Quiet few days

The last few days have been very quiet as I am the only volunteer still at Mitsidi. Not what I expected, and I can't say I like it, but there we are! I have managed a swim each day, despite overcast and rainy weather and I have done quite a bit of sorting out paperwork and thinking about how to go about planning the Intermediate Course. David will be back in a week or so and I am really looking forward to that. It will be good to have someone to bounce ideas off again.

This afternoon Charles dropped me off at admin on his way to do the shopping for Mitsidi and I arrived to find the place deserted and locked up. I wanted to print off the student's poems about water that they wrote during the session about caring for children's basic needs, so I popped over the road to Mary's to borrow the key and while I was there she very kindly asked me to lunch tomorrow and then to two weddings, so tomorrow is going to be a much livelier day. Apparently I need lots of low denomination kwacha notes so that I can tuck them into the clothing of the bride and groom.

Here is my favourite of the water poems:

 

Without water

All

Things

Even

Rivers die.

 

Here is another that is more typical:

 

I am water

I am not even expensive

Always available in dams, rivers and lakes

I am very useful

 

To wash clothes you need me

To bath you need me

When hungry you cook food

Using me

You even use me to quench your thirst

Plants, children, animals depend on me

 

Make sure I am pure all the time

If I am dirty

I will make you sick

I am a darling to everyone

And very useful too!

 

They are mostly in English, but one or two are in Chichewa.

I have typed them all up in various shades of blue and with a border round each page. I promised the students I would make them into a book. I think we will be making lots of books next term because books in Chichewa are very scarce and I think the Children's Centre will need a good collection.

I walked back to Mitsidi through Chilomoni, which I haven't done for well over a week since the course finished. It was lovely to be spoken to by so many people who if they don't actually know me, certainly recognize me as the azungu who walks home that way. One little girl came running towards me with arms outstretched and I picked her up and swung her round, and then we walked hand in hand the couple of hundred yards to her house. We chatted all the way, I in English and she in Chichewa. Neither of us had the least idea what the other was saying, but it was companionable.

The children mostly wear European style clothes which can be bought very cheaply in the second hand market. Maureen and Annie have offered to take me there and I shall definitely take them up on their offer. It astonishes me how many little girls are clad in chiffon, lace and satin. Apparently they are bridesmaid's dresses from the UK. I guess they are the clothes in best condition from the market, I suppose because they have only been worn once! I often see little tots playing in the mud in frilly dresses that were once white, but they don't stay white for very long!

Chilomoni is a beautiful place despite the poverty. Every family has its small patch of maize and vegetables so it is very green everywhere and there are many trees, both fruit trees and flowering trees and shrubs. The jacaranda and flame blossoms are over now but there is a tree with bright yellow blooms that has been in flower ever since I got here. No one seems to know what it is called, but Jean, who is about ten, told me you can make a poison out of the flowers. The Frangipani is still in bloom, with fragrant pink or white waxy stars, and there is bougainvillea everywhere and in every shade of magenta and purple, I have even seen an orange variety.

It is possible to recognize plants that I know as garden annuals in UK, but which grow into huge trees and bushes here because there is no frost. There is one with clusters of tiny pink and yellow flowers, mixed colours in the same cluster, that I have often seen as a border plant at home, I am not very good at the names of garden flowers. I asked Tamara what it is called the other day and she said 'We just call it 'hedge.''

There is a point on our walk home when we leave the road and walk through an area with about four houses together and then down a narrow path to connect with the road off which we live. When it rains the path becomes a raging torrent and the force of the water has carved out a deep bed for itself so that now the path keeps changing from one side of the channel to the other and you have to keep stepping over. Today it was bone dry. The women of the four houses have been trying to clear the land at the top to grow more maize but they have had an uphill battle because there is a huge amount of rubbish mixed with the soil. It is mostly plastic bags and scraps of waste metal from the bucket makers of which there are several just upstream. I think the rain must bring all the rubbish with it and it accumulates at the top of the path because it catches on the bushes. Anyway we saw women and small children collecting barrow loads of scrap metal from the soil and mounding the soil in rows for planting maize, but I fear their effort was wasted because apart from a double row next to the path which is now almost up to my waist, the middle of the patch looks as though it has been stirred with a giant wooden spoon and sprinkled with bits of plastic bag, and there are no seedlings to be seen. It must be most dispiriting, such a waste of hard work.

 

 

    

33 A visit to Tamara’s family

This morning I was feeling a bit miserable and alone, there are so few of us left at Mitsidi and the others are busy with their visitors from home, so I was rather sorry for myself. However I pulled myself together and decided to make nice things happen, and they did! The first nice thing was simple, I telephoned Margaret and we spoke for nearly an hour. It was worth every penny! I am so fortunate to have good friends at home. I was pitying myself for having left you all behind but I must never forget that you are all still there and we can be brought together by technology. The post may be dreadful, Margaret has sent me three letters and I have received none of them. What did travellers do before telephones and the internet? Margaret and I have spent many hours at her kitchen table over the last few years. We have drunk endless cups of green tea and supported each other over the ups and downs of our lives, both big and small. She has joked that we are sending the kitchen table with its teapot back and forth with the emails, but it is so much more satisfying to actually talk. I felt do much more cheerful after the phone call.

The second nice thing was that I plucked up the courage to ring Tamara, one of my students who once suggested that I might like to visit her mother when I said that I was finding it difficult to meet Malawian women of my own age. I asked her if today would be a convenient day, and it was. Tamara met me at the bridge at Sigregge, at the bottom of the drive to Mitsidi and led me through narrow paths and muddy tracks from Sigregge to the next village, the name of which I forget, where is her family home. We had to delay our meeting for half an hour or so due to heavy rain, so everything was dripping and there was a lot of mud about, but I donned waterproof and welly-shoes and managed fine although it was a bit slippery under foot. After about twenty minutes walk we turned down a narrow path between gardens planted with vegetables and maize to three small houses close together which are all occupied by the extended family. She took me into the house where she lives with her parents. Tamara is the youngest of seven children, five girls and two boys. The others are all married, just, her next sister was married on Christmas day. We went into a fair-sized room with sofas and comfy chairs to seat nine people. Two children were watching TV and a third soon joined them. They got up to greet me and shook hands and told me their names. Fortunately I had three lollipops left in my bag, so I gave them one each and they stripped off the paper and sat sucking and watching TV for a while. Tamara went off to fetch her mum who was dressed in a traditional three piece costume (skirt, top and headdress) made from turquoise patterned cloth with a big circular logo on it that said 'Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year'. Her mum speaks pretty good English considering she had no education after the end of Primary School. She told me the names and ages of all her children and I told her about mine. She was married at 19 and had her first son at 20 in 1970. Although I am only five years younger, by the time I had Rose at 29 she had 6 children and Tamara her youngest fits in between Jack and Joe in age. She told me how she was born in Ntcheue and moved here when she married at 19 and has been in the village ever since. Tamara said that the house is old, it was built in 1980. I told her my house in England was built in 1928 and she was astonished that a house had stood for so long. I had brought tea and sugar and biscuits as a gift for Tamara's mother as well as some Lux soap. I didn't really know what to take but I figured that if tea and sugar were good enough for the chief they would probably be acceptable anywhere and her mother seemed very pleased with them and thanked me. Tamara went off to the kitchen to make tea and she told me all about the family coming to the wedding and asked me who the children belong to when a couple get married in England. Is it to the bride's family or to the bridegroom's? I said that they belong to both families. When Tamara came back she explained that in some tribes if the mother should die the children belong to the father's family and even if the mother's family is much more able to care for them they will not be able to have them. Tamara's mother was clearly not very happy about this arrangement and I wonder whether her daughter had just married into such a family, but it was not very clear. I said that in England if that situation happened and there was a dispute it would probably go to court and the decision would be made in the best interests of the children. She seemed to think that this was a good idea.

