Back to work

Last Monday was a national holiday and Malcolm, Giacomo and I set off to have a look at Lake Chilwa, which is supposed to be a world class place for seeing wading birds, and to find the Chipala Pillars, some sandstone formations about which Malcolm had read a magazine article and taken a fancy to go and have a look at. A couple of weeks ago I think I wrote about Malcolm's 'last trip' down the bumpy back, dirt roads of Malawi. Needless to say, that was not the last one, and no more was this one I dare say, as he has extended his stay for a month and there is at least one more weekend to go after this one! We drove the hour and a half or so to Zomba on tarmac roads, although I must say that the rainy season has not improved their condition. Finding the Lake Chilwa road was not difficult because of a huge 'Wetlands of Malawi' sign, but as ever 30Km on a dirt road took over an hour of bumping and bouncing. As driver I was probably in the most comfortable position, and also in control of the speed, which is always a good thing! The road was narrow and at one point passing through a village market I had to drive at a snail's pace to ensure that I did no damage to bicycles and pedestrians. A stall holder tried to sell me bright patterned fabric through the Land Rover window, but I kept making slow but steady progress towards the far end of the market. Eventually we arrived at the end of the road, which narrowed into a path down to the lake shore. We left the Land Rover at the end of the road, just past a village, and proceeded to the fish quay. There was a market of sorts, but the only products on sale were fish, both fresh and dried, and ground nuts. The stench of drying fish was almost overpowering. Mesh racks were spread with drying fish. Many local people were lying in the shade under the loaded racks. There were local boats scattered about and many men in wide-brimmed straw hats were mending nets. I don't think they see many azungu as we excited quite a bit of interest. There were a few birds, egrets and cranes, but so many people that they kept their distance. We looked for paths along the lake side to get away from the crowd, but there did not seem to be any. Eventually we went back to the Land Rover and explored further afield, but all tracks seemed to lead back to the same village. We could not find our way to the shore at any other point. Eventually we gave up and we rumbled back towards Zomba in search of Malcolm's sandstone pillars which he said were 30 minutes out of Zomba, just off the Lake Chilwa road. Ha! In Malawi, things are rarely as simple as they sound. To cut a long story short we eventually found the Chipala Hills, which were off a different Lake Chilwa road, which itself was 30 minutes out of Zomba. We tried to follow the instructions in the magazine article and indeed located all the landmarks it described apart from the last one, an army station close to the path leading to the pillars. However the army station proved elusive and eventually we were forced to give up or risk having to drive the three hours home up dirt tracks in the dark. Thus, locating the weird rock formations remains a task for another day! Nevertheless the Chipala Hills were wooded, tranquil and beautiful and well worth a visit for their own sake. One little cameo of a memory is worth recording. We stopped for a picnic beside a road in the shade of a large tree and a whole family of children came out to watch the azungu as they ate. Gradually the children trickled away to their games all except for a little girl who cannot have been more than three. She sat in the dust of the middle of the road and did not take her eyes off us. Her mother kept an eye on her from the shadow of the hedge around the house. As we left I asked her mum if I could give the child the last of our hot cross buns. She nodded her assent and I bent down and offered the bun to the child. She glanced at her mum and then reached out for it with a huge smile. She sprang to her feet and ran off to show her prize to her big brothers and sisters. Such a small thing to give such pleasure!

I have been back at work for a week, and a short week at that because of the national holiday on Easter Monday. Already I am back into a routine even though term does not start again until next Tuesday following the May Day holiday. I have worked really hard this week. I wanted to have all my lectures at least outlined, up until the time when I go home for a fortnight on May 25 so that I can spend my prep days doing some work on the subjects for after I return, because I definitely won't have time to do any while I am in England. I shall have to prioritise my dissertation then, which has been sadly neglected of late! I have divided my time between preparing discussion sessions and PowerPoint presentations and getting the classroom ready for the new term. Our students seem to like sitting in rows, but the classroom is so crowded with furniture that I cannot get around to look over their shoulders when they are working in groups and there is a lot of shuffling about with chairs and desks, so I have grouped the desks to make six tables and put six chairs at each, in the hope that once they sit down they will stay in the same place for a whole session. I have tried to do this before, but by the time I arrived to begin teaching they had returned all the furniture to rows. This time I have left a message on the board welcoming them back and asking them not to rearrange the furniture! I hope it works. I have also used a lot of bleach to try to change the atmosphere emanating from the toilets. Yes, I know bleach is not the best thing for the environment, but I am tired of having to live with the aroma, and so have made a determined effort to start off the new term on a new footing. I have sorted through all the things the students have made and drawn, stripped off everything that had been haphazardly blutaked to the walls, lined the walls with sugar paper and put together four displays. One on hopes and aspirations of the students, a huge caterpillar made of marble paintings, a selection of curiously shaped blots from blow painting, and the best of the students' designs for the garden area of the Children's Centre. On Friday afternoon I was most gratified when Alfred, the head teacher, came in to the room and said, 'Oh, you have made it look really beautiful in here!' By UK standards it is still a rather dingy and grubby room with old and battered furniture, but it certainly does feel better. I do hope it works better too! By Malawian standards I guess it is beautiful;     there are so few resources here, white flip chart paper and lead pencils and a few biros seem to be the extent of what is readily available, so sugar paper in half a dozen different shades, bright paints and labels printed on the computer must seem beautiful indeed! Alfred had himself been very busy making all the big flip chart tables and records that cover his office walls. This is where he records the marks and grades achieved by his pupils, and keeps track of what is happening in his school. His term started this week and Lindy has been teaching types of Government to Standard 7, a mixed group of ninety 10-17 year-olds. She has kept us entertained at dinner by her tales of how she has tried to show the differences between democracy and autocracy using dramatic techniques rather than just relying upon repetition of facts which she has no way of knowing whether or not they have understood.

