By Amber Fortin I think culture shock has begun hitting me. I catch myself in Penderson’s (1995) Honeymoon stage in culture shock, often because I am constantly in awe at the beauty of Malawi. I am so grateful to be here and I do not want to take any moment of this experience for granted. I have dreamed of travelling across Africa my whole life; watching discovery channel in amazement at the diversity and foreign animals, so I wanted to witness it with my own eyes. Yet the beauty cannot hide the poverty here in the villages. The poverty is difficult to swallow and adjust to, especially seeing it every day. Despite all the reasons to be sad here I am witnessing happiness in the smallest things which Westerners take for granted; Whether this is because Malawians regard the ‘azungu’, white presence, as saviors or just the beauties in life. I find myself frustrated by the kids’ excitement due to my skin color and their awe in just merely watching me like I am an extinct animal and it’s a miracle that I am in front of them. Many of the kids are so young that they have never seen someone of another skin tone. I am also becoming increasingly frustrated at Western culture and our society. The priorities I had and that others have are not truly important. Feelings of selfishness and shame are embedded in me looking back at my own life and what I have taken for granted for so long, such as clean water or even running water. I knew before but until you witness it and live with it, you cannot understand. Here some women and children must walk 1 km with a large pail of water on their heads and a baby on their backs to get back home. I am constantly astounded at the strength of the people here. I just wish I could do more, that I could actually help but money is not necessarily what is needed here. Creative problem solving, entrepreneurship, understanding and empowerment are what I hope to leave here. References Pederson, P. (1995). The five Stages of culture shock: critical incidents around the world. Westport, C.T: Greenwood Press.
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By Kassandra Norrie Dear Madonna, A few weeks ago as I was preparing to leave for Malawi and excitedly telling my friends about Transformative Praxis: Malawi I heard your name over and over again. The only time that most of my friends had heard of Malawi was in relation to your adopted children and the charitable work done by your organization Raising Malawi. When I told people I was coming to Malawi I was often cut off with, “that’s where Madonna’s kids are from” or “Madonna built a school there”. I had heard about both of these statements before but never really thought about either or done any research of my own. People at home in Canada make a happy connection when thinking of Malawi and Madonna, so I thank you for making little Malawi known to the world but that is where my thanks stop. I landed in Lilongwe two weeks ago and have since been living in the Kasungu region of Malawi. When speaking with other educators in Malawi your name does not provoke the same reaction here as it does at home. I was in disbelief when I was told that you have never actually built a school here. Really Madonna? If I was home I would have just Googled this on my phone. But today I had to get a ride to Kasungu Town to the closest internet café. I waited for what seemed like forever as the dialup connection was made because I wanted to know the truth. I opened webpage after webpage and they all said the same two things 1) despite millions being spent the Raising Malawi Academy For Girls project never broke ground 2) you claim to have built ten schools when really you have only renovated and built classrooms on existing government schools. Madonna, it really seems like you are overstating your contributions here in Malawi. I heard about land that was given to you to build your school for girls, I read every word written on the Raising Malawi website, and I even saw the promotional pictures of you laying the first brick, but is that all it was? Promotional? And what were you promoting exactly? Yourself being a philanthropist or the fact that schools are desperately needed right now in Malawi. The tiny eight room school block near our campus site hosts 1434 primary students, so I really hope those promotional pictures were about the desperate need for schools in Malawi and not all about your image. During my rushed research in the tiny internet café today I found lots of numbers about your budget so I’m going to use the smallest figures I saw to not overstate any contributions (as some of us are here). Your project had a budget of $15 million to work with and you spent $2.4 million before even breaking ground, so now I have some questions for you, because maybe I am confused.