The house had whitewashed walls and a corrugated iron roof. There were curtains in a green and cream traditional patterned fabric in the doorways. Through the curtain in the kitchen area I could see a big pile of sacks of maize flour. The family farms, and grows all its own food. Tamara told me her mother works very hard and keeps pigs as well as growing maize and vegetables. I told the mother that Tamara had done very well in the child care exam. She was the top of the class that she was in, and one of only seven out of 110 to get a distinction. Her mum was pleased and proud and so was a married sister who popped in for a few minutes to meet me.

After we had been talking for half an hour or so the Minister for the Church they attend came round and was pleased and surprised to see me. He looks after nine churches and lives about 30Km away, but he told Tamara to bring me to see him. I said I would try to borrow a car so that we could do that one day. He said that the Mother Church of his church was in Birmingham. Apparently he lives in a tea-growing area, it would be interesting to take up his offer.

There was a little kitten playing around our feet, Tamara said it was four months old and it seemed very small. I haven't seen many cats in Malawi, although quite a few people seem to have dogs. I said I liked cats and used to have one myself. Tamara said that even though it is so small it tries to catch rats, but they are too big for it at the moment, so I guess it will be a working cat eventually even if it is not so at the moment. It was a sweet little tortoiseshell with a kink in its tail. I picked it up and it was soon curled up in my lap and purring. I had to lift it up to get up and say goodbye to Tamara's mum. She thanked me for coming to see her and said that the visit was a blessing. She thanked me for the gifts and said she was very happy with them and they would think of me when they drank tea and washed with the soap! She also thanked me for visiting the home of underprivileged people, which seemed to me a bit of an odd thing to say, particularly as the family seems rather well to do by Malawian standards, but I guess many azungu do not get to visit the homes of people who farm in the traditional way, getting to know more people who have jobs and live in a way that is more similar to our way of life.

Boxing Day

Today is Boxing Day and I intend to have a lazy day! The last two days have been busy and interesting but did not really feel like Christmas! I suppose that this is really because for all my 55 years I have always spent at least part of Christmas with family and I did feel a long way away from you all yesterday. I still do. It was lovely to speak to my children, brother, sister and sundry other relatives who were around at the time. I was on the phone for about an hour and a half all told, a very pleasant indulgence! I managed not to cry, even when Joe said he missed me, but despite enjoying the experience of living here being on the whole a good one it is at times like this that I wonder what possessed me to come all this way, away from the people that I love so much. I am getting very excited about Jack's visit in January. A month from yesterday he will be here. He says we will have Christmas on 25 January this year, so I am looking forward to that!

Christmas Eve was a busy day. Jan, Lindy and their visitors left about 9.30am for their 'Christmas Morning in a wild life park' experience and I got in Emma's car, which was utterly the reverse experience to that of driving the Land Rover, new, shiny, smooth, automatic, everything working! I went to the admin office to see how many people had picked up their results but the guard said there was no one there, so I drove round the corner to Maureen's. You may remember Maureen as the owner of a nursery I visited with Jane on about my third day here. She was very welcoming and very keen to do our course. Now she has done it, and got a reasonable mark too and is all set for the Intermediate course. You can see a photo of her on my facebook site in the album about teaching key concepts. Maureen is amazing. I am getting to be very fond of her. She was brought up by her grandmother in Zimbabwe and only discovered that Grandma wasn't her mother when at 14 she was sent back to Malawi to live with her mum. At 15 she opened a nursery school on next to nothing. She is a formidable character, loud, energetic, cheerful, of decided opinions. She was in town when I arrived, but her husband said he would tell her I had been round and I agreed to come back at about noon after I had done my shopping.

I have been putting together parcels for the children who play in the garden at Mitsidi, they are mostly the children of Charles our house keeper, and Stanley the gardener, but there are one or two others who are also always about the place, the children of people who work for our neighbours. Zoe left me a few books and she and Gemma each gave me a little money and I have gradually been collecting together things to make up a parcel for each child. Lindy and I popped in the K99 shop the other day and bought ten bouncy balls, small for Bridget, Charles' baby, and Esnut, who is four, and football sized for the older children up to Chicco who is 12. One exception was Emily who is 11. Jane left me a pile of bits and pieces when she left that she thought might be useful for the children, including a brightly coloured skipping rope with yellow plastic handles. I gave this to Emily as the oldest girl amongst the younger children. It was a lucky guess really. She seemed delighted with it and the smile on her face as she stood looking down at it in her hands was a joy to see. I spent a happy hour in Bee Books choosing two books for each child. I tried to match them to the ages of the children. It was hard without knowing them individually but I managed to find a simply written book about making things out of wood which I gave to Chicco. I hope his English is up to it. I bought a big pot of blackcurrant lollipops and a bag of balloons and Lindy donated a packet of sweets for each child. I have had a row of little piles of presents gradually increasing in size on the floor under the window in my sitting room for a week or so. There is also a group of teenage girls, including Gloria, of the snake bite incident. I gave them sweets and balloons the same as the littler ones and bought a huge bumper pack of hair bits and pieces in Shoprite and divided it between them. None of them were there when I went round to deliver the gifts so I don't know if I hit the spot with that idea or not.

I bought a big box of English biscuits to take to Mary and her family on Christmas Day. Lindy had given me a list of bits and pieces to buy to contribute to our feast on Boxing Day. We are going to cook a chicken. I asked Charles what most families eat on Christmas day and he said 'Chicken and rice'. I daresay we shall substitute the rice for roast potatoes! I bought a small pot of cream and some crisps and also the ingredients to make a Christmas cake. I couldn't get everything, no marzipan for instance, but managed to make tolerable substitutes.

After the shopping trip I went back to Maureen's. She was in the street waiting for me and welcomed me literally with open arms. She led me through the school buildings to her in-laws house where there were a number of children playing in the yard and her husband and a friend watching TV in the sitting room. The house was dark and cool, the usual concrete floors and dark sofas added to a rather gloomy air. I sat down and offered my gifts: tea, sugar and biscuits for the grown-ups and a couple of balls and lollipops for the children. In the bag there were also gifts for Annie, another of my students who lives across the road, and this was just as well because only a very few moments after we had sat down Annie arrived. She led me back to show me her house, which was also of the traditional style with two buildings, one for cooking, eating and sitting and the other for sleeping. Annie's house was brighter, she had a sort of dresser of light wood which housed all sorts of things including a television and her sofa was a light coloured fabric so everywhere seemed a lot lighter. I met all four of her children who shook my hand and sort of curtseyed to me and each told me their names. The children are taught to show respect to visitors by bending down while they shake hands: the lower the bend, the greater the respect. I am not entirely comfortable about being curtseyed to, but I am not about to undermine the teaching of good manners to children so I smiled and introduced myself to them. When I gave the Christmas presents to Charles' children his wife did the same, in fact she got so low, she was kneeling on the floor and I did tell her to get up, it just felt so wrong that she should be doing this to me. As an azungu I am by definition very rich in their eyes and indeed by Malawian standards this is true, but I still have difficulty getting my head around the idea of me as a rich woman and even more around the idea that rich people deserve any kind of special treatment. It seems feudal and unnecessary. I'm certainly not going to come back bowing to people in England who move in wealthier circles than I do!!

