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March 2007
Update on the School Breakfast Program as described by Melissa Wood, Volunteer.
Kitchen construction finished on February 20th. On the 16th and 19th I spent the day weighing and measuring students in grades 1 to 8. The
kids loved finding out their weights (in kgs) but few of them cared about their heights. Most of them may not have been weighed since they were
a small child. Each month I will measure the students to keep growth charts with the attendance records and hopefully identify severally
malnourished children to help us develop other ways to assist those households individually.
On February 21st we began serving porridge! The first day all of the 15 women on the committee came to assist with the preparations. The
committee has a representative from each of the 15 villages and after Wednesday they broke into groups of five to come for two days at a time
to cook and serve the pupils. Starting next week, now that all of the committee members are familiar with the cooking/serving procedures, one
committee member will lead a team of four women from their village for two day shifts. I am excited about this set-up, devised by the committee
and the village headmen, because it will relieve the committee members of some work as well as involve the entire community in the project.
The whole community has already been mobilized by the village headmen and committee members to provide firewood for cooking. On
Saturday Feb. 24th, twenty people from each village (10 men, 10 women, men of course carrying large pieces on their shoulders and women
carrying bundles on their heads) brought firewood.
Here is an example of a day at the kitchen: At 4:25 my alarm goes off and I find my flashlight roll out of bed and try not to wake Christy and
Bethany as I prepare to leave for the kitchen. More than ever I am now missing my microwave because I have to boil my coffee water the night
before and leave it in our flask. After my “warm” cup of coffee, I walk from our house down the road through the school block to the kitchen.
Some days my committee chair, Judith Bota, has already arrived at the kitchen and started to pemba moto, make the fires. The kitchen was
extended to include a side porch, 14ft long and 61/2 ft wide, where three stations were set up to cook. Basically the “stove” is four short rows of
bricks covered in cement with groves for the four metal bars to rest in and hold the pots over the fire. So far we have only needed to use two of
the sections to accommodate our four pots. The women love the pots because they are easy to handle and cook quickly, I have had a few
people ask me if they make them in smaller sizes for their homes; however, to accommodate all 410-450 students we need to cook six pots of
porridge. Thankfully all of the pots, bowls, and spoons arrived the week before we began cooking. The committee loves the supplies and
frequently tells people that everything they needed to cook was provided from buckets, to pots, to bowls, and spoons. They are very
encouraged by the kindness shown by all of the donors in America.
So after starting the fires, we fill the pots (water is collected at the end of the previous day) with water and wait for them to get just near a boiling
point before we start to add the porridge flour and salt. One pot of porridge takes about 1 ½ to 2 hours to cook thoroughly. It starts out
needing constant stirring and strong flames, but as it thickens we simply cover them and reduce the fire to coals until the soy is finished
cooking. The first group of students (grades 1 and 2) eat at 8:30, so at 8:00 we pull the first pot off the fire, stir in the sugar, and begin
scooping the porridge into bowls in the main room. The bowls fit perfectly in pairs along the window ledge so we arrange all of the porridge
before calling the pupils to come to the kitchen. Our largest group by far, standard 1 and 2 have grown significantly just in the two weeks that
we started serving porridge. Now unless it’s raining, there are around 180 1st and 2nd graders. If the weather’s nice the kids are able to sit
outside under the trees surrounding the back of the school yard near the kitchen entrance. The committee members and teachers supervise
while the kids eat and to date no bowls or spoons have been lost!
After Standards 1 and 2 we move on to 5-6 (approximately 80 pupils), standard 7 (35-38 including their brilliant teacher, Bethany Hamoud who
loves our porridge), and the three other volunteer teachers. These five classes usually finish the first four pots of porridge. By this time, the
women have already started the next two pots of porridge and they sit boiling away as we continue clean up and wait for them to finish. Usually
these pots finish around 10:30 and then we serve standard 8 (approx. 45 pupils) and standard 3-4 (90 pupils) who do not arrive at the school
until late morning because they have afternoon classes. All clean-up and preparations for the next day are usually finished between 12:00 and
1:00 and we all finally head home.