7. Do you have any idea what I could do if I had a budget of $15 million to put towards education in Malawi? Madonna, we have one thing in common, we don’t like to hear the word “no” from anyone. For very different reasons I believe. You are the pop star who thinks it’s okay to ask a third world country to roll out the red carpet for you when you wave around money in the name of education. I on the other hand, won’t allow people to say “no” to me when I am doing what I know is right and good. Again, correct me if I am wrong: You may have come to Malawi with great and honourable intentions, but you got lost and gave up. You promised education to some of the neediest girls in the world and then you took it away. You made a promise of elite education, but then renovated some classrooms instead. You claimed to be dedicated to helping the extreme poor and orphaned children of Malawi, but then spent $2.4 million that cannot be accounted for. You heard the word “no” and then you gave up. This is where we are different. I have been told “no” many times in the field of education, and every time I do it makes me fight harder. I was told “no” when I thought I could not come to Malawi this year, but with the support of amazing people I am here. I was told “no” when lack of funding jeopardized student projects and experiential learning, but I raised money with only a few weeks left before our departure (and I can’t throw concerts for my rich celebrity friends on the North Lawn of the United Nations in New York). I was told “no” when my team was hit with issue after issue after arriving on site in Chilanga, but we found solutions together every time. You may hate to hear the word “no”, but at least it does not take the fight out of me. I am not making accusations; these are real questions that I am posing to you. Madonna, I have to ask you again: Do you have any idea what I could do if I had a budget of $15 million to put towards education in Malawi? I’m not quite sure either. But I am imagining it now, and it’s a heck of a lot more than one school for girls that never broke ground. Sincerely, Kassandra Norrie P.S. Why don’t you take a chance on us and see what Transformative Praxis: Malawi can do with the rest of your $15 million? By Kimberly Gregory There is not inherent truth to what gender is. Gender is a socially constructed identity and its meaning, which is constantly in flux, is determined by the context in which it arises. Gender inequality in Africa was reinforced by colonialism. Marc Epprecht (1998) explains the way in which colonial rule reinforced the customary imperative to reproduce, as it became a necessity for upward social mobility. Having many wives was also helpful for economic gain, as it provided them with access to more fields. Thus, in this historical context, in order to flourish, it was almost necessary to be a heterosexual. Individuals internalized the social expectations of gender norms and they behaved accordingly; the men dominated and married several women for increased capital. This also helps to shed light in one of the reasons why homosexuality was denied in many parts of Africa, it stood outside these gender norms. Amina Mama, (2001) states that, “gender in all of its diverse manifestations, has long been a central organizing principle of African societies, past and present” (p.69). The colonial era shaped African masculinity, which in turn shaped femininity. The colonizers emasculated African men by undermining their “ability to attain signifiers of social manhood” (Epprecht, 1998, p.641). Grown men were oppressed and treated like children. The objective for most was to become a “real man” by acquiring a submissive and fertile wife, getting land and supporting a growing family (Epprecht, 1998, p.641). Hence, directly shaping desired gender roles in African society. As a result, African men felt the need to overtly assert their masculinity. One way that they did this was by exercising power over women which was reflected in the increased number of rapes (Mismang, 2015). It is important to note that many countries in Africa have been striving for gender equality since the colonial era. Today, there is an increased role of women in African politics. Ngoni Okonjo-Iweala became the first female finance minister in Nigeria; Liberia’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is one of a handful of elected female heads of state in the world; the former president of Malawi, Joyce Banda was also a female. Pipits Nyong’o’s Oscar win and Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche’s literary successes have brought attentions to the artistic triumphs of a younger generation of women (Mismang, 2015). Thus, when women use their agency they can defy gender norms and stereotypes. Nonetheless, “the distance between this development and the reality of the overwhelming number of girls and women everywhere is vast and seemingly unbridgeable” (Kaplan, 2008, p.41). Still today, life for many women in African countries is extremely brutal (Kaplan, 2008, p.41). In many places, “women still have no rights at all, they are legally considered to be minors, their lives in the hands of their husbands” (Kaplan, 2008, p.41). Specifically, I have noticed that gender inequality still prevails in the Kuwumba region of Malawi. For instance, when I went to the Praxis Malawi Community Centre yesterday I ended up reading to a group of young children. When I asked them questions about the stories, the women would always put their heads down and let the men answer for them. Even when I specifically pointed to a young girl, said her name and asked her to answer, she did not (even though I knew that she had the ability to). This was reminiscent of the behavior that I had witnessed with certain adults from the surrounding communities during my last visit here. During our visit at the Chilanga Elementary School, some of my colleagues witnessed something that confirmed the phenomena that I had observed. The students were asked to work in groups and they naturally divided themselves based on gender. The boys worked with the boys and the girls with the girls. When the professor was asked why they