ICS Malawi

Team Chikaya have almost finished their first round of peer education sessions with Musegede and Champhira youth clubs, and I love what the youth and the volunteers are doing. Before our first session started we played games. Girls played netball while boys played football. The boys had to wait for the girls to finish because they only have one ball. Only two volunteers Holly Barker and Tawonga Kamanga partook in netball, while Jon Sim, Isaac Murry, Richard and I played football. We were on different sides and it was great fun. People were happy to play with the azungu.

Following a fifteen-minute walk through surprisingly beautiful flowering tobacco plants, preceded by a typical Malawian bus ride of flailing limbs as a result of both the road conditions and an attempt to dance to the African music, we were greeted by Boston L.M. Mayotcha, the High Chief of Mayotcha village. Dressed in smart-casual attire with the addition of a fur headdress and a bone bangle, he greeted us with a welcoming smile.

Family is a word with a variety of different meanings. Defined it is ‘a group consisting of parents and children living together in a household’, however this is not always the case. Families differ greatly in terms of economic, cultural, social and many other facets. Family members are often close and feel they can depend on each other for caring guidance and support but what’s most important is the love or common interests that bind them together.

I was heading home after a day at SPRODETA, crossing the dusty red football field, when I noticed a group of young women playing netball. They quickly noticed me watching and beckoned me over to join them. They played on the edge of the field, on a patch of sand surrounded by trailing weeds and overgrown bushes. The young women, aged between 24 and 26, were being trained by a male coach of the same age. They were taking his advice with enthusiasm; his expertise and familiarity with his players obvious.

Having been nervous up to our travel date (5 April 2016), I had researched and read every blog posted onto the Progressio website, to prepare myself on what’s to come. But having arrived in Lilongwe, Malawi, all of my expectations had simply gone out of the window.

Team Bonding

During one of the nights at our in-country training in Lilongwe, I remember being quite annoyed. Once I tell you the reason, you're going to think "urgh, what a brat". To be honest, looking back at the moment retrospectively, I was being a little madam. The reason behind my annoyance was that some of our fellow Malawian volunteers were playing a really loud game, which required them to sing and bounce a ball. They were playing this right outside of my room. I was annoyed because I felt they were disturbing my silence as I was desperately trying to get connected to the internet.

For my action at home, I organised an event which I called volunteering day. The aim of the event was to raise awareness among young people and the community on the importance of taking part in different volunteer activities.

So that’s it. After a whirlwind three months, I have completed my Progressio ICS placement in Malawi. This sadly means that I have been returned back to the normality of the UK for just over a month now. For those who haven’t been to Malawi this means being unable to buy boiled eggs, doughnuts and samosas from the market stalls and a distinct lack of nsima! I can now class myself as a ‘returned volunteer’ or alumni, but here’s eight things I have learnt:

1) ‘This one time in Malawi…’

Last Thursday, 21 April, we headed out for our first visit to the communities in Mzimba district, whose youth clubs had expressed an interest in working with us. These villages are called Chasato, Kazomba, Musegede and Champhira. The communities range from 5km away from Mzimba town in the case of Chasato and Kazomba, to Champhira, which is 50km away.

We arrived in Malawi, welcomed by the blisteringly hot, yet somewhat, vitalising African sun. Frantically we shuffled around Lilongwe Airport trying to exchange British Pounds to Malawian Kwacha, before being quickly moved into a compact Toyota bus and driven towards our lodge, where we would receive the in-country training.