Today was a very eventful day. I was joined by one of the female workers, Lynis, on the latter half of my morning run. She lives in a village up the road and generally waves hello to me as I pass by in the morning. Today she waited for me to pass by again, flagged me down, and jogged with me all the way back. I’m sure we were quite the site to see! I really enjoy seeing all of the CLI employees in the morning and it was an extra treat to have such an eager companion.

MKANGA SCHOOL:

Sabha and I were also able to visit the nearby primary school in the morning. We have previously expressed to Jeff an interest in testing out the BTB handwashing station at the school. He mentioned said it might not be necessary because the government had recently implemented a food program and at the same time constructed several handwashing basins. Nonetheless, he said that we were more than welcome to check it out. The Mkanga School (which refers to the region in which it is located) is just about a 15 minute walk from the site and serves nearly 900 children in the area.
When Alec (the CLI driver) escorted, Sabha, myself, Brooke, Katie, and Sam to the school, we were welcomed by swarms of excited children yelling, “Azungu, azungu!” I’ve become very accustom to this greeting, but it was still startling to see such large quantities of children yelling it. Last winter (June/July), Child Legacy constructed roofs for several of the classrooms, so they have established a good relationship with the school. The headmaster was extremely welcoming – as were each of the nine teachers. We got a very thorough tour and were invited to introduce ourselves in several of the classrooms. I felt guilty because we were clearly a huge distraction.

Here are a few of the observations that stood out most to me:

• We arrived around 8:30-9 am but still saw many children walking to school. When I asked, the headmaster said that they ‘try to start at half 7’ but it was clear that the timeframe was really more of a guideline.
• The handwashing station consisted of a cement basin with a lid that the older girls filled up with buckets of water brought from the well. The students then dip a plastic cup into the basin, hang it on a tree branch, and rinse their hands from water that drips from a hole in the bottom of the cup. Today the water was especially low because women were using the well water to fill buckets for men molding bricks. An organization (I can’t remember the name, but I think it was through the government) has provided funding to build staff houses near the school so teachers won’t have to commute as far everyday. The headmaster assured us that the handwashing station is used regularly but we didn’t witness any students using it. There were two handwashing stations – one for each gender – and numerous latrines.
• Food program: As far as I could tell this is funded by the UN World Food Program and is provided at all government schools. The students are provided one meal per day (school ends at noon) and the goal is to serve food around 9-10 am. The school has a storeroom of soy beans, maize, and porridge. The food is cooked and served by 3-4 female volunteers from the community, who prepare it in a small, poorly-ventilated kitchen. One of the volunteers was sitting in the smoky room breastfeeding her own infant. Unfortunately we were unable to see the meal distributed because they were running behind schedule due to a lack of fuel (firewood). Hopefully we will be able to return because I’m very interested in what the serving procedure is – do the kids wash their hands? Do they have their own bowls for food?
• They are severely lacking in teachers. The school serves 900 students (although I doubt that many are there on any particular day), but only has 9 teachers. The headmaster himself teaches first grade because they are so understaffed. Many of the students were just running around because there are only 4 classrooms. The 8th grade class was cut because there wasn’t enough space to have a separate class for so few students.
• They teach 9 subjects: mathematics, general sciences, religion, social studies, art, English, Chichewa, and two others that I cannot remember.
• There were no desks, chairs, or books in any of the classrooms. The four inside classrooms each had a chalkboard, but four classes were taught outside. The students sat on the crowd, huddled in a semicircle. While the students in the classrooms were well-behaved, many of the younger children were running around. With such a large student to teacher ratio, it is no surprise that the school also served as a type of daycare.

TURBINES AND TRUCKS:

After lunch we watched and documented ‘engineering in practice,’ as Jeff so eloquently phrased it. One of the 3 original turbines has been out of commission for quite some time and Jeff is hoping to get it repaired while Mr. Connolly, an American electrician volunteering his time before the Mt. Kilamanjaro Clean Water Climb in July, is staying at CLI. His daughter, Sam, is one of the girls who joined us at Mkanga School in the morning. They lowered the turbine by attaching a wench to the turbine and the Rogers’ Ford and slowly releasing the turbine bit by bit. It was pretty cool to see and luckily I have it all on video. The source of the problem was apparent after just a short amount of inspection. The design of the turbine head was such that some of the moving parts required outside connection and these had become severely rusted during the rainy months of the year. While the problem was easily diagnosed, the part in question was so rusted over that it could not be removed with tools available on site.

SOLAR PANELS AND PEANUTBUTTER:

Later in the evening, around 6:30 pm, the 40×10 foot container arrived. This was the big shipment that Jeff had just sent off prior to talking with us on skype at the end of the April. I knew that container shipments were a big deal at CLI (this is the Rogers family’s eighth in total) but I was still taken aback the lengthy and hectic operation. First, we had to set up spotlights because it was too dark to see a thing. Then, Jeremy had to break the locks on the container since the keys had been left in Lilongwe. Site employees stayed overtime to help offload everything from solar panels to wind turbines to PVC pipe to Skippy peanutbutter. The highlight of the evening, however, watching Jeremy Barr (a family friend of the Rogers) drive a brand new tractor off of the container and onto a truck trailer! The whole crew called it quits at 11 pm with about half the container still left to offload.