Thursday 28 October 2010

More visits, and the course begins to take tentative shape!

This week has been a week of visits. We began with Social Services, the next day we saw Eunice who coordinates the National ECD training, and today we visited the boNGO project in a village about 20 Km from Blantyre just off the Chikwawa Road. This is run by local volunteers under the leadership of a Swiss woman called Simone who has been working with them off and on for about four years. The buildings are cool and attractive and the walls are beautifully painted with animals and other items familiar to the village children. There are numbers and alphabets around the walls, seasons, days of the week. Pictures are labeled with the Chichewa words. This is different enough from the other settings that we have visited, but what struck me immediately we got out of the car was the difference in the quality of the relationships between the teachers and the children. The children were busier with activities than at any other setting we have visited. We saw children making the no. 5 out of clay and later the clay numbers being carefully put out in the sun to dry. The children's efforts were really respected. We saw children lining up to wash their hands at a bucket with a tap, before snack time, we saw a group playing 'Ring a Roses', we saw a library lesson where the teacher engaged the children for fully twenty minutes with a discussion about the letter 'e'. She used an alphabet book, a blackboard and chalk, she acted out a story to much laughter from the children, she sang snatches of songs which the children joined in with, she encouraged the children to tell her which children within the group had a name that began with E. The children were animated and engaged throughout. The teacher called them by their names. I have only heard children called by their names once in all the other visits we have made. After the library lesson there was free play outdoors, another thing I have not seen before, here most of the children were in the shelter of a tumbledown outbuilding which provided shade and playing with mud and stones, plates and tins, making and serving each other with 'nsima' in a messy play session to be proud of! Most of the language spoken was Chichewa. Again this is unusual, mostly we have seen children spoken to in English in settings and in one the teachers proudly told us that no Chichewa speaking is allowed within the nursery. Simone was welcoming and informative. She is keen that we stay in touch and has promised to get me a copy of the ECD training syllabus. She is not the first to have promised this, but I suspect she may be the first to deliver on that promise! I am very pleased that we found this setting, it has helped me to visualize what a setting might look like that maintains its African identity while taking account of different teaching styles and new knowledge.

The visit yesterday to meet Eunice was also very useful and productive. I sensed at first that she was a little cautious about what we were trying to do, but she seemed to warm to us throughout the visit and next week she is going to take us to two settings which she considers to be examples of good practice, one village setting and one in Blantyre. This is very kind of her and I am looking forward to it. We also suggested that she might be interested in contributing a session to our intermediate course concerning making resources from local materials and she seemed very happy to accept the invitation.

We had a piece of excellent news today that a Malawian Early Years Professional who has had a very prestigious job with Unicef has decided to leave Lilongwe and come and work for the Pre-school Playgroups Association of Malawi in Blantyre. Vince is very hopeful that she might also work with us. She has a great understanding of local customs and beliefs and it will be great to have her advice and I am sure it will make our job a lot easier.

Tomorrow we have an appointment to meet the local chiefs in Chilomoni and to explain to them what it is we intend to do. I do hope that we get their blessing.

David and I have begun to put our course together and the first five of fourteen sessions have outline plans. We are going to have a very practical approach. Our students will be used to large class sizes and an approach which includes a lot of rote learning. If they are to build good relationships with the children and learn to support the children to become problem solvers they will first have to learn to play themselves and to reflect upon how the games and activities we use support the children in their learning of concepts, acquisition of language and use of problem solving and thinking skills. Our two and a half hour sessions will contain maybe 40 minutes of formal, lecture input and a lot of games, crafts and activities, with question and answer sessions to check learning and understanding, and opportunities for reflection on the use, significance and potential learning opportunities of what we have been doing. I hope the students enjoy the different approach!

Tuesday 26 October 2010

Decisions made re course applicants

Today is a bit of a red letter day because we have finalized the list for our four short Introductory Child Care courses and with the help of a charming Malawian volunteer called Christopher we have begun to let the successful candidates know that they have got a place. Everything is different here and the post takes a long time. Letters must be collected from PO boxes and so it may sometimes be a week after delivery before someone checks their box. Therefore, as we have less than two weeks before the first course starts, we have been advised to telephone all the successful candidates if at all possible and if they live in Blantyre, which they all do, to ask them to come to the Beehive office to collect their letters. We have mobile phone nos for about three quarters of the 132 candidates so Christopher has the job of ringing them all to impart the (good?) news! David and I have written and addressed all the letters, and been to the Post Office to post the ones for folk who didn't give a phone no. It all seems topsy-turvey to me but apparently people have begun to arrive at the office to collect their letters so it seems to be working! It feels good to have the selection out of the way and be able to get on with more practical things. This afternoon we visited the head of Social Services in Blantyre, a city of over a million people. He has a team of 12 Social Workers and a number of Child Protection workers. He explained his accountability to the Department of Gender, Children and Community Development and gave us a lot of information about the early childhood development programme which I shall write up as my first job tomorrow morning.

