Hyenas Next Door

Yes, you read correctly.  We had a hyena by our house a couple of weeks ago.  In Vancouver, we get coyotes, but here we get rabid stray dogs and hyenas.  I wish I could say I saw it though.  They are apparently very shy and act primarily as scavengers.  They work in small packs, but do separate to scope out opportunities for food.  I believe it was one of them on ‘food reconnaissance’ that I heard outside our wall.

Most people can think of that very distinctive cackle hyenas are known for, however, they have another call just as distinctive that was totally new to me. “Whou-p! Wh-ou-p!”  A shout call just like that.  This is how they call to each other from afar.  When I heard this at 2am I was ecstatic!  I love nature and animals and creation.  It's sweet!  It's crazy to wake up in Africa each morning to see and hear animals that previously could only be seen on the TV.  I kinda love that a baboon likes to hang out at where I go for a haircut.  In Canada, it would be a raccoon instead of a primate, which I’m sure would be just as exciting to someone who has never seen one.

Lilongwe from Home

Behavior Tuesdays, Behavior Thursdays

I promised I would give special explanation to the Behavior Challenge Program.  Today I will do my best, but I must admit for me this is the most challenging and exhausting program at COBT.

There are purposely very few children in this program.  Imagine a room full of ADHD, ADD, and Autistic kids alongside those with other behavioral challenges caused by Cerebral Malaria damage, or frustrations caused from lack of proper communication due to deafness, or being born mute.  Now put eight to ten of these kids together in a small room with heavy throw-able objects.  Starting to get a picture?

In my heart there is a huge place for kids like this.  I have ADHD, ADD, and Dyslexia.  When I was little I had an undiagnosed allergy to dairy that caused a mood disorder. This was easily solved by managing my dairy intake and that issue resolved, but the others are a part of me, who I am. They are as much Jason Tischer as my legs and arms.  If you do not have these issues, you can’t understand what a challenge it is to be a kid who wants to be able to sit still and participate, but can’t.  People often say “just medicate them.”  NO!  Huge mistake.  Like myself, a lot of people can through time learn to get a handle on their ADD/ADHD through diet and learned self-control.  Most people do not understand that the “meds” often administered like Ritalin are basically mild crack cocaine.  There are long lasting damaging effects to kids, and people under the influence of these meds are not themselves.  They are in there, but suppressed.

Sorry for the rant there.  Yes, of course there are cases that definitely require proper medicating.  I have no qualm with that but often pills are just handed out without a second thought.

Back to the Behavior Challenge program.  We start with group mat play.  There are several activities we rotate through: building play, sensory, water play, etc.  We then break for pala (soy/maze nutrient enriched porridge) so the kids are full and have energy for the last section. This time also gives them a needed break, which the staff need just as desperately.  After this we work on ADLs (Activities of Daily Living) i.e.. bathing and dressing.  The purpose here is not for us to assist them, but to instead help them to become independent. This is however a large cultural issue that often acts as a boundary. In Malawi mothers do everything for their children until they are school age (five years old) then the child is expected to be able to wash and dress themselves. This sudden change from being waited on to expected independence is hard for a typical child, but for a kid with behavior challenges….   Let's just say the tub ends up turned over and there is a soapy naked kid to chase after down the street.  On the flip side, a child may be one who is withdrawn from everyone and they will just sit there and not do a thing. We help with that. 

Lilongwe from Home

Let It Rain!

Dear God... Please
send more rain!

Rain, rain, please come again...the red dust is getting into everything.
Rainy season is upon us.  So I'm told anyway.  I hear it's coming, but when is the question.  When will it get here?  We have had one solid rain in Lilongwe and it was glorious.

This is how it came...

One, quiet, still night.  No moon nor stars to be seen. Nothing to light the evening sky.  Just the sense of something heavy and wet floating high above .  Waiting to, hopefully, let loose its cool cargo onto the parched ground.  Then it came.  Hard, fast, sudden like a gunshot it swept forth from the barrel of the cloud.  A thunder clap to announce the taps opening up above.  All at once it came.  Like standing in a waterfall with no end!  It was RAINING.  The best!!!  Not unlike the tropical storms we get in Vancouver when a stray weather pattern finds it way to our coast.  The difference though is this...you have no idea how awesome rain is, till you're in a land without it.

The rainy season here gets shorter and shorter year after year. So when that rain comes... what a gift! You know what a gift it is, to see rain, walk in it. The fresh smell that follows, clean dust free air. Awesome.