On an average day we serve approximately 420-430 students (I recorded the heights/weights of 460 students but that was over the course of a
few days); however, on rain days many of the younger students fail to come to school and even the older students arrive late. So far we have
only had one day of heavy rain where we needed to pour the porridge into buckets and serve it in the classrooms. The community and school
reaction has been very positive. The children are of course thrilled to eat porridge everyday. I have already gained a reputation as the bala
(the Tumbuka word for porridge) lady so as soon as I approach a class the students start whispering “bala, bala”. The teachers are also
enthusiastic about the program and yesterday the area school overseer came to see the program for himself and asked Mr. Mbale (the
headmaster) to write up a report for the district education officer. My biggest supporter so far has been Judith Bota, our committee
chairperson, who faithfully comes to the kitchen each day to check on progress even if she isn’t cooking and has taken initiative to organize
meetings, contact village headmen, and help the rest of the committee take ownership of the project. She has been a true blessing to me and
the program.
Update on the School Breakfast Program as described by Melissa Wood, Volunteer.
Kitchen construction finished on February 20th. On the 16th and 19th I spent the day weighing and measuring students in grades 1 to 8. The
kids loved finding out their weights (in kgs) but few of them cared about their heights. Most of them may not have been weighed since they were
a small child. Each month I will measure the students to keep growth charts with the attendance records and hopefully identify severally
malnourished children to help us develop other ways to assist those households individually.
On February 21st we began serving porridge! The first day all of the 15 women on the committee came to assist with the preparations. The
committee has a representative from each of the 15 villages and after Wednesday they broke into groups of five to come for two days at a time
to cook and serve the pupils. Starting next week, now that all of the committee members are familiar with the cooking/serving procedures, one
committee member will lead a team of four women from their village for two day shifts. I am excited about this set-up, devised by the committee
and the village headmen, because it will relieve the committee members of some work as well as involve the entire community in the project.
The whole community has already been mobilized by the village headmen and committee members to provide firewood for cooking. On
Saturday Feb. 24th, twenty people from each village (10 men, 10 women, men of course carrying large pieces on their shoulders and women
carrying bundles on their heads) brought firewood.
Here is an example of a day at the kitchen: At 4:25 my alarm goes off and I find my flashlight roll out of bed and try not to wake Christy and
Bethany as I prepare to leave for the kitchen. More than ever I am now missing my microwave because I have to boil my coffee water the night
before and leave it in our flask. After my “warm” cup of coffee, I walk from our house down the road through the school block to the kitchen.
Some days my committee chair, Judith Bota, has already arrived at the kitchen and started to pemba moto, make the fires. The kitchen was
extended to include a side porch, 14ft long and 61/2 ft wide, where three stations were set up to cook. Basically the “stove” is four short rows of
bricks covered in cement with groves for the four metal bars to rest in and hold the pots over the fire. So far we have only needed to use two of
the sections to accommodate our four pots. The women love the pots because they are easy to handle and cook quickly, I have had a few
people ask me if they make them in smaller sizes for their homes; however, to accommodate all 410-450 students we need to cook six pots of
porridge. Thankfully all of the pots, bowls, and spoons arrived the week before we began cooking. The committee loves the supplies and
frequently tells people that everything they needed to cook was provided from buckets, to pots, to bowls, and spoons. They are very
encouraged by the kindness shown by all of the donors in America.
So after starting the fires, we fill the pots (water is collected at the end of the previous day) with water and wait for them to get just near a boiling
point before we start to add the porridge flour and salt. One pot of porridge takes about 1 ½ to 2 hours to cook thoroughly. It starts out
needing constant stirring and strong flames, but as it thickens we simply cover them and reduce the fire to coals until the soy is finished
cooking. The first group of students (grades 1 and 2) eat at 8:30, so at 8:00 we pull the first pot off the fire, stir in the sugar, and begin
scooping the porridge into bowls in the main room. The bowls fit perfectly in pairs along the window ledge so we arrange all of the porridge
before calling the pupils to come to the kitchen. Our largest group by far, standard 1 and 2 have grown significantly just in the two weeks that
we started serving porridge. Now unless it’s raining, there are around 180 1st and 2nd graders. If the weather’s nice the kids are able to sit
outside under the trees surrounding the back of the school yard near the kitchen entrance. The committee members and teachers supervise
while the kids eat and to date no bowls or spoons have been lost!
After Standards 1 and 2 we move on to 5-6 (approximately 80 pupils), standard 7 (35-38 including their brilliant teacher, Bethany Hamoud who
loves our porridge), and the three other volunteer teachers. These five classes usually finish the first four pots of porridge. By this time, the
women have already started the next two pots of porridge and they sit boiling away as we continue clean up and wait for them to finish. Usually
these pots finish around 10:30 and then we serve standard 8 (approx. 45 pupils) and standard 3-4 (90 pupils) who do not arrive at the school
until late morning because they have afternoon classes. All clean-up and preparations for the next day are usually finished between 12:00 and
1:00 and we all finally head home.