First thing today David and I went to the rooms in the local primary school which we have been allocated as training rooms. The main room is the school's IT suite. It has about ten computers of which one has an internet connection. The room also contains the school library, most of which is made up of books donated by the Krizevac project. There are a lot of books on shelves, I wouldn't say they are randomly arranged, but as a librarian's daughter I would say that a little more order in their arrangement would be desirable! There are about thirty banana boxes full of books that remain to be sorted and we have promised the librarian, who rejoices in the name of Orpheuse, that we will help him to unpack and shelve them, and tidy the place up. This is certainly the best equipped room in the primary school and I feel a bit guilty about taking it over for six weeks, but this is what has been planned for us. We are determined to transform the room into a combination of attractive learning space and a demonstration play space for pre-school children. Since much of our equipment is still in a container on the high seas somewhere between the UK and Malawi this will not be easy! We have enlisted the help of Mary who works for Beehive and is a highly colourful character more reminiscent of Mama Ramotswe than anyone else I can think of! I am determined to visit her tailor before I return home and acquire some dresses just as striking as hers. You will certainly notice me if I do, I can assure you of that! She is going to take us shopping for cushions and chitenge, string, bamboo poles, mats, baskets etc. We shall get books for pre-school children from our own Bee Books shop stocked with donated books from UK. A few toys have been stored for us from previous containers and we shall have to go foraging for cones and seed pods etc. The room is dark because it has a dark grey concrete floor and dark grey fabric over the windows to keep out the heat of the sun. The tables are dark wood and the chairs are all either primary school size or broken. There is quite a bit to be done if our students are to enter the room on the first day and think 'Wow! That's different, as we are determined that they should!

My own little house is becoming more homely also. At last I have a central light in my living room and also a desk lamp, so for the first time tonight I am able to type without leaning forward and squinting at the keyboard. Malcolm acquired me a bookshelf that has been replaced by a bigger one at the site office so I have started to fill it with children's books and toys, not many yet, but there will be more when the container arrives. I bought a couple of batik pictures off a street vendor today so I now have dark giraffes against a blazing sunset on the living room wall, and ladies balancing pots on their heads in blues, greens and purples in the bedroom. I am looking out for a nice bright rug or two to cover up my own dark grey concrete floor a bit. If I am going to live here for 18 months I must have a bit more colour. Jane is going to take me to the cheap fabric shop and I am hoping to find something really red and cheerful!! I am spending a lot more money than I was led to believe I should need, but I guess that the rate will slow down once I have my space sorted and comfortable.

We are planning a trip to see Lions at the weekend. I am looking forward to that!

Monday 25 October 2010

Sunday afternoon –Hot and sleepy!

Friday was a long day in the office struggling with the applications shortlist! It reminded me a bit of allocating places to the Hamlet centre playscheme! When I finally finished putting in all the data I printed the thing out and it covers twenty sheets of A4 paper, but I feel a bit more in control of it now. I allocated one point for having an MSCE cert., one for actually sending a photocopy to prove it, one for any evidence of further study and another for proving it with certificates or testimonials, one for a mention of any kind of experience of working with children, from 0-3 passion points, and one for a mention of Beehive or any kind of evidence of interest in or commitment to its projects. I recognize there are all sorts of built in biases here, but these are really the only things I know about these people from their letters! Anyway, to cut a long story short there were 100 applicants who scored 4,5,6 or 7 and so that is 100 places taken up. My task for Monday morning is to choose 20 of those who scored 3 to make up the numbers. I shall worry about that tomorrow!

On Friday night I was introduced to the night life of Chilomoni High Street. Seven of us piled into the bigger pick-up and visited The Liquor Garden and the Drinking Den. Very aptly named! The Liquor Garden looks small and insignificant from the street but rooms open out of one another and by the time you get to the third space it expands sideways behind what must be several shop facades at street level. A big back room is comfortably furnished with cane chairs and sofas identical to the ones in the houses at Mitsidi. The walls are painted a darkish, institution green. It,s pretty dim with only a few 40 Watt light bulbs. The tall, glass fronted fridge behind the bar is a bright beacon in the corner and the choice of drinks is clear to see: Carlsberg lager (Greens), Special Brew, Carlsberg Stout (a new one on me, but it tasted OK, thinner and sweeter than Guinness, but more to my taste than Greens), Tonic, or Fanta. Malawian Gin was available in the front bar, and possibly other things, I'm not sure. The gin comes in clear plastic sachets, like you get shampoo in, in hotels. There are glasses available in the front bar, but you have to pay a deposit on them. Several local people who work for Beehive were present in various stages of being 'greened' up! One of the foremen from the building site did an impression of Malcolm which soon had us all, including Malcolm, laughing heartily! All was very friendly and good-natured. A number of people expressed an interest in an mzungu girl-friend and we had to invent a mythical fiancĂ© for one girl and pretend that Malcolm was her father before she was left alone! Jack gave the phone no. of one of the male volunteers to the most persistent seeker of mzungu love and told him it belonged to a beautiful mzungu from Sweden who had been tired tonight but who he should phone the next day! In the morning Marty got a confusing phone call and an amorous text, which he promptly forwarded to Jack! Happily I fall into the category of mature woman, too old to be considered as potential girlfriend – Hurrah! After a couple of drinks we moved on to the Drinking Den which involved a short cut down a back alley that I definitely wouldn't have attempted if we hadn't been by that time a group of about a dozen! This was smaller and more intimate. I bought a round of two greens, two stouts, two fantas, and two sachets of gin which cost me K850, about £3.70! Here I had an interesting conversation with a dreadlocked drummer called Emanuel about the differences between Malawi and UK, which I don't remember a great deal about and I'm sure he remembers nothing! We decided not to make a late night of it and all piled into the pick-up with several Malawians in the back and went the long way round to drop them off at home before returning to Mitsidi, and so to bed.

Saturday was a bit of a desultory day really. I got up late, at about 8.30am and drifted down to the main house for breakfast to find that only one person was up and out before me. We pottered about, wrote letters, read and chatted and eventually got it together to go into town where we split into groups to laze by the pool at the Mount Soche hotel, have coffee or shop. I was in the shopping group. WE RETURNED TO Mitsidi for a lazy afternoon in which the only constructive thing I did was to make Sam a birthday cake, chocolate/orange sponge. Then it was gin and tonic on the verandah before another trip into town to celebrate the birthday with a drink and a pizza. I gracefully retired at about 9.30 but the young and lively ones stayed to sample the night life.