After we had seen Annie's house the two of them took me to see Maureen's. Currently she and her family live with the in-laws behind the nursery but as I suggested earlier Maureen turns out to be something of an entrepreneur and she was very keen to show me her empire! We passed three small houses on a plot to the left of the track, these belong to her and are rented out. I said to her, so you are a landlady as well as a teacher and she laughed and said 'Yes, I am a landlady!' as though the idea had never occurred to her before. We passed by her garden to the right of the track where she grows food for the family. There was quite a big area of newly planted maize which has grown really fast in the last few weeks of warm and rainy weather. It is now about 18 inches high. Amongst the maize were beans and something with leaves a bit like a courgette, maybe pumpkin leaves, I don't know. She grows other vegetables, cabbage, okra, onions. Behind a high wall to the left was another plot that Maureen owns. Here was another branch of the school that I knew nothing about. As well as pre-school children she has Standards 1-4 of primary school. If I understood her correctly this is where she started the school. She has built a new house in the grounds and is gradually fitting it out. She hopes to move in next year. At the moment she makes a little money by letting out space for top-up events. There were chairs set out in the garden for such an event to take place later in the day. Annie explained it like this: she said if you have a small business and you do not make enough money you need to top it up, so you have a top-up and invite all your friends and they help you out. For example, she said, you might have a kitchen top-up and your friends would bring you kitchen implements. It sounds like a good idea to me; I'd like to see it. We looked round Maureen's house and it is going to be lovely. The walls here are white and the windows bigger so it is lovely and light. The bedrooms have built in cupboards, just in rough wood, but giving lots of storage space. The kitchen is beautifully done with a tiled floor. There are two living rooms, one for the grown-ups, the other she described as 'a video room' for the children. There is a room for the guard, which is currently piled with building materials. She is enormously proud of what she has achieved and rightly so. I shall be very interested to know how what she learns about child care and education from our courses will impact upon how she runs her schools. From a very superficial look it appears that she has very few educational resources, but presumably any investment will have an impact upon her profits! Outside within the walls was an enclosed garden with many fruit trees, mango, papaya, apple, orange, lemon, pomegranate, and more rows of vegetables. She gave me a gift of a bag of rice which she said was of good quality and was grown in Nkota Kota by the lake.

Then we walked back towards her in laws house. When we got back to her gate she asked if I would like a drink and disappeared for a few moments carrying a pineapple Fanta each for Annie, for me and for herself. She proposed that we open the doors of Emma's car and sit and drink them in the car, so we did. We were soon joined by Neil, the youngest of her four children, who is three. It was his birthday. He climbed into the front seat and sat happily looking about him. Even when his next sister came to tell him it was time to eat nsima he wouldn't get out of the car and had to be carried away protesting, a little later by the older sister. Within five minutes he was back with smudges of nsima round his mouth and climbing into his seat. Maureen was fascinated by the car and asked me who I had borrowed it from and what they would do with it when they went back to England! Annie said 'She will buy it, she has plenty of money!' During the conversation Maureen asked me if I had the rice and I lifted the bag out of my handbag to show her that I did. My attention was caught by wriggling black specks in the rice and as I peered more closely Maureen said 'They are weevils!' I should have asked her how to separate them from the rice, but I did not. Now the bag is on my khonde as I am not keen on the idea of weevils in my kitchen, on the other hand it seems a shame to waste good quality rice from Nkota Kota! Perhaps I should ask Charles. Then I told them that my son is coming to visit me in a month's time and they made me promise to bring him to see them. I thanked them for making me so welcome and then drove back to Mitsidi. Neil was very reluctant to get out of the car and wailed as I turned it round. He wanted to know when I would come again, but I do not flatter myself that it is me he wants to see, it is undoubtedly the car. I told him it will not be the same one next time and it won't be so smart.

I spent the rest of the day after a quick swim, in wrapping presents and baking Christmas cake, a bit late, I know and spicy biscuits as presents for Charles and Mary and their families. I put on my swimming costume and the chitenge that was given to me by one of my students, she was shocked that I sat on the dirty floor to play a game in my good dress and she told me that I must wear a chitenges. I have been practicing a bit at home at Mitsidi but have not yet perfected the art of tying it tightly enough so that it does not fall off at the wrong moment. When I got to the pool Stella was there looking at the water. She commented on the chitenges, 'I like that you wear it' she said, so I confided in her about my little problem about losing it at inopportune moments, such as when I climb out of the back of the Land Rover! She laughed and gave me a lesson, but I am still not very good at it! Charles' wife walked by with baby Bridget on her back, and a couple of friends in tow; they all laughed to see what was going on as Stella and I stood with flapping chitenges and I struggled to twist and tuck in with sufficient force!

My Christmas cake was made with some of the whisky Zoe left for me to finish off instead of Brandy, golden syrup instead of treacle and white sugar instead of brown; I passed on the cherries too when I saw the price in Shoprite! So that I could give them as presents I baked mini cakes in muffin tins and they turned out pretty well, but were golden rather than dark brown. I could get neither marzipan nor the ingredients to make it so I had to be content with drizzling them with icing I made with orange juice and icing sugar, and sprinkling them with silver balls. They look very festive, if not exactly traditional!

I set the alarm for six on Christmas morning to give time to take the children's presents round to Charles' before setting off for my breakfast appointment at Mary's for eight o'clock. I found the whole experience rather strange. The children liked their things, especially the lollipops and balloons, and Charles' wife, I must find out her name, seemed very pleased with the packet of little cakes sent by Gemma and James. I also gave them a plate with a little Christmas cake in the middle, surrounded by iced spice biscuits, all sparkling with silver balls, but Charles was clearly a bit disappointed and asked when I was going to give him his chicken. I apologised and said that I hadn't got him a chicken, but I had brought gifts for the children and cake. He was nice about it, and said 'That's alright, I do have a chicken!' Clearly I made a bit of a faux pas! I did know that it is traditional to take a chicken if you visit a family, but this was only popping in for half an hour with gifts, not going for a long time. I guess I shall just have to chalk it up to experience!

When I got to Mary's she was not there! I was surprised to be greeted by Christina, she of fried chicken fame, who it turned out was also invited for breakfast along with Ireen who I had not met before. These three are good friends. Mary later described Christina and Ireen as friends who had been with her through good times and bad. Apparently Mary had gone to change, I never did find out why it was necessary to leave the house to do this. I was parked in front of the TV while Christina and Ireen went off to the kitchen and I took the opportunity to look about me. There was a young man fast asleep on the sofa with the newspaper drifting gradually off his knees. The TV was loud but he was completely oblivious. Later Ireen tried gently to wake him but he did not stir. The walls were hung with prayers and poems and religious pictures. There were several photographs of Mary and a huge poster of a Mother's day poem about how Mother is the heart of the home. The TV was the central, focus item on a huge lacquer and gilt dresser or whatnot which reminded me of the inside of a Traveller van, all painted golden bows, and shine!

Mary soon arrived resplendent in traditional African dress in turquoise broderie anglaise. I had been afraid that I might be overdressed in my posh frock, but I was completely outshone! We sat down to a generous breakfast, beginning with cornflakes with hot milk, and tea, and moving on to a cooked breakfast of garlicky spiced Malawian sausage, fried eggs, salad, and cheese and tomato sandwiches. Mary covered her splendor with a chitenge tied under her armpits, presumably to protect her finery from potential spillage. To my astonishment after breakfast all three ladies disappeared for a few minutes and returned in trousers and T shirts in which they remained for the rest of the day even though we were off for Christmas lunch in a lodge. We woke up the sleeper, Mary was more forceful than Ireen, and all piled in the car to drive to Limbe to fetch more of the family. The sleeper turned out to be a nephew who had delivered a car for Mary's son in law to drive the rest of the family to Mulange for lunch. We dropped the sleeper in Blantyre and then picked up two of Mary's daughters, a niece, two grandsons, one only two months old, and the maid who looks after the children, and proceeded along a beautiful road through tea plantations towards Mulange mountain. It was a bright sunny day and everywhere is vivid green following the recent rain. Maize is growing in all the patches that were bare earth when I arrived. As I drove along I suddenly became aware that many people were running along the side of the road in the direction in which we were travelling. It soon became apparent that there had been a nasty accident between two minibuses only moments before. It was already a heaving throng of people. Many hands were helping what seemed like an endless stream of people out of the minibuses. They both must have been absolutely full to overflowing. As I was driving I had to keep my attention on the road to avoid mowing down anyone else, but Mary said that the driver of one bus looked as though he was trapped in the wreckage and several people looked hurt although they all seemed to be able to get out of the buses. Fortunately it happened only about a mile from the hospital. I asked Mary about emergency services. She said that if the hospital has an ambulance the first people to reach there will tell the staff what has happened and then they will bring the ambulance to the site of the accident. We are so lucky in our country to have the NHS and for everything to be so organized. As there were so many willing helpers Mary told me not to stop and we negotiated the wreckage and pressed on towards Mulange, but we were all rather sobered by the experience.

