Waiting and waiting some more…
By Cullen Mackenzie | September 26, 2011
The CIE's Julie Dawjee and Cullen Mackenzie are conducting an educational needs assessment in the Mangochi Diocese of Malawi. They are working with the national education secretary for the Episcopal Conference of Malawi, Cleopas Mastara; the head of the Unit for Justice and Peace/Education at the Catholic Relief Services, Thomas Hollywood; and the Mangochi Diocese education secretary, Cyprian Tambala. This is the field diary documenting the research team’s experiences:
View on the way to Mangochi. Photo courtesy j3tdillo
“Pang’ono pang’ono” is a phrase which means “little by little” in the ChiChewa language. In addition to applying to quantity, it also applies to time, and is sometimes a translation for Kiswahili’s “pole pole” or “slowly-slowly”. So we waited.
I waited in the well appointed office of the district education manager’s office with Cyprian. We’d arrived a few minutes too late for our meeting, due to goats, traffic police and bicycle taxis taking commuters to work. But there, on the wall behind us, was a full map of the district, so Cyprian helped me orient myself. I know now almost exactly where I am. So pang’ono pang’ono can also give you time for such things.
Adds Julie, “I waited with headteachers (principals) and teachers, 20 in all, in the Koche Parish library for our enumerators to arrive. It seems as though it might be easier to get around on a bike (pajinga) than in a car (pagalimoto), but when they finally arrived we jumped right in to the task at hand. By 11am we had stories and data and at least a bit more understanding of what it’s like to teach in this area. And it’s hard.”
A bit later, Julie and I had to wait some more, having arrived back at Koche just after lunch for our focus groups. We sat in the classroom attached to the library, and at 1:55pm Cyprian arrived. And so did 50 other people, appearing out of the dusty houses and baobab bush around Nkopola Hill. They came in from the bustle of the main road on bicycles and on foot.
“And our waiting was worth it," adds Julie. "We worked with chiefs and school students, women and men, grandfathers and grandmothers, literate and illiterate, in a mixture of ChiChewa, ChiYao and English, and we found out about education in Malawi from all these different perspectives.
"At the end of it all they sang and we prayed and then they went back into the bush. This community had given us insight into their lives and their dreams. Zikhomo kwambiri. Thank you very much.”