This morning Malcolm and I got up relatively early to walk, or rather scramble, the Way of the Cross before the day got too hot. Well that was the plan any way, but before we got to the top at about 10.30 am it was certainly hot enough for me. I did struggle a bit to get to the top and had to go very slowly, but I made it in the end and was very glad that I did. The views were terrific and despite a haze we could see for miles. It was interesting to see Chilomoni spread out like a map below us. St James' Church made a good landmark to link together places that we recognized. There were a number of pilgrims, if that is the word, who climbed either singly or in small groups, with their bibles, pausing at each station to pray, and a couple of young men on their own, singing their way to the top. I take my hat off to them, I certainly had no spare breath for song! We saw a deer of some kind in the distance, lots of birds and butterflies and a few lizards. Where there were bigger trees there was a terrific sound, a sort of buzzing which we thought might have been crickets or something, but it was so loud there would have had to have been loads of them and we didn't see any, so the source of the sound continues to be a bit of a mystery.

Coming down again was a lot easier and we made good time. We saw a group of six girls collecting fire wood. They were very interested in us and walked with us for a little while. We branched off the Way of the Cross about half way down and found our own way back down into Chilomoni and then across town to Mitsidi arriving back at about lunchtime.

 

Likes and dislikes!

Today has been a day of differences really. Poor Jack is in hospital with a bacterial infection on top of Rotovirus, probably picked up from dodgy water whilst at the Lake of Stars. In fact loads of people who went to the Lake last weekend seem to have been sick with the D and Vs, but Jack has definitely had the worst of it. Better now however after a few hours rehydration on a drip.

I got taken out for a lovely lunch today apropos of nothing really. I thoroughly enjoyed it and now know where to go to take visitors for a treat!

Tonight we had duck for tea, but it was very dried up and had more in common with shoe leather than anything else I can think of! I seem to be coping OK with not being vegetarian most of the time but I don't think I shall become a big meat eater nonetheless.

The big difference was that it rained today at lunch time for about an hour and a half. It really bucketed down. Now I know what the deep gutters around all the houses are for! While it was raining it was mercifully cooler, but afterwards it was just as hot as before, except now it's humid as well! I walked home from the office through Chilomoni on my own for only the second time this evening. The biggest change was that the rain had laid all the dust to rest and everything smelled different. The ground must have been so thirsty as very few puddles lasted until five o'clock. Everything smelled different as well. As I walked down a little footpath of a short cut I noticed an aromatic smell like lemon balm, but I couldn't identify which plant it was.

I spent the morning hammering more details of applicants for the course onto my spreadsheet. I have narrowed the applications down to about 300 and have put 150 of them onto a spreadsheet. When I've got them all on I shall see what it looks like and then decide on which criteria to use to select the lucky (?) 120. I could do with Karl really to write me a programme to do it now that I have reduced everything to nice manageable figures! Not really though, my final column I have headed 'Passion points' and have given applicants a score from 0-3 depending on what they have written, if anything about why they want to do the course. It's probably highly subjective, but it makes sense to me!!

This afternoon I allowed myself the treat of doing a bit of research around the nature and history of Malawian Early Childhood Education and followed up a couple of contacts, trying to plan some interesting visits for David next week, but tomorrow it will have to be back to the spreadsheet with nose to the grindstone! Internet was painfully slow again, but at least it is better at the office than it is at home!

So what do I like about Malawi?

I like the jacaranda trees, I like the quality of the light at 5 o'clock in the morning the instant before the sun pops over the horizon (not that I see it all that often, but I saw it this morning). I like having a swimming pool in the garden. I like the anticipation of future visits to the game lodges and hearing about what others have seen when they have been. I like the friendliness of the local people, especially when I'm walking about Chilomoni. I am beginning to try out my very limited (about four phrases) Chichewa. Loads of complete strangers speak to me. I must have answered 30 people who said 'How are you?' to me as I walked along the street. White people are rare enough for little children to point and say 'Azungu' as we go by. Children walk along beside me and dare each other to reach out and touch my hand. Slightly older ones coming towards me will raise their hands in a 'high five', just to touch the mzungu! I got slightly lost coming home the other day and had to ask the way. The young man I asked insisted on escorting me until I saw the school that I recognized and was sure I was on the right way home. The pace of life seems very relaxed. People have time to pause and chat and to set you on your way. I like the bright colours and bold patterns on the chitenge that the girls wear (like a sarong). I like the wood carvings and other crafts that I have seen. I like the variety of fruit there is about at the moment. There are mango trees in nearly everybody's garden and strawberries, huge blackberries, raspberries, red and yellow, bananas. I even tried a custard apple the other day. I can't say I was over impressed, but I tried it! I like the enthusiasm for the acquisition of learning that I see over and over wherever I go.

There are things I struggle with as well. I find it hard not to be irritated and feel cheated out of my evening when the power goes off between 6.00 and 8.00pm, which it does at least twice a week. When I was without a water supply in my house for a couple of days I hated it. There are a lot of annoying insects, but nothing really scary yet! There have been days when I have just been too hot for comfort and hot flushes just add insult to injury! Living with a mixed bunch of volunteers has disadvantages as well as delights! Nothing is well made or properly finished and things keep breaking, but I must say that if I report things going wrong they are fixed very quickly. I hate it that there is no one within 1000 miles who I have known for more than a fortnight, but I know that that will get better literally by the day!