On an average day we serve approximately 420-430 students (I recorded the heights/weights of 460 students but that was over the course of a
few days); however, on rain days many of the younger students fail to come to school and even the older students arrive late. So far we have
only had one day of heavy rain where we needed to pour the porridge into buckets and serve it in the classrooms. The community and school
reaction has been very positive. The children are of course thrilled to eat porridge everyday. I have already gained a reputation as the bala
(the Tumbuka word for porridge) lady so as soon as I approach a class the students start whispering “bala, bala”. The teachers are also
enthusiastic about the program and yesterday the area school overseer came to see the program for himself and asked Mr. Mbale (the
headmaster) to write up a report for the district education officer. My biggest supporter so far has been Judith Bota, our committee
chairperson, who faithfully comes to the kitchen each day to check on progress even if she isn’t cooking and has taken initiative to organize
meetings, contact village headmen, and help the rest of the committee take ownership of the project. She has been a true blessing to me and
the program.
July 2007
Hi everyone, (Excerpted from an email from Melissa)
Well it has been a very long time since I have sent out a group email. I think the last one might have been at the start of the breakfast program
back in February. Since then the program has been progressing very well. We cooked for the first term of school with the committee
members coming in groups of five, learning and taking leadership responsibility for the activities. Starting in May, the women from the villages
started cooking. Each committee member from the fifteen villages brings four women to cook for two days. Overall, the women have done an
excellent job. It has been wonderful to see some of them blossom as leaders in their own groups and to see more people involved in the
program. It will still take more time to work out all of the systems and prepare the program to be run completely by the community, but I think
we are off to a great start. The second term will end next Friday and then there will be a month of holiday until the third term begins. During
that time, I'll be busy purchasing maize and soy as well as possibly making some adjustments to the kitchen to cut down on smoke and
firewood use. (To see pictures visit our Photos page)
The last two months have actually brought many visitors. Mike Mtika arrived in early June. It has been a blessing having him around to talk
with about projects and to sort out the details for the upcoming year. I will be continuing with Giving Heart Ministries working on the breakfast
program primarily but responsible for all of the education services including repairs and the scholarship fund. Of course Mike has been very
busy here in Malawi (he never sits still or stays in one place for too long) but we will be very sad to see him go back to America this week.
The beginning of July brought another visitor to Zowe. Frank Nefos,k a teacher from Fugett Middle School who raised the money for the maize
mill, came and spent a week in Zowe seeing the mill and the community. Unfortunately the mill was not operating fully while he was here but
he was able to see the machines and completed building as well as participate in an opening dedication.
The other girls are doing well. Bethany is anxiously awaiting the opening of the mill. It opened for one day and ground the flour for the
breakfast program and then we realized there were a few problems that will require the enginer to return. Hopefully he will be coming with Mr.
Mughogho this week and Bethany will be able to set up all the systems and finally begin operation.
Hopefully the next time that I write will be sooner. We have had computer problems and internet difficulties the last few months, but I should at
least be able to send an update in the next month while I'm not heading to school at 4am everyday. Thanks again for all of your support and
prayers.
Hi everyone, (Excerpted from an email from Melissa)
Well it has been a very long time since I have sent out a group email. I think the last one might have been at the start of the breakfast program
back in February. Since then the program has been progressing very well. We cooked for the first term of school with the committee
members coming in groups of five, learning and taking leadership responsibility for the activities. Starting in May, the women from the villages
started cooking. Each committee member from the fifteen villages brings four women to cook for two days. Overall, the women have done an
excellent job. It has been wonderful to see some of them blossom as leaders in their own groups and to see more people involved in the
program. It will still take more time to work out all of the systems and prepare the program to be run completely by the community, but I think
we are off to a great start. The second term will end next Friday and then there will be a month of holiday until the third term begins. During
that time, I'll be busy purchasing maize and soy as well as possibly making some adjustments to the kitchen to cut down on smoke and
firewood use. (To see pictures visit our Photos page)
The last two months have actually brought many visitors. Mike Mtika arrived in early June. It has been a blessing having him around to talk
with about projects and to sort out the details for the upcoming year. I will be continuing with Giving Heart Ministries working on the breakfast
program primarily but responsible for all of the education services including repairs and the scholarship fund. Of course Mike has been very
busy here in Malawi (he never sits still or stays in one place for too long) but we will be very sad to see him go back to America this week.