In Vancouver, it's always raining.  Thank God it does!  That's why its so green there.  I have never not loved the rain in Vancouver.  I'm all about the liquid sunshine.  Many would disagree with me, and that's fine.  Good for you.  Stick to the standard distaste of the very thing that makes B.C. so beautiful. Its all good.

All kidding aside.  That was some rain!

I can't wait for the real rains to come once December hits - although I know I will be eating crow come that time because many a dirt road I currently depend on for travel (and will continue to depend on) will become very difficult to negotiate with a small Corolla. Its no 4x4, but i treat like one with the roads I travel.

Jason, Lilongwe from Home

The Mantis Returns

I am pleased to report that the prodigal Mantis has returned! And is three or four times the size. He/she hung out on our porch for a few hours then abruptly flew away to prey on things.

The Mantis alert is still in effect and there are still mosquitoes that need eating.  If you again see this insect in question or any relatives of him/her please send them to Area 43 hungry and ready to kill pestilent insects.

That is all.

Lilongwe from Home

Goodbyes to New Friends

Talking with my hosts Kathy and Steve Bowler, I’ve learned quickly that ‘goodbye’ here is a common phrase and emotion one must learn to embrace and not resent.  I have made great friends with people coming and going, some only here for a week at most.  It's great to meet new folks, but it's terrible to say good-bye knowing that that may very well be the last thing you ever say to them. Malawi has a lot of turnover when it comes to ex-pats like myself.  I will soon be someone else's 'goodbye'.  Truly I don’t want to think about that.  Though it is coming faster then expected.  It's hard to believe I’m already a month into my time here. There are only five left. 

On the left hand side of the photo are Fabiyanwo (a socialworker student from Blantyre who had been with us on practice) and Julia (A young lady from Germany who is working at an orphanage out in Selima. she came to visit us for one week)

Ben working hard on accounting,
getting our books up to date

Steve, Kathy, Tracy and I get together once a week to play some card games like Canasta or other such games.  In conversations over the dinner table, they have mentioned many people that they used to play these games with who have since moved on.  Either out of country or to the other end of Malawi, away, is the direction these friends of theirs have gone.  In my life in Canada my luck of the draw for most of my life when it came to friendships was much the same.  They moved away.  It was very hard.  For the Bowlers, living in a place where they work harder than any people I've every met and truly in need of the support of such friends…I can’t imagine what goodbye really feels like for them.

Shout out to Ben!  Miss you dude!  Hopefully we can connect again one day and repeat our epic Canasta victory over Kathy and Steve.  If the Bowlers are reading…it was beginner's luck… really….

Jason, Lilongwe From Home

A Police Driving Lesson

I cannot take pictures of police officers here in Malawi; it is illegal to do so. Instead enjoy the picture of a police badge brought to you via Google search

If you have read the Bro Code by Neil Patrick Harris, you know that “a bro must never admit to not being able to drive stick”.  I can drive stick!  However, by chance, for like a week or two the gears just didn’t seem to work well. The engine kept stalling. Really weird. The mechanic had no idea what was wrong. It worked for him, but I guess the car didn’t like me?  I dunno.  The car and I are good now!  We get along well and shift well together.  It's all good.

Okay, enough of that bull!  Truth be told, before I came to Malawi I drove manually (stick shift) about five to ten times and that was over two years ago. So, I had a lot of fun learning how to drive here in Malawi - how to drive whilst still navigating the streets on the opposite of the road. Left lane not right lane. Here right is wrong! Left is best! And yes, I just came up with that. TM (trademark) that!

Now, for the best police story of my life thus far!  In Lilongwe, and Malawi in general, police checks are common and usually a part of daily life. After one such check the first week I was driving here, I attempted to shift into first and pull back onto the road and off to work. However…to my great embarrassment the car stalled.  And it stalled again…and again, and…seven stalls later the police officer asked me, “Are you a new driver?”  I lied to save face and said, “Yes, sir!  I’m very embarrassed.” The embarrassment part was true, but my flushed face easily told him that. He told me to move over to the passenger side and then he jumped into the driver's seat. Fifteen minutes of driving lessons later he sent me off into the wild streets of Lilongwe having taught me how to shift like a dream! I wish I was making this up, but it's all true. So I had a free police course on driving stick in Africa. That’s something to write home about.

Lilongwe from home