It was a treat to get my first letter today from John's mum. It was a lovely card with a jug of flowers and cup cakes, very English tea party and reminded me of home! She says that she will get news of me from you John, so make sure she has the blog address. When she handed it to me Zoe said 'You've got mail from home, don't cry!' and I just about managed not to, but I did well up a bit. You do all seem a long way away. Thank goodness for the internet and Facebook and mobile phones! It's much easier for me than it must have been for Auntie Doreen as a missionary in the Congo in the sixties!

Apologies to those of you who have emailed and I haven't managed a personal reply. There are just not enough hours in the day! I hope you will be satisfied with news on the blog until the weekend.

Well, it's twenty past eight so I guess it's coming up to bedtime! I must say it feels like about midnight! Good night all – keep in touch! Mx

Tuesday 19 October 2010

Jolly Day Out to Zomba

Sunday has been a good day. This weekend lots of the other volunteers went off to the 'Lake of Stars' festival about four hours drive away. They booked their tickets months ago, so there were very few of us left. I have had a pretty quiet weekend. Friday I spent entirely at Mitsidi, reading, swimming, taking photos and thinking. Also making Shepherd's Pie for supper and inventing mango scones, which went down very well! It takes a while for impressions and feelings to settle and it was good to do not very much and let my brain sort out how I am going to tackle some of the work problems, but more of that on a work day! Saturday was quiet too, but three of us went out for lunch at Blantyre sports club where I put myself outside Chambo and chips on a khonde overlooking the rugby pitch! Today I got up early and went off to Zomba with Malcolm, one of the volunteers, to see if we could find some mountains. Yesterday it clouded over so we think the rains might be going to start soon. It was very hazy when we left Blantyre and we thought we might get up to 2000 meters and not be able to see anything, but we decided to go anyway. The road to Zomba is tarmacked, but full of holes so we had a bumpy ride! By the time we arrived we were covered in red dust! As we approached the town the vegetation began to change and become increasingly lush and although we could see mountains all the way, they became nearer and bigger. There were more palms and the plants were denser and greener altogether. On the way into the town we spotted a book store and coffee shop and the door was invitingly open, so we stopped for coffee, but were greeted by a man with an Irish lilt to his voice who told us if we wanted coffee he was sorry the shop was closed, but they were having a Bible study and we were welcome to stay if we would like to. This not being quite what we had in mind, we thanked him and drove further into Zomba which proved to be a pleasant looking town, greener than Blantyre and although there were many people on the streets there were few shops and restaurants open so we decided to find the mountain road and climb up to the plateau. We had only a rather rudimentary map and so got lost at the first attempt, but eventually found our way up the plateau. Even about a quarter of the way up the views were spectacular, if a bit hazy. It was really worth going. I took lots of photos. The ones I took out of the window of a moving pick-up, bouncing along dirt roads are pretty blurry and useless, but others do give a good reminder of what we saw, Zomba spread out about 1000 metres below us, waterfalls, viewpoints, baboons, half familiar flowers and trees, loads of butterflies…. We had a very expensive coffee in a posh hotel, which was a lovely place to sit to drink it, and had the advantage of providing up-market toilet facilities of which I took full advantage before we moved on! We ate our picnic lunch beside Chagwa dam, overlooking a lake with some lovely reflections. Everywhere we went we were besieged by vendors selling strawberries, raspberries, yellow raspberries, potatoes, bananas, craft items, postcards… One chap tried to charge us K100 to take photos of the waterfall, but we didn't pay! I don't think they can have had a very good day, because we were driving around for about three hours and during the whole time we were on the untarmacked roads we passed only three other vehicles. It was a great day out, I thoroughly enjoyed the trip. Tomorrow it is back to work, and for me that means another onslaught on all those application forms, and then for light relief a stack of Government/Unicef publications to familiarize myself with the legal context of childcare and Early Childhood Development Centres in Malawi.

Monday

Feeling pretty fed up tonight. I spent the whole day going through practically identical application forms. I feel that somewhere in that enormous pile are forms from people who are really passionate about working with children but didn't think it was appropriate to say so in a formal letter of application. I feel sure that somewhere there must be a Malawian guide to applying for a job by letter and it must give a model letter that reads something like this:

Dear Sir

Put the job title here and underline it

I am writing with respect to the above-mentioned job/course advertised in state journal in which you saw the advert and give the date of publication.

I am very interested to apply for this post.

I am very well qualified to be selected for this post because I wrote the Malawian Certificate of Secondary Education obtained in state year at state school and achieved state number and subjects in which you achieved distinction or credits. If you wish to have further information about my conduct and behaviour be so good as to contact state name and address of headteacher. I attach a copy of my certificate.

I am a state religion and denomination, Malawian male/female aged state age in years and I am married/unmarried with state number of children.

I sincerely hope that you will look upon my application with favourable consideration and I look forward to hearing that I have been selected and I promise that if selected I shall work hard even in odd hours.

Yours faithfully

Sign here!


 

I have about 2000 identical letters which tell me absolutely nothing that is not covered by the accompanying copy of the MCSE. Anyone who has written anything even slightly different stands out and the half dozen who have written passionately about the needs of Malawian children are on the course instantly!

The book needs to be revised PDQ to include an instruction to say why you would enjoy/be good at the job advertised, and to explain what skills you have that mean you are the right person for that job. Jobs are in such short supply the people must be applying for everything that there is the remotest chance of them getting. I have had CVs that say 'My career aim is to be an accountant' and they expect that to get them a place on a child care course!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!

Tomorrow, fortunately I have other things to do and so will have a day off sitting hunched over the paperwork without having any conviction that I am selecting the best people!

In the afternoon Jane and I will be demonstrating to her volunteers how to read stories to children and getting them to practice on each other, which sounds like a lot more fun! In the morning we shall plan how to approach the session, and in any gaps I shall get on with reading the Malawian Government/Unicef Early Childhood Development literature, which although a bit dry is a walk in the park after all those desperate letters!