We arrived at the Lodge where we were booked in for a barbeque lunch. There was a wedding party going on with a marquee with a band playing under huge trees by a turquoise swimming pool. Our table was on a khonde overlooking the pool. We settled comfortably into a group of cane armchairs and ordered a round of drinks. The children played around us on the floor and after a while we were joined by the rest of the family. How they all fitted into a single saloon car I can only imagine! I got out my camera to take a few photos of the children. Catherine took it out of my hands and proceeded to take photos of everyone with me, so I now have a collection of pictures of me with every female member of the Kamwendo clan, all smiling brightly. The baby and the two three year olds also appear in most of them, each girl passed the baby to the next as she left her palace on the sofa next to me! Catherine requested a photo of her with her two boys and supplied me with her email address and requested me to send the photos to her. I hope the internet speed will be fast enough to cope. The meal was a choice from the barbeque of goat, lamb or turkey, there was stewed chicken, stewed beef, rice, vegetables, salads, chapattis and plantain. I've never eaten plantain before, I liked it. It was good to be part of a family celebration on Christmas Day.

The journey home was uneventful, indeed half the occupants of the car were asleep by the time we reached Mary's daughter, Catherine's home. We were back in Blantyre as dusk was falling and I was glad to back in my own little house with plenty of time to make my calls to England before retiring for the night.

Certificates, Christmas dinner, and a lost phone

Finally everything is done and the students' certificates sealed in envelopes with letters telling them whether or not they have gained a place on the intermediate course. I spent about three hours last night sorting out little results slips that tell them their actual score in the tests. It was one of those evenings when you start to believe that computers have minds of their own and are using all their intellectual power to get at you! I delivered everything to the admin office this morning and handed over the first few envelopes to the early arrivals. I feel sad to be saying goodbye to nearly half the students but we have neither time nor money to train them all, so it is inevitable. I do hope that no one is too disappointed. I have a bit of a dilemma as a couple of students have found me on facebook and sent friend requests. I have never agreed to be 'friends' with students while I have still been teaching them before and I guess that is the best plan.

Yesterday I spent most of the day printing certificates. Beehive has a complicated design on their certificates and they are made still harder to reproduce by being stamped with an embossing seal. They all had to be individually signed by me as Course Leader and Peter as Director of Beehive. Each certificate had to be individually numbered and the names typed in by hand. I am sure it must be possible to do it all using a mail merge but Maston the IT guy who helped didn't seem to think so, so we did it the old fashioned way. They certainly look nice now they are done. The day was broken up by the first of the Beehive Christmas lunches. All the admin staff from all the Beehive businesses ate yesterday and today it is the turn of the construction staff. Charles was drafted in to help with the cooking and the team certainly did us proud. There was rice as well as nsima, two sorts of potatoes, salad and spiced, fried chicken, stewed chicken, beefy, pumpkin leaves, beans and carrots. There was soup to begin with, then an address from the Managing Director, then the main course and then fresh fruit drenched in thick, warm sugar syrup. It was quite a formal occasion although held in the same church hall where we normally eat lunch. I was the only mzungu present and was placed at Peter's right on the top table. I was interested to note that I did not notice this fact until about half way through dinner, I was busy spotting people I know from all the other parts of Beehive. I was the only Child Care person there though. It was a very hierarchical event which I thought was a bit unnecessary. We had proper glasses and bottled water on the top table. The next tables had plastic beakers and bottled water and the tables at the far end of the room had plastic beakers and jugs of tap water. It didn't feel very Christmassy to me, mainly I think because it was so hot. The Malawians don't seem to go in for Christmas decorations in a big way. The only ones I have seen were in Ryall's Hotel and therefore were I think for the benefit of azungus. The music was cheerful, loud and African, but not particularly Christmassy in theme. However a good time was had by all I think, although I missed the party part of the event as I had to go back to my certificates!

This afternoon I came back to Mitsidi and had a swim before the hot sun gave way to heavy rain for an hour or so. We had a Chichewa lesson on the khonde which was mostly revision and very helpful to me. I find that the lessons go a bit too quickly for me and I have found it difficult to find time for practice between lessons as I have been so busy. However the next few weeks should not be quite so intensive so perhaps I will get on better then. I gave Paul, the Chichewa teacher a lift home and left my phone on the khonde table by mistake. When I got back it had disappeared, much to my disgust. I don't suppose I will be able to get another one on Christmas Eve, so that means no Christmas phone calls, which is sad.

Exam marking, statistics, driving the Land Rover and DVDs

I have spent the whole of today and a goodly chunk of yesterday and Sunday marking exam papers and juggling the results of three different tests, an interview and the record of attendance to select the students who will be invited to attend the intermediate course which will run for about five months. It is likely that most of the people we train to this level will get jobs in the Children's Centre, although there are no guarantees. The results from courses 3 and 4 are definitely better than those from courses 1 and 2. Time is very short as the results are due out on Thursday 23^rd December so I do not have a lot of time for statistical tests and taking advice so I have had to work out my own system and hope that it will stand up to scrutiny later on! There are a number of differences that probably should be taken in to consideration. Firstly courses 3 and 4 are repeats and as tutors we cannot help but learn from our mistakes and do things a little better the second time around. We are teaching the students to be reflective practitioners, we have to be the same ourselves. Secondly David had to go home after the end of the first week so his lecture input has been done mostly by me, but Lindy did the session on basic care needs. Thirdly because our materials arrived mid way through the second set of courses and because Lindy has more of a creative bent than David, courses 3 and 4 have done more art and music activities and fewer physical games. Who knows how statistically significant all this is.

There was one score above 45/58 in each of the first two groups, four in the third and two in the fourth. Between 35 and 44, there were 8 in course 1, 8 in course 2, 7 in course 3 and 12 in course 4. Between 28 and 34 there were 10 in course 1, 12 in course 2, 15 in course 3 and 9 in course 4. Low scores of 27 and under were 5 in course 1, 8 in course 2, 5 in course 3 and 4 in course 4. Course 4 includes two people who didn't take the final exam (max points 36) and therefore scored less than 27 and one who missed the mid-term presentation which had a potential 12 points, but still managed to score 28. Goodness knows what all this means but I shall have to find out before I submit my MA dissertation in August! All you statisticians out there, what do you think?

Anyway, what I have done is to give a place on the next course to all those who scored 35 and over. For those who scored 27-34 I have taken the ones whose interview recommended them as suitable for the next course. We scored these as 0 for not suitable, 1 for maybe and 2 for Yes. All the twos have places. The waiting list is made up of the ones and zeros, but the ones are above the zeros whatever their mark within the range. This is at least logical. Anyone who scored below 27 I did not consider at all. I hope I will not live to regret the decisions but I was up aginst a tight time scale and had to decide something.

I have been staring at my laptop all day and have slightly wobbly vision, not helped by the fact that I have decided to take advantage of the fact that my fridge resembles a minibar, because all the volunteers who have left have handed over their left-over booze, and have poured myself a large vodka and tonic! Today I am the only volunteer left at Mitsidi. Dear Charles came to check whether I was still alive when he had not seen me by about 2.00pm. I have been working in my house all day. Jan and Lindy are expecting Christmas visitors from England and have gone to Lilongwe to meet a plane delayed about 24 hours by the snowy weather at Heathrow. They are staying at Dedza tonight and coming back to Mitsidi tomorrow if all goes well. Vince and Emma have gone to South Africa for a Christmas holiday and Emma has kindly left us her comfortable car while they are away. Jan and Lindy have taken it to Lilongwe. The volunteers' blue Hilux is out of action because of an accident (not me!), so that left me with the Land Rover with the broken rear window, malfunctioning windscreen wipers and a very stiff ignition key! In the middle of the afternoon I wanted to go to the admin building to print off the letters I have written to send out with the course attendance certificates, so I had to brave the Land Rover! It has poured with rain in the last 24 hours so the roads are pretty greasy. At first I could not turn the ignition fey, which is situated to the left hand side of the steering column and Charles took pity on me and came out and started it for me. Then I stalled it and he had to start it again! After that I managed to get the couple of miles to the admin building OK and do my jobs. I saw Mary and discovered that there is a Beehive Christmas party tomorrow lunchtime to which I am invited and about which I knew nothing!

