Written by CorpsAfrica/Malawi Volunteer Ms. Lucy Chihana

I once read somewhere that “life is a journey.” Well, whoever said this was right. Sometimes we find ourselves in places where when we look back we ask ourselves, “How did I get here?” And you never get answers but the thing is everything that happens to us, all the people we meet in this journey of life are there for a reason. I have met some incredible people, and have built friendships that make me laugh and feel at home. People like Nagama, Doreen, my students, the great teachers at Tsalani school, and my neighbors are some people who have left a print for me.

Nagama is an amazing woman who took care of me when I was down with Malaria, she even took me to the hospital and looked after my house when am away. I have tasted some things I have never heard of before from her cooking; yes those are vegetables she was preparing for our lunch.

Despite Tsalani school having one block the kids are as energetic as ever. We are on a project to keep our school clean and green. In order for us to do this we have been sweeping every morning, watering trees we planted lasted month, watering our flowers, plating glass and leveling the grounds.

We are leveling the grounds using mud bricks. We involve these kids in taking care of and beautifying our school so that they are responsible whenever they are outside class playing.

Everyone is expected to carry at least one trip of soil to cover the mud bricks to avoid the erosion during the rainy season. These kids are excited and energetic when doing that.  When we have a lot of school work they still ask if they can water the flowers because they want to have a lot of flowers come next academic year.

After all the work is done we take a lot of pictures and off we go. It’s amazing the things that keeps kids in school. Just doing this excites a lot of kids and yes we have seen a lot more come to school just to take pictures and am planning on making videos soon.

All these things made me realize how diversity is so beautiful. All our differences actually make this a beautiful place to live. In as much as these kids face a lot of challenges 30-40 minutes of playing, laughing, smiling and being entrusted to make Tsalani school beautiful does actually make them feel that they matter and their work is valued. What can I say, I love being part of their lives and making them realize that they also matter!