were divided this way, he explained that if they do not divide them this way, the girls will not participate. Systematically separating them in school makes it challenging to strive for equality. Another moment that I noticed that boys and girls were separated based on gender was when the children were playing soccer and the girls did not want to play soccer with the boys because they insisted that it was a “boys sport”. This was also the case when the boys were asked to play netball; they explained that it was a “girls sport”. The children are in the habit of separating themselves based on gender, thus it occurs naturally even outside of the classroom, which once again, makes it challenging to develop equal relationships amongst genders. One of the local community members that I am working with on this project discussed the issue of gender inequality with me, she explained to me that women in this region tend to hold traditional gender roles; they stay at home, cook, clean, take care of the children, etc. She also explained that women are much more likely to drop out of school early because they must take on these various responsibilities at home. Another reason that they sometimes drop out of school early is because of early marriages. Men and women, young or old seem to take on dichotomized gender roles in the Kuwumba region of Malawi. The curriculum that my colleagues and I are constructing during our time here is for a charter school, therefore it is my objective to empower women and break the gender norms that prevent them from full participation in society. We started working on the grade 3 curriculum today. In the first unit, we have included many conversations about democracy within the classroom. Specifically, how both boys and girls have an equal right to voice their opinions. Hopefully, the ideologies that children will develop in the classroom concerning this matter will later be transposed onto society as whole. References Mismang (2015). The backlash against African women. Mama, Amina. Challenging subject: Gender and power in Africa contexts. Africa sociological review, 5. (2) 2001. Epprecht, Marc. The unsaying of indigenous homosexualities in Zimbabwe: Mapping African masculinity. 1998. Caplan, Kaplan. (2008). The betrayal of Africa. By Ryan Moyer Through my visits to various villages surrounding the Transformational Praxis: Malawi campus, it has come to my attention that access to fresh water is a huge issue for the Kasungu population. The lack of safe drinking water is usually the first issue that comes to light through dialogue. The guilt hits as I sip fresh water from my Nalgene; the upper middle class version of a water bottle. My water bottle is more outdoorsy than me; for shame. As I walk for hours a day through ferns and plants, and wildlife I’ve never encountered, I am beginning to feel a greater connect with the outside world, with mother earth. Okay hippy! But seriously, moments experienced walking through the Malawian countryside has really calmed me. The more I stay contained in the hostel, the more my thoughts do too, as they seem to flourish as much as the surrounding plants. But…streams are scarce. And in case you have forgotten, as some of my colleagues who wash their clothes every day have, water is important. Conversing with local community has begun to elucidate the seemingly obvious, yet infrequently considered by some, intersections of the issue of water with other issues. How can one farm produce efficiently if their water is breaking their body down? These conclusions, some coming from visuals of ‘boreholes’, have begun to break me down as well; much faster than last year. I find myself choking back tears as I explain that I cannot provide immediate relief. But who wouldn’t? The Honeymooners![1] Need to work out, can’t start yelling already. I don’t know how Dr. Stonebanks is so relaxed when witnessing laughter instead of anger. I suppose both are powerful and motivating. Who am I to judge? I was emotionally schizophrenic last year. I wish the first years luck. This ‘emotional schizophrenia’ has lead me to understand rather than get angry with members of other Praxis Malawi teams who have looked the same villagers in the face after hearing their life threatening issues and promised them wells, boats and boat motors. It is the subsequent travelers that must begin, not with a fresh slate, but with deep trust issues to combat. Trust issues that are amplified due to our Western/European roots. I would be angry too. Seeing anger amongst villagers is refreshing. The local community knows they have been screwed; on both a macro and a micro level; over and over again. How many times can a man be lied to before projecting complete apathy and indifference? I believe it was the monarch and eloquent philosopher George Bush who publicly proclaimed that “You can fool me once, you can fool me….you can fool me….but I’m…I’m not going to be fooled again!” References Pederson, P. (1995). The five Stages of culture shock: critical incidents around the world. Westport, C.T: Greenwood Press. By Alex Bernier The Transformative Praxis: Malawi Campus is big, cleaned daily, and secluded from the community members and their impoverished way of life. Exposure to a struggling life is not what I’m experiencing besides being with the children on our Campus. My focus here is to build curriculum with the other education students and to work on lesson plans for the after school program. There is little chance to be working with the community members like the other projects going on, such as the compost pit or chicken co-op projects. As a result, I believe I am stuck in the first stage of culture shock as stated by Pederson (1995): the honeymoon stage. This stage is known as having a sense of intrigue, excitement and overall euphoria. As much as I may be comfortable in this stage, this experience and opportunity to be in Malawi and working with these people is pointless for the community and myself if I don’t proceed to the next stage: the disintegration stage. It might not be a bad thing that I am going through culture shock slowly, but I do find that I am second guessing myself and sad