David and his Dad returned from their holiday yesterday. I am delighted to have them both here. It was good to see David. Between us we have been away for a month and it is good to know we shall be able to support each other through the next term. During this time each of us will have a fortnight in the UK. I have made a timetable for the new term with colour-coding for each of the people involved. There are sections which are heavily green, for David, while I am away, and later heavily purple, for me, while he returns home. Lindy is going to do a regular music slot this term, turquoise, and other visiting speakers are shown in yellow. Anything which is a bit different or requires special preparation leaps out of the page in bright red!

I am looking forward to seeing the students again. They should each be bringing us a holiday, essay-style assignment on Tuesday morning. I have the unpleasant task of finding out where all the text books from our library have disappeared to. I hope they have simply failed to sign them out properly rather than taken them with a view to hanging on to them more permanently.

Beehive is very busy preparing for the blessing by the Archbishop of the John Paul 11 Leadership and IT Academy of which Jan is Principal, which is to take place tomorrow. Malcolm has been frantically busy attempting to make the building site a safe enough place for Mass for the 2000 people who are apparently expected. A raised platform has been erected for an altar. There is to be a celebratory meal in the library of the new college building after the Mass, to which all the volunteers have been invited. I went up to the site yesterday in my position as official photographer and sussed out a few likely vantage points. Malcolm and I are to get up early tomorrow and go to the site to get a few 'atmosphere shots' before the Mass starts, I think at 7.30am. There are no services at St James' tomorrow and normally there are at least three. I think they are expecting all the regulars to be there plus a lot of other guests. Quite how long the service will be, and what else is expected to happen between 7.30 and lunch at 12.30 I am not quite sure, but it is my job to chronicle it and I await with interest to find out. I wonder whether there will be a similar occasion when the Children's Centre is completed around September.

Good Friday in Chilomoni

The beginnings of Beehive in Chilomoni lie in the building of the Way of the Cross on Michuri mountain. The reasons why I personally am here working for Beehive have absolutely nothing to do with the origins of the project. Indeed when I made my first enquiry, my first question sought reassurance that it would not be a problem to anyone that I am neither Catholic nor a practicing Christian. I wanted to be sure that the services of the Children's Centre particularly, were to be open to all members of the community in Chilomoni, whatever their creed or culture, and I was reassured on these points. However, whether I like it or not, Beehive is certainly perceived as a Catholic Organisation locally, although rather to my surprise Vince told me that on paper it is not. Many local people have been astonished to find that I am not a Catholic because they know I am a Beehive volunteer. If they ask more questions they then go on to be even more astonished, if not shocked, to discover that I do not belong to any church or other religion. It seems that it is almost unknown to be without religion here. There does not seem to be any understanding that one might be able to have a moral code or humanitarian principles based on anything other than a belief in a god of some kind. Several of my students have tried very hard to persuade me into their own way of thinking out of concern for my soul. Anyway in the interests of attempting to understand the culture in which I find myself, I first climbed the Way of the Cross when I had been in Malawi only a couple of weeks. I have returned four or five times since not least because it is a beautiful walk with panoramic views of Chilomoni in the foreground and Greater Blantyre surrounded by mountains stretching away into the, usually slightly blue and misty distance. Also it is a well signposted walk with regular reassurance that you are not lost in the Stations of the Cross, and therefore I did not feel it was too risky to go by myself in that very lonely time over Christmas when Mitsidi was virtually deserted. It is the same with the Way of the Rosary, but here there is the bonus of a whole other set of views to the other side of the mountain away from Blantyre, which are altogether more wild and beautiful. Armed with suntan lotion, a bottle of water and either a camera or binoculars, and preferably a congenial companion, I can happily while away a few hours on either path.

