A visit to Malawi
I visited Malawi for a week last month. My first impressions were the enthusiasm and happiness shown by so many Malawians. But real problems are just under the surface. For example, a serious petrol shortage means at least eight-hour waits at petrol stations.
During my visit, we installed gadgets (iPod touches) in two locations:
Primary school
Here we supplied the iPods to ten Standard 1 and 2 teachers (the first two years of Primary education) in a primary school with 5,000 children. Each teacher has a class of more than 250 children. The whole school has 24 teachers – including the head and deputy. The deputy head is paid £80 a month – and needs to spend £40 a month on rent. He has to buy everything for his children and extended family on £40 a month.
Since I got back, the headteacher has written to me:
“How is London these days? Malawi is good and we are waiting for the first rains ready to plant crops since Malawi depends on farming. Andrew I’m pleased to tell you that our pupils have started scoring the stars on the charts using the devices. We are now giving the stars, which is encouraging and interesting.”
Hospital
Here I met with some women who had had a fistula operation.
These are women who have had problems giving birth. They not only lose their baby but are damaged – and become incontinent. As a result they are often rejected by the village society and treated like “modern day lepers”. I met one woman who got a fistula as she gave birth 45 years ago. Her whole life changed, as she suffered first the trauma of losing a baby and then being rejected by all around her. The operation takes about three hours, but all the ladies need to be in hospital for a month. Their lives are transformed in the most profound way. EuroTalk have donated software and gadgets for these ladies to use while in hospital. These gadgets had preinstalled language learning and maths apps in English and Chichewa, as well as Malawian music, photos, video clips, lesson plans etc.
The hospital anaesthetist has written:
“… the mothers really like the iPods to the extent that when I am busy they even call for them. Some of our young patients are turning into teachers of elderly patients.”
We are planning an update to the digital resources for the school and the hospital early next year.
I also met with members of the Scottish Government, who were visiting Malawi. The SG and EuroTalk are jointly funding the devices and software for these gadgets to go into 30 schools. It’s a really exciting project!
On a personal note, I was really encouraged by this visit. It follows so much work done by so many people. The potential for low cost digital devices and software in local languages to deliver education is enormous. Thank you to so many at EuroTalk, past and present, who have turned ideas into a reality.
Andrew (EuroTalk Managing Director)
From Advanced Course to “um …” and “er …”
Our post this week is by Lisa Erne from Germany, who’s spending a few months with us at EuroTalk as an intern. Lisa’s been in London now for six weeks, and here she shares some of her experiences so far.
When I arrived in London a few weeks ago I expected a tough start but people here made it very easy for me to feel comfortable. I moved to Brent where I supposed to live with four other housemates, I was really nervous, but there was no reason for that. I was very welcome.
I noticed really fast that the English are always easy-going like always saying sorry, even when you hit them by accident. Every day in the morning on my way to the tube I got like three “Good-Morning’s” from people, who are just passing my way. And everyone here is always pleased to help.
When I started school in the Central School of English near Tottenham Court Road I made easily friends with people from all over the world.
I felt quickly that I “improved” my English. After a few days I lost the habit of saying “um…” and “er…” all the time when thinking about the right words when having a conversation. I mean, home in Germany at my school I was in advanced course of English but you never had like a real conversation situation. The teacher asks you something and you will answer in a few sentences. There has never been real circumstances like this for me. When you’re here you’re forced nearly all the time to speak English. Even a little chat with the cashier in the Tesco supermarket can be a good practice.
London is a varied city, even if I didn’t do any sightseeing yet, I saw a lot of different attractive areas here. There is Camden Town, where you can find a lot of markets and Tattoo & Piercing Shops. Oxford Street became one of my favourite places to be. When the temperatures were still warm, my friends and me walked from our school over Oxford Street to Hyde Park to enjoy the sun. While walking we did window shopping a lot, or just enjoyed everything else around. Also one of our favourite places became the Thames in general, just sitting at the water hanging out.
I already love London, but there are things that drive me mad. One of these things are the tubes. Tubes are always crowded and always late and they stop driving around midnight, but I got already used to it. Buses are the essential alternative to that, but I couldn’t really make friends with them either, because the timetables are sometimes very confusing. And the prices such as for tube tickets and cigarettes are an essential difference to for example in Berlin. Now I’ll really appreciate the prices there when I come back.
A great difference to Berlin is that shops here are opened on every Sunday, even till late hours. In Germany we have just a few weekends when the shops are open on Sundays like some weekends before Christmas, so people can do their last minute present shopping.
As well I enjoy the pubs pretty much. We don’t have a lot of them in Germany, but if it is no spot for young people, more for elder people who want to have a drink on their own after a stressful working day. Here it is a lot more fun, you always get to know new people. My favourite became The Green Man near Oxford Street, because you can also dance there, and The Crown, where many students of the Central School go on Fridays and the drinks are also very affordable.
After all this adventures and experiences yet I can say that London is a place, where I never learned so much about people and life.
Since the six weeks that I’m here I feel pretty much adapted to the lifestyle here and also a little bit of a part of London. I can already say that I won’t forget the time here ever.
Lisa
Has anyone got any suggestions for places that Lisa should visit while she’s in London?