As a United States Peace Corps Volunteer you hear a lot about "sustainable development," "capacity building," and other fluffy terms like that. The reality is that, in the grand scheme of things, we really don't do a whole lot to "save the world." In a world of 7 billion people (and counting) there are only a few thousand Peace Corps Volunteers, and the work that we do is a drop in the ocean. However, it's not healthy to think about this too much.
It's better to focus on the little things, the small victories. For example: There's a young man named Moses that has been living with me for almost three years now. We've both benefited a lot from being around each other, and we have something like a big brother-little brother relationship. Moses had a rough upbringing, an upbringing that is representative of many children in Malawi. His father ditched the family when he was a young boy. Life is hard enough here for a family living in a rural area, headed by both a mother and father. These problems are only magnified for a single mother. Moses' mother struggled (and is still struggling) to raise a big family on her own.
In Malawi primary school is free, but like most things in life, you get what you pay for (especially when you don't have very many taxpayers to take care of that "free" primary school system). This means that most children here, as did Moses, go to a primary school that functions more like circus. Limited resources, understaffing, lazy teachers, and general apathy...it's astonishing to see how dysfunctional these schools are. Anyways, this is where Moses' education started.
Later in his primary school years, money became especially tight. It was decided that he should go and live with his father. By now the father was a well off with lots of farmland, a few vehicles, and a decent house. It looked like Moses would be able to finish his childhood happily ever after, reunited with his father. However, things didn't work out that way. Moses' stepmother didn't like him too much. At meals this stepchild of hers was given food last. When there was work to do around the house or in the field the biological children were allowed to play while the stepchild was breaking his back. This went on for a few months until the stepchild had enough and went back home to live with his mother where life was hard but at least he would be treated like a human being.
But money was still a problem. It was decided that Moses should find a job, even though he was still a few years away from finishing primary school, so he could support the family a little bit. He was sent off to help a guy raise his cattle. Moses' job basically entailed herding a bunch cows around all day under the hot sun while his friends went to school. He did this for about a year, and consequently missed a year of school.
He eventually went back to school. In Malawi, at the end of primary school every student writes a national exam that is used to select the students to different tiers of secondary school. The best of the best go to national schools. The next tier of students go to government schools. The lowest tier is selected to Community Day Secondary Schools. However, in reality at least half of the students that take the primary school national exam don't end up going to secondary school because they either can't afford it or they weren't selected. By the end of primary school, Moses was a promising student, and it was a surprise that he wasn't selected to any secondary school at all. Somehow he slipped through one of the many metaphorical cracks in the Malawian education system.
He wasn't going to give up that easily. A friend of a friend was able to find him a place at a nearby Community Day Secondary School, Chadabwa CDSS. These bottom tier schools don't have a lot regulation, and it is often possible to attend one of them even if you weren't selected there so long as you're able to pay school fees and fatten the administration's pockets. But as I already said: you get what you pay for. These schools are relatively cheap and therefore provide relatively poor education and produce relatively poor results (I'm saying "relatively" here because every level of education in Malawi, from nursery school up to university, is pretty shameful, but these CDSSs are the bottom of the barrel). Most "graduates" of these CDSSs have dreams of going to university, becoming a doctor or a nurse or an accountant, and never going back to the village again, but the reality is that most of them end up living the same life their parents have: doing backbreaking labor on a daily basis and struggling to get by. This is all very depressing when you think about it too much so let's fast forward so we can get to the good part of the story.
Moses had four years ahead of him at secondary school, and he quickly made it clear that he wasn't going to be just another village kid with no future. While his friends were out dicking around like typical teenagers, he was usually found with is nose in a book or asking thought provoking questions that were over the heads of his under qualified teachers. He was consistently at the top of his class, head and shoulders above his peers. These peers started to become jealous. They started spreading rumors that Moses was doing so well on exams because he was using witchcraft (yes, this sounds completely ridiculous to those of us that come from the developed world, but here in Malawi witchcraft is perceived to be very real, and accusations are thrown around all the time...but I won't go off on that rant right now). Moses was advised by his head teacher to ignore the crap he was getting from his classmates and keep focusing on his studies. That is exactly what he did, but it wasn't easy. Money was still a problem, and it looked like he already reached the glass ceiling created by the rural, dysfunctional secondary school he was attending.
Moses had dreams of attending the University of Malawi, but this seemed very unlikely. In a country of over 14 million people, the university system here only takes in about 2,500 first year students each year. Even those students at top tier secondary schools have a difficult time gaining admission to university, and most students from the bottom tier CDSSs don't stand a chance. Nevertheless, he took the national exams after completing secondary school last year, and the results were off the charts (for a student from a CDSS). It appeared that he would have no problem getting into university with these results.
But there was one other important hoop to jump through. The University of Malawi uses two main criteria when selecting first year students: first, there is the previously mentioned national exam which pretty much every student takes upon completing secondary school, and then students that do well enough on these national exams have the opportunity to take the university's entrance exams. He took the entrance exams back in April (around the same time I was taking the MCAT-as you can imagine, the house was full of nervous energy), and then he waited...for a long time.
For those of you that don't know, the government has been screwing around with the university for most of this year. Earlier in the year, there was a dispute between some of the lecturers and the police/government concerning academic freedom, government spies in the classrooms, etc. I won't go into all of the details here (you should be able to find plenty of information about this on the internet), but the main result of this was that the various braches of the university haven't been doing much for most of this year. This also meant that selection for the first year students was delayed... but that all changed on Saturday night when the selection finally came out. Late in the evening, the two of us were sitting anxiously next to the radio, listening to the local radio station that always has breaking new like this: "Now the selection for Bunda College of Agriculture, Bachelor of Science in Agriculture Education...Moses Samalani, Chadabwa Community..." This was a moment that I'll never forget, and take it from me, this couldn't have happened to a better person.
Unfortunately, stories like this are few and far between, but let's not focus on the negative. What we have here is a young man who had an impossible dream. With the odds against him, he worked his ass off, and he will soon start living that dream. (all of this may sound cheesy, but it's true!--it gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling inside)
"Here's a message to the newborns, waitin' to breatheIf you believe then you can achieve
Just look at me
Against all odds, though life is hard we carry on
Livin' in the projects, broke with no lights on
To all the seeds that follow me
protect your essence
Born with less, but you still precious..." Tupac Shakur
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