Kande Beach -Village tour

While at Kande beach on Lake Malawi I decided to do a village tour. Our guide Robert, showed us around. The village has a population of 4000 and there are three wells. All of these wells are donated by the government of Canada or buy Canadian charities! All the families pay a 20 kwacha monthly fee for well maintenance. There are a few local men trained to repair the wells should anything go wrong. Robert also showed us how the local people grow and harvest the Cassaba plant. This is a root vegetable somewhat similar to potatoes. It is used to make bread and eaten as a vegetable side dish. The plants are hilled in order to help rain water drain away from the plants and they grow from December to May. When the roots are harvested they are peeled and soaked in water for three days. Then, it is set out to dry in the sun for two days.

We also visited the Kande beach primary school. This school has 12 teachers and 1500 students. That means, 106 to 180 kids per class and only three rooms have desks. The subjects are slightly different than back home. Kids here learn agriculture and life skills along with traditional subjects. Kids arrive at school a 6:30am for half an hour of school cleaning and organization before the day begins at 7:00am. The little kids only attend until 10:30am the juniors ( gr.3-4) go home at 11:00 grades 5-8 go home at 1:10. The grade 8's are preparing for a primary school leaving certificate of examination. This exam is serious business. They go to school in three different blocks and finish at 9:10pm. If they pass this exam, students will be offered places at high school. Secondary school costs $150 per year and many families simply can't afford to send their kids. Last year, this school had 50 students qualify for secondary school and were delighted as this is a 68% success rate...one of the highest in the country. Tourist donations help the school feed local orphans and even pay some school fees for these kids to continue to secondary school. Many of the supplies in the school library have been donated by Canadian teachers and by the Canadian government. I didn't expect to see this sticker on a book case!

We also visited the local hospital. The situation here was bad. One midwife and one doctors aid, one ambulance. This hospital only has observation beds for short term stays and move serious cases on to the closest big hospital 70km away. There were tons of people waiting to see the doctor but he prioritized showing us around and asking us for donations. I felt terrible, like we were wasting his precious time. The money donated by tourists goes to buy mosquito nets to prevent malaria. They are given to new mothers.