and says just do it like this.) So I ended up conceding that I would take up form 4 math if I could lighten my load a biit, and now I'll be teaching biology and math for forms 3 and 4 (11th and 12th grade), as well as introducing a library period for each form. I'm looking forward to getting back and starting next term.