Mary has great plans for Christmas day. Apparently the entire family plus maid are off to Mulange for Christmas day on a tea plantation. There will be two cars, one driven by me! Mary told me to be sure to get the blue Hilux so I hope it will be repaired in time! We are to have breakfast at Mary's at eight o'clock and then set off. I think it is about an hour and a half's drive to Mulange. Apparently there will be me and Mary in the front, her daughter and two children in the back seat and the maid and her family at the back. Fortunately the cover is over the pick-up bit and I must remember to put a mattress in the back to cushion the journey for those unfortunate people who will not get a seat! I will have to fit in my visit to Charles and his family and neighbours to give presents to the children before eight o'clock.

But I digress! It was with trepidation that I hauled myself into the Land Rover for the return trip, but fortunately I discovered that if I undid the seatbelt and leaned right over and turned the key with my right hand I can turn it with enough force to start the engine. With my left I just don't seem to have enough strength to do the trick! Anyway I survived the trip home and sat down to start this blog entry before my solitary tea at the big table that seats 14 in the main house. As I was on my own I had asked Charles to do me something vegetarian and he made me a delicious Spanish omelette with potato, aubergine and onion. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Now here I am back in Flame Tree house and blogging again. Unfortunately I seem to have reached the present and therefore have run out of happenings to report. Emma has leant me a big case full of DVDs to keep me amused over the Christmas break. It seems that we share some preferences so far as DVDs are concerned and so far I have enjoyed 'PS I love you!' and 'The Bucket List'. Tonight I think I shall watch 'Emma' a version I haven't seen before! So goodnight!

Society, red in tooth and claw?

I have just been listening to a programme on the World Service about Consciousness and it reminded me of an experience that happened to Lindy on her way home from work the other day. The programme was discussing the apparently recent discovery that fish definitely have consciousness. I am surprised that this is news really, but there you are! The presenter asked the question about whether if we are sure that fish feel pain, it is ethical to fish for them and then throw them back? This is hardly a new question.

Anyway, walking home with Lindy is a bit like walking home with the Pied Piper. I thought I was instantly surrounded by children every time I stepped onto the street, but Lindy spends a lot more time over her trip home and is beginning to know many children by name and to engage in quite involved discussions in a mixture of broken English, rudimentary Chichewa and gesture and sign. She is amazing, a quiet lady who really values time by herself and probably engages with other volunteers less than any of the rest of us, she is always gentle, pleasant and helpful but simply needs to spend a lot of time busying herself with many projects while she is alone. The children just love her and come running out to greet her from alleys between buildings, behind fences, up trees, under bridges, down drainage gulleys, everywhere you might expect children to be playing and quite a few places that you wouldn't. She has made friends with a group of boys who were making complex vehicles out of clay; with all the tiniest and most vulnerable children playing in the street; with big sisters looking after younger ones; with girls who skip and boys who bowl tyres along the street with two sticks. On Friday, on her progress through Chilomoni she became aware of a boy playing with something on a length of string, throwing it into the air and jerking it back towards him. As she got closer, to her horror she saw it was a small bird tied by the leg. She stopped and talked to the boy and soon, as usual she had a crowd of small people around her. She explained how cruel she thought it was to treat a living creature in this way and gently untied the bird's leg and cupped it in her hands. The bird was shivering and unable to fly so she encouraged the children to leave it on the grass in a shady place in the hope that it would recover and then she and her entourage continued on their way. Very quickly she became aware that the boy concerned was lagging behind and soon he ran back and she saw him lift the bird, throw it into the air, catch it and put it in his pocket. Probably the little bird would have died from its injuries or become the dinner of some other creature very soon, but she was distressed to think of its suffering and saddened to think that the boy was so unaffected by what she had brought to his attention.

We are steeped in a culture that is utterly different from our own and it is little events like this one that show how much we are like the proverbial fish out of water. When Peter gave his little talk to the students on Thursday he told them that we are volunteers and stressed that we work for no financial reward and live as they do and eat the same food, but really it is not true. I may sometimes eat nsima at lunchtime, but I don't have it again at tea time. My little house is simple by UK standards but it is better than the majority of homes in Chilomoni. I have hot water on demand in the house. I do not have to carry all my water from the communal taps at street corners, balancing buckets on my head, or even tin baths which are so heavy when full that it takes two friends to lift them high enough to raise them to head height. Even Charles, our housekeeper who has a modern house in the same grounds at Mitsidi does not have electricity in his home. In my last, admittedly more expensive than usual, pre-Christmas week of living simply but definitely not like a working Malawian, I have spent almost three times the monthly salary of a guard who works for Beehive. It is difficult to get my head around all the implications of this. I have started to eat meat because I thought it was the right thing to do living within this very different society, but although the animals have a better life, free-ranging all over the place, they are definitely not killed in a way that is anything like as humane as the average British abattoir. I am constantly seeing men walking home with a live chicken for the weekend dangling head down, being casually carried using the legs tied together as a kind of handle. Is it any wonder that a small boy thinks it is OK to tie up and play with a song bird?

The Introductory Course Ends

Following the presentations which the students made for the midway assessment last Wednesday we followed the pattern of the first two courses and looked at Play and Planning. I swapped the two sessions around so as to give myself an extra evening to prepare David's session on Observe, plan, do, review, assess. It is never easy to deliver from someone else's lecture notes, sometimes I think it is better just to start again from the beginning. However I did not. I guess when you write your own notes you have in your head all the little anecdotes that bring the theory to life and help the students to remember what it is you want them to learn. It is not always so easy to fit these into someone else's structure, however good their lecture is when they deliver it themselves! Anyway, both went pretty well in the end.

I had a pretty good weekend; quite sociable and friendly. Saturday was graduation day for the Beehive diploma students in IT, Leadership and Tailoring. It was a very hot morning and Zoe and I were running slightly late and therefore a bit harassed. We put our posh frocks on in honour of the situation and jumped in a Land Rover and set off! We arrived about ten minutes after the event was due to start to find that we need not have worried, as the guest of honour, some side-kick of the President, whose palace is just the other side of the hill, had been taken on a guided tour of the Beehive building site by Peter Nkarta. The hall was packed by the graduands in robes and mortar boards, children were running everywhere, everyone was dressed in their best. Vince appeared at first in a smart suit and later, together with other bigwigs of Beehive in special gowns with red silky trimmings. The chief of Chilomomi was there, and there was an individual gown for her too, this time trimmed in yellow and green. I am not sure of the significance of this but as the whole hall was done out in green and yellow hangings, ribbons and potted plants I guess green and yellow must have some significance for Chilomoni. I don't suppose it was for Norwich City in my honour! By the time the dignitaries arrived back from their jolly jaunt to the site, the Indian women in the row next to me were hopping mad, they had been told the event started at 8.00am, we had expected 9.00 am and it actually started at about twenty past ten, but this is Malawi! Malawians certainly seem to know how to do celebrations. The graduands processed into the hall in a double rank to loud African rhythms. Gyrating their hips and with smiles that reached right across their proud faces. There were several fulsome speeches from Vince and Peter, the bigwig from the government, who turned out to be quite a feminist and was quite entertaining, and from the local MP. Jan was the Master of Ceremonies. He got in a bit of a mess with some of the Malawian names, but generally presented himself very creditably. The bigwig presented about a hundred and fifty certificates. Each graduate was met in the aisle by a small crowd of proud relatives who hugged and kissed and celebrated with great energy. Half the time the next graduate whose name was called had trouble getting past the relatives of the previous one in order to receive his certificate. There was much applause and cheering. I think we could learn a lot from Malawians about making occasions joyous. Zoe and I were surrounded by small Malawian children who all wanted to touch the azungu women! I picked up a tiny mite so she could see over the crowd and was then expected to pick up an ever increasing queue of little people one by one! During the presentation Zoe and I passed a small girl between our laps as there were not enough chairs for her to have one to herself. It was too hot to have her all the time. It was like having a wriggly hot water bottle on my knee!

