The children of Dzama village

Today I went with Chimwemwe, a woman I work with in the Community Department, to the village of Dzama, about 20 minutes outside Lilongwe. The UNC Project has "adopted" Dzama, so to speak - in 2005 it financed the building of a water-pump and in 2006 a school for the very young kids in the village. When Dr. Cohen, the head of the ID department at UNC, was visiting a few weeks ago, he told me about Dzama and about the dire need for a primary school there. He hoped that as co-president of my med school class, I could get our class excited about the project, organize/fundraise, and he pledged that the ID department would match our funds, to the $15,000 needed to build the school.

So today I went to check things out - and became truly convinced of both the feasibility of this project and the great impact it would have on the children in this community.

Dzama is a village of around 400-500, no one could give me a good estimate, but there were 50 children between the ages of 3-6 in this classroom today, I just judged from that and the size of the village area. People with land grow corn and tobacco - but nothing is growing now, because its winter, the dry season.

These kids were the most orderly bunch of five-year-olds I've ever seen - sitting politely in their desks and greeting my halting Chichewa with "Good Morning!" They were sharing one box of crayons and a pad of paper torn into strips. OK, it was a 96-pack box...but still.

The schoolhouse is lit by four lightbulbs which hang from the ceiling and are powered by a single solar panel on the roof. The village has no electricity or plumbing, except in the school outhouse (also built by UNC Project.)

During the dry season in particular, food is very hard to come by. The fact that the young kids have this school means that even with its lack of books and supplies, they will get at least one noontime meal of porridge every day. When the children get to be 7-8, they're old enough to walk to the government primary school, 7 miles away. But the school is crowded and often without teachers.

So...here's the pile of bricks! Just a few short steps away from being a school, right? Unfortunately, the bricks have been there for a while, and the slightly-older boys (like the one in this photo) have discovered it's REALLY FUN to climb up the pile and throw bricks off the top. I tried to explain to them that if they want to break all the bricks, I can't help build them a school. Not sure how well that translated...in fact I'm pretty sure this kid climbed back up there after I walked away.

These are three of the teachers and one of the community leaders I met to discuss ideas and needs for the secondary school. They didn't speak too much English, so Chimwemwe helped me a lot with interpreting. She said they do try to teach the children English words - but its hard to get teachers who are fluent in English, and for children who may never get far from Dzama, it might not be the most important thing. Wouldn't it be exciting if a couple of UNC students could come over every summer to teach some English classes? Hmmm...

The school is in dire need of supplies - pens, paper, crayons, books in English of any description, preferably children's books, soccer balls (I've been impressed in every country I've ever visited, just what people will improvise as soccer balls.)
UNC Project (with the help of Dr. Gilligan, everyone's favorite microbe man!) also recently started a sustainable livestock program for the community - i.e., they bought the village 30 goats and built a stable for them. Ideally, the goats will breed and have baby goats, some of which can be sold to generate income for the school, and some of which may be used for meat for the children, who don't normally get much protein at all. (Its a sad irony of Malawi that they use only the nutritionally-lacking part of the corn to make nsima, and grind up the nutritive hulls and husks for sawdust, but thats the way things have been done forever.)

The goats seem happy to be sustainable. At least for now, before the dark intentions of the project reveal themselves to them...bwahahaha. OK its late, I may be getting a little punchy.

Right before I left, I took what may be the first-ever Dzama School Portrait. I'm going to print it out big and send it back with someone coming to Malawi from UNC soon, so they'll have it to hang in their classroom!

Long story short - I'm inspired. Hopefully my classmates will be too - if any of you are reading this and have ideas let me know! And if anyone wants to help me get these kids some books and soccer balls...they would very much appreciate it :)

Tomorrow I'm going to Zambia for safari! I'll (fingers crossed) have lots of pictures of lions and impala and buffalo and elephants and giraffes and zebras when I get back Tuesday!

Thanks for reading.