On the plus side my toilet has been mended and I no longer have to flush it with a bucket of hot water! However when changing a light bulb it broke and got stuck in the socket so I now have only the crazy dimming table lamp in my sitting room and my kettle has ceased boiling water! Last night I saw a fair sized spider in the bathroom. My gecko is obviously not doing his job thoroughly!

There has been no internet connection on any of the sites all day, who knows when I shall be able to post these notes or check my emails! I still have not had a connection that lasted long enough to register for cheap phone calls to the UK so apologies for not ringing. Many thanks to Margaret and Annie for getting sorted and ringing me, and congratulations on being the first to manage it. A special prize to the first of my children to speak to me and no Father Christmas this year to the last!!

Tuesday

A much more entertaining day today. Our session with the volunteer readers went really well and we even managed to persuade the neighbours children to come and be read to. Everyone went home with a book to keep, adults and children alike. I found a little pot of bubbles left over from my leaving do at UEA and blew bubbles for the children. Again everyone seemed to like it and the volunteers took turns blowing bubbles for the children to pop! It was interesting that when we suggested that the volunteers translate into Chichewa as they read and didn't worry about whether jane and I understood it, they became a lot more animated and their presentation skills increased. The rest of the day I spent reading up on the law affecting children and rummaging through books stored away to be used in the Children's Centre. Tomorrow I shall have to get back to the application forms, but I've enjoyed the break!

I am getting a bit frustrated about the erratic internet access. I haven't been connected for more than 5 minutes together for about 4 days now and sometimes despite the fact that there is no signal my card is charged as though I was connected. Not only is this irritating, but I have to pay to be irritated! Right now I am sitting on the knonde at the big house on my own in the dark as I'm much more likely to get a signal here, however I shan't stay here much longer as already a strange, large beetle has collided with my head! I nearly trod on a toad as I went up the path to my house earlier, there certainly seems to be plenty of livestock about!


 

Saturday 16 October 2010

More nursery visits

I have really enjoyed today. After sitting and blogging for an hour or so I dropped in on the first session of a project being run jointly by Jane, one of the volunteers, and the local child protection Social Workers. The aim is to train volunteers to go into the homes of local families and share books with the pre-school children. Each family will receive at least two books to keep. Any problems identified will be referred to the Social Workers. I was hoping that I would be able to join the training and get up to speed on the child protection situation locally but no such luck as the training was in Chichewa. Gift, one of the Social Workers, showed me the section of the manual they were working on today and sent me off to read it up for myself in English!

Jane and I went off in a pick-up to visit three more nurseries. The first was run by a lovely lady called Maureen who was really keen to attend my training but had completely missed all the adverts. However the closing date is not until tomorrow so she is going to write a letter of application tonight and Jane will pick it up tomorrow. Maureen was welcoming, positive and outgoing. She was enthusiastic and understood the difficulties faced by children in Malawi and particularly in Chilomoni. She seemed to me to be exactly the sort of person that we want on our course. There were about 50 children with one teacher in the classroom. The children were reciting the alphabet in unison as the teacher pointed at pictures with a cane. 'E is for elephant, F is for fish' we heard as we entered the room shouted out at the top of their 3 year old voices. I saw no evidence that they understood what they were saying but they all chorused the words. I took a photo of the mission statement and motto of Maureen's school which was displayed on the office wall. You can't argue with that!

Next we visited a small Moslem nursery called ???. We were greeted by an immaculately suited young head teacher who also expressed great interest in our training. There is certainly a hunger for learning and an awareness that there are gaps in their knowledge. Again there were few resources. The lesson on the board for the group of two and three year olds was about identification of shapes and different types of fruit. One little one who can't have been more than 18 months was asleep on a mat in the corner.

The next visit was to the Pride Private nursery which turned out to be owned by a Malawian business man with contacts in South Africa. His own 5 year old daughter who was a bright, confident child who spoke excellent English, was one of the children in the small group who remain for full day care. A larger group attends in the morning for the taught session. The walls inside and outside the school were brightly painted with pictures of animals. Apparently the artist came especially from South Africa. The staff were very interested in our visit and Jane said it was the best nursery school she has seen in the whole time she has been in Malawi. There is still a long way to go however. This is the only setting so far where I have seen any evidence of record keeping of any kind. Each child had a file containing all the work they have done. The most recent work was a series of sheets of paper entitled 'The animals of Africa'. The work consisted of the name of an animal in dotted letters which were written over by the child in wobbly crayon, underneath was space for a drawing. I guess they have good examples of pictures in the wall paintings. The children were supposed to be sleeping but kept popping out to see us and giggling. All the staff came out into the garden and insisted on having their photos taken, leaving the children in the sleep room, but manifestly far from asleep!

I promised them I would bring David to see them and bring them a copy of the photos!

Jane and I took our leave and went to look for a Children's Centre in Ndirande that she had heard of but never visited. We drove up and down every street in Ndirande but failed to find a Children's centre other than the one I visited with Vince the day before! I got a good impression of another suburb of Blantyre however, and took a picture of my favourite pub name so far!



Sorry I appear to be a galloping incompetent as far as getting pictures to stay where I want them to. I give up, at least they are there, if not prettily arranged!

Jane and I stopped for a drink, not in the thirsty pub, and asked a friendly local where the Children's Centre was. He didn't know and offered to take us to ask the local head man, but we politely declined as he appeared to have had a generous portion of whatever the Malawian's call Ganga and we were not sure whether he would be able to find his way anywhere or indeed whether we would get back again!

