By Fabio Oliveira, Brazil / Volunteer for Change February 2026
Soon time for departure – to TTC Amalika in Malawi!
After the initial 45 days of our preparation, we finally decided on the project we will work on in Malawi: Teachers Training College and pre-schools in Amalika. We also decide how the duos and trios will be for the projects.
And after that moment, the question remains: What now? From this question, all kinds of doubts start popping up, because you feel that the moment is coming.
Deciding priorities
My project colleagues and I sat down and talked about what topics we should delve into, and unanimously physical fitness came first, followed by language.
It may seem strange to put physical fitness first, but since we will have to visit almost 18 preschools during the week, the bicycle will be our means of transportation and since we are at different levels of preparation, we will have another 45 days to get in shape.
And as for the language, although we have a translator for the projects, it makes a difference that we know the basics to get by on a daily basis.
Physical preparation
Our plan was to alternate days of gym with days to cycle around the school, taking advantage of the fact that now it is not so cold and also the sun is setting around 7 pm. There are days that we end up skipping because of the other school activities, but in general we are following the plan. In any case, it is possible to feel an overall improvement from the first day we started.
Learning a new language: Chichewa
This is being the most challenging, because Chichewa is not a language we are used to hearing, whether in music or movies, so everything ends up being new, from phonetics to the morphology of words.
So our first step was to research some websites that taught us the basics of chichewa and even then it was also difficult, as some terms vary according to how the “teacher” learned it.
Our plan is to have an exchange of learning on Mondays and Wednesdays, after class.
Only 14 days remaining….!
In these 2 weeks that we have left, in addition to the language and physical preparation, we have also started to think about the things we need to take there, from a simple flashlight to the documentation needed for the visa and next week we will have our vaccines. Therefore, we can consider that we are almost ready for our journey and soon you will know how our routine in Malawi is.
See you later!
