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
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