Yesterday was Good Friday. We had heard that on this day upwards of two thousand people walk the Way of the Cross and we were curious to see how so many could be accommodated at the top of the mountain so we decided to go. We discovered that there are two services and our information was that there is one in English at 6.30am and one in Chichewa at 8.00am. Apparently the English one attracts about 200 worshippers and the Chichewa about 2000. My interests being in local culture, and not having to get out of bed too early in the morning, we decided to leave Mitsidi at 6.30 am, quite early enough for me, and be at the top of the mountain for 8.00am. It was a gorgeous morning with the sun still quite low in the sky making long shadows, and the light a warm golden yellow. At the bottom of the mountain, cars were parked along both sides of the narrow road. Despite the 'Vending not allowed' signs there were a few people selling rosaries and orders of service etc. We began the walk up the mountain in the company of a small group of worshippers who stopped to pray at the first station. We continued a slow and steady progress. At each station there were small groups kneeling, singing and praying. We walked quietly, exchanging only smiles and nods with people we passed. There were a number of people about, but I had expected more. We reached the top shortly before 8.00am to find the English service just coming to an end. There were a few people we knew and after the service had ended we chatted a bit, and then gradually the crowd dispersed. There were five priests who went off to sit on pairs of green plastic chairs set at discreet distances from one another in the scrubby woodland, to hear confessions. One or two small groups sat singing together. It was generally quiet and peaceful. After an hour or so there were very few people left and we began to wonder what had happened to the Chichewa service. Obviously our information had not been correct, or was it just that things were operating on Malawi time? Another hour passed. The time sped by. The view becomes more interesting the more I learn about Chilomoni and Blantyre. I can pick out a lot more landmarks now, and recognizing buildings sparks off memories. Eventually we heard singing from far away and were able to pick out a huge procession of people right at the bottom of the mountain. Gradually the group snaked its way up the path, stopping to pray and sing at each station. One by one and then in small groups young boys and girls began to arrive at the top of the mountain. I guess their parents were part of the procession and they had run on ahead as children do and would meet up with their families gain at the top. At one point it seemed as though there were perhaps six adults at the top of the mountain, including me and Malcolm, with perhaps a hundred and fifty children in small chattering groups, some rolling and playing in the grass, some breaking small branches off the trees to make themselves impromptu sunshades. Occasionally an adult would remind them that this was a holy occasion and ask them to be quiet and to move away from the area where the altar was set up under a canvas roof, but as this was the main area of available shade and the sun was by now high in the sky they kept creeping back. Everyone was dressed in their best, there were many shirts and traditional dresses in bright African fabrics including some which commemorated Catholic groups or occasions, but there were even more bridesmaid's dresses from the second hand market and neatly pressed shorts or jeans and buttoned shirts.

The singing got gradually louder and louder. By the time the procession reached the thirteenth station we had been on the mountain nearly six hours, but to me it did not seem nearly that long. From this stage on we could hear what was being said through a rather raucous portable public address system and see the crowd spilling off the track and into the surrounding woodland perching on rocks or kneeling on the rough ground while the prayers were being said. I recognized one or two people from Beehive including Peter Nkata, who came and spoke to us. The only azungus I saw in the vast crowd were a family of four who were very near the head of the procession and Tony Smith whose Panama hat caught my eye as I looked down from my rocky perch at the top of the track towards the fifteenth station. Gradually hundreds of people passed our rock and crammed themselves into the space at the top. There were nuns from several orders, stout matrons in flip flops and zitenge, who had clearly found the steep hot climb as difficult as I did when I first did it in the heat of the day last October; there were respectable men in dark trousers and white shirts, some of whom sang confidently and strongly as they walked. There were groups walking together who were probably choirs. There were many women dressed in the white shirts and purple skirts and headscarves of mourning. There were couples and there were families, and everywhere there were children, tiny ones strapped to their mother's backs, toddlers being carried or encouraged by parents or siblings, crying sometimes and being quietened with snacks, which usually seemed to be little plastic pots of cold chips. Older children were everywhere, smiling, fingering rosaries, climbing rocks and trees, joining the singing, slipping away to play in small groups. When most people had passed us and joined the crowd at the top of the mountain and the first few had turned and begun to go down, Malcolm turned to me and mouthed 'Leg it?' I nodded and we got up and picked our way between the hundreds of people sitting on every available stone or flat(ish) piece of ground to regain the track and work our way back down towards Chilomoni.

Back at the car park there was mass defiance of the 'No vending' instruction. Both sides of the road were lined with local people hoping to make a few kwachas by selling doughnuts, samosas, sweet and Irish potatoes, sweets, soft drinks to the hungry crowd as they returned from the mountain. I hope they did good trade!

Back to work

This morning I was up and scrambling eggs at 5.30am in order to get Rose and Joe to Chileka Airport in time for a transfer flight to Lilongwe to pick up their Air Kenya flights to Nairobi and on to Heathrow. They arrive early tomorrow morning. I should think by the time Joe gets back to Norwich on the train from London he will be utterly exhausted. We had a bit of a panic the night before last as it seemed that diesel was unobtainable in Blantyre and we had planned to hire a car and drive back to Dedza yesterday via a visit to Mua Mission, and thus give ourselves an easy journey from Dedza to Lilongwe to catch the lunchtime plane. We reviewed a few options but eventually decided the simplest, if not the most environmentally friendly, was to book them on the morning flight to Lilongwe and have an extra day in Blantyre. We had done the booking by 9.00am and filled the day with pottering round Blantyre, buying last minute gifts and souvenirs, having lunch in Veg-delight, and sitting around at Mitsidi, talking, swimming and reading. It was a nice relaxing day. As we had been swimming in Lake Malawi we also sorted out the anti-bilharzia medication for R and J to take back to the UK and take six weeks after the swim. It's much cheaper and easier to get it here.

