First we have been building our language skills. This week
we actually finished our formal training with our instructor Abambo Austin
. We are thankful to him as we can now
greet our neighbors and have minimal conversation with the people we encounter
with some comfort. We will now continue to practice as much as possible and
study our materials on our own. It is definitely harder to learn a new language
when you are older and have a little tribe to take care of.
We arrived to a stadium that was screaming with energy and
packed with people. We stepped into a stadium that is all cement seating
surrounding the field. There were vendors everywhere making this “hissing”
sound trying to get the attention of potential customers. As we walked around
the filed we heard the familiar call of “azungu” as we passed all the
spectators. Out of tens of thousands of people I am confidant we were the only
people with white skin in the entire stadium. Most everyone was very welcoming
to the family and we enjoyed the first half very much. After about the first
half we were getting pretty hot and the girls were ready to go. As we were
leaving there was a bad call by the ref and chaos broke out. As we were walking
by a rowdy section, the crowd started throwing bottles onto the field and just
as we passed, they rushed the field and tore down part of the fence. Phew!!! We
were so thankful that we left when we did. All together, we had a great time
and were glad we decided to go.
Most of our time now is spent building relationships. We
have been getting to know our neighbor’s a bit better and are now much more
comfortable stopping by while they are out washing clothes, cooking or working
outside. They are all very happy to
listen to us try to say a few things or ask questions in Chichewa. It is
awesome to see the smiles on their faces when we make the effort to hang out
and communicate with them in their daily life’s.
We have also been singing and dancing even more with the
children of the parish and also visited one of the two nurseries that the
parish operates. There we saw a nicely run childcare facility with about 40
children and two teachers. Yes, only two teachers. We have learned that it is
pretty common to have high child to teacher ratios here and honestly the kids
were very well behaved and the teachers seemed to have great control of what
was going on. It was a shorter visit but we sang some songs, danced and laughed
with them all and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
We will visit the second nursery this coming week and really look
forward to the opportunity.
A couple weeks ago I finished a project building a shed for
Sister Anastasia, one of the Teresian sisters. The building is made completely
out of scrap pieces of metal that were in their rubbish pit, old speaker wire
and strips of old tires. She wanted to build the shed for a manure project she
is working on. The goal of the project is to create manure fertilizer (compost)
out of all natural and locally available sources. Then to take it to the
villages to help those that can not afford fertilizer for their crops and teach
them how to make it on their own using their own resources. The dependency on
chemical fertilizer for maize crops is a major challenge here in Malawi and it
is something I hope to help on again in the near future. It was a fun project
and I am grateful Sister asked me to help.
Lily has been practicing each week with the parish dancing
girls and this past weekend danced for the first time during mass. She did an
unbelievable job, and both Tonya and I couldn’t have been more proud of her.
You can see a clip of the performance here. Her participation with the girls
has built some beautiful friendships. They not only practice and perform
together but also play and get silly, as girls will.
We recently finished building a grass fence around the
property. We needed to put the fence up for the dog we will get in a few short
weeks. The fence will also offer a bit of privacy when we need it. We love to
play and be with our neighbors but sometimes a little space is nice. A couple
of the employees of the parish and I constructed the fence. It is made of
bamboo, grass and those strips of old tire. The only milled timber in the whole
thing is what I used for the walk and car gates at he front. It was a great
learning experience for me and I am also very glad to have it completed.
Last Friday, Fr. Somanje invited us to come to the Comboni
house for the day and just hang out for the day. Fr. Somanje as really made us
feel welcomed at the parish, at the house and just in general. We had a great
day resting, the girls got to watch some TV and I didn’t have to cook breakfast
or lunch. Josie and Lily played for a while with Fr. and he was a great sport
in entertaining them dressing babies, putting clothes on the dolls and all. It
was a welcomed day retreat and we are very thankful to Fr. for inviting us.
We actually have this whole last week to write about but I
figured we’d put that together by the end of the weekend and get us all up to
date. We thank God for bring us to the beautiful place and thank all of you for
keeping up and supporting us. Please don’t be shy in emailing or writing to us.
It is really nice to hear from our family and friends back in the states. Much
Love from all the Klevens. Jacob