Introductory course, days 2 and 3

Day 2 was about good memories of childhood and about our hopes and aspirations for our children. For their homework I asked the students to bring in something the next day which reminded them of their own childhood and to show it to the class and explain the memory. It was fascinating because so many of the students brought toys they had made out of local materials. At least three of the girls brought either lumps of clay or beautiful little babies that they had fashioned out of clay and they described caring for and feeding these babies and strapping them to their backs with scraps of fabric just as their mothers carried younger brothers and sisters. One young man whose father had been in the army made a tank out of clay and cocktail sticks, another made a rotor blade from a torn leaf mounted on a stick and described running through the streets of Chilomoni pretending to be an aeroplane. A young woman who was the youngest of four sisters brought a tin can which had been washed and the label carefully removed and described how her sisters had supported her to cook by herself from a very young age using such tins and making real food by herself alongside the work that they were doing, always with her own small pan. Some talked about story-telling and singing in their own families. The afternoon group brought more ready-made toys than the morning group, but many of these were well worn and obviously well-loved, probably because toys are not nearly so plentiful here as they are at home. David and I have kept our eyes open on the walk to and from work and we have noticed children playing with sticks and stones and clay. Little girls with tins and wet mud are busy cooking nsima, there is the occasional boy with a car made out of wire. Bowling tyres along the road, controlling them with two sticks is a popular sport with boys aged about ten, and they will use anything that will roll, the other day I saw a boy bowling the hoop out of an old mosquito net. Groups of girls gather under the trees to play what I used to call American skipping. We used to make ropes out of linked rubber bands, or beg a length of knicker elastic from our mum's workboxes, but here the ropes are made from strips cut from plastic carrier bags, there seems to be just enough stretch in them to make the game work. Little girls seem to spend a lot of time practicing carrying things on their heads, like their mothers and you will see quite small children balancing tins and small buckets containing water, sometimes steadying them with one hand, but often balancing very well as they pass along the road. Boys make balls out of whatever they can, rolled up paper, clay. If any of you are coming to Africa and wish to bring a gift for local children you could do worse than fill your suitcase with uninflated footballs and bring a pump!

There were differences between the expectations of our students for their children and those of students in the UK at different stages of their progress through formal education, but also strong similarities. In the UK there is usually a strong theme around wishing children will be happy, but that seems less of an issue in Malawi, and yet people do seem to be happier generally here, despite the extreme poverty. There is a much stronger desire in Malawi than in the UK that children should turn out to be 'God-fearing' and the desire that children should not get involved in a peer group that will lead them into drink, drugs and early sexual experimentation is strong in both countries. In Malawi there is a strong emphasis on being a good citizen and contributing to the development of the country. The government's strapline that early years children are the future leaders of Malawi is obviously well known and welcomed. At least among our students progress of the country towards being able to provide a better life for its citizens is seen as a highly desirable outcome. For my own interest rather than anything else, after the students had produced their own lists of aspirations for their children I told them about the five outcomes of the Every Child Matters legislation in the UK, and just as has happened in similar classes at home I have not found an aspiration for children that does not fit within at least one of the five outcomes –happy, healthy, safe, make a positive contribution to society and achieve economic independence. In my humble opinion if the Tories throw it out it will not be because it is not a useful way of assessing how successful individual services for children are, it will be because spending money on services for Early Years is lower down their list of priorities than it should be!

The two groups are very different from each other. In the morning the presentations take longer because the students tend to ask more philosophical questions. The second group seems to be more practical and more able to extract the learning opportunities from the games we play and understand why we have chosen the games to fit the theme of the session.

Today we planned that David would take primary responsibility for the session which was to be on Physical Development, but unfortunately he woke up with a bad case of the dreaded D and Vs and it would not have been wise, or possibly even possible for him to have led the very active session he had planned. Therefore we agreed that we would swap the timetable around and I would present my almost planned session on Social, Emotional and Behavioural Development. This had the personal advantage for me that I get a free evening tonight as I would undoubtedly have spent time tinkering with the plans today and actually it went fine, indeed I think it was the best session so far. Funny old world, perhaps from this I should learn to have more confidence in my abilities to improvise and make myself a little more leisure time! I played a lot of games today, choosing them to encourage building relationships, taking turns, cooperating together and was proud of the student's abilities to understand and describe what they had been doing. They entered into playing with great enthusiasm, I think partly because there is a good mix of ages in the group and roughly equal numbers of men and women. We are developing a tradition of beginning each session by reading the group a story as if they were a group of three year olds. Can one have a tradition after three days? The students appear to enjoy it and are entering into the spirit of the exercise and responding to questions with gusto. David is a particularly talented reader of stories and has them all doing actions etc. It is a joy to take part. One never stops learning! Later we plan for some of the students to read the stories.

Yesterday two things happened which caused me concern. At the end of the afternoon session I became aware that I had a potential problem. Two students at opposite ends of the classroom appeared to be having a heated discussion. I sat down and paid great attention to what was going on, but could not work out what it was about. One of the girls spoke quietly to me as she walked past, 'You do not understand what it is they are saying, do you?' she said. I asked her to explain but she was cautious so I decided to take the bull by the horns. I stood up and said, ' I can see that there is a problem, but I do not know what the problem is. If you will continue the discussion in English so I can understand, perhaps I will be able to help.' It transpired that several students are really struggling to come to the course as it is three minibus rides away from their homes and this is a significant cost, particularly to those who are not working. They wanted to know if Beehive was able to help with travel costs. Fortunately Vince had prepared me for this one and so I was able to be very clear in my answer. I said that Beehive was unable to help with travel costs because there is no budget for this. I said I would take their comments back to Vince but I was not hopeful that he would change his mind. I told them that Beehive was providing good quality training for free, paying for materials and equipment and for hiring the room, and that David and I were working for nothing. I said that Beehive would like to be able to help but there was not enough money for everything. I wrote my mobile phone number on the board and said if anyone felt they had to stop coming to the course because they had no money for fares they should telephone me first. It is over 24 hours now and I have had no such calls.

The other thing is that I was approached by one of the younger girls who had said that she had asked her workplace if she could have the time off to attend this course and they had refused her request, so she had resigned on the spot and come to the second session. I think she was appalled by the enormity of what she had done. She said that if she does not make it on to the intermediate course and eventually get a job in the Children's Centre all her friends will laugh at her for what she has done. I told her that her action showed me how much she wants to do the job, and now she must work hard and do well in the exam and take part in the activities enthusiastically and make sure that she is selected. I told her I could not make any promises but that I hoped her brave decision would eventually turn out well for her, and then I went home and worried about her until Gloria's more pressing problems took over my worry space! I am sure that you will all be glad to know that Gloria is home from hospital and well on the way to recovery. I am astonished by how important a simple three week course with a potential for further training is to these people. They have invested a huge amount of faith that we will provide a valuable, worthwhile course. It is quite a responsibility!

One more thing. Today I looked up the blog statistics and discovered that I have had hits from eight different countries, and over 800 hits altogether. How amazing is that! Please leave me comments so I know who you are and what you think.