New Week, New School (day 33)

Kids in class.
Leading morning songs.

This school is in a very different location that the previous three schools we have been to. It is up in the mountainous area of Malawi and is really very beautiful. I can only image what it might have looked like with more trees and during the rainy season where everything is green. Another NGO has been to this school in the past few years. This organization built a new building for the school. This building has metal windows and actually has glass in the office/teacher area. All the other windows in all the schools we have been to have been made from cement bricks with openings in them. The school is also right near the village trading post. The students seem fairly knowledgeable on topics of HIV/AIDS so I know they have received some previous instruction.

It is very interesting how reluctant the teachers at school schools can be and how this is evident in their students and shows the views of the village as a whole. Even though it is important that we talk to these kids about HIV/AIDS I wonder if we should be doing more to work with the adults. I am not sure the students have the power to change many of these things because of the cultural norms set by their elders. I cannot imagine being one of the girls growing up in these rural villages. Women in the US talk about how we are not yet equal to men and on many levels this is true. But the inequality that the woman face here is so different and extreme. Women are expected to do all the cooking, cleaning and housework, which for some of my older family members is also what they experienced. But it is the views on sex and relationships that is so foreign and unfair. The girls in my empowerment openly and unanimously agree that it is the men in the village who get to decided to have sex. For most of these girls a relationship means meeting a boy in the bush and having a quickie. The girls feel as if they have no say in these matters, they cannot even decide to have a condom. So for many of them getting pregnant is inevitable and their dreams do not matter because they do not have the power to make decisions and work towards them. Today in our group we were talking to the girls, ages 14 and 15, about being strong woman. Many of them, even when they were talking to a room full of girls, could not look each other in the eye without being embarrassed. We also noticed that they cannot list characteristics of strong woman. They do not think of women as strong and they have never been told that they can be strong and can have dreams. It reminds me of Greg Mortenson and Three Cups of Tea and how he talks about the struggle to empower and educate woman because when women are in control of their education and wealth it greatly benefits a community because of the decision that women make. No offense to the men who are reading this, but it has been shown that in impoverished places putting a women in charge of the family finances, she tends to make better decisions and the family benefits. A great website to look at is kiva.org. This site gives loans directly to women who are starting their own small businesses.

I cannot believe how quickly this trip is going by. But I am excited to see everyone when I get home. We are going to visit the only Refugee camp in Malawi on Friday. Many of the people have lived in the camp for years. The refugees are from Congo and Rwanda. I am very excited to go and speak to some of these people. I know it will be a completely different experience than the villages.