I felt really sad when I got back to Mitsidi. I have had such a lovely time with my children, just as I did when Jack came in January. I was wondering what on earth possessed me to leave them for such a long time, although I know that the answer to this question is complicated! However I also know that it would never happen at home that I would have their undivided attention for a whole fortnight and so much high quality time spent enjoying ourselves together. They all have their own lives in Norwich, with their own friends and social circles, but here they are visiting my world and so I saw so much more of them. Both Rose and Joe have said that they would like to contribute something to this blog, following their visit. I look forward to their contributions and to hearing their thoughts and feelings about their African experiences.

This morning I have been catching up with my emails as a way of thinking my way back in to a working frame of mind. It has been rather too Malawian an introduction in that I have struggled with the internet connection and lost material through losing connections. How frustrating it is, and how daft am I not to have got into the habit of drafting EVERYTHING in Word just in case!

I have a lot of lecture and activity preparation to do in the week or so until term starts again. Also I plan to have a good look at the classroom, give the toilets a good clean, and consider how best to display some of the student's work with a view to encouraging them to display children's work in interesting and stimulating ways. David worked for a week after I had gone away with my children to the Lake so I daresay he is well ahead with his lecture prep. I am looking forward to his return in a week's time and also to meeting his Dad again. Jed is here for at least a couple of months. It is a bit of a time of change at Mitsidi. We have recently welcomed Melvyn, an engineer who will replace Malcolm who is off home in a couple of weeks, and Adam who is a JCB expert, among other talents. Giacomo, an architect, has been here a couple of weeks and is already having a significant effect on the development of the Children's Centre. Tony Smith the founder of Krizevac is here for a month. Philip and Sharon are off back to the States very soon. Jan and Lindy's children and mine have just completed visits and are off home again, so it has definitely been a time of change. I wonder how it will all feel when everything has settled down.

But first there is Easter, and then May 1 will bring the blessing by the Archbishop of the new IT training college.

Assembly, shopping, Maureen’s school

I do not think one can truly understand Beehive without attending at least one assembly. These take place at 7.45 every Monday morning and are attended by representatives of all the branches of Beehive. This includes, construction workers, admin workers, those who are engaged in small enterprises, tailoring students, IT college staff and students, catering staff, those who work in the Torrent Rental companies and last but not least Beehive Childcare Training. There is a non-denominational religious service usually comprised of prayer, Bible reading and reflection, followed by notices and concluding with the national anthem. The different branches of Beehive take turns to lead the assembly; I think I have written about the first Child Care Assembly a month or so ago. Today it was the turn of Bee Bikes, a very small group of people, so they enlisted the help of the Construction Choir and Drama Groups. Both of these are certainly worth listening to. Even though I did not understand the sketches which were in Chichewa, still I laughed at the antics of their comedian and enjoyed the costumes and characterization. It is the habit of the Managing Director to introduce visitors from abroad to the assembled company, so Rose and Joe had to go up to the front and say who they are and why they are here. There were a couple of hundred people there and I think they found it a bit of an ordeal, but they rose to the occasion. At the end of the assembly Tony Smith got up and introduced us all to a 'Beehive song' written by a Franciscan Father who visited last year and asked us all to learn it in preparation for his visit in a couple of months time. All this added up to the longest assembly in living memory, but still, we had emerged by 9.15am and were soon on a minibus into Blantyre to look at the markets and do a bit of shopping.

We were azungus doing souvenir shopping, and visited Pamet's handmade paper project, the craft market and had a good wander round Blantyre market. Joe filmed some of our walk round the market which excited some interest, but we could not understand enough Chichewa to understand exactly what! As usual I particularly enjoyed the fruit and veg market with all its bright colours and fresh produce: loads of different kinds of green leafy vegetables, avocados bigger than I have seen anywhere else, custard apples, jack fruit, beans in all sorts of shades. There was a man busily podding peas with a big maize basket full of them in front of him, he must have been podding for hours. There was a whole section filled with people selling only potatoes, there were scarlet heaps of tomatoes, red and white onions, golden bananas. Eventually tired and hot we repaired to Ryall's Hotel for lunch. This was a real treat, being perhaps the poshest place in Blantyre to go for a meal, but Rose reminded us that Uncle Derek had given her money for us all to go out for a meal while they were here in Malawi, so we did it in style. Ryall's is an old colonial hotel building set in a beautiful garden. The restaurant is cool and spacious and at the beginning we had it to ourselves although it gradually filled up as we ate. Joe followed the example of his brother when I went there with him, and had an enormous burger with all the trimmings, and Rose and I went for pasta dishes, hers was butternut squash and spinach cannelloni and mine, (chosen for maximum cheese content!), was tagliatelle in gorgonzola and parmesan cream sauce! Yum! Unfortunately we were all too full to try the Certain Death by Chocolate dessert, so we rounded off the meal with Mzuzu coffee before a gentle stroll around the corner to the minibus stop where we packed ourselves like sardines in tin with 11 Malawians in the first minibus back to Chilomoni.

