Video: Mary's story - village life in Malawi

A friend sent me a link to this video. Please share your thoughts. Here's the site's description:

Set in rural Malawi, this 6 minute film follows the life of Mary, a widow with 8 children. Her struggles are struggles of millions of women throughout the world. A film from ICRAF* and ILRI** for International Women's Day 2010.

*World Agroforestry Center

**International Livestock Research Institute

HIV and Youth

Those of you who heard the February 20th Tiyeni Tipewe will remember caller Richard Zule- Mbewe, who shared some statistics and a little bit about his experience working with HIV positive children and youth in Lilongwe. I emailed him the other day to see if he would provide some of that information here on this blog.

Please check out the publication below - it's four pages long and has great information, photos, and even an interview with Richard. Oh, and the country profiled is ... Malawi!!

Face AIDS Monthly Theme: HIV and Youth (March 2010)

Missed It?

Thank you to Radio Yako's Paul Ncozana for making the recording of last Saturday's show available! From now on, all shows will be added to the Show Archive page. Some information cited in the show was from UNESCO's 2010 "Education for All - Global Monitoring Report" (see Resource Exchange).

Feburuary 27, 2010: Listen

Theme: the importance of education, especially that of girls and young women.

Interview clips:

• Liknus J, age 16 (interpreter, Mara Banda)
• Nola K, age 19 (interpreter, Arichie Kaliza)

School Fees - Lilongwe

Since I kept forgetting to ask secondary school youth in Malawi how much their school fees were, I asked Chris Chibwana (who has commented several times on this blog) for an estimate. He wrote:

It depends...
Public schools are the least expensive, ranging from K7,500 ($49.42) to K15,000 ($98.85) per term (there are 3 terms in a year). BUT you either have to be very smart to make it there from primary school and/or be related to or have connections with someone in power (a politician or an officer with some level of control in the Education Ministry).

That leaves the majority to scramble for places in privately-owned secondary schools where you would expect to pay anything upwards of K15,000 per term (the more costly, the higher quality the instruction).
I hope that helps.

Tiyeni Tipewe: February 27, 2010

This week I'll be playing some clips focused around education (young people's access to both basic education and HIV/AIDS information). Feel free to write or call in with questions or comments about this or anything else you'd like to discuss.

Saturday, 6:00 pm on radioyako.com

Tinali, one of the callers last night, asked whether I did research before going to Malawi. More specifically, she referred to research on local culture (in areas of the country I would be working) and the impact that my presence might have on interviews. For information on local culture, I went to Mara Banda and Ellen McCurley (Pendulum Project). For more general information and advice, the list of people I sought out is long. I also looked to articles, studies, and books, and read about work that was being done in different parts of the country.

But now, Tinalii’s question makes me wonder, what books, articles, websites, studies, movies, etc, would any of you recommend to someone going to do work in Malawi? For example, as I mentioned yesterday, I might be presenting for a class of university students who will be going to Malawi this summer. I’d love to offer them some of your ideas.

Could we get a list going on this site?

Okay, the live Tiyeni Tipewe show last night convinced me that I need to get this blog going again. Thank you to everyone who listened to the show, and of course to those who called or wrote in. I hope our discussions won’t stop after each show, but will continue here on this blog.

Just a quick note for now, on a less serious subject. On the show, Paul Ncozana asked me if there’s something I miss from Malawi, and I answered “nsima.” I explained that I was taught how to make it, but that I don’t think it’d be as good here.

I think I should explain. Here’s the thing, it’s not just the nsima, but the experience I associate with it. Sharing a meal as a group, eating with my hands (to the amusement of those around me who were better at it than I was), visiting people in their homes. Something that I loved about being in Malawi was that people always had time. It didn’t matter if we showed up unannounced; they would sit and chat for a few minutes or a few hours, and always seemed happy to see us.

And Paul, here’s my nsima lesson with my friend Edna Chiunda. This is the first time I met her. When Arichie and I entered her house, she greeted us, and then handed me a chitenje to wear over my jeans. People said the nsima was good - and even took seconds!