I am hoping to have a few of my fellow Malawi volunteers write some blog posts to share here, and I'm kicking it off with a post from Sasha, a WUSC volunteer who arrived in Malawi in January and is here for three months. She is working in Blantyre with Active Youth Initiative for Social Enhancement, came to visit the Lilongwe girls last weekend, and blogs at http://sashagrons.com/ if you'd like to read about more of her adventures! These 2×1-metre rectangles of brightly patterned cloth, also called kitenje in some neighbouring countries, are most commonly seen worn by women, wrapped around their waist like a towel. Especially outside the cities, women wear chitenje like it’s a uniform. But truly, it’s more like a miracle garment. Here’s the list I’ve been keeping for the past month of the different ways you can use a chitenje--it’s hardly exhaustive!
(An aside: In the aforementioned market outing in Lilongwe, our group of girls spent a long time and a good chunk of kwacha at the chitenje stalls. I also took a few photos of two beautiful women with their products. I loved taking their pictures and showing them the result—they were happy to see themselves on the camera screen, and it was clear they don’t have their photo taken often.)
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On the weekend, the Lilongwe girls and I went to a matinee concert at the local theatre, recommended to us by a co-worker. It featured the court musician of the Chewa king (who lives in Zambia), and one of his students. It was very intriguing, and the musical instruments he used were neat to experience. There were some that were drums, a rainstick, xylophone, and a thumb piano housed inside a carved and painted gourd. The musician and his assistant wore traditional clothing made out of animal skins harvested from animals that died of natural causes. He also told storied with very odd morals at the end - we are still puzzling over the connection between some of the stories and their summation statement. It was definitely an educating afternoon and we enjoyed learning more about the Chewa culture and hearing some of the traditional music and stories. Cute small child story: As it was a matinee aimed at children, there were quite a few running around. A few three and four year old girls were racing past and one stopped and stared at me. She managed to sputter out, "You have pink hair... like... like, a fairy!" and then continued on!
I had an amazingly wonderful week of vacation visiting a friend that I met at Capernwray bible school last week. I was able to travel to Cape Town, South Africa, and spend a week with her and her family, getting to know their favourite haunts and taking in the natural beauty of the area. I can't say enough about how wonderful the de Villiers family was - they opened up their home and their hearts and I felt so welcomed (it was like finding family that I didn't know I had - something that I seem to find whenever I visit bible school friends!). If you have a few moments, you can enjoy a bit of the scenery and adventures that I was able to experience in the slideshow below. Take a few minutes to watch this video about a young woman who changed the way her village regards education. Her young wisdom allowed for her to change not only her future, but that of others in the village. This is such an inspiring story! I am so blessed to be following my dreams without significant hardship, and am hoping that the work I do that is allowing children with special needs in Dzaleka Refugee Camp to attend school will result in a similar change in perspective. Parents of the children I work with are realizing the untapped potential of their children - the intelligence and fortitude that these kids have, as they see them grasping concepts and activities that they had never before been given the opportunity to learn.
I made this video tour of the house for my former housemates to show their friends and family, and thought mine might enjoy it as well - it gives you a better visual of where I've been living for the last term, and where I will be until the end of April. (And I get super awkward on video, so feel free to ignore my blathering!) One aspect of life that I supremely dislike is having to say goodbye to friends too quickly. I guess I will have to get used to it though, because the career path I have chosen involves a lot of that - at least, among the fellow expatriates in the international development world! I am so thankful for the many people I have met and gotten to know on placement this year, and am excited to have now met a few new volunteers that are here for this next term.
I had the pleasure of introducing them to a Lilongwe weekend recently, and we had a lot of fun together. Lara is from Seattle and is working with me at JRS, Yanara is a German transplant to Ontario here through WUSC (like me!) and is living at my house with me, and Sasha is another WUSC volunteer from British Columbia, and is living and working with AYISE in Blantyre (same organization as Anna, my fellow Malawi INDEVOUR).
The hands of the ladies in the Umoja Craft group are weathered like those of my father - they work hard, pouring their love for their children and determination to give them a better life into their creations. And the beauty that rises out of the raw and recycled materials is like a phoenix, bringing hope to the women and life back into their faces as they share with one another the trials and successes of life.
My poor brain has been through the wringer this past month - I speak English in my day-to-day, with scattered Chichewa and Swahili words thrown in, have conversations in French with certain refugees, and now just spent a week speaking German to my relatives! And as much as I love learning new languages, trying to pick up the bits of Chichewa or Swahili that I hear is difficult! I am not immersed in it - actually, most refugees want to work on their English and prefer to converse in it, or in French. I recently read an article about bilingual babies compared to monolingual babies, and the differences that learning multiple languages at a young age can make in brain development. The findings are fascinating, and I am so thankful that I was around multiple languages as a baby and young child, as I have definitely noticed throughout my life that language acquisition is often easier for me than for friends who didn't have a second language spoken in the home. Here are some key quotes from the article: “What the study demonstrates is that the variability in bilingual babies’ experience keeps them open,” said Dr. Patricia Kuhl, co-director of the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington and one of the authors of the study. “They do not show the perceptual narrowing as soon as monolingual babies do. It’s another piece of evidence that what you experience shapes the brain.” "In a study of older infants shown silent videotapes of adults speaking, 4-month-olds could distinguish different languages visually by watching mouth and facial motions and responded with interest when the language changed. By 8 months, though, the monolingual infants were no longer responding to the difference in languages in these silent movies, while the bilingual infants continued to be engaged." If you'd like to read more, check out the article here.
The first week of the 2014 was a busy one - I arrived in Lilongwe on the 30th, unpacked and repacked for a trip to the lake, and a group of friends and I headed off that evening to stay at a lakeside cottage in Monkey Bay with the Moura family. We spent a lovely few days on the lake (well, for me, more of it was IN the lake, but that's not new or unexpected!), played games, ate a ton of food, celebrated the New Year, and then headed back to Lilongwe. My housemates, Jo and Jo, made the exciting decision to have the house fumigated, so we moved a bunch of our belongings and the entire kitchen out of the house, and then spent a day away from the fumes before cleaning the insect apocalypse up and moving back in. I also managed to get my car stuck in the ditch bordering the garden, so we had a fun and muddy time extracting it! We also made a trip to the local garden centre and got some more plants to add to the burgeoning garden in our yard. It was a fun and relaxing last bit of holidays before returning to work.
I spent an absolutely lovely week in Germany with the entire German side of my family over Christmas - we were very busy, and had a ton of fun! I got to see my lovely cousins Caro and Nathalie and catch up, go shopping with my Mumsie, go on walks with the entire family and just my parents, enjoy the choir, organ, brass choir, and traditions of the German Christmas services, spend evenings eating and hanging out with my brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, and have a wonderful time all around. Plus, I brought an entire suitcase full of gifts from Malawi for family in Germany and Canada, so that was fun to share and tell the stories behind each item!
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AuthorWelcome! My name is Katiana and I am a development professional pursuing my dream to live out Isaiah 1:17 to the best of my abilities. I am passionate about teaching and working with vulnerable families and children to improve their lives sustainably.
CaveatThis blog is composed of my personal opinions, which do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of institutions or organizations that I may be or have been affiliated with.
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