First days on the job.

I had my first three days of work at Mary's Meals. I wouldn't call it 'work' so much as 'school while working', because I didn't do very much but heck did I learn a lot.

My role here is somewhat limited (which I had previously assumed) because of a number of factors: I'm only here for a month; most of the jobs are held by Malawians, not expats; this is my first real experience with the administrative side of an NGO.  However, I will be useful as providing a fresh look at how Mary's Meals works, how the schools operate, how problems encountered have been or will be resolved, etc.  That's not to say that I'm here looking for the flaws in the system to correct - I'm just providing a fresh perspective.  My main role will be visiting schools with Field Managers (of whom there are two who cover the whole of Malawi) both near Blantyre, and in hard-to-get-to places, such as the islands on Lake Malawi which is only accessible by flight (very expensive) or the once-a-week ferry.  That trip will actually be the culmination or goal of my experience with Mary's Meals, as I will be going with only one other person and we will learn about the successes, problems, experiences and complications associated with Mary's Meals working in eight schools on these two islands.  I'm also an up and coming, semi professional photographer (as of this job) and I'm to take photos and videos of the schools and children, both for publicity and for a closer look at some of these schools that are hard to visit.

While I'm disappointed that I won't be able to contribute to Mary's Meals in a greater capacity, I will know the organization's operations in Malawi inside out by the end of the month.  This experience, I hope, will be invaluable in future work in development and philanthropy.

First Day

I learned a TON on the first day.  Many of the things were pertaining directly to Mary's Meals - how they chose what food to provide (nutritional value of soy-based porridge over the typical maize-based porridge served in the country; mainly the huge difference in protein and vitamin values), how schools and volunteers are chosen, what problems arise (water shortage, children from other schools coming, flour not being delivered on time). I also learned the ins and outs of how they cook, who delivers, etc. It was very interesting to see and experience, but I suspect would be not that interesting read. So I won't write it, but if you want more info, leave a comment asking and I'll email you.

Second Day

On the second day, I realized that I had learned a metric ton (tonne?) yesterday, and today I learned an imperial ton. Because an imperial ton is heavier.

Did that joke land, like, at all? DAMMIT. Moving on.

I visited the smallest school that Mary’s Meals works with in the Blantyre area, and I visited the biggest school. The smallest school is a 30 minute drive via dirt road (bumpy, oh so bumpy). The school has 300 students to 3 teachers (not a typo) and up until two weeks ago, the teachers had to walk 30 minutes to the nearest, unreliable water source. Luckily, with the help of Mary’s Meals, they installed a well next to the school. This school doesn’t have a classroom. The children learn outside, either under the shade of a thatched awning, if they’re lucky, or under the ever moving shade of a tree. The only real building is the one that Mary’s Meals constructed to house the cooking supplies! But half the time, the children can’t use it because there are open flame fires cooking the food. On the way to the school, most of the houses are made of mud brick and about half of them only have holes in the wall as ventilation (as opposed to windows).

The second school is the biggest in Malawi, and the headmaster thinks it’s possibly the biggest in the world (I’d have to double check that…). They have 11,050 students. That’s definitely not a typo. Eleven thousand students between the ages of 6 and 14, and they only have 100 teachers. That’s it. And it’s not evenly distributed, meaning that the youngest age group actually has a ratio of 200 students per teacher! And the number of students is constantly increasing because of Mary’s Meals. In 2006, when Mary’s Meals started working with this school, there were ‘only’ 7000 students. This seemed to me a logistical nightmare – where do you put 11,000 children, where do they play, how do you organize them eating… it is bananas. The school has recently put up blackboards all over the school to create improvised classrooms. They do a good job considering the circumstances. They stagger feeding, so the earliest volunteers have to arrive at 4am to start cooking the food. The children walk from up to 8km away to get a meal, and if the water doesn’t run and thus the food doesn’t get made, a large portion of the children leave. The education and health of these 11,000 children is dependent on Mary’s Meals. Pretty crazy.

Third Day

Today I visited the Under-6 projects that Mary’s Meals started at the same time as their primary school feeding program. However, the U6 is very different from the feeding program, even if the premise is the same.

‘Feed children in schools’. How do those children get to school? Their family, for the most part. What if they are orphans? In rural areas, the community is much more helpful to each other than in urban areas. Therefore, who takes care of a child, feeds a child and educates a child if he or she is without parents and maybe without siblings? These are some of the devastating challenges that face many children in Malawi.

The first thing that stuck me upon entering the first pre-school we visited was how happy and healthy the children looked. They looked nothing like the adverts you see on TV for Oxfam or Save the Children – they looked like they were having the time of their lives! This immediately signaled to me the huge impact that Mary’s Meals is having. The meals they receive at school are often the only food they’ll receive during the day. Without Mary’s Meals, they would be scrounging for food, stealing, and very possibly not alive today. These were some of the thoughts I had whilst looking at them wolf down their porridge.

Nelia, who is in charge of the U6 program and was kind enough to show me some of the different schools, explained to me that there are many differences between this program and the primary school feeding program. Children under six years old are in the most vital formative periods of their brains, their psyche and their bodies, meaning that if there is any time where nutrition is most vital, it is then. Therefore, Mary’s Meals provides more than porridge (which is what they provide for the primary schools), they also provide money for the workers and volunteers to buy additional food, such as eggs, meat, beans, vegetables and fruit. Thus, one meal is porridge, and a second daily-changing meal is provided later in the day. This gives them the nutrients they need to grow and develop healthily.

We visited a school that was very remote. Think of dirt roads for twenty minutes (not thirty, thank heavens). The school building is actually the house of one of the teachers – she gives up two of the small rooms for the children to learn and for the cooking to happen. This is the kind of kindness and self-sacrifice that I’ve seen with all the people in and associated with Mary’s Meals. It’s one wonderful thing to see people with money, education and time give generously to help others; it’s another to see people with nothing doing the same.

Thanks for reading!