Malawi's Future

I asked a group of teenage boys in the village what they want to do when they graduate high school. At least two of them are proficient in English, and I have been studying Chichewa enough to help with the occasional word or phrase, so we didn’t need a translator. Though they understood the words, they were a bit surprised and not sure how to answer my question. So, I rephrased it, “What do you want your job to be after school?” 

“Oh!” one of the boys said. “I want to be a soldier.” I asked if that was because he really wanted to be in the military or if he didn’t think he could do anything else to make a living. He looked confused, so I asked the question to the group in a third way. “If you didn’t have to worry about money at all, what would you want to do every day?” In that case, he said, he would like to be a chef. Now we were getting somewhere. 

“Okay, so you like to cook?” 

“Yes, I love to cook.”

“What do you make?”

“I know how to make nsima^* and lice,” he offered proudly.

“No,” said another boy in the group, “It’s r-r-rice, not l-l-lice. Remember what we learned in English class?” (In Chichewa, the letters L and R make exactly the same sound, so they consider them interchangeable. I have been repeatedly practicing the two unrelated sounds with them in English class.)

“So you can make nsima and rice. Do you know how to cook anything else?”

He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. Then it hit me that I learned to cook from my mom, by watching cooking shows on television, and by reading books, three resources many of these kids don’t have access to. Now, the availability of culinary videos online is comprehensive enough to rival the curriculum of any cooking school—to anyone who has a computer and internet, that is. Shortly after college, I began to develop a love for cooking and spent hours trying new recipes with exotic ingredients that may or may not make it to my table. If I ended up throwing out an entire dish, it didn’t mean I wouldn’t eat, it just meant I would go to the store and try again. These kids are lucky to get enough food to sustain them each day and certainly don’t have the luxury of wasting a morsel of it. I felt a little ashamed of my question and quickly added, “Do you want to learn to cook other things, because I could teach you?” His smile told me yes. Then I asked what he would think about opening a small restaurant where he could cook for other people. That smile was even bigger. 

Another boy said he wanted to be a driver and a third said a mechanic. I asked why they felt they couldn’t do these jobs after graduation. They told me they’re not learning these skills and there’s nobody to teach them. I asked what they are learning in school and they listed the typical courses you would expect a high schooler here to take like geometry, chemistry, English, Chichewa, and history. I asked if I could see their books. “Oh, we don’t have books.” 

“What do you mean you don’t have books? You don’t have text books? How do you learn?”

“The teacher writes everything on the board and we copy it onto paper.” 

“Well, does she help you if you need it?”

“She can’t really. There are too many students in one class.”

“How many?”

“At least one hundred.”

“Is there a library at your school?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t have many books and we’re not allowed to take them home. They’re afraid we’ll lose them.”

I wondered out loud what these teachers get paid to teach classes with hundreds of students who have no books. One boy said they get paid MK25,000 per month, which is about thirty-five dollars. (I made sure to write that number out with words, so you wouldn’t think I left off a zero.) “How do you know that?” I asked. “They tell us,” he said. 

“What do you think about our opening a school here? We could teach you all the regular subjects but also how to do the job you want to do when you graduate. We could even start small businesses so you could work those jobs.” The nodding and smiling was unanimous. We told them they would have to pray. Pray for land, teachers, books, money, and everything else that a proper school needs. I believe they will. I don’t think they’ll be able to help it. 

As I’ve said before, education is a desperate need in Malawi. Good schools are few and far between and usually not for those without abundant resources. We have no interest in giving perpetual handouts to anyone but those who possibly will never have the ability or aptitude to provide for themselves. Those people we are called to support indefinitely, and we have already started to make a number of them a regular part of how we spend our tithe. These kids, however, are one good education away from not only making a living for themselves but also helping to bring up the next generation. They’re not lazy or stupid. Instead they’re bright and hardworking. We’ve seen it with our own eyes. They study the lessons we give each week and they’ve been making bricks by hand from the very land we’re meeting on for class. They plan to build a house and an outhouse for one of the families in the village. If they can do that, surely we can put together a plan for a school that will serve this largely forgotten generation. I mean, it’s not rocket science, right? Unless of course one of them wants to be a rocket scientist. In that case, we would like to be their first step in getting there. 

Please consider how you can be a part of this. We need prayer, money, and people. We also need books, and lots of them. We plan to be in the States at the end of the year. If you have books, including text books, in good condition that you are willing to donate, please let us know. If you wish to make a tax deductible donation in any amount, please send it to: Westworth Church of Christ, 5728 White Settlement Road, Ft. Worth, Texas 76114, ℅ Malawi Mission Work, or you can give with a click at http://www.westworthcoc.org/malawi-mission/ Thank you, and God bless you.

^*Nsima is ground maize cooked into a hot porridge. It’s a staple eaten daily by most Malawians.