Katangale Kuli Konse

Over the past year or so I've been writing here and there about this girl's hostel that were trying to build. This project has been a source of both agony and joy for me, and we're not even done with it yet. Allow me to explain were things are at.

Starting with a little bit of background: When I first came here at the end of 2008 and I arrived at Chadabwa CDSS (where I taught for two years), it quickly became clear to me that the quality of education at the school was far below even some of the worst schools in the States. Mostly for cultural reasons, the girls at the school were having a particularly difficult time. After observing things for over two years now, it seems like many of these female students, for a plethora of reasons, don't really gain anything at all from attending secondary school. I really hate to make that statement, but I'm afraid it truly reflects the situation here.

But my job is to try to do something about problems such as this. Starting early on, I made it clear to the school that I would be interested in assisting them by sourcing funds to construct a hostel/dormitory for the female students that would be built on the school grounds. We would do this with the basic idea that the girls would perform much better at school (and consequently lead better lives in the future) if they lived in a communal place with easier and safer access to the school. The school and the community showed interest in this idea, and although they (we) moved at a snail's pace, they made many sacrifices to move this project forward. They sourced locally available building materials such as sand, quarry stone, and bricks. They contributed money to pay for odds and ends. They managed to convince the district government to donate a bunch of building materials. It was my job to find funds to buy about two thirds of the building materials that couldn't be sourced locally. This took longer than I had expected. After getting screwed over and mislead by a few different people, I was helped out a lot by the Peace Corps Malawi Country Director. He pulled a few strings to make sure that this well-planned and worthy project was funded. Finally, by the middle of last year, we received about 10,000 USD to buy the rest of the materials and start paying the contractor to get started on the job.

Now the hostel is finished. It looks great, standing proudly amongst the deteriorating school blocks and decrepit houses of the nearby villages. Its roof is very shiny and can be seen from many kilometers away in the afternoon sun. I must say that it appears to have been constructed very well, and I conservatively estimate that it will stand at least two decades (although I'm not banking on it being maintained very well once I'm gone, but we'll hope for the best). This was one of the reasons that I decided to extend my time here in Malawi for a third year. If I had left last December (after finishing my two years of service, the typical Peace Corps commitment), I would have left when the project was just starting to get rolling, and I shutter to think what would have happen if that had been the case. Instead, I've been around until the completion of the hostel. One might think that I am now content with how things have worked out.

But there's a problem, or maybe I should say a few problems. Apparently it's important for adolescent girls to bathe and eat. For this reason, one dormitory building for girls to sleep in isn't going to cut it. We don't have elaborate ventilation systems and indoor plumbing here so the necessities of bathing and cooking have to be done in separate structures. From the start, I was worried about how these bathing facilities (we call them bafas here) and kitchens would actually be built. With the completion of the hostel, things have stalled. The hostel can't be used until the kitchen and bafas are completed, and it looks like this might take a while.

The original agreement was that I was going to find funding to buy the materials for the construction of the hostel and the payment of the contractor to build the hostel. The construction of the kitchens and bafas was (is) the responsibility of the school/community/local government. As I have already mentioned, the District Assembly and our local Member of Parliament (analogous to the State Rep's we have in the States) donated a bunch of building materials. With these additional materials added to what was funded by me through Peace Corps, we have enough to build everything-the hostel, kitchens, and bafas. The problem is that there is no money to pay the contractor to build the kitchens and bafas. I'm not going to mention any names or titles, but some people assumed that the donation of the materials from government automatically meant that they were also going to pick up the tab of paying the contractor. As it turns out, all parties involved did not assume that assumption. We were supposed to have a meeting last weekend to clear up this confusion and set things straight, but I got a call the night before that the meeting had been canceled by one of the parties for unknown reasons.

On top of this, the school doesn't have any money these days. In what appears to be a big scandal, the school (along with many, many others) hasn't received any money this year. In this country, students at all secondary schools pay school fees. In the past, the schools would collect the fees from their students, and then they would have a certain amount of freedom to use that money to buy chalk, print exams, construct a girl's hostel (purchase a new dirt bike for the head teacher, feed the teachers junk food, fund drinking binges by the administration, etc.). Yes, this decentralized way of doing things allowed for lots of corruption and stealing. The Ministry of Education thought it would be a good idea to try something different this year. They required secondary schools to take all of the school fees collected from their students and deposit them into one big account, the infamous "Account One." The idea was that the Ministry would then collect all the money from all the schools in Account One, count it up, and then redistribute it in a reasonable manner.