In the afternoon Zoe and I went shopping with her friends, Lewis and Gift and their two year old daughter. Lewis works as a driver for Beehive. Zoe wanted to buy the little girl some new clothes for Christmas and she ended up with two little outfits, a pair of pink shoes and a doll that squeaked when she shook it! She was one happy little girl by the time we had finished!

The evening was taken up with a goodbye party for a friend of Gemma's, an Australian who has lived in Malawi for about five years. There were people there from many countries, but the only Malawian I saw was the barman! The food was terrific; the party was held in a Chinese restaurant. There were all sorts of dishes and the crab claws in ginger were to die for!

On Sunday I went to Gemma and James' again and Gemma had a go at cutting my hair. She did a good job too, I was very pleased with it and came away feeling a lot less shaggy! Gemma and Zoe and I went to the cinema in the evening and saw Eat, Pray, Love and finished up getting Pizzas for supper. The cinema was just like an English one! Most of the clientele were azungu or Indian which I suppose is not surprising as the price of the tickets was roughly the same as in England which equates to eight days pay for a labourer on the Beehive building site.

The last week of the course simply flew by. Lindy had a go at lecturing on Monday which gave me a bit of break which I filled by drawing up the exam timetables for Friday. We planned to follow the same pattern for courses three and four that we used for one and two so it was a fairly straightforward job. Lindy did the session on meeting children's basic care needs. She is a very visual learner herself and she took a bag of visual aids to help the students remember the main points of the lecture and she successively pulled out of a bag, two plates which she weighed on each hand to represent a balanced diet, a water bottle, a toilet roll , I can't remember what she had for sleep, clearly my own learning style is different!

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I did Child Protection, Caring for Babies and Professional Partnerships respectively. The afternoon group was particularly challenging on Tuesday and we got involved in a complicated discussion about what exactly constituted physical abuse. There were several upright Christian men in the group who considered that certain children require beating in order to keep them on the straight and narrow. I had to be very careful not to seem disrespectful of a culture so new to me that seems to accept such things, but I managed to keep it impersonal and based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which both UK and Malawi have signed. It was pretty exhausting though. I also had to discuss Child Labour, Child Trafficking, Stigma and Discrimination, and Harmful Cultural Practices as well as the more familiar, Neglect, Physical, Emotional and Sexual Abuse. The afternoon group was the only one that asked me to spell out what female genital mutilation is as well. There was a moment when I thought they might be deliberately making it difficult for me, but Lindy says I coped with it OK and I have decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. Fortunately I had done my homework and my slides were based on the Malawian National Syllabus for Early Childhood Development, so I could blame that if they didn't agree with me! Vince and Peter paid the groups a visit on Thursday and explained how the idea for the Children's Centre came about and put it in the context of the rest of the Beehive projects. Group four were the only ones to ask what the salaries are going to be and one of my greatest challengers failed to turn up for the exam next day despite not having missed any of the sessions. I wonder if he thought the money was just not enough to make the effort of taking the exam worthwhile.

On Wednesday night we went to Ryalls, the posh hotel, again for a leaving do for Zoe and Jonathan. I had butternut squash cannelloni, with cheese (mmmm Cheese!) and spinach, followed by sorbet which came in a brandysnap basket and was accompanied by fresh fruit, chopped very fine and shaped in a dariole mould.

Exam day went pretty well. There was a hitch because an invigilator we booked up three weeks ago arranged to do something else and failed to tell me, but we managed to get a substitute and although we ran ten minutes late throughout there was no more serious outcome. Lindy did sterling work with the creativity test and Chaliza did David's interviews, and everything ran pretty smoothly. The toys made in the creativity test were notably better than those done by courses one and two. We think that this is because we have done a bit more painting, drawing etc, and a bit less playing of physical games since the container was unpacked and we had paints etc. The classroom is now papered with posters on flip chart paper made cooperatively by groups of four or five students, on meeting the basic care needs of children, and on children's rights. During the Caring for babies session we got them to make things to hang over babies' cots to provide sensory stimulation so now the classroom is festooned with mobiles of coloured card, crepe paper and natural materials such as Flame Tree pods and mahogany seeds.

Today I resolved that I would have a whole day without doing any work at all, and I have managed to do it! I woke early and was up by six and had the house tidy and reorganized and a great pile of ironing done by nine. Zoe and Jonathan have departed for home for Christmas, leaving me and Jan and Lindy as the only volunteers remaining at Mitsidi. This has left me as the sole resident in the two semi-detached houses, Flame and Baobab. I have reluctantly locked the connecting door between the two, and have rushed around making the space my own in Flame. I miss Jonathan and Zoe, but am making the best of it. I have hung up my pictures and a couple of chitenges so the place is looking bright. The digital photo frame that Jack gave me for my birthday was in the box from the container so I have rigged that up to show my folders of photos in random order. Today I have been surprised to see how many photos of pre=school children I have taken over the last three years or so. I have also been delighted by reminders of family occasions such as Toni and Andy's wedding and enjoyed pictures of my own children in Westonbirt Arboretum, Pensthorpe and the back garden, to name but a few. I have been reminded of days out with Karl all over Norfolk and beyond.

This morning Jan, Lindy and I went to African Habitat, a shop which is just what you would imagine it to be with a title like that and bought, among other bits and pieces a small evergreen tree each, so now I have a mini real Christmas Tree in my sitting room. I have made a few decorations out of sequins and coloured card and it looks quite festive. Under Zoe's little Baobab tree I now have three presents waiting for Christmas day. Deb sent me a delightful little Advent Calendar which arrived this week so I have enjoyed opening several windows a day in order to catch up. It doesn't feel quite right though: Too hot!

Lindy and I spent a happy couple of hours making decorations this afternoon, and then invented spaghetti with butternut squash, tomato and chilli sauce for supper. This was followed by 'Granny Boyd's' biscuits which we made following a recipe discovered by Lindy. They turned out to be chocolate shortbread and were very good.

Tomorrow the marking begins. We shall have to work hard to get the results out by 23 Dec which is what we have promised to try to do, but it would be good to have it all out of the way before Christmas.

How quickly a week passes

So much has happened in the last few days that I hardly know where to begin! Thursday and Friday ran pretty smoothly. I talked about Social and Emotional Development on Thursday and David led on learning Early Key Concepts on Friday. For the practical activity on Thursday we played a lot of cooperative games. It continues to surprise me how differently the two sessions can turn out from each other. The planning is identical, but the characters involved are so different! The afternoon group has a number of strong characters and competitive games are taken very seriously. The students seem to feel that winning is very important. I know that this happens in UK also but my gut feeling is that it is stronger here, perhaps because there are relatively few opportunities and jobs etc. With the cooperative games also they took it very seriously. We played knots and I led this group into a very complicated knot indeed, but they did not let go hands and showed considerable persistence in solving the problem and unknotting the tangle to bring the group back to being in a circle. At the end I told them that I had played the game with all four groups of students and they were the only ones who had managed the task. The cheer that went up was every bit as loud as the cheers by the winning teams in the physical games we played on Wednesday.

I was very pleased also at the effort put in to the craft activity we did on Thursday. Lindy led the group to make paper birds to hang from mobiles and explained how they could be used for babies to hang over their cots to give them something colourful and beautiful to look at. It was quite a proscribed activity, we offered a template for the shape of the body of the bird and most people used it, although we really encouraged them to draw their own birds. It seems that they are very afraid of 'not doing it right'. Lindy and I really praised the one or two who did make the attempt, and David teased the ones who did use the template and said they had made fish. They really did look more like fish if you turned them upside down. I was much happier about the way they decorated the birds, everyone was different and some were really beautiful. One guy coloured his with crayons and it looked most realistic when it was done. I think he must have been a bird enthusiast who remembered and reproduced the markings of a real bird. There was much use of bright colour and glitter. We are now coming to the end of my 99p worth of glitter, it certainly has been made to go a very long way. About half the students took their artwork home. Lindy is working on putting the remainder of the birds together to make mobiles to hang in the class room.