Thursday

Today I have spent the whole day in the office ploughing my way through application letters. I have developed a system of a sort! First I am looking only at applications from the area around Blantyre, this reduces the number of applications by half, then I am looking for expressed reasons for wanting to work with young children, and then I am looking at other experience and qualifications.

Tomorrow is a bank holiday, hoorah! It may only have been a four day week, but it has worn me out and I shall be delighted not to have to set the alarm for 6.00am tomorrow. A lazy day, getting to know Mitsidi better and having a swim seems very attractive.

Reflections after two days

This morning I have had a slow start as I don't need to go into the office and my first appointment is about 9.15am. So here I am just after 7.30pm sitting in a cane armchair on the porch of my house just after 7.30 in the morning with a little time to try and organize all the impressions of the last two days. My first thought is about timing! At home I should never be up and ready to work at this hour but here everything is different. I think that there is going to be a lot more morning and less evening! It is pitch dark by 6.00pm and we have our meal together either round the table in the big house or outside on the covered terrace. Then we make tea and sit and chat for a while, catching up on what everyone has been up to and how all the other projects are going. By about 7.30pm the first volunteer has said 'Goodnight' and gone off to his or her own house. Last night Malcolm and I were the last and we were back in our own houses by ten to nine! In the morning the cock is crowing by about quarter to five and there are sounds of activity in the grounds of Mitsidi. The sun is bright and staying in bed beyond six seems to be quite unusual during the week at least.

Monday was my first working day and it began with the weekly assembly which takes place in the church hall. It was a bit like a school assembly really. Different groups take turns to lead the assembly and this time it was the volunteers turn. There was a bible reading, a poem, some lively singing and then Jan said a few words. The practical arrangements and goodbyes to those going home and welcomes to new arrivals followed. I had to get up and introduce myself. It will be a useful forum to catch people that I want to talk to from other parts of the project I think. Then it was off to the office to meet so many new people and talk to Vince about the origins and vision of the Children's Centre project. The rest of the day was made up of visits to all the Beehive projects. Chilomoni township is a suburb of Blantyre. The roads are all mud roads and at the moment everything is dry and there is red dust everywhere. I don't think I really need to put sun lotion on my feet as they are permanently protected by a film of red dust! I have taken to wearing my crocs a lot of the time as this means I can just put my feet under the tap, shoes and all and hose them down before I go into the house! Zoe showed me round and we walked together around Chilomoni. Two white women together excited some interest amongst the local children and we were pointed out and good-naturedly laughed at wherever we went. All the children wanted to practice their English and we were constantly asked 'How are you?' to which we replied 'I'm fine, how are you?' over and over again! Zoe knows a bit of Chichewa which helped a lot. I don't think I'm going to find it easy as everyone speaks so fast but I discussed the possibility of lessons with Vince and I think that might happen which would be great. I saw Bee Bikes, the internet café which is shortly to be closed down I understand, the tailoring courses, the knitting project, the church, the new little factory where they are going to make the Host to sell to churches throughout the country. We visited my first Malawian nursery, next to the church. I don't know where to begin, so I will leave that story for another day and try and sort out some pictures. That will give you a much better impression than any words I could write.

Then we had lunch in the church hall and I had my first nsima with vegetables. There was also beef stew, but although I have begun to eat my first meat for twenty years I passed on the stew on the first day! I have had a few tasters of meat at Mitsidi though, a square inch of steak, half a beefburger and a spoonful of gravy. Indeed last night I had two pieces of Christina's fried chicken, which was delicious! After lunch we set off to walk up the hill to the construction site to see the half built IT centre and the beginnings of the Children's Centre. It was the hottest day for a long time apparently and although it is not far I was delighted that we were overtaken by Derek in a pick-up truck. He hopped in the back and Zoe drove so we were saved a hot walk! Nevertheless I struggled in the heat of the middle of the day as we walked around the site. I learned about construction African style, including how hydroform blocks are made, and watched the local workers digging, shoveling and carrying. Again, dust was everywhere. Scaffolding was made of wooden poles. Most, but by no means all of the workers had boots or shoes but some were barefoot. Women carried big buckets of water on their heads, balancing perfectly, even going up and down stairs. I took some photos which I will try to attach to this blog so that you can see for yourselves. I could write so much about the differences from home that I would be here all day….


We had a look at the plans for the children's centre with the architect and I was able to imagine how it will all look when it is finished. There seems to be some difference of opinion about when the building is likely to be finished, estimates range from May to October, or even later! We shall have to wait and see.

Next we got a lift into Blantyre and went to see Torrent rentals which loans computers and vehicles to customers throughout Malawi. After that we went to buy me a phone and then back to the Beehive admin office and home to Mitsidi. So many new experiences in one day, and such heat, about 37degrees! I was exhausted and a bit overwhelmed!

Yesterday Zoe and I walked into Chilomoni to visit St James' School where David and I are to have two classrooms for our courses. The head teacher was charming and showed us nearly every room, introducing us to the teachers and children. Some of the older children had desks, but in the younger classes everyone was seated on the floor. One of our rooms is the school's IT suite which has about ten computers. I am a bit concerned that while we are there the children will not have access to the computers, but Zoe says she is not sure that they have much chance to use them anyway, there is a great opportunity for a teacher volunteer in the school apparently.

My most lasting impression of the nursery is of a great pile of toys sent from the UK which were in the room with the children but hardly touched, pieces of the same equipment separated from each other, and everything in a muddle. My first important lesson I think is that to give things is just not enough. If the workers have never seen these things before we cannot expect that they will know how to use them or even be able to recognize what they are for. Hence the need for training I suppose… I guess the situation may be similar in school with the computers.


