The girls are back ard term feels well underway even though we've just finished week two.
For literature, Form One is reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I was worried that this would be vetoed as it is not on the national curriculum, but I think it got through a) Sister probably didn't actually read my schemes of work and b) because the JCE (form 1+2) doesn't have required texts in the same way that MSCE does, although every school in Malawi currently reads Tale of Tamari as it's novel. I read this with the girls last term just to make sure there would be no objections to reading Narnia on the basis of not having covered national texts. My justification is that we are working on English comprehension, which is generally very poor.
Form Two literature is starting The Pearl by Steinbeck. I love this work and am excited to read it with the girls. There are lots of parallels between colonialism in America and in Africa as well as themes relevant for today: materialism, greed, the value of things, human dignity, community, and on and on.
Form One history is looking at "ancient" African kingdoms beginning with Great Zimbabwe and the Mwenemutapa Kingdom. This is super fascinating for me, as African history us not something that I knew much about prior to having to teach it
For my Form Three history class, I am trying to make Colonial land, labor, and taxation policies interesting. Our first unit is on The Central African Federation (basically a federation of the British colonies in Central and Southern Africa).
While different British colonies handled "the native question" differently depending on the size of the settler population and the main industry, a common theme was shunting the indigenous people onto reserves of poor quality land. Land shortages, began almost immediately as large estates growing cash crops for export took the best land and the small poor quality plots were left for the by far more populous indigenous subsistence farmers. The land shortages continues today, but the causes are complicated by a rapidly growing population due to longer life expectancy and decreasing infant mortality alongside the continuing existence of large estates.
After my spring break excursion into the expat world, I asked two acquaintances how Malawians feel about all the nice lodges, safari camps, etc that are owned or run by foreigners. One replied that it is good, because Malawians lack the organization and skills to run such businesses, but by working for them they gain those skills. The other replied that people see jobs when azungus move in. If a white person comes to town with a business, "they think new boss."
I don't think it is always that positive though. Just from the history text books, there are, understandably, undertones of resentment. My intuition was verified in a newspaper article.
I learned about the new laws, because after a staff barbecue at which I had carried out part of my survey if feelings about foreigners, I did a Google search just to see what property values were. Well, there was a farm, actually a 500+ acre estate, for sale in nearby Chiponde. All my schemes and dreams about doing something concrete to help with reforestation and sustainable agriculture, which ebb and flow depending on what I'm reading and whether I'm looking at a denuded hillside, came rushing back.
97% of households rely on wood or charcoal for cooking, thus with a growing population, once wooded hills are now bare. I dreamed of starting a farm school to educate for sustainable forestry and agriculture, and living a very simple low tech life to be living proof that you don't need all the plastics and gadgets to have a high quality of life.
The property in Chiponde seemed ideal, and I had just learned that Madam B, the geography teacher, had run a pig and tomato farm for three years before teaching here and was just as interested in sustainable all natural agriculture as I am. It seemed like here was a life project: the land and people where coming together.
Then I learned that I could not buy property in Malawi. I could, apparently, if I did so through a business, but while all the dreamer types who I spoke to here and at home were universally enthusiastic about the value of such a project, the practical people I spoke with were highly cautionary against putting ones life savings for a land project that one cannot own. To be totally honest, I would have had to take out loans, and while the dreamer in me says that it would all work out and do great good, the hard reality is that I would be floundering around amid grand ideas and YouTube learned sustainability. So it goes as all pipe dreams do, and it is probably only Malawi's property laws that kept me from doing something very foolish, but someday, I will do something real.