The beginning of July brought another visitor to Zowe. Frank Nefos,k a teacher from Fugett Middle School who raised the money for the maize
mill, came and spent a week in Zowe seeing the mill and the community. Unfortunately the mill was not operating fully while he was here but
he was able to see the machines and completed building as well as participate in an opening dedication.
The other girls are doing well. Bethany is anxiously awaiting the opening of the mill. It opened for one day and ground the flour for the
breakfast program and then we realized there were a few problems that will require the enginer to return. Hopefully he will be coming with Mr.
Mughogho this week and Bethany will be able to set up all the systems and finally begin operation.
Hopefully the next time that I write will be sooner. We have had computer problems and internet difficulties the last few months, but I should at
least be able to send an update in the next month while I'm not heading to school at 4am everyday. Thanks again for all of your support and
prayers.
March 2008 - Excerpted from an email from Melissa Wood.
Once we were finally able to settle back into life in Zowe after leaving every few days all has been well and still quite busy. The school breakfast
program has been running smoothly, with a much higher rate of participation than the previous term. We are also back to full classes with over
400 students eating porridge every day. This is of course affected slightly by the heavy rains and for a few weeks at the end of January we did
not see many of the first and second grade students at school on rainy mornings because the walk was too far considering the weather. But
many students have been coming to school especially because hunger has become a serious problem in many of the villages. Though Malawi
as a nation has surplus corn, many of the people in Zowe and the surrounding Euthini area are having difficulty finding corn because they have
finished their stores from the previous year's harvest. Numerous factors play into the situation, among them a lack of planning amongst the
people who sold their corn to the government markets in the summer months, which is the same corn that the government is selling back to
them now but with the rains and poor road conditions to the rural areas large trucks are unable to come to Euthini carrying corn and even the
smaller shipments have been stuck along the way in the last few weeks creating long lines outside of the stores. Giving Heart was seeking
permission to buy corn from the government markets in town and transport it here to Zowe, but we met opposition in several areas. So now we
are not sure if there will be anyway for us to assist, though we are still trying to pursue other options. Please pray for the health and attitudes of
the community members as we face this difficult time of the year, so that hopefully steps can be taken to prevent this type of situation in the
future. The rains have been very strong these last few weeks increasing water-levels in our Mzambazi river to above the bridge level on several
occasions. After heavy down-pours that often last for several hours or all throughout the night, the bridge has been completely overtaken by
the river as it swells for about a day then again recedes if the rains subside. This has created large holes in both sides of the bridge's dirt
ramps. The community organized to fill them with sand bags but only a few days later a large rain swept them away again. They organized
another development day and since that time the bridge has been accessible and a slowing in the rainfall over the last week has kept the road
stable. As for me, I am busy splitting my time between the breakfast program,labeling and shelving library books.
Once we were finally able to settle back into life in Zowe after leaving every few days all has been well and still quite busy. The school breakfast
program has been running smoothly, with a much higher rate of participation than the previous term. We are also back to full classes with over
400 students eating porridge every day. This is of course affected slightly by the heavy rains and for a few weeks at the end of January we did
not see many of the first and second grade students at school on rainy mornings because the walk was too far considering the weather. But
many students have been coming to school especially because hunger has become a serious problem in many of the villages. Though Malawi
as a nation has surplus corn, many of the people in Zowe and the surrounding Euthini area are having difficulty finding corn because they have
finished their stores from the previous year's harvest. Numerous factors play into the situation, among them a lack of planning amongst the
people who sold their corn to the government markets in the summer months, which is the same corn that the government is selling back to
them now but with the rains and poor road conditions to the rural areas large trucks are unable to come to Euthini carrying corn and even the
smaller shipments have been stuck along the way in the last few weeks creating long lines outside of the stores. Giving Heart was seeking
permission to buy corn from the government markets in town and transport it here to Zowe, but we met opposition in several areas. So now we
are not sure if there will be anyway for us to assist, though we are still trying to pursue other options. Please pray for the health and attitudes of
the community members as we face this difficult time of the year, so that hopefully steps can be taken to prevent this type of situation in the
future. The rains have been very strong these last few weeks increasing water-levels in our Mzambazi river to above the bridge level on several
occasions. After heavy down-pours that often last for several hours or all throughout the night, the bridge has been completely overtaken by
the river as it swells for about a day then again recedes if the rains subside. This has created large holes in both sides of the bridge's dirt
ramps. The community organized to fill them with sand bags but only a few days later a large rain swept them away again. They organized
another development day and since that time the bridge has been accessible and a slowing in the rainfall over the last week has kept the road
stable. As for me, I am busy splitting my time between the breakfast program,labeling and shelving library books.