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.