Bad news 'n Good news... Bad news first!

As you may have guessed, today I stayed away from Chanco (in case you haven't figured it out, that's the abbreviated form of Chancellor College--most colleges have similar nicknames here), as the student protests have continued, unfortunately. Though some of you teachers and/or students out there may be thinking, "Oh, but this must be a nice, welcome break!", it's really not a good thing at all. This college has been plagued by such disturbances several times, from what I'm told. My director Sydney reiterated to me this morning that the academic calendar already is a full year behind due to strikes over the past few years held both by lecturers and students. So, for those of you out there who either have earned college degrees or are in the process, consider the possibility of your graduation being delayed for an entire year, not because you wanted to take a year off, but because you had no choice due to problems in the system. Ya, it sucks.

What also really bites (my other favorite slang term) is that my course was scheduled to end this week, as I'd been faithfully teaching and the students had been attending and doing their work very faithfully as well, despite all that's been going on. Now, with this latest development, we are not likely to finish this week. Perhaps we will be able to do so next week. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, especially since I have a trip home planned for mid-December, so I'm unable to delay my course much further. As it stands, the academic calendar will be delayed by a full month (including this lost week), meaning the classes delayed by the lecturers' strike will be in session at least until the 2nd week of December-- Good Grief! (in the words of my favorite childhood philosopher Charlie Brown).

So, those faithful Malawi'n me readers who are religious, please pray to your chosen gods that this thing will end as soon as possible, if for no other reason than for me and my fabulous LAN 150 (Language and Communications for First Year Political Science & Public Administration--ya, it's a mouthful) students, who have worked so hard to finish this required freshman course (which they love so much because of their fantastic teacher) ON TIME! Enough already! We're almost done!

OK, I feel better now. Perhaps for me that can substitute for prayer. Let's see if it works, shall we? I'll keep you posted. By the way, at left I posted a couple of lovely pictures of me with my class in the "American Corner" computer lab/resource area of the library, taken in October, as we were starting the preliminary research for the papers they're trying to finish up right now. I thought you might like to see me "in action" at work ;-) I'd set up that lab for them to use for a couple of class sessions during this project in an effort to help them find reliable resources on the internet (which can be a challenge for anyone out there who has tried-- NO, Wikipedia is NOT a reliable source!), as well as to give them some time in the lab free-of-charge, since they have to pay to use the computers here. They seemed very appreciative of this time, and incredibly, I didn't catch anyone chatting online, checking e-mail, or visiting 'questionable' sites, if you know what I mean. Mostly, they were very engaged and on-task. What a great class! (Ok, I'm gushing, but it's true...).

In other news, I had promised to also tell you about the "Village to Village" orphanage project I'm working on now. I visited Alfred (see previous post/pictures) on-site this past Saturday to finalize the plans we'd discussed the previous Saturday for building an English/Chichewa reading room/library for the orphanage. This project is funded by the ELF (English Language Fellow) program, and the idea is actually 'borrowed' from another kind ELF (sounds funny, eh?) in South Africa (don't worry, she let me borrow it). When I visited the orphanage back in September, I really wanted to do something to help out those kids, and Alfred, who seems to be very committed, hard-working, and is truly making a difference in the community with the orphanage programs and facilities. When I was reminded of this in-country project money I'm supposed to spend, the orphanage was the first place that came to mind, but developing something sustainable was the tough part.

When Elizabeth, the ELF in South Africa, mentioned that she had started developing a small reading room at an orphanage in her village, I immediately knew that was the way to go. So, Alfred and I have met a couple of times, worked up a budget, and starting on Monday (yesterday), the carpenter started building the shelves.

The pictures at left give some idea of what the project is about, but I'll describe it a bit more for my 3-5 loyal readers... (oh, by the way, I just found out from my brother Briggs that I also have a following in the Yuba City, CA area--just outside of Sacramento, where he is a radio news announcer/ morning show personality and local celebrity (check it out: www.kkcy.com)... I had the honor of talking on-air during a phone interview with him and his cohort Dave before coming to Malawi, and now my blog is featured on their website, so I guess maybe my readership is up to 4-6 or so... Yahoo!!!)

OK, back to the orphanage project. Basically, what we're trying to do is build a small 'reading corner' for children between the ages of 5 and 12 years (but some early-childhood, too), similar to the type you often see in elementary classrooms in the U.S. The idea is to encourage kids to read for pleasure, and to develop a joy for reading at a young age, which as we all know also encourages greater literacy, more success in education, and greater opportunities. The reading room will be facilitated by local volunteers who will help the kids learn to read, as well as oversee the facility and materials.

Right now, we're just getting the facility together, and have decided to use the small classroom I posted a picture of back in September. We cordoned off a small area of that classroom (as shown in the pictures at left), where the carpenter will build a small wooden partition, and several wall-mounted shelves for the books. We'll also install some linoleum tile on the concrete floor inside the reading room area, and hopefully put some nice rugs there as well to make it a bit more inviting. Of course, we'll also put in some chairs and tables for the kids, and we're also hoping to have them help with the painting (mostly pictures on the walls, and maybe the partition), so they can really make the place their own.

So, that's the new, exciting project we're working on that I wanted to tell you about. It was great to see Alfred during our meeting on Saturday. He was like a kid in a candy store, as he talked about how happy he was that we were putting this project together for the kids.

I imagine that some of you out there may want to help out with this in some way. Though I'm not asking for any monetary donations, if you do want to help out, the best thing you can do is refer me to good, affordable (possibly online) sources for children's books, good titles for kids of those ages (I'm not a mother nor elementary schoolteacher, so bring it on!), or any agencies you may know of that may be willing to donate books. We do have a decent amount of money budgeted for the purchase of books, and our target is to start with about 100 (for about 50 kids housed at this orphanage, but there are other orphanages in the area that may also make use of the reading room), though we could certainly stock more if the budget will allow, or we are able to procure donated books.

For the Malawian readers out there, we're of course also interested in books written in Chichewa for children in this age group (5-12 years), as well as bilingual (Chichewa/English) books. If anyone out there can help with recommending titles and/or resources for finding these books at reasonable prices, please let me know! For the first time, I'm posting my e-mail on this site (though it is posted in my profile as well), so please contact me if you'd like to help out, at jbeilke@yahoo.com. (By the way, if you do want to donate books of your own, please let me know about that as well. There are some details we'd have to discuss, but of course personal book donations would be greatly appreciated as well.)

So, that about covers it for today. As always, Tiwonana Mawa!