I'm sitting in the Johannesburg airport again. I'm in the same place that I was a month ago, but I'm not the same person. Somehow, and I'm not exactly sure when, Malawi has changed the way that I see things. It's not just a matter of how I perceive money and relationships with people, it's more than that. I don't have the words to explain it yet, and I'll probably be searching for months for the right words to describe the experiences that I've shared with Jen and Ryan, the Alexander family, and all the students. But I look forward to trying to find the right words and trying to understand. Soon, I'll post about the last few days, but right now I'm tired and don't really feel like I've got the emotional space to do it either. That, and I'm running out of battery on my computer! :D
Safari
I'm playing catch up now. Currently, things are wrapping up for the school. I've given the students their final exams, graded everything, and given final grades. Now there's just packing and getting ready to leave and enjoying the last of my time with the students before we all leave on Friday. I'm going to miss my English students and the Bible students as well.
Anyways, on Saturday, we went to Liwonde National Park here in Malawi. We left at 7:30 in the morning! A driver (his name was Sidney, and he was very friendly) from Wilderness Safari came and picked us up on the campus and drove us down to the park. It's a five hour journey, and for part of it, Mozambique is on one side of the road, while Malawi is on the other. So we took a little side trip into Mozambique just so we could say that we had been there! I'm glad that we got to see some more of Malawi. As you go further south, the geography changes from rolling hills to flat grasslands that open up to over look the Great Rift Valley.
After a boat ride across the Shire (sheer-ey) River, we arrived just in time for lunch. After lunch we had time to unpack our bags and get settled and then head on out for a driving tour of the park. We saw so many animals! Impala, waterbuck, bushbuck, kudu, waterhogs, not to mention a water mongose after nightfall. Oh, I can't forget the baboons and gray velvet monkeys either. And! There are so many different types of birds! I was flipping through the welcome packet and pulled out what I thought was a full page about the different birds in the park. It turned out to be five pages. There are 380 species just in that area! Amazing.
The next morning, we woke up at 5 AM so that we could go on a walking safari at 6. It was pretty neat to be on eye level with impalas, and to have warthogs (ugly as they are) eating a few meters away. We learned a little about the plants and trees in the park as we walked. Aparantly there's a tree that Livingston named the yellow fever tree because when he sat in the shade of it, the greenish yellow bark of the tree made him think that he had yellow fever. And the bark can be soaked in water to make a quinine solution. Pretty nifty!
After breakfast, we went on a boat tour of the Shire river. The river is hippo and crocodile infested. It seemed like every 100 ft, there was another pod of hippos! And there was one river bank that was literally paved with crocodiles. Pretty crazy. Besides hippos and crocs, we also saw several kinds of Kingfishers and herons, and one African Fish Eagle. But the best part of the day was when we had a herd of elephants cross the river not a hunderd feet away from us. Apparantly there wasn't enough food where they were, and they wanted to get to the reeds.
I feel like there was something else I was going to mention, but I can't remember what it is. I guess now that classes are over, it's okay if my brain takes a break as well. It's a good thing we had this mini vacation on Saturday or Sunday, or things would be even more disconnected!
Burning tires stink!
(Disclaimer for my parents: I was perfectly safe while taking this video.)
Read this for more information about what's going on.
Also, I've heard that Face of Malawi is a good source of current news. They've got a live twitter feed.
The state of things
[Edit: 12:30 pm There is a third teacher here besides myself and Mr. Alexander. She had to walk from her house to get to the campus. She said that there were police firing live bullets at a group of young men, not too far from the school. She also said that police had taken part in the burning and looting- taking some items, setting fire to the place, and then leaving. Also, I was having class outside with my students when we heard gunfire. We also smelled something that smelled like burning tires, but burned our throats. It's possible that we caught a wiff of tear gas, as there have been reports of police marching in the streets again. Things are quiet here at the moment, but please pray. We are safe here on campus, and not worried for ourselves, but for the people outside these walls.] [Edit: 7:30 am One of the gardeners lives in area 23 in Lilongwe, about an hour's bicycle ride away from the campus. He said it is like a war zone there. The banks are burned and gutted, and some grocery stores as well. There are many soldiers still in the area. Please be praying for this country- its government and the people who have lost family members yesterday.] For awhile now, we knew something was going to happen. There's been a one-day protest planned for quite some time. It was supposed to be a peaceful march/rally sort of thing against the president. However, things didn't quite happen that way. The way I understand it, the protest was about the lack of government action towards the fuel crisis and some other problems that are happening here in Malawi. As I said earlier, it had been planned for quite some time for the 20th of July. But then, about a week ago, the president announced that he was going to be giving a lecture on the 20th. And of course, if the president is giving a lecture, you shouldn't be protesting on the same day. I'm sure that didn't make people very happy. The morning of the 20th, word got out that there had been a court injunction against the protest, and that made people even more upset with the way things were. So the protest began, and we began to hear of buildings burned (apparently the people and places that supported the president were targeted) and people arrested for protesting and even of people who were killed here in Lilongwe. And when the president went to give his speech, the power mysteriously went out in the presidential palace, and the backup generators weren't working. So no one could hear or watch the planned broadcast. Eventually things got back online, and the broadcast continued. But as we watched and listened (in Chichewa, so I had very little idea what was going on), we began to smell some rather stinky smoke from burning tires. And people began shouting and yelling right outside our wall. They stopped after sundown though, and this morning it seems like everything is back to normal. I can hear vehicles driving by on the road outside the wall. So hopefully things will be back to normal today. We shall see.
What to do when the power goes out...
What do you do when the power goes out and you're all finished with lesson planning for tomorrow? (Well, almost all finished.) Why, draw a map by candlelight of course!
This is the approximate layout of Great Commission Bible School. As I just said...approximate. There are many inaccuracies and suchlike. But it does convey the general idea! Just a note-there's going to be some major protests against the President of Malawi tomorrow. The American Embassy has advised everyone to stay at home on Wednesday, and even the gardeners are spending the night here so they don't have to go anywhere tomorrow. Please pray for the safety of the protesters, and also that things won't get out of hand at all. (Teal, let me know if this answers your questions!)
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