Typical Day

At 5:00 a.m. the roosters begin to crow. They freely roam our yard and have no consideration for the sleeping. At 6:00, we are all up and getting ready for the day. This is a morning culture.

The public school system in Malawi is free for Malawian citizens up through 5th grade. It is poorly funded and does not offer a very good education. Therefore, many private schools dot the city with varying degrees of educational opportunity. St. Andrew’s International Secondary School, where Terra attends, is the best opportunity in the area. Terra’s school begins at 7:00am. We walk. It is a busy road to St. Andrew’s. Many people are walking and driving, with a few bike riders. We turn right onto the road that leads down to Terra’s school. It is narrow, with two way traffic. Many shiny SUV’s hog the road in and out of the private school. They have no courtesy for pedestrians. I have jumped off the side of the road several times to avoid being hit by a side view mirror.

Jordan’s school is right across the street from our back yard and so we walk her through the gate and into the courtyard of Phoenix Primary school. The children must wear the standard striped uniform. The children look adorable in their pin stripped dresses. Both girls are doing well academically.

The girls are adjusting socially as well. Both have made solid friendships with other girls from the UK and Malawi. They begin to feel more comfortable with our new life here in Malawi. Terra was invited to a Friday night “youth group” gathering. She noted that of course nobody is Mrs. Collins, nevertheless, she had a great time, playing games and hearing a Christian message.

The girls finish the school day at noon. Sometimes they come home for lunch and we go to Open Arms Orphanage to hold babies. Sometimes they stay after school for “activities” such as sports or “house” meetings (like in Harry Potter). While they are at school, Stephen is either teaching at Zomba Theological College or working on a sermon and I am trying to discover ways in which to be connected.

Patrick does the laundry by hand in a tub outside under the tree where there is a water spigot and clothesline. Laundry is usually a 3-4 day process. It typically does not hang on the lines too long before it begins to rain. I help Patrick quickly gather the clothes off the outside line and bring them in to hang on lines strung down our hallway. The clothes do not dry very well in the dark, damp hallway, so when the sun comes out, the clothes are moved back outside.

All laundry hung outside must be ironed. Putzi flies lay their eggs on damp patches of earth or clothes. And as Alexander Fuller describes in her book about growing up in Africa, “Unless the clothes are ironed, the larva will work their way into your skin, becoming maggots, bursting into living squirming boils, emerging as full-blown, winged flies.” Therefore, all clothes, sheets, and towels must be ironed to kill the eggs. That thought really grosses me out! We iron everything!

By sundown, all businesses close and people are home. We have been warned not to go out at night, to close our windows and curtains as soon as it is dark. There are gangs. And so by 6:30 we are all home, no night meetings, no sports activities, no youth groups. We have dinner together, sit around the table and listen to everyone’s stories of the day gone by. We wash and dry dishes, finish homework, practice violin, read and check e-mails. The pace of life is much slower than our life at home, harder in some ways, but simpler. The girls like our evenings. We enjoy being together. We all check the blog site continually and relish comments, encouraging words and prayers. Thank you to all of you!