about not feeling bad for the Malawians as much as I know I would be if I was exposed more to their living situations. Another concern I have is going through reverse culture shock when I return home and go back to Bishop’s University in the fall. However, I am learning cultural difference as some interactions are made on campus, like language, behavioral, food, and Malawian ways of cleaning. Tomorrow, the Education students and I are going to the Chilanga School for the Blind and the Chilanga Sighted School. I imagine these will be big class sizes and strict teachers but I am unsure what else to expect. I just hope for a meaningful experience. I have to push myself out of my comfort zone in general and communicate with the community to get the reality check that I need. References Pederson, P. (1995). The five Stages of culture shock: critical incidents around the world. Westport, C.T: Greenwood Press. By Kassandra Norrie I sat as a guest today in a circle of chiefs who were meeting outside under a tree to discuss Praxis Malawi. As I waited for the discussion to be translated to me from their native language of Chechewa I watched the faces of the men. I knew the topics being covered and I could follow along if I paid close attention because English words were often added into sentences when there was not an equivalent Chechewa translation. By watching the faces of the men around me I could see which chiefs were agreeing or questioning the points being discussed. Beyond the men in the circle there was a well that women were occasionally coming to use, and then continuing along their paths with a heavy bucket of water balanced on their heads. After a few women caused me to look up from the meeting I noticed that they always came and left with the same pail, yet maybe twenty or so buckets and pails were strewn across the ground around the well. Some time later the after school program being led by Praxis Malawi members across the road from me finished and a group of young girls ran up to the well. I continued to focus on my meeting, but I was distracted by what I had just realized. The buckets and pails had not been abandoned at the well, but rather these girls had dropped them off on their way to school that morning. These girls had gone to school all day, participated in the after school program, and now as the sun was setting they had to fetch water before going home. It took close to an hour for all of the buckets and pails to be filled, but the girls all stayed and worked together as a team. They took turns pumping the well (sometimes three at a time for the youngest), shuffling the pails under the waterspout, and playing off to the side. Girls could have easily taken their pail home once it was filled but they remained a team. The first girls to leave were the few with babies tied to their backs. Three girls lifted the heavy buckets onto their friends’ heads, then waved and sang usiku wabwino (goodbye) as girls expertly balanced buckets and walked away. Once all the pails were filled, they worked together again to lift all of the pails onto each other’s heads before walking away in all directions of the many paths. All of these girls were elementary school aged. When I was that age, my only responsibilities were to do homework and play nicely with my siblings. These girls spent their day at school, did extra work in the after school program, and then worked as a team to fill pails of water to carry home. It took more than an hour of labour after a long day to bring home an element so natural and vital that we get so simply by turning a tap. By Kate Newhouse How does Malawi’s past affect our present identity? This was the title of our first unit that we completed today. The unit theme was “Malawi” and focused on past/present, and identity as our concepts. We found this was a great way to be introduced to our co-learners. We were able to ask them questions about Malawi and they had some great ideas of lessons and subjects we should add. We had an Education Boot camp back in April and we chose the final two units for the grade 2 curriculum that were started on last year’s Praxis Malawi trip. We decided the two units should be water and discussinghow important water is and then finish the grade 2 year with a unit called Malawi. We thought Malawi would be a great way to end the year as some of the activities would be based on prior knowledge from previous units that year. The final project would allow students to answer the question of: “What does being a Malawian mean to you?” Students would then be able to answer this in a multitude of different ways. I am enjoying working with everyone here and I am really using what we have learned at Bishop’s in real life situations. Getting to use Lynn Erikson’s curriculum building model for creating units using themes and concepts and then trying to put them into practice here in Malawi is exciting! What a unique experience. By Karen Jeffery Accompanied by plenty of stares we departed the airport at Lilongwe. After our journey was much longer than we expected we were relieved to be on the final stretch of our journey, a 90-minute car journey to our home for the next five weeks. I couldn’t hide my fascination as I observed everything along the roadside. Everything was unfamiliar, but exciting and full of character. I smiled at the goats and the pigs roaming freely, the children helping their parents sell fruit at the side of the road, the people saluting our car full of white people and the bikes traveling from one village to the next – most loaded with two passengers. The names of the shops amused me most and almost all were in English; “Up Up Jesus” was a personal favourite. Since arrival I have congratulated the contractor numerous times for our impressive hostel. It is far more than I expected, almost reminding me of a Mediterranean villa. At the same time, I’m acutely aware that this is far from the living conditions that our co-learners and workers return home to. In the same way that there are five stages of grief, there are five stages of culture shock. The outlined phases are the honeymoon stage, the disintegration stage, the reintegration stage, the