Dear Boys and Girls,

We are halfway through our last week here and all is well. I have been very busy seeing secondary students about school fees and meeting with teachers and students at the primary school. The students in grades 1-7 are off this week, but the students in grade 8 are preparing for exams. I am including a photo of my students from last year who were in 1st grade and are now in 2nd grade.

Yesterday we traveled to Karonga to do some banking business and to buy supplies for the craft shop that will benefit orphans here. Can you find Karonga on your maps of Malawi? It is north of Livingstonia along the lake. Tomorrow, I will begin my journey south and on Thursday I fly out of Lilongwe and eventually back to the U.S. We stop for a short time in Dakar, Senegal. See if you can find that country on the world map. Dakar is the city furthest west in Africa.

The students here remind me of you in many ways. They are very excited about learning, but they also enjoy recess as much as you. Of course, their lives are much different in many ways, too. Many come to school hungry and without shoes as we talked about. Classrooms are very crowded - as I told you before, there were 83 students in the 4th grade classrooom here, but the enrollment is actually 92. But I am always surprised by how joyful they are. They make me smile every day. When I return, we'll do some things that will help you understand what their experience is like, including the water on the head contest - remember?

I hope your week is going well. I miss you all and will look forward to seeing you when I return on Monday.

Khaloni makola,

Mr. P.

Anyamata na asungwana,

Moniri! Mwauka Uli! Ms. B. and I have made it to Malawi! We're sitting by that big lake that I said reminds me of Lake Superior. Remember the name, Wyatt? That's right, Lake Malawi. The picture shows the view we're looking out at right now.

We landed in the capital city two days ago. What is that called, Emmalie? You got it - Lilongwe. Today, we're headed to Livingstonia. Remember traveling there with Google Earth? That's where I'll be for the next 10 days. I'll be working in the primary school there and visiting some secondary schools. I'll also be giving your letters to students in standard four (fourth grade).

I hope you all had a fun spring vacation. I'll write again soon.

Best,

Mr. P.

Dear Boys and Girls,

You won't believe what we saw in Zambia - so I'll show you!  When I get back, I'll show you more than these three photos.  First, Cam, can you find Zambia on the map?  It's right next to Malawi, isn't it.  What an amazing three days we had there.  We were at a national park called South Luongwa.  Before we even got into the park, we'd already seen elephants and giraffes. And, as you can see, the first morning we went out into the park, we saw a pride of lions!  Pride means the same as extended family.  It's like when you get together with your mom and dad and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins. You get the picture, right?

The elephants were everywhere.  They are amazing eating machines.  They eat for 22 hours a day and sleep for two.  The giraffes were so fun to watch.  They can gallop along almost as fast as a horse when they get going, and of course, they are very tall!  They have huge hearts for pumping blood all the way up that long neck. 

I'll never forget our time in Zambia.  We even went looking for animals at night.  The first night we went out, we followed lions that caught and ate a zebra!  That was a little hard to watch, but that's how it goes in the wild.  There were nine lions and they ate that entire zebra in twenty minutes.  Nothing is wasted in nature - do you know what I mean by that, Madison?  After the lions were done, the hyenas moved in to lick the bones.  We were twenty feet away from all this!  It was a little scary, but fascinating to watch.  We trusted our guide and he knew just what to do.

 

South Luongwa was an incredible place.  Besides the animals in the pictures, we also saw zebras, leopards, hippos, warthogs, monkeys, and more in this Zambian park.  You would love it.  Ask Mrs. Loken if you can go there on the field trip in May! 

We're back in the capital city of Malawi now - remember you take the short way and I'll take ______________.  That's right, Lilongwe.   We'll stay here tonight and then we'll start the trip back to Livingstonia which will take two days by bus.    

I'm hoping you get this on Friday, and that you've had a good week.  Looks like you're having a beautiful spring day there.  Are there any flowers up in the garden outside the window?  

My best to you,

Mr. Pearson

On African Soil

3/7/o9  

Dear Lads and Lassies, 

Muli uli!  I'm writing this from the capital city of Malawi - you remember what that is, right?  I didn't take the short way, I took _______.  What's the answer, Jacob?  That's right, Lilongwe.  I'm writing this at 10:30 in the morning and you're sleeping.  That's because the time here is 8 hours later than where you are.  So if it's 10:30 here, what time is it there, Justice?

I saw snow in Africa yesterday.  Can you believe it?  We could see Mount Kilimanjaro out the window of the airplane on our flight from the country of Kenya to Malawi.  There was snow on the top of the mountain.  I looked really beautiful in the early morning mist.  I'm trying to send a photo I took with this entry.  Hope you can see it.

We are taking the bus north to a smaller city called Mzuzu today.  It will be good to leave this big, crowded, noisy  place.  We're looking forward to getting up to Livingstonia tomorrow.  can you find that on your Malawi map, Cam?  That's where we'll be most of the time here.

Hope it's going well there.  It was 72 degrees here in the outdoor garden where we ate breakfast - it's summer!

Best to you,

Mr. Pearson

Dear Boys and Girls,

Ms. B and I are in Amsterdam, waiting for our next plane which will take us to Africa.  Have Mrs. Loken show you where Amsterdam is on the world map. 

Amsterdam is a city in a country called the Netherlands or Holland.  People still wear wooden shoes here.  Sam, what continent is Amsterdam on? 

Amsterdam is an amazing city.  There are more bikes here than cars!  My kind of place!  The houses are tall and skinny as you can see from the pictures, and instead of streets in many places, they have canals.  What is a canal, Colin?  

Some people live in houseboats on the canals. 

It is a cool, drizzly day here, about 45 degrees.  Is that above or below freezing, Harley?  

I hope everything is going great in Minnesota.  I'm thinking of you all today, and I'm eager to show the students in Malawi the class picture of you guys that Maria took last Thursday.

I'll write more when we get to Malawi.

Yours truly,

Mr. P.

P.S.  Mrs. Loken, if you drag the photos out of this post and drop them on the desktop, you can click on them and they'll open in "preview."  Then, you can zoom in on them (I think you use the "view" menu) and make them fill the whole screen. 

   

Some photos from last year's trip. . .