We arrived at Mitsidi on Friday evening to find that finally the container with our boxes of stuff from home had arrived. It was a bit like Christmas. There are loads of training materials, paint, glue, paper etc for the course and there was a lot of personal stuff as well, and a big box of Childcare books donated by colleagues of mine from UEA, so now we shall be able to make a little library for the students to borrow reference books for further reading and revision. Unfortunately my personal box had been opened and all the toiletries I had packed had been stolen along with one or two of the little toys I had put in. I am glad to say that my cuddly dressing gown, a digital photo frame and Mary Tinkerbelle Jones, the teddy I was given on my fifth birthday, were all still there. I would have been devastated to lose Mary; she has been with me through thick and thin for the last fifty years!

I said goodbye to Jacaranda 3 on Friday night and moved into Flame Tree House with Zoe. I am much happier with a room-mate. I have never lived alone before and I don't really like not having someone in the house to come home to. Of course it is not so bad here as we all eat together in the main house and there is usually someone around if you are feeling sociable, but it has been nice to have Zoe in the house. Unfortunately it will not be for long as she goes home before Christmas but I am enjoying the company for now. I will stay in this house when she goes and that means when Jack comes in January and Rose and Joe at Easter they will be able to stay in my house. I liked Jacaranda but there are a number of advantages with Flame, not least the shower which is both generous with its water and possible to get nice and hot. Most of the time it has been fine showering in cold water, but now that the rains have really started it is much cooler, today it was 22 degrees, which is quite a contrast to the high thirties we have been experiencing. There is a lot of space in Flame and a separate kitchen rather than just a kettle and a hot plate. The house is wooden rather than made of hydroform blocks and I am hoping that it will be cooler at night than Jacaranda. It certainly is cooler at the moment, but so is the weather so it is not really a fair comparison, but since I have been here I have not used a fan at night and one night I have even woken feeling chilly and had to get under the duvet which never happened in Jacaranda. Flame is semi-detached and has a door connecting it to Baobab next door which is currently occupied by Jonathan. We leave the door open and treat it as one big house. In the morning we have quite a routine, Zoe makes tea and Jonathan puts on toast for everyone.

At the weekend I visited Lake Malawi. It was a long way to go for a weekend, but it was very beautiful and I thoroughly enjoyed the trip. We drove via Zomba to Cape Maclear. The cape is part of the National Park of Malawi and is wild and fairly deserted. Apparently it was visited by David Livingstone and named after some Scots military friend, Captain Maclear. I am sure it had some perfectly good Chichewa name! What was the matter with these Victorian explorers! I thought I had missed the opportunity to take a photograph of the flowers of the Flame Tree in full bloom, but I was gratified to find that the seasons are slightly behind Blantyre at the Lake. It was hotter and they have not yet had much in the way of rain. So I was able to stop and take some pictures which prove that I was right, the flowers are not a uniform colour. They are indeed mostly a flaming orangey red but one of the five petals of each flower has a yellow heart and is mottled with little white patches so from a distance one is left wondering exactly what colour they may be. I also discovered that the long pods which Jack has used to make wind chimes and which are patterned with little parallel depressions which once contained seeds, are the fruit of the Flame Tree. I stopped the car a second time near to Monkey Bay, where there were many Flame Trees and picked up a bagful of pods to take into the classroom for the students to use. There are so many fascinating natural materials here. Maureen you would be proud of me, I was a good student and listened to what you said! Perhaps I will have room in my suitcase to bring you one back! The resort of Cape Maclear is at the far end of the Cape. It is a straggling village which spreads itself thinly along the coast. There are several lodges housing azungu visitors which vary in price from very reasonable to absolutely ridiculous! We had been recommended to go to Fat Monkeys and told that it was the last lodge at the far end of the village. We found it easily but unfortunately the only beds left were 3 spaces in a dormitory with one occupant who was quite poorly with an undiagnosed condition, so we politely declined the chance to stay, but accepted an offer to ring round the lodges and find us rooms elsewhere. We ended up in a place called 'Tuckaways' with thatched bamboo huts in a row along the beach with little khondes with cane deckchairs overlooking the Lake shore. Hammocks and swinging cane chairs hung from the branches of the trees. It would have been the ideal place for a romantic weekend, but hey ho, we stayed there anyway and it was very pleasant indeed. I could have happily spent several days on the khonde lounging about with a good book and been very happy. We did a moderate amount of lounging, during which we arranged to go for a boat trip the next morning and then had a wander around the village in search of a drink and supper. We happened upon a thatched pub that would not have been totally out of place in Hampshire, well, perhaps it would but it had some things in common. We were welcomed on the threshold by the proprietor and downed a couple of Greens each while he put himself outside several pink gins and pontificated about the inefficiencies of the Malawian Government, the laziness of Malawian construction workers etc etc… I was not sorry when the time came to move on in search of the pizzas we had seen advertised at the Gecko Lounge further down the road. We were not to be lucky, although the Gecko Lounge had a generator providing enough power for the lighting, an untimely power cut meant that pizzas were no longer on the menu. I settled for sweet and sour lake fish with egg fried rice, which was delicious.

Next morning we were up fairly early for a cup of tea on the khonde watching the sun over the lake before our boat trip to the island. This was amazing. The day before we had given the boatmen a few kwatchas to buy fish and bread to feed the sea eagles and fish respectively. As we approached the island we saw two eagles high in the trees. The boatmen had perfected a whistling imitation of their cry and as they called they threw fish high into the air. The fish landed perhaps 20 metres from the boat and the eagles swooped down and took the fish from the water. A few, much smaller kites joined the party. The boatmen tried hard to aim the fish towards the eagles, but the kites were very clever and managed to get plenty for themselves. When we ran out of fish we went round a point into a shallow bay and fed the fish with bread. The fish were small, none longer than about four inches but I lost count of the number of different varieties. There were stripy fish, spotted fish, speckled fish, plain fish, black and white fish, yellow and brown, blue and I don't know what else. One of the boatmen lifted a specimen of each out of the water with his hands and showed me before returning them to the water. As they turned the boat towards the mainland once again they got out local crafts to sell to us. I bought a necklace of red and black seeds, but managed to avoid buying the more expensive items by telling them I had bought all my Christmas presents already as I had to get them to England and it takes a long time!

On arrival at the shore we repaired to the Gecko Lounge for Brunch. Vegetable omelettes with plenty of cheese! Bliss! Also mzuzu coffee, delicious! Running along the top of the balustrade that separated us from the lake was the smallest gecko I have ever seen. Small but perfectly formed, less than two inches long. The sparrows were flying in and out of the restaurant, perching on the back of chairs and indulging in amorous behaviour in front of all the diners!

It took about five hours to drive back to Blantyre and I drove all the way. I am getting more used to Malawian roads, and it rained only briefly so I was lucky. Also we got back before dark. There are very few street lights at all in Malawi even in the city and I really do not enjoy driving after dark. I am so afraid of hitting one of the many pedestrians who seem to be completely unafraid of walking down the middle of the road in dark clothing!

We arrived home to the sad news that David's mum has died, suddenly and unexpectedly. Poor David received the news on Saturday night and by Sunday afternoon he was on a plane home to be with his family. Obviously that is the right place for him to be. I am missing him and so are the students. He is a very chatty and outgoing young man. He and I are very different and I think quite complementary and I am missing him. Fortunately Lindy is helping me every day at the moment rather than just twice a week and also this is the second time through for the Introductory course so we are coping fine but it is tiring lecturing to two courses a day every day. I am missing you David, and will be happy to see you when you are ready to come back in January.

