Cooking for the Girls

14th January 2016:

This is our new kitchen at the Centre for learning.
It's a shelter from the rain.
These three ladies are parents of three of the girls and have come to help with the meal, which maybe their only meal of the weekend, in these famine times in Malawi.

The stove is a new idea to save on firewood as its more efficient, although these girls haven't really grasped the concept!

This is Nsima the staple food of Malawi.
It is maize flour boiled with water and is almost totally carbohydrate.
Before the genetically modified  (Monsanto) version the old local maize has maybe 9 to11% protein. Sadly this is no longer the case.
The girls will eat nsima, some beans for protein and some cabbage.
As a Malawian, if you haven't eaten nsima any day, then you just haven't eaten.
I add a little extract from the report, on the week, from Florence who is head of the Girl Child Project as follows:
CHALLENGE; Vitumbiko Mguntha:  Her father and mother failed to buy uniform for her and told her that she should get married to reduce problem of money to buy school uniform, Beata one of her teachers charted with her mother and encouraged to help her daughter with uniform but she has done nothing  up to now.  But of course I have already ordered it and will have it in a few days so that she doesn't miss any more days.
I will also talk to the parents about her and their other needs. There will be no more talk of marriages and as you say we will support the family to make sure that it will not happen
Ester Silwimba one of our students in form one, she was learning at Mzimba primary and failed so after second selection she got a place to Mnjili CDSS in the same catchment area, so because of fees problem to her relatives and her mother then they ask for a help to look for a place for Ester to learn within Mzuzu so that she can manage to be with us to finish her Education.
SATURDAY ATTENDANCE
It was better because first week we had  95 students attending classes

Some of the problems that makes students fail to attend classes was rain, sickness and having extra classes, in their own schools.  The coordinator from Lupaso, Luwinga and Katoto sec. school phoned me that the form 2s and 4 have  extra classes on their schools in order to cover some Topics so if a student fail to attend then the teacher punish the students for not attending their Lessons.
Thanks Boss