Joe wanted to return to some of the bits of Beehive we visited earlier in the week with his camera, so we walked past the Liquor Garden and Bee Books to the church and then through the back streets to find the school run by Maureen, one of my students. As always Maureen welcomed us with open arms. We went in to see the children and I was pleased to notice a few changes since I originally visited her school six months ago. She has taken much of the furniture out of the classroom and the children have room to move around. There was a large treasure basket filled with a mixture of soft toys and domestic items, in process of construction on the office table. On the classroom walls alongside the alphabet and posters we saw last time, there were pictures and posters she has made herself, and two story sacks were hanging up for the children to use. She read a story while we were there and it was a delight to hear her. She got the children into four groups miming playing the four instruments that were mentioned in the story and they all seemed to be enjoying themselves. There was a delicious blend of some of the ideas David and I have introduced and the more traditional Malawian approach. We all have so much to learn from each other. Maureen took us into the house and gave us a Fanta each to drink and we met her husband. Then she called Israel, her twelve year old and issued him with a plastic bag and we all went off to see her garden. Israel filled the bag with large avocados with which we were presented to take home and leave to ripen. Israel seemed to enjoy the job, which involved climbing the tree and tossing the fruits down to his friend and his mother who put them in the bag.

Maureen and her youngest son, Neil escorted us through a shortcut, down narrow back paths to the construction site where Joe took photos of the Children's Centre. On the way he filmed a group of children who were calling, 'Azungu, azungu' after us, but as soon as he started to film they started to call something else, which Maureen translated as 'They are taking photographs of us.' Suddenly more children were running towards us from every doorway and down every narrow path, and Joe was surrounded by a small crowd clamouring to see themselves on the little screen of the camcorder. The sight seemed to amuse them greatly and they shrieked with laughter and pushed each other aside to get a better view.

When our paths divided for Maureen and Neil to go home and us to return to Mitsidi, Neil cried because he did not want to leave us, but Maureen swung him onto her back and set off down the hill and we went on our way.

Back at Midsidi we filled the time until supper with swimming, reading, Joe played the guitar. There are only a couple of days of their holiday left. It has gone so very quickly. I shall miss them when they go!

Back in Chilomoni

We arrived back in Chilomoni on Thursday evening just in time for a meal with all the others at Mitsidi. Tony Smith (founder of Krizevac) was there. It was good to meet him at last, although I haven't had the chance to speak to him properly yet. I look forward to that. Jan and Lindy's children, Luke and Rosie, and their spouses Anneli and John, are also visiting at the moment so it was full house for dinner, 16 people including all the volunteers. For the first time since I have been here the big dining room table was not big enough to accommodate everyone at once and two people had to eat off their laps in the comfy chairs. We fell into bed after supper exhausted after our slow drive back from Liwonde and all were sleeping by about 8.30pm.

The next day I set out to show Rose and Joe Chilomoni. We visited the site where the Children's Centre showed some progress during the last week while I have been away. The concrete supports for the first floor of the south building are in, together with a lot of wooden scaffolding and work will begin to lay the concrete slab for the floor very soon. The scaffolding has been removed from the IT college too while I have been away and that makes a huge visual difference. The building is to be blessed by the Archbishop on May 1 and we are expecting up to 2000 people at a mass in the grounds. To my astonishment Malcolm says that Vince wants me to be the official photographer for the event! I am not sure that I am up to the job, but I shall enjoy having a go! We stopped over for lunch on the site. It was beans, pumpkin leaves and nsima day, so Rose and Joe had a genuine Malawian workman's lunch.

We went to see our classroom in St James' primary school and met Wilson the guard and a few of the teachers, but Alfred the Headmaster was out on a visit. Then we walked through the township to the admin building where I hoped to introduce them to Mary, who has been so kind to me while I have been here. Unfortunately Mary was at the Immigration Office sorting out people's visas. It is part of her job as sort of head of personnel at Beehive to make sure that we are all legal as far as being in the country is concerned. We had a bit of a chat with Peter, Managing Director, and he said some nice things to Rose and Joe about how useful their mother has been whilst in Malawi. That sort of thing is always nice to hear! Then we went in to Bee Bikes and had a good chat with Mike the Bike who runs that part of the project and we visited Bee Books and Joe and I bought a few volumes to make sure we don't run out of things to read. We dropped in to the Liquor Garden for a swift drink and ended up staying long enough for Joe to have a lesson in how to play Bawo from Patrick, the guy who clears away the bottles and generally keeps the place clean and tidy. I was pleased to note that Patrick and Charles, who owns the place, threw out a guy who came in and tried to hassle Rose, because he didn't buy a drink. We wandered slowly back to Mitsidi in time to flop about and read a bit before dinner. On the way we brought freshly roasted peanuts on the street. How much nicer they are than the kind you get in vacuum sealed packets in the UK!

On Saturday we took advantage of the chance to share Malcolm's car and went off to Mulange. We climbed up to the waterfall and had a picnic lunch with cheese and tomato sandwiches courtesy of my birthday parcel from Jack which included four types of cheese! We were fortunate enough to have the waterfall to ourselves for about an hour before we were joined by a party of mixed Malawians and Chinese, who apparently worked together, but I never did find out what it was that they did. Malcolm and Joe swam in the 68ft deep pool under the waterfall, but Rose and I contented ourselves with paddling, contemplating the view and taking photographs. It was beautiful, tranquil and very peaceful. On the way back down the mountain I managed to slip on the rocks and gained a grazed knee, such that I have not had since I was a little girl. I had forgotten just how much it hurts when you actually do the damage, and also how quickly the pain fades and becomes just a soreness that is unpleasant, but not difficult to put up with. We stopped at the entrance to the park where you pay the fees to walk up to the waterfall, and looked at the stalls selling crafts, such as carved boxes of Mulange Cedar. We all bought a gift or two for the folks at home. I had promised Joe that I would buy him a Bawo board for his birthday and we found a lovely little table with a reversible top with Bawo on one side and carved elephants and rhinos on the other so I bought him that. He has spent quite a bit of time since looking up the finer points of the rules on the internet and practicing playing against himself. He even persuaded me to play this morning.

