Behind the Internship: 800 kilometers from Chipala

I looked down at my left hand. The dirt that had covered my palm and painted my fingers since earlier that morning had now turned to a streaky, brown mud. This probably had a lot to do with the fact that I had spent the last 45 minutes hand in hand with a little girl who was leading us towards her village. The sweat created between our intertwined fingers had led to a hand-holding session turned rather muddy. Yet, I looked down at this little girl, and smiled. It was about all we could do. She only spoke Chichewa; I only spoke English.  Yes, I had picked up a few token words and phrases in the past 4 weeks, but let me be clear, that after we had gotten past “what is your name?” and “how are you today?” my Chichewa skills were limited to the subject matter I’d been teaching in her school. For some reason, I had a feeling this young girl wasn’t in the mood to discuss “blood to blood transmission” (magazi ku magazi) or go over some of the fluids that carry HIV (umuna, ukazi, etc.). Thus, we were left with smiles and a mud-filled hand-in-hand walk from the school to her village.

            However, about 15 minutes into the walk, a thought occurred to me, along with some of the other interns. Song. That was something we all had in common. Repeat after me songs were something that all Malawian children I’ve come across truly seem to love. And so it began. First, some easy ones, “head, shoulder, knees, and toes,” “if you’re happy and you know it clap your hands,” and even a little “row, row, row your boat.”  After working through these absolute classics we glanced down at one of the young boys accompanying us on our walk whose name was Happy and inquired as to about how much further it would be to his village. His response? “Hmm, probably about 800 kilometers” – Interesting. Although it was likely that something had gotten lost in translation, we decided it was time that we step up our song-singing game. After all, we were surrounded by about 40 7^th grade students who were leading us down this dirt road towards the village, and now, we had gotten their hopes up that we had fantastic repeat-after-me sing alongs to fill the next 800 kilometers. It was time to get creative.

            Since we had done a pretty thorough job of covering the basics, we started introducing a slightly more diverse repertoire. After a quick minute or two of brainstorming, I felt up to the task. We spent the next 800 kilometers (or approximately 30 minutes) singing musical masterpieces such as “We got more bounce in California,” “I believe I can fly,” and a personal favorite, repeated verses of “Tonto, Jump on it.”  We laughed, we sweated, and we laughed some more as much of the songs got lost in translation.  However, 3 verses into a classic Taylor Swift melody, we began to see the outline of the village. That’s when it struck me for the first time. I had just completed the walk that each of these children did twice a day, to and from school. I began to smile, for it dawned on me that Happy had not misunderstood my question.  It probably DID feel like 800 kilometers between the village and school when it was a walk you did with such frequency.

            Upon arriving, we were seated under a patch of trees with the village Chief and all of his headmen. Within a few minutes of our arrival, most of the community had gathered for the event. After working in the school that is associated with this community for the past four days, each class of Standard 7 students had prepared a small presentation about one of the topics we had discussed (HIV or Deforestation).  Even the teachers prepared a small, informative presentation about how to care for someone with HIV.  Usually, these presentations are held at the school, and our largest audience includes the students themselves, some small children who have lingered around the school for the afternoon, and some wandering goats, stopping by to investigate all of the commotion.

As I looked around I realized there was probably close to 300 people who had taken time out of their day to come and watch the small presentations created by their children. Though this may seem like an obvious course of action for those of us accustomed to the American lifestyle where parents are front row at every recital, play, and spelling bee throughout our adolescence, this was a big deal for the parents of this community. Their daily tasks and responsibilities do not usually leave time for such luxuries as they were indulging in this afternoon. I was truly honored. As I glanced down at the Standard 7 students who had certainly noticed the large crowd that had now formed, I could tell, they were too. 

Submitted by:  Stewart Jones, Malawi SS1 2011 intern