I swapped Monday's Communication, Language and Literacy lecture with Tuesday's Problem solving to give me an extra evening to get to grips with David's material but I am happy to say that both presentations went well. For the activity to support CLL we played Pictionary. Lindy led this and she was careful to pick subjects that are familiar to Malawians, so they were soon drawing mango trees, maize, Hiluxes, big sisters, baby boys and getting into the idea of the game very quickly even though I don't think any of them had ever played before. They struggled a bit more with 'computer 'and it was interesting to see the differences in their drawings for simple things like 'shop' from what would have been drawn by English students. We had drawings of simple huts with thatched roofs and a square window that were instantly guessed as 'shop'. The only item they really struggled with was 'teddy'. Many of them simply did not know what this meant which was a surprise both to Lindy and to me.

Lindy is a musician and has done lots of songs and rhymes with the students. Both morning and afternoon groups have really enjoyed them. It appears as though everyone sings. I am quite inhibited about singing but all of the students are keen and they certainly make a wonderful sound and seem to learn new tunes really quickly. They have asked for more songs and so today, Thursday, which was the day on which we considered 'Play' we played singing games and they were soon singing and playing 'Round and Round the Village' and thoroughly enjoying 'There was a jolly miller' with an enthusiasm that is unprecedented in my experience of trying to encourage UK teachers and social workers to play singing games at Cooperative play workshops.

On Monday evening I arrived at Mitsidi to find that all my stolen belongings had been recovered. All I know is that they disappeared between being unloaded from the container and the box arriving at Mitsidi. This means that they were taken by Beehive people which is not a happy thought. Beehive has a zero tolerance policy towards theft, so the people who took my stuff will certainly lose their jobs. This seems a very serious consequence to taking a few toiletries and one or two toys, but everyone knows the score as far as theft is concerned. I just wish that the whole thing just hadn't happened. I was upset that I didn't have all the things I had bought in England that would cost so much more to buy in Malawi, but at the end of the day one can live without suntan lotion and shampoo if necessary, and I do not like to think of people being tempted by nice things they cannot afford and then losing their jobs over it. On the other hand everyone knows what the policy is…

Wednesday was the mid way assessment point when we ask the students to devise an activity to present to the class and say what age group of children it is for, how they would present it to children and what they expect the children to learn from it. As last time there were many activities based around a rote learning approach and I was a little disappointed, but I suppose it is not reasonable to expect that in a week and a half we will have a great impression on years of familiarity with that approach. There were however a few pairs of students who had obviously been listening to what we said and presented nice creative ideas. We had a lovely story sack of objects collected to illustrate a story written by a student. One or two students showed supportive relationships with the 'children', represented by their colleagues and I was left feeling that there were at least some students who were really listening to what we say and trying to incorporate it into their practice.

Sam flew home today, Jane, Jack Claudia and Marty are off tomorrow and Malcolm at the weekend. Claudia and Malcolm will be back after Christmas, but it is 'Goodbye' to the others. I shall miss them and I hope that new volunteers will come in the New Year to fill their shoes both within Beehive and here at Mitsidi. It has been good to get to know them and to share trips and meals and drinks during our leisure time. Over Christmas Mitsidi will be very quiet with only me and Jan and Lindy here. That will be a bit too quiet I think. Jan and Lindy have friends visiting for Christmas and they are off to Majete for Christmas night and Christmas morning with the wild life. I was rather dreading Christmas morning alone, but dear Zoe has dropped a hint to Mary Kamwendo who works in the admin office and she has invited me for Christmas Day so I shall experience a Malawian family Christmas which will be a real privilege.

Well, this is a marathon blog entry! Serve me right for not writing for a week! Now you are up to date and I am shattered! So 'Goodnight', keep in touch by comment, email etc. Mx

New courses and Chichewa lessons

Here I am at the end of the third day of courses three and four. We have 60 new students and I have started again on the huge task of learning everyone's name. I seem to be doing rather better this time and am making even more of an effort to play name games. At the end of Tuesday I felt pretty confident, but this was soon shattered when they all came in wearing different clothes this morning!! We are trying to repeat the course in exactly the same way that we presented it before in order to give everyone as equal a chance as possible. It is impossible not to make small changes and David and I are in a different place from the one we were in when we stood in front of course one for the first time. I am not so afraid that I will find it difficult to understand the students when they speak to me. Now I know that there will be words and phrases that I do not get at once, but when I ask the students will patiently repeat them and then laugh affectionately at the foolish azungu who does not understand her own language! The Chichewa names are more familiar too and I can now spell Chiwemwe and Tiwonge without asking for help, although I did ask a woman with an apparently unpronounceable name to spell it this afternoon and it turned out to be Jacqueline! Both the new groups have a lot of energy and enthusiasm. We did Physical Development today and David played some fast and competitive games which were entered into with great gusto by girls and boys alike. Lindy remarked that in a mixed group like that in England there would always be girls who would not participate for the sake of their hair or their nails, but this group included 50% women aged between 17 and about 48 and everyone took part in every game. Even I had to play ladders which I don't think I have done since I was in the Brownies! Yesterday we repeated the session which looks at the purpose of education and asks the students to look very closely at what they expect the education system to deliver to their children by different phases in their lives. Then I told them what the Malawian Government expects ECD centres to deliver in the way of a syllabus. Noone in the room had ever seen the syllabus book before, not even Maureen who runs her own nursery school, or the ladies who work for various charities who support young orphans! On Monday they thought in detail about what it is that children need and we related what they said to Maslow's Hierarchy.

I do not think that I have told you that we have started Chichewa lessons. We have found a teacher called Paul who has taken on the task of giving Jan, Lindy, David and me two lessons a week on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. He is a very serious young man and does not always understand when David teases him. He began to teach us in a very logical way starting with the verb to be and the first of seven or eight classes of nouns. This first lesson solved a problem for me in that I had been wondering why the word for white person, which is spelled mzungu, is called out in the street by all the children as 'azungu, azungu' every time we walk past. It turns out that the first class of nouns all begin with m, which is replaced by a to pluralise them. Hence one mzungu, many azungu. It turns out that rather like the French tu and vous it is customary to pluralise where you wish to show respect, thus children calling out to me on the way home from work call 'Azungu' whether I am alone or with David or Lindy! I have told Paul that I wish to learn the same first 500 words in Chichewa that babies learn so that when the Children's Centre opens in July I can communicate with the children directly. At first he thought that I was joking, but I am not. I think he understands. I enjoy the lessons, but I am not very good at doing any homework so am not sure how well I shall progress.

Evenings are a bit dominated by marking the exams and assessments for courses one and two at the moment. Lindy has devised a wonderful, colour coded system to mark the creativity test. David and I are ploughing through the written test papers. I cannot decide whether I have set the standard too high or whether I have misjudged how difficult a group of people may find it to apply their learning when they are used to learning by rote. Actually some of them have not been very good at learning by rote either! There have been a few papers that have given me a warm glow of pride, but more than a few I fear that have caused me to wonder whether they have listened at all to what we have had to say! Anyway I cannot change the course too much and still give everyone an equal chance to get on to the next one. But it certainly will not do any harm to do quite a bit of revision on the Intermediate course.

Lindy and I left David to his lecturing this afternoon, borrowed a car and ran away to town to get some craft materials for tomorrow. We found a rather delightful mini factory that makes handmade paper and tomorrow we shall make multicoloured birds to hang from mobiles. Whilst in town we made a hasty visit to Ryalls Hotel for lunch. This is a very smart and expensive place to eat, but we decided to treat ourselves and it was absolutely delicious! Lindy thinks we should do it once a month and I must say I do not think that it is a bad idea! We actually took a photo of the portion of bread that Lindy ordered as it looked so beautiful, presented with dark balsamic vinegar, golden olive oil, rock salt and coarsely ground black pepper. We both had delicious salads, mine with smoked salmon on a bed of Waldorf salad and Lindy a goat's cheese terrine. Mmmmmmm cheese!! Marty, who is going home in a couple of weeks said last night, ' Never again in my life will I take cheese for granted!' Already I know absolutely what he means.

It is raining hard again as I write, but it is still pretty hot. Yesterday it was 37 degrees again. I am thinking of you all in negative temperatures and hope you are able to keep warm and cosy!