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Today is Sunday in Malawi and it is our last day of orientation! I now feel really comfortable teaching the curriculum and know so much more about teaching and working with translators. Working with translators is tricky because you have to use short sentences to discuss very serious and complex topics. But I think it is good practice to put things into words that the kids can understand. The kids we will be teaching are in standards 6,7,8 and we will be teaching around 2,000 kids while I am here. :) I can't wait to get into the schools!
On Friday, we went to Chisomo, which is a shelter for homeless kids. While they are there, the coordinators try to reunite the kids with their families, but a lot of them are there for a long time. We played some games and did some songs with them and our coordinators taught them about HIV/AIDS transmission and prevention and about deforestation. It was a good learning experience for us to see how it is done in a classroom. The KIDS ARE SOOO CUTE! They want to listen and learn and are very respectful and participate a lot. I love them! It is such a good feeling to be with them.
Sometimes they dont really get what is going on with the games and stuff, but we just run around with them anyways and try to make sure they are having fun :)
Malawi is such a wonderful place to be! I am loving it here! We already have lots of local friends who know World Camp and the Coordinators well. So far, I have met, Morris, Fantastic, Happy Hippo, Brian, Coconut and a few others. Needless to say, it is pretty easy to remember their names. :)
We have had the traditional Malawian dish (which we will be serving the kids for lunch at the village schools) called nsima - which I thought was going to be like a rice dish (dont know where I got that idea from), but is actually corn flour mixed with water and a few other ingredients and they eat the nsima with relishes. But not relish like we know it...relish as a side dish, whether that be spinach, beans, chicken etc. (We had the spinach and beans since World Camp only cooks vegetarian). Anyways...the nsima looks like a potato kind of, but has an extremely bland taste to it. But it is everyone's favorite food in Malawi. (not mine though). I have been eating a lot of traditional food, but nsima is not at the top of my list.
Tonight we are having a meet and greet wtih the rest of the translators to get to know them! I can't wait to meet them. The Malawians are soo friendly, it is so much fun to get to know them. And they are a great source of information about the country, so you can get some great conversations going with the translators!
Off to start the day here! Miss you all, Love you!
xoxox Laura
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