First courses finish tomorrow!

It feels surprising that already we have reached the end of the first set of introductory child care courses. They are only a brief three week course but it feels as though we have packed a lot into them and it has been a very intense three weeks. We feel as though we know the students quite well and they have certainly both worked hard and played hard. They have obviously been revising too because both David and I have asked questions about previous lectures this week and many of them know the answers. Vince and Peter visited again today to see the morning group of students. It appears to be the Malawian way to be fairly enthusiastic and effusive in praise. Peter gave a long speech about how much better our course is than any other child care course in Malawi, but I am not sure that he has much evidence on which to base his assertions. Please do not misunderstand me, we have worked hard to make this course as good as we can with the planning time available to us but I have studied the Malawian Early Childhood Development Training Manual in detail and I suspect that Peter has not, because our course has not imparted as much information in three weeks as that manual instructs one to deliver in two! Our course is undoubtedly more digestible and much more fun, but it is not as comprehensive. I do not know how anyone can take all that in, in two weeks. I have discussed this with Chaliza and she says that too much is tackled in one day as people are desperate for training and try to fit in as much as possible. She says that at the end of a day students on the Malawian courses are exhausted and suffering from information overload, but look, she said to me, your session is finished and most of your students are still here writing up notes and asking questions. It is good to leave them wanting more, then they will definitely come back tomorrow! Several students got up and made quite formal speeches thanking Beehive for putting on the course and saying how much it had meant to them to be able to attend. It is amazing the lengths people have gone to to make sure they could come. Several have taken three weeks leave from work to be able to come. Frank, who is a guard at Mitsidi, is one of these and he has already asked if he can do night shifts for six months so that he can attend the Intermediate Course if he is selected. One guy who works for the bus company in Lilongwe has been staying with a relative in Blantyre for the three weeks to be able to attend. Others travel by three separate minibuses each day, each way in order to attend the course for two and a half hours. Others walk significant distances. Everyone wants to be accepted for the next course but there are only 60 places. It is going to be incredibly difficult to decide who will go forward. Tomorrow is Assessment Day. There will be three 45 minute sessions in the usual two and a half hour period. The class will be divided into three groups and will rotate around three activities. There will be a written exam. I have written ten questions of which the students will be expected to answer six. I have worked out a marking scheme so David and Lindy and I can share the work of marking and have some hope of being consistent! There will be a creativity test which will involve making a toy and filling in a form to say which age group of children it is intended for, how they would introduce the toy to a child, and what they would expect the child to learn from it. Finally each candidate will have a brief interview, either with me, or with David. We shall ask each person the same four questions. The whole course is a bit like an extended selection process for the Intermediate course and the chance of a job in the Children's Centre. I cannot bear the thought that some of them will probably pass the course, but not make it into the top 60. Vince told them all that even if they don't make it the certificate they get will be a passport to other jobs with children, or other jobs of different kinds with Beehive. I wish I shared his confidence! I do hope that he is right!

I have just paused in my blogging to pick up my can of Doom for only the second time since I have been here to bring death to insects that have invaded my house! The first time was to the biggest cockroach I have ever seen! This time it is for a large number of flying ants which have appeared from nowhere and are swarming round my table lamp and the ceiling light. There is now a lot less activity in the pools of light but I have a very tickly throat and am coughing a fair bit. I wonder what is in that stuff, it can't be good for me. Just spotted another cockroach and Doomed that too!! I have used the old-fashioned and kinder method of trapping things in a glass with a postcard and putting them outside the door quite a bit, but tonight there are just too many. I hope it is not because the rains have started, but I fear that it is! I suppose now I shall have to get out the dustpan and brush and dispose of the corpses before I go to bed! Anyway, it is time I did, busy day tomorrow! Night night.