New Academic Year

I am now in Hartford, spending the days quite laid back while Aften is at work, but it gives me the opportunity to catch up a bit on blogging.  As I mentioned in the brief last post, things went quite well this term at EBCoM.  It is a full college this year with around 70 full-time residential students and 70 extension students.  It was great to be there for the start of an academic year as the returning students got back and we got to catch up on how the break was and also to get acquainted with the new students.  I was already familiar with several of them since I had been involved in the interviews, but now was the opportunity to get to know them better, both in class and over lunch.  It was fun to see their reactions as I joined them for lunch on the first day.  They weren’t quite sure what was going on that one of their lecturers would be eating with them.  One of the students even asked if I was a student!  Too funny!  Well, once the new students realized that I was joining them, the table I was sitting at became packed, and they began to grill me with questions about Canada and differences with Malawi.  Without fail one of their first questions is, what is the staple food in Canada?  And I have to explain to them how spoilt Canadians are that we don’t have just one staple food which we eat 2 meals a day, every day, and that Canadians love variety and wouldn’t think of eating the same thing twice in a day unless it was leftovers or something.  Another typical question is, what is Canada’s cash crop?  And again I have to explain that Canada doesn’t work like that where its economy is based on one particular crop. (For Malawi, the cash crop is tobacco, which has become a significant economic problem in recent years as global demand has gone down.  Furthermore, there was a poor crop this year, adding to Malawi’s present economic woes – see more below).  But anyway, back to the lunch table…the students were grilling me with so many question that one noticed that I wasn’t even having time to eat, and so told the others to back off a bit, and I assured the students that I would be with them every day, so there would be plenty of time to ask away, which they've been doing!  As Chichewa has become a little more familiar, it’s been a little better memorizing the students’ names.  Something like “Chikondi” or “Kachepa” or “Kaziputa” is much easier to remember if you already know the word means “love” or “go and become less” or “go and begin things” (respectively).  Others like “Mkandawire”, even if you don’t know what they mean, become easier once you’re more familiar with Chichewa.  And others, generally among first names, are just plain easy.  For example, around the table on the first day I had names like Justice, Happy, Master, Marshall, and Thompson.  Some of the new students are trying to tackle calling me by my last name (which is the normal practice in Malawi), but as they find it very difficult (and I like to think also because they are on more casual/personal terms with me) most stick with my first name, which I am completely happy with. 

The church for Misasa

Another good experience that I got to have this term was going to a church camp-out, or what they called, Misasa for the Africa Evangelical Churches (which is the denomination that SIM is partnered with and which I go to) in Blantyre.  There are 8 AEC churches in and around Blantyre, and so they came together at one of them, Soche, for a weekend camp-out.  I didn’t go the whole weekend, but I went from Saturday afternoon to Sunday and took two EBCoM students with me.  They rotate between the different churches, but this one in Soche seemed like an odd choice since the church doesn’t yet have a roof; they just put a large plastic sheet over whenever they meet.  That made the camp-out part quite interesting since we were just sleeping on the church floor.  Most of the other SIM Missionaries just came on Sunday morning for the church service to end it; I was the only one to brave spending a night.  It wasn’t the easiest thing, but I’m glad I did it.  The night wasn’t the most restful.  I was surprised to find that the Malawians, who tend to be fairly early-to-bed, were quite chatty as they all laid on the church floor.  They were cracking jokes, telling gossip, etc. with no pretences of hushed whispers.  It was after midnight before things settled down, and the morning was set to start before 6 am.  Throughout the weekend there were different sessions filled with choirs and preaching (on the topic of Giving – which tends to be a favourite topic in Malawi and with the implication being on the church offering, which tends to be a great shortcoming in Malawi).  [I’m not convinced though that more preaching on the topic changes peoples’ habits in any way though].  Anyway, there was a Lot of long hours of sitting on uncomfortable brick rows and listening to Chichewa that I could not understand.  Also, there was a generator for lights and a PA system that wasn’t working very well but was placed right by the door (both funneling a lot of noise pollution as well as general pollution into the church, with me sitting right close to the door).  So much of those two days was very hard for me, but there were other things that were very good to experience, like the baptisms on Saturday (over 20 youth), the ordination of one pastors (whom I know quite well since he also works in the SIM office), and fellowship over food (which each church arranged for their own church).

One of the difficulties of this past term is that Malawi seems to be sinking deeper into a very difficult economic situation.  I’ve mentioned before about some of the political factors contributing to it and foreign aid (and thankfully things seem to have gotten better on that front), but the Malawian Kwatcha has been devalued and is likely to be further devalued, and the prices for things are going up.  I’ve mentioned before how a lack of foreign exchange reserves in the country prevents certain things like fuel to be imported in large quantities, and the fuel crisis continues in a big way.  But this also affects other businesses and transport, and has a vicious cycle of crippling the economy.  Fuel has gone up well over 30%, but also grocery items in the stores have gone up as well, and it is really affecting people.  For the students at EBCoM there had been new arrangements set in place by their donors to increase their food allowance to better provide for them.  Things started off great with a meal of rice in the weekly menu and even a small provision for meat in the menu.  As the term went on though, the students had to scale back and scale back so that they even had to reduce their menu to alternating between two relishes – beans, and rape vegetable and an egg (i.e. they had to cut out fish because of the expense).  Their amount for food will be up slightly in the second term because of a provision from the sponsors for the normal annual peaks in costs during the rainy season, but for the third term it will go down again and is likely to be a great struggle for the students.  I was pleased with the students’ resolve not to strike like they did last year, but I sympathize with their situation especially since I know the sponsor organizations have already made their budgets for the year and cannot just increase the amount they give the students.  Please pray for the situation in Malawi!

That’s all for this post.  Some new pictures can be seen here (http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.550654548516.2039466.180500047&type=1&l=cbea5b0107).  I doubt I’ll have another one up before Christmas, so I’ll take this opportunity to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!