I can't believe how fast time goes by... I only wrote one blog entry in whole September and now it's almost end of October... I've been busy lately but let me try to update some news.

From September 15th through 28th, we had a 2-week long preschool teacher certifying program facilitated by Malawian government officials. I was just there for logistics and serving food but this was quite an experience.

In the end, everything went fine. But my teachers thought they'd receive allowances either from gov't or me. NOT TRUE. And they were so upset. The thing is that in Malawi, organizers of any seminar is expected to give money to the participants, which is not normal in my culture. I've already spent SO MUCH money for the feeding and accommodating the participants, buying all the materials needed, and inviting the gov't facilitators. It was amazingly difficult to make them understand that this program was only for their education and certificates from their gov't. Eventually, I don't know when, when the gov't decides to acknowledge preschools and start giving salaries to the teachers, my teachers will be the first ones to receive it. Well, who knows when that will be. But I hope for the best. Anyways, today, the gov't officials came back to deliver some donation items for preschools like plastic cups, plates, cooking pots, books, and some educational materials. The problem is that they aren't enough for all the represented preschools... How am I going to decide who gets what? It will be a lot of work figuring out which school has what by now...

What else did I do?

I coordinated a preschool visit with Billy, a coordinator from an NGO called Feed the Children. They are willing to donate mixed ufa (flour to make porridge for children) every month if and only if the preschools meet their requirements. They've already started providing ufa to 4 of our preschools. Especially the hunger season is coming soon, their help would mean so much. I'm just hoping that they will approve many more schools.

With the help of my ex boss's donation, my colleague and I have been assisting a preschool construction. It's going slowly but surely. The village community had to agree to prepare bricks (mold and burn all the bricks needed) and find volunteer builders. Well, it's not easy for them to be a volunteer when they face poverty and hunger. It took us a long time to find them. Then we agreed with the community that they'd have to feed the builders while they're working. Now, they've finished up to window level. We bought and delivered almost all the materials needed. We chose bright blue/greenish color paints for the walls :) I look forward to our common action painting day and the opening ceremony!! It will be a one and only building with painted walls in the whole village and surrounding villages.

What else? Yes, my team has been working on a new project- micro-credit program for preschools' income generation. The idea is to provide all the materials needed to start an income generation activity in a form of loans. Respective preschool committees need to return little bit every month from the profit until they fully pay back all the money needed to buy the materials originally. Yesterday was the deadline for its application and in the course of next few days, we'll be busy selecting the best of the best whom we can trust. Some had an idea of animal keeping, others thought of buying fish from lake and reselling it in their villages. Bee keeping, cooking oil making, soap making... Ideas are plenty. But we'll have to further discuss what works the best in the village setting and so forth. I hope to see positive tangible results in the near future.