This afternoon we climbed the Way of the Cross and looked down on Chilomoni Township, and indeed a large proportion of Greater Blantyre. It was a fairly clear, sunny day and quite humid. By the time we got to the top I was hot, sweaty and tired, but the view was worth it.

The holiday begins

Thursday morning brought the repeat of my SEMS lecture and then I was FREE!! David rounded off the term with an attempt at getting the students to link activities to Physical and Mental and Cognitive milestones and I walked back through the streets of Chilomoni to Mitsidi to collect my belongings and the hired Land Rover, and set off on the first leg of my journey to Kamuzu airport, north of Lilongwe to meet Rose and Joe for their two weeks' holiday in the warm heart of Africa. At first all went well and I finished my packing with time to spare. But, and so often there is a 'but' in Malawi, no Land Rover appeared. Eventually I rang the Torrent Office to find out where it was and was assured that it was on its way, but as it was then another whole hour before it showed up I can only conclude that they came on a very scenic route and not the 15 minute, direct drive I was expecting. I've not driven this Land Rover before and some of them are pretty hard work, but fortunately this one started off pretty amenably and I was on the way to Ntcheu to spend a night with my new friend Amanda who is a nurse working in health education in the villages around Ntcheu. What a beautiful country Malawi is! The sun was shining and the air was clear. There were lovely mountain views all along the way. There has been an unseasonable amount of rain lately and everything is brilliantly green. Indeed in some instances too green. The maize should be drying out on the plant and leaves turning brown now, but it has rained so much that some of the crop is rotting on the plants. Peter told me, when I described the kernels spread out to dry on maize flour sacks in the sun, that this is not usually necessary, but is a desperate attempt to save the maize and have sufficient nsima flour for the next year. I hadn't realized when I wrote about what I had seen that this is not standard practice each year.

By the time I reached Ntcheu I was an hour and a half behind schedule and it was only 20 mins short of nightfall. Amanda was beginning to wonder whether something dreadful had befallen me, but it was a combination of late Land Rover and miscalculation of the time it takes to drive from Blantyre to Ntcheu. We met in the hospital car park and then trundled my suitcase on its little plastic wheels down the road and along a very muddy track to her house. By Malawian standards it is a very good house, set behind a brick wall, in a pleasant garden, but it made me realize how lucky we are to live at Mitsidi, where we have a beautiful setting, swimming pool and luxuries such as company, hot water and meals prepared for us. Amanda's is a three-bedroom, three-shower room house, but it is a bit damp and dismal with bats in the loft, which can be a bit smelly and only a little two-ring electric hot plate just like the one I have in my own house. The sitting room is furnished comfortably with enormous sofas and arm chairs and she made me very welcome. We were very British and had tea! As she is normally confined to the house after dark, feeling it is not safe to be an azungu woman alone on the streets at night, we decided to make the trip to a local restaurant for our supper. As we left she said to me, 'We shall have to hold hands, we can't risk losing each other in the dark.' I thought she was exaggerating, but she was not. It was a cloudy night, so no moon or stars; very little light came from the other houses. There was a light drizzle. I stepped straight in a deep puddle, but fortunately was wearing crocs with no socks, so dried out quickly. We retraced our steps to the main road, which is the M1, therefore the best kept road in Malawi. Suddenly we found ourselves walking on tarmac, rather than mud and realized that we were in the middle of the road. I suppose that had any traffic been approaching it would have had lights and therefore we should have seen it, but it was worrying nonetheless! We crossed over and then plunged down a dark alley between a couple of shops, then into a dim courtyard and hence to the restaurant. It was deserted apart from a friendly waiter who seemed very pleased to see us and presented us with a typical Malawian menu, chicken, meat or fish, with nsima, rice or chicken. We ordered chicken and a couple of passion fruit Fanta's. Amanda then looked upwards through her eyelashes at the waiter and enquired whether it would be OK with him if we added to our Fanta's the contents of a bottle which I had in my handbag (Malawi Gin!). He had no objection so we poured a generous measure and continued a delightful, getting to know you conversation, by the end of which I certainly felt I had gained a friend. I hope she did too! She is off for a holiday in South Africa with her daughter, and I have two weeks to look forward to with Joe and Rose, but after that we shall certainly meet up again.

