By Rebekka
Today, our school DAPP Amalika had the honor to receive the Minister of Education of Malawi, accompanied by some représentatives of the Agriculture and Nutrition field. All the present core group teachers, including Gp and I, were involved in making présentations. Some students already involved in Teaching Practice (third year of DNS) were also involved.
At the idea that such important people would come at the school, I was a little bit nervous. Even if we made a general repetition with the headmaster the day before and that he gave some guidelines about what to say. Even if today, I wore my best dress and found out with my fellow team-mate that all the computers of the classroom were working properly.
Actually, we were divided into four groups and each group had to make a presentation about a specific topic. The first one, composed of the DNS students, had to talk about the school in general and the DNS program or how they run the school together with the teachers and the headmaster. The second group talked about the conservation food, how they cook and teach about nutrition, the third one talked about the studies and the way to train students according to DAPP and government guidelines. The last group dealt with garden farming and its technics. Gp and I were in the third group, with the DI responsible, Mac Donald…
The visitors were very curious, asking a lot of questions, especially during the presentation about the school. The main presentator, a DNS student, was very skilled in answering questions. It was incredible because it seemed that all his answers came from his heart and feelings. The other students also helped him, using their experience during their stay at school and their teaching practice to illustrate their comments. However, many questions went further than the topic of running the school… They had more to do with what my group was supposed to explain, but anyway…
It then came to the second group. They had prepared tables with samples available from the garden and their respective names. There were also books explaining how to make and manage a garden farming with a whole class. In this group, there was a teacher who came from Chilangoma especially for the event. I was amazed by her knowledge and experiences in garden farming… For me, it was also the occasion to taste a special salad, composed of moringa leaves, tomatoes and carrots. It was so good ! However, I didn’t have time to taste the lemon grass tea.
Later, after a brief presentation about cooking in Chichewa – where everybody was laughing a lot and me, I was wondering for what ??! – It came to my group to make the presentation.
Everybody came to the classroom prepared for the occasion. Mac Donald started to make a small talk. Smaller than what was supposed to be – I mean, compared to what we made during the general repetition. Suddenly, he said : “Because of the questions asked previousely outside, I won’t talk about the books in the classroom. I will let my friend talk.”. And I was THE FRIEND… For a few seconds, I didn’t know if I had to talk about the content of the book 40 Green Actions like during the repetition. I didn’t know if I had to talk directly about the studies and the DMM concept, the part that Gp was supposed to talk about and make a demonstration. Whatever… Then, I thought to make bounds between their questionning outside about the knowledge to provide to the community, the book, TALULAR, my observations while going to the villages and my opinions about what we should do about it… And it was my speech. Then, I stopped and let Gp make his part… Effectively, he evolved in his way to talk publicly, from someone who was nearly petrified in August 2014 to someone who could easily make a talk to a whole assembly. In his way, he was unbelievable…
After a few questions concerning our program as a DI, we went to the garden. The weather was so hot ! It was like it pumped all my energy… I could barely follow the speech, more especially as most was in Chichewa. It is really time to pass above the stage 1 “Muli bwanji-Ndili Bwino”…
In conclusion, very interesting day and… full of emotions !
Here’s some photos of the day, made by Gp.
In our Facebook page, there are more photos.
Project in Malawi 2015 