Today was Nia’s first day of preschool in Lilongwe. School starts early here, around 7:15 AM, and gets out around noon. I am the family chauffeur now, needing to get Nia to preschool and Nick to work by 7:30. I am insanely proud of myself for pushing through the nerves and getting my family delivered safely to their destinations. Driving deserves a whole post of its own, so for now all you need to know is that I’ve gotten behind the wheel and I didn’t kill anyone yet.
Since the yard tour was such a big hit, I figured we’d take you on a little school tour as well, since my guess is you’ve never seen an African preschool before. Yeah, me either. The picture above shows the front entrance. It’s a converted house.
This is the big main playroom that you see upon entering. Notice that there are a lot fewer toys than you would typically expect to see in a preschool.
I think there are around 30 kids and probably 10 teachers. Awesome ratios! My attention-loving child should get plenty of 1-on-1 time.
Perhaps the most bizarre thing is that there’s a preschool cat who we were told is there to “eat the mice”. Nia could not believe her school had a cat. It was all she could talk about during drop-off.
There are also four break-out rooms and the kids are encouraged to flow freely between the rooms depending on what they feel like doing that day. There is some structure (she said there was a circle time, outdoor time and snack time), but the general idea is to just let them learn through play.
Here’s the reading room. I was very impressed with the lead teachers. The owner/director has a degree in early childhood education from England and there’s even a solid philosophy behind how she runs the school. That’s way more than I was expecting to find in Malawi!
The outdoor space was massive and included a playhouse thing on stilts (above) and a garden that the kids plant and tend (upper left).
I was surprised to see a trampoline but then I remembered that liability/suing isn’t a thing overseas. There are tramps galore here and while we were initially leery about her going on them, I don’t think there’s any way to avoid it.
They have a nice-looking swingset and sandbox as well, and a large (dirt) area to bike on.
Here are the kids toilets – I thought it was interesting that they didn’t bother with stalls.
And this is the outdoor art room.
Finally, here’s the gazebo where they take snack (on the floor, not on cutesy little tables with cutesy little chairs). As expected, Nia had no problem saying good-bye to us. In fact, the minute she walked in the door and saw the cat, she totally forgot about us.
When I picked her up she was so excited that she couldn’t even get all her words out. It was obvious that she’d had a wonderful morning. It makes me really happy to know that Nia feels at home there already. The teacher also said that since she is on the older end (turns 5 in October), if she shows interest, she’ll work with her on learning to read.
Two thumbs up for the new school! Having school as part of her routine will help ease a lot of the transition stress. Feeling grateful tonight.