The next morning I was up at 5.30 am and on the road by 6.30 am. Again I thought this was plenty of time to reach my destination in time for the flight but I didn't reckon on such appalling weather. The rain was torrential, I was well up in the level of the clouds and to cap it all, the windscreen wipers of the Land Rover were not working. I persevered, preferring to continue at a reduced, but steady pace rather than stop and hope the rain would cease. I made the right decision. I was two thirds of the way to Lilongwe before the sun struggled out and I missed all the lovely views towards the Lake from the mountains around Dedza. As usual I managed to get lost in Lilongwe, but with the help of a charming lady, with excellent English, I managed to find the airport road and arrived with about two minutes to spare, despite allowing an hour for the unexpected in my schedule! It was so exciting to see Rose and Joe more or less first through the barriers. Six months is such a long time. I think the longest I have gone without seeing Rose since she left home 7 years ago is about four months, and of course for Joe it is much less than that, probably not much more than a couple of weeks.

With Joe reading the map we found our way back through Lilongwe without getting lost again. As usual there was a petrol shortage in Lilongwe and there were queues of cars and minibuses everywhere, but we managed to get diesel at the same scruffy looking garage where I was lucky last time, and it was not long before we arrived at Dedza Pottery where we stayed for a couple of nights. We spent the intervening day visiting the Rock Art sites in the locality. As Joe said, 'If you are impressed by the fact that they are 2000 years old, they are worth seeing, but if you're not they are just scratches on rocks!' They were however in beautiful countryside, with splendid views. Indeed the first site was the best place for wild flowers that I have been since I arrived in Malawi. I took loads of photos. I really must get myself a wild flower book and identify some of them.

The next day we moved on to Cape Maclear on Lake Malawi. Our Lodge was right on the Lake shore, the weather was fabulous, the Lake was warm and blue. The first day we walked in the National Park, climbed on the rocks at Otter Point, saw lots of baboons and vervet monkeys, and the second we went on a boat trip involving snorkeling, feeding the Fish Eagles, bird watching, eating an excellent lunch of barbequed chambo, cooked for us by the boatmen, and generally had a sun-soaked and enjoyable time. Yesterday we moved on again to Liwonde National Park for 24 hours of safaris. We saw loads of birds and animals including an exciting and slightly worrying encounter with elephants in the dark, for photos see Facebook in the next couple of days.

Today, after our return to Liwonde town, where we had left the Land Rover we had a somewhat too exciting trip home, due to trouble with the Land Rover. Fortunately we were able to get it going following advice from Derrick, the valiant chief mechanic from Torrent, and a mercy mission by Malcolm who drove towards us as we limped back to Blantyre, prepared to pick up the pieces if we didn't make it all the way. So now begins phase two of Rose and Joe's Malawian Trip. We've done the exotic African holiday bit, now begins a week of 'Find out what Mum's life in Malawi is really like!'

The end of term is approaching fast. We said goodbye to our first group of students for three weeks Easter break today and term finishes for the others on Friday. This week we are looking at working with children aged 3 to 6 years. As I set off for Lilongwe on Thursday at lunchtime to pick up Rose and Joe from the airport on Friday morning, I have got off lightly this week as far as lecture preparation is concerned. David on the other hand has a demanding week! This is not as unfair as it sounds as he had visitors last week and I covered for him. I began on Monday morning with a closer look at the Social, Emotional, Moral and Spiritual milestones of the Malawian ECD curriculum for children aged between 3 and 5 years. I began by asking the students what aspects of life they think are affected by Social, Emotional, Moral and Spiritual (SEMS) development and why this is important. Then I talked about it from the six main headings of the EYFS in the Social and Emotional Area of Learning. Well, I had to start somewhere! We went back over the milestones that we looked at for babies and toddlers and then I asked them to work together in small groups to write a description of a typical three year old from a SEMS perspective. I was hoping that the students would be able to paint a picture of a 3 year old in their own words but they found it difficult. In the UK most child care training, whatever the level, has practical experience as an integral part of the course from the beginning and I am sure that this is the best approach, but as I have explained previously there are good arguments for not doing that here at the moment. It is hard for our students to imagine what children of different ages will be like just from learning the theoretical development so we got a lot of quotes from the milestones in the descriptions. For example:

'A three year-old is noticeable due to his/her eagerness and unpredictability of his exploring and his assertiveness. He/she imitates whatever is seen around his/her environment. Is able to recognize family members as well as strangers. He observes and absorbs more and more what is acceptable behaviour from family members. He/she plays side by side with other kids and communicates freely. He/she will be attracted to moral and spiritual stories and songs. The child will be able to mention his or her own name.'

 

Hmmmm? There were a few cultural differences from what you might expect in answer to a similar question from UK students too, e.g:

A typical three year old child likes playing together with peers (Cooperative), and able to use toilet, they imitate what adults do like kneeling down when greeting visitors and talking to adults. They are able to memorise verses and spiritual songs.

 

Next I got them to think about what a child is like from this point of view when they start school at five and consider which skills we need to encourage to help them get to that point. Then we looked at the milestones of the Malawian curriculum for 3-5 years and tried to devise activities to support the children to achieve the milestones. It sort of worked! We had a few songs and a couple of name games. Nevertheless I was left feeling slightly dispirited, and not for the first time wondering if I have pitched this course at the right level!