Another hot walk to the office which fortunately is not very far. This day I had my straw hat, which caused great hilarity in the street with the children, but I was more comfortable in the sun than on the previous day. I sat down to tackle the huge pile of applications for our child care courses. I think Peter's estimate of 3000 applications is probably exaggerated, but certainly there are hundreds and I must develop a fair system for going through them. We are supposed to start teaching on 8 November and yesterday I felt as though it would take me that long just to process the applications! David I really need you!

The last event of the day was a visit to the Early Childhood Development Training Centre for Malawi which is the other side of Blantyre. We wanted to see Eunice who coordinates the national training, but she is on holiday as her daughter is to be married at the weekend, so we had to be content with a guided tour of the premises. The classroom for the students and the demonstration nursery were pretty basic by UK standards. Realizing that this is the exemplar as far as childcare training in Malawi is concerned really gave me food for thought. The secretary who showed me round suggested that I might like to attend the course in December when they will be running it in English and I think that this would be a great way to get to understand how things are in Malawian settings, but I don't know if it will be possible alongside the training timetable.


 

Monday 11 October 2010

Monday 11 October

Monday 11 October


I just realized I got the date wrong yesterday! Jetlag is my excuse but it’s not a very good one as we are only an hour different from you in the UK during British Summer Time. Today was my first day at work and it was 37 degrees. For me that is very hot! So much was packed in to today that I know I cannot describe it in detail and do it justice, I am so tired, so I shall let things sink in for a day or two and see what bubbles up to the surface of my mind. I have had my first bout of homesickness tonight, probably because I finally got a new phone and then realized just how expensive it will be to call home. Apparently you can all call me much more cheaply so go out and buy your Malawi phone cards or put ‘Call Malawi cheaply’ into Google and follow the instructions!! It was however delicious to get four emails from family and friends. The most startling piece of news is that there are many, many applications for the Introductory Child Care Course. One person suggested over 3000 applicants for 120 places. Anyway one of my first tasks is to go through them and select the fortunate few! I shed my first tears since I arrived this evening, mainly triggered by practical difficulties such as that I can only access the internet from one small spot in my house, if I put a chair right on the front door mat! I have no lead long enough to reach to there and so must use the laptop on its battery. The signal is still quite poor and so I had to retype several emails as the connection timed out and I lost them. While I am in moaning mode the other thing that really frustrates me is that the lighting in here is very dim and because I have reached the age where it is a real struggle to read in dim light I was reduced to shining a torch on the small print of the instructions for my new phone before I could set it up. This of course made me feel old, which is always annoying! Zoe has very kindly swapped desk lights with me as hers is brighter but I can only have it on if I don’t have the fan as I don’t have all the right plugs and adapters! I shall have to go shopping as soon as I can or I shall be driven round the bend! Off to bed now , will write again soon.

Sunday 10 October 2010

First impressions

It is difficult to know where to begin! So much has happened in the last few days that I feel as though the world has turned completely upside down. I travelled with Zoe who works for Krizevac in the UK and has been to Malawi before. I was very pleased to have her company particularly as David, the other Child Care Trainer has acquired some horrible virus and won’t be able to travel for another couple of weeks. Dave and Fiona, my brother and his wife, took me to Heathrow and saying goodbye to them was probably the hardest because it was so final. In an hour or two I would be on the plane winging my way to Addis Ababa and utterly unable to change my mind! I am not used to long-haul flights and although everything went quite smoothly I slept very little and was utterly exhausted by the time we got here. Highlights of the journey include raising the blind somewhere over Ethiopia, expecting complete darkness, to be greeted by a streak of burnt orange just above the horizon. As I watched, the light gradually developed so that colours blended into one another across the sky, the orange brightening before fading to apricot and then overlapping bands of eau de nil, turquoise, azure and then deepening midnight blue until almost overhead it was still completely dark. I noticed that the horizon made a perfect arc, a smooth curve; black below, and orange above. As the light increased the ‘ground’, as it were, acquired texture, as an unbroken blanket of puffy clouds was gradually revealed. Clouds formed a bit of theme to my observations of the second flight from Addis Ababa to Lilongwe also. Sometimes it was hard to know which dark patches on the ground were geographical features and which shadows of clouds, but after a while I got better at working it out. Tiny puffs of white against an otherwise unblemished vista of blue were subtly tinged with gold from the sun as we descended to land at Lilongwe. We were met at Lilongwe airport by Jan who is the volunteer manager at Beehive IT Centre and who has been in Malawi for a fortnight. Already he seems quite at home and fairly well able to find his way around, although he did say he had got lost a couple of times the day before. We were soon speeding our way towards Blantyre on quite a good tarmacked road which was generally very straight and with very few junctions. Not many signposts either. We passed through many villages and small towns and very few of these seemed to have signs saying the name of the place. We had to work it out from the shop signs. In fact I think that there must be a sort of ribbon development along the main roads as there seemed to be small groups of houses all along the way. There is not a lot in the way of grass, and an awful lot of red dust. Many trees and plants were unfamiliar. I have fallen in love with the jacaranda trees which are currently in flower. No leaves at the moment, just flowers, so they look like they’ve come out in ‘the wrong’ colour, ethereal purple against the blue sky! So just remember all you Early Years people when your children paint things in unexpected colours they may just know a bit more than you do yourself! We passed through a few places that I had heard of previously. I was able to leave a parcel at the BP garage by the road block at Dedza as requested and I recognized Ntcheu as the place where my friend’s daughter spent a year. We travelled pretty quickly though in an attempt to get to our destination before dark. Our arrival was a bit of a blur really. The other volunteers were very welcoming but we ate, dumped luggage in our rooms and were asleep by about 8.00pm. The cock woke me in the morning before 5.00am with some hearty crowing and there were sounds of life outside, so I got up and surveyed our domain! My little house is Jacaranda 2 and is part of a terrace on a slope overlooking an incline the other side of the river where there is a brick kiln. There always seem to be a few people about across the other side, I suppose looking after the firing of the bricks. There are two similar terraces, one above the other and a third at right angles to them. These are where the volunteers live. There is a big house where we all eat together. This also has a big shared sitting room and a covered terrace with a huge table overlooking the garden. There are lots of trees, so plenty of shade. I haven’t identified them all yet, but there are mangoes and jacarandas, something that looks like eucalyptus, a huge tree with ash-type leaves that reminds me of a tree of heaven and something that could be a magnolia. Obviously I have a lot to learn! There are chickens, ducks and turkeys pottering about the garden and guinea pigs in the shed. The door is apparently left open but they make no attempt to escape. How unexpected is that? On Saturday morning a sparrowhawk took one of the chicks. I missed it, but apparently the chick made q lot of noise and fuss but was carried off nevertheless. I have a large room with a built in desk and a kitchen area with worktops, a kettle and a toaster. I understand that I will get a hot plate but at the moment all cooking has to be done in the main house. The walls are painted cream, the floor is concrete and the curtains are black and white with pictures of African animals. There are net curtains with pictures in the weave of Malawian round, thatched huts, local trees, and antelopes. Everything is very muted and I love a bit of colour, so I was glad I brought my festival blanket which is red and green and brown and brightens the place up a bit. It needs more though! I think I should treat myself to a nice bright rug and some pictures. There are two nails banged in to the wall and on one of them hangs Karl’s Panama hat. I bet he would have been astonished to think that it would have ended up in Africa! I have brought all the good wishes cards I received before I left home and they are displayed on the work surface, but they keep blowing over when I put the fan on so I shall have to find another way to display them. I wonder if I shall be able to find Blutak in Malawi? My bedroom is smaller but there is plenty of room for the bed with its blue mosquito net, a chest of drawers, a clothes rack and a tiny bedside table. I think children from the UK would imagine that the mosquito net makes the bed into a princess bed! If it was pink or white with a bit of glitter it would definitely fit the bill. I am having a little difficulty negotiating it when I get up in the night to the toilet. Tucking it in again in the dark after switching the light off is definitely an art that takes a bit of practice to acquire. I have a little bathroom with a toilet and a shower. No hot water in the shower at the moment, but actually that isn’t a problem at all as I am too hot all the time and a cold shower is a great relief.