Well, to make a long story short, the redistribution has been anything but reasonable. For example, this whole year Chadabwa CDSS hasn't received back any money at all. I just heard that they have resorted to "borrowing" chalk (one of the basic necessities for teaching in rural Malawi) from one of the nearby primary schools because they can't buy any on their own. This new plan by the Ministry, at least from the perspective of a school like Chadabwa, has so far been a complete disaster. The other day I heard (from a not entirely reliable source) that the school was told that they shouldn't expect to get any money this term, and they should just wait until the start of the next term in May. I'm trying to be careful with what I say here because Malawi seems to be transitioning into a police state (that's another topic that I'll have to save for another post, maybe after I've left the country), but suffice it to say that the fees the school collected a few months ago and deposited into Account One have since vanished (or been absorbed into some government officials' pockets). We intended to use some of that money for the girl's hostel project so, expecting that the money would come from the Ministry any day, the school has been racking up lot's of debt for odd jobs related to the project such as transportation of bricks and payment of workers. Thankfully, that's not directly any of my business, but it does hinder any progress towards finishing the hostel's accessories.

On top of this, I have become aware of another issue over the past few days. A few months back, we had a PTA meeting at the school. Amongst other things, the girl's hostel project was discussed. At that time we were anticipating that some additional money would be needed to complete the project so we asked the parents to help. They agreed to pay some money per student on top of the school fees that many of them were already struggling to pay. Keep in mind that when this agreement was made, in December, most of these families were struggling just to put food on the table. In Malawi, December through February is know as the "hunger season" due to the fact that around this time the previous year's perennially insufficient harvest is starting to run out. During this time, it's hard for a lot of people, especially the subsistence farmers (ie most of the families of the students at Chadabwa) in rural areas, to find food. Money is hard to come buy as well. The amount of money they agreed to pay would be considered insignificant to Americans, but to these people, I'm not exaggerating when I say that they probably had to skip a few meals in order to pay up. Perhaps ignorantly, I decided that the school could handle the collection and use of this money. It turns out that I was wrong.

It was clear to everyone that the money was supposed to go towards the hostel project, but this hasn't happened at all. In Malawi, at well-to-do establishments such as higher-up government offices and banks, it is tradition to have a tea break in the middle of the morning (this is a legacy of British colonialism. Wait, isn't the US a former British colony? I don't remember ever getting any tea breaks at Pizza Factory.). In an attempt to emulate these well-to-do establishments and our former British colonizers, many schools try to have tea in the mornings as well, but tea+sugar+milk+paraffin+scones can be expensive to buy daily. Therefore, you find that many schools just illegally use the school's money to buy all of this since the teachers don't seem to have the initiative to feed themselves. As I already mentioned, the school has had a hard time with money lately. Consequently, tea was hard to come by, but I heard (from a reliable source) that once the students started paying the money for the hostel, the money that they were barely able to scrape together during difficult times, the tea started to flow again in the staff room. They were taking the poor students' money to buy junk food for themselves. I can't explain how upset this makes me. It isn't clear whether all of this money was used to buy tea, but it is clear that all of this money is gone, and consequently (in addition to the other reasons that I have mentioned), I don't see how we are going to continue with the construction of this project in the near future. But maybe I'm just being pessimistic.

I hate to end this on a sour note, but this is where things are at right now. I'll try to get things turned around. I'm confident that something good will come out of this. It's just gonna take a lot more work and patience than I had anticipated.

MCAT: April 16. Wish me luck.

"As far as I can see I made it to the threshold
Lord knows I waited for this a lifetime
And I’m an icon when I let my light shine
Shine bright as an example of a champion
Takin the advantage never coppin out or cancelin
Burn like a chariot, learn how to carry it
Maverick, always above and beyond average
Fuel to the flame that I train with and travel with
Something in my eyes say I’m so close
To having a prize
I realize I’m supposed to reach for the sky
Never let somebody try to tell you otherwise" Black Though, The Roots