autonomy stage, and the interdependence stage (Stonebanks, 2013). Culture shock is something we’ve all been reading about and preparing ourselves for. I think experiencing culture shock is a crucial part of this project, a part that will allow me to become more realistic about health actions that can be taken by the locals, whom I have already become fond of. Even after one day here I am questioning how I can experience the full depth of this culture shock when I am sleeping in a bed more comfortable than what I have at home. I’ve already been served three meals with chips amongst other western foods, we have electricity when we need it and the toilets and showers are much more glamorous than what I had been trying to prepare myself for. This state of bliss is not how Malawian people live. Honeymoon bliss this may be, but with such feelings of confusion, guilt and frustration with the unfairness of it all, could I be experiencing parts of the disintegration stage even after one day of being here? This project aims to be a collaboration of people. A collaboration of different cultures, different skin colours, but all equal and all people. I can’t help but question how we can achieve this when so far all we’ve been provided with is stereotypical to the image of the superior western white person which is an idea we’ve come to try and break down. By Katie Schouten We landed in Lilongwe airport around midday Wednesday and to our delight we met a hostel co-coordinator, Francis, who took us to The Campus. The journey from the airport to the accommodation was one I can only describe as surreal. My eyes filled with amazement and fascination as we got to see women selling tomatoes on the side of the road and carrying heavy buckets of water on their head while no cars passed for miles. The fields full of sugar cane and maize really put into perspective the lifestyle I had pre-conceived before I arrived. As my main focus here is health and well being I looked around this brand new region wondering if people even had time to be unwell, or focus on pain or dwell on being sick. Making a living was a key component of survival. I felt a level of understanding and acceptance as to why people in these countries can put their health on the back burner. Making a living is the only means of food. Something so simple, yet most of us in other countries will always have food on the table without making a living. Being born into a level of poverty such as this is a question that really struck me. Such as being sick and having no medicine, no transportation or distractions. Being from this beautiful yet very poor part of the world is a question unanswerable, but contrast is definite. Why someone who has so much potential is given a life lacking basic needs and rights is overwhelming. I can only learn from this with the mindset I use while working as a student nurse with people with intellectual disabilities. I often feel that our world has people like us and people with disabilities to make us feel more. Individuals with a disability give us a real sense of why to care about others. In Chilanga where we stay in the Kasungu region I hope that I can strengthen these feelings. It’s important to me what I can bring home from this project as I learn more about this region each day. By Natchasiri (Froy Choi) Kunaporn When we arrived, I had one concern that was resonating in my head. As far as my intention for this trip goes, how will I ever get out of the stereotype of a young ‘asungu’ believing that she could save everyone in Africa’? Perhaps, I do not want to bear the guilt of people mistaking my intentions as a chance to ‘be touristy’ and do some humanitarian work, because it is completely the other way round. I find myself being mad for having better ‘luck’ than many people here. Being completely aware about the amount of time and the specific tasks I have, I try not to get belittled about my project and the impact it will produce. I do not want to be lost in the belief that I am the change, but I want to believe that I can complete my part and be a part of the big picture, in the long run. Africa is often wrongly referred as a whole homogenous country. When we complain about the things we cannot have or when we couldn’t finish our food, people around us overuse the phrase ‘think about the kids in Africa’. As a young child I never understood how that phrase and my follow through actions would make any children in Africa get less hungry? Especially now that I got to meet so many of the Malawian children living in very poor conditions, they are still smiling more than that kid back home who couldn’t play on his iPad during dinner. In my opinion, that phrase was used upon us to create guilt and false generosity. The heroic characteristic that the western world has built around the ‘more privileged’ has been soiled into many minds hence making many feel like a few weeks away would make them come back home heroic. We are students on loans, we are not millionaires, we implement ideas with our little gofundme accounts. My peer said to me, ‘We are not handing out water bottles, we are laying a foundation for the long term.’ It is always useful both when I am feeling upset and when I am feeling too much of the bliss. Lately I have been feeling a lump of guilt about many people suffering closer to home. Many of us forget that we have access to projects in Canada for the indigenous people who are living in conditions very close to a third world country. However, still I am more exposed to humanitarian work so far away from home. I feel like there is a strong culture of voluntourism that cannot be easily changed. Many often come for a short time, thinking that they succeeded and leave. We love being heroes, but as harsh as it may sound, it is very important to remind ourselves the most beautiful flowers do grow in the darkest place. |
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About the BlogFrom 2013 to 2017 students participating in Transformative Praxis: Malawi wrote blog posts reflecting on their experiences of participating in action research in Malawi. Archives
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