Monday 4 October 2010

More Goodbyes

I realised that there are already mistakes in this blog, notably it is not true that the first entry was written on 21 September but I guess it doesn't really matter as the sentiments remain the same!  I have a lot to learn about blogging and |I guess that most of it will have to wait until I get there and then it will be mostly by trial and error!  Today has been a day of 'lasts'.  It was my last working day in the UK.  I finished working for NANSA and was very touched by the warmth of their farewell and their appropriate gift, a wind-up radio. That will be very useful on the evenings when the electricity goes off!  I also went to the GPs for the last time (I hope!) to be put on steroids to get rid of the allergic symptoms.  I did my last lot of ironing ( I can hear Kathy saying 'Why?'),  wrote a couple of notes to dear friends and went out for an excellent supper at John's.  I also learned that the other Childcare Trainer David, is not well and will be unable to travel with me to Malawi, following in two weeks when he is better.  What an anticlimax that must be for him!  I am scared, but I am all geared up to go and I think I would struggle with a delay.  So get well soon David, I need you.

Leaving people behind continues to be my greatest difficulty.  Now that David is delayed I am going to a place where there will be no one that I have ever met before.  That is certainly a situation I have never experienced and not one I relish the prospect of.  However it is the case, and I will have to 'grit my teeth and think of democracy' as one of you wrote in my party notebook.  Wise and necessary advice I fear!

Saturday 2 October 2010

Party

00.20 am Sunday 3 October
 


I am just home after an amazing farewell party in the cellar at Take 5I so nearly didn't have a party, but Kathy persuaded me and I am so glad that she did.  There are not many occasions in life when so many people are gathered together and the only thing that links them all together is you.  Over the last few days I have been feeling a bit sad that I am to leave so many good friends behind but tonight I just feel glad that I know you all and that you cared enough to come and give me a splendid send off.  Kathy organised a notebook for people to write me messages and I have been so touched sitting here in my study and reading what you all have to say to meI am indeed blessed with a collection of extraordinary friends, interesting and stimulating people.  I must be bonkers to leave you all behind!  However as many of you said tonight, 18 months is not really all that long and I shall be back before we know it!  Thankyou for all your good wishes.  I shall try to live up to the image that comes out of your collected messages, but I am sure that it will be very difficult, you have all been so very kind!  The word that pops up again and again in your messages is 'Adventure' and I am sure that that is exactly what I shall have.  When George sent me the volunteers' contract she wrote ' I am sure you will enjoy your African adventure'.  It does feel like an adventure although in this modern world nowhere is very far away really I suppose.  This is only the second time in my life I have ever left Europe behind.  Ten days in China made a fantastic holiday but I am sure that even that will pale into insignificance beside the chance to live and work alongside local people in 'the warm heart of Africa' which is the way Malawi is often described.  Other key words that you wrote for me include 'friendship', 'warmth', 'women', 'lucky' ,'fantastic' ,'experience', 'Africa', 'strength',  'laughter' and 'love'.  A pretty good selection I reckon!  What could go wrong....!  You all encouraged me with your lovely messages so that excitement is beginning to outstrip anxiety again!  One of you made me cry, you know who you are Babe!  Next time I write I shall probably be in Africa... Fancy that!