 

Today I have spent most of the day marking last week's homework, which was to observe a child aged between 3 and 6 years playing, and then look at the Malawian curriculum and see if they could identify milestones the child had achieved and think about how they could encourage the child to achieve the next milestone. It all gets a bit box-ticky if you're not careful. They are all getting better at writing observations and most of them are recording only what they see or hear and not what they assume at last, but it has been a bit of an uphill battle. Some of them are making sensible links to what they have learned in our lectures, but almost none of them managed to link what they observed to the Malawian curriculum and only a few suggested really good activities to help the children move on. I suppose it is complicated but sometimes I wonder whether we are expecting too much. I guess we will be able to consolidate the learning when the Children's Centre opens and they are working with children every day, but at the moment when they are observing the children of neighbours and relatives it is difficult for us to know what they have seen and offer appropriate advice.

 

David spent today encouraging them to link activities to Physical and Mental and Cognitive milestones, but again it was hard work and I think he was more frustrated than I have ever seen him this afternoon. We talked about it on the way home and concluded yet again that we have trouble because they are experiencing all sorts of activities, such as the marble and blow painting we did this afternoon, that they have never seen before and they are so excited about having a go themselves they are not able to think about the learning implications for the children. Perhaps they will get there in the end? Perhaps we all need this holiday, not least David and me!

.We repeat these sessions on Thursday and Friday for the second group and then it is holiday time, Hurrah! I cannot wait to see rose and joe and am getting excited already.

Circumnavigation of Mulange Mountain

Yesterday Malcolm and I went on his last exploration of the dirt roads of Malawi as he will be off back to the UK in about ten days. Malcolm seems determined to travel as many different roads as possible before he returns home and the rest of us are beginning to feel that he deliberately seeks out the most bumpy and uncomfortable route possible to wherever it is we wish to go! You have already read about the back route to Zomba. Well, this trip attempted to be the back way from Blantyre to Mulange. On the map there is a direct road from Limbe to Phalombe, a dirt road, but one reputed to be wide and well maintained. We got some directions and set off. I brought two guidebooks, but unfortunately neither of us had the foresight to bring a map! We wanted to drive all the way around Mulange Mountain, including going up the Fort Lister Pass which goes between Mulange and Mchesi Mountains. The road is very rough and very narrow, but we had heard that the views are very beautiful so we set off early to allow plenty of time to get up there and down again before dark. All began well. We found the right place to turn off the Zomba road, just the other side of Limbe onto a tarmacked road signposted to a hospital. Our instructions were to turn right onto a dirt road leaving the tarmac going straight on to the hospital. We must have turned off too soon because we had been told to expect a wide, well-maintained road, and indeed our turning started off like that, but gradually it became narrower and more and more rough. It was not the first time that we wished one of us had thought of bringing a compass to Malawi. Our guts told us that we were heading in more or less the right direction, but unfortunately we were actually running more or less parallel to the road we were aiming for, but several miles to the right of it! I think azungus were pretty unusual visitors in those parts, for we excited even more than the usual interest from children and passer- by. When we stopped to ask directions I was forced to put my Chichewa lessons to good use as Malcolm's polite, English request for directions was met with a blank stare, followed by a stream of Chichewa. Eventually we hit the main M4 road to Mulange, having taken maybe an hour to get to a point we could have reached in twenty minutes if we had travelled the usual way! However we had seen many villages and fields that are not on the usual tourist track. There are many wild flowers at the moment. Each time we go on a trip there appears to be more colour than there was on the last one. I guess it is because everything is so well watered. It is still the rainy season, and there is at least some rain most days. Usually I notice at least one wild flower growing in profusion that I have not noticed before. Mostly I do not know what they are. I really must invest in a good book on the wild flowers of Southern Africa. Yesterday there were many brilliantly orange, tissue-like five-petalled flowers growing along the grassy verges between the road and the maize fields. It is harvest time and we saw a few families in the fields cutting their crops. Outside many houses were groups of women stripping the kernels from the cobs and spreading them to dry on large sheets which appeared to be made from opened out flour sacks joined together. I wonder how long it takes for the kernels to dry in the sun sufficiently for them to be ground into flour for making nsima. One must have to be vigilant to ensure that they are covered or brought it before it rains as I am sure a good soaking does not help the drying process! We also saw women walking down the road from the maize mills with buckets, baskets and sacks of flour on their heads taking the finished product home to be stored for food for the rest of the year.

We sped down the M4 hoping to make up for lost time, following the route we took last time we went to Mulange, when we located the road from Phalombe up into the mountains but found it too late in the day to think it wise to go up on that occasion. Before we reached Mulange Town however Malcolm spotted another narrow dirt road with a signpost for Phalombe and screeched to a halt, reversing back down the hard shoulder to turn off to the left again. At least this time we could see the very recognizable mountain that we were heading for and so could be fairly confident that we were on the right track! I began to feel that my insides were being thoroughly rearranged by the jolting and bouncing as we sped along the track. The Malawian road numbering system starts with M roads, which are tarmacked and although they are often potholed and have raggedy edges they are easily recognizable and easy to follow. Then there are S roads which are often very narrow, then there are T roads, (T for track?) and finally there are unclassified roads which can be anything from fairly respectable, if untarmacked, to little more than paths where the maize or long grass meets over your head as you walk along. This was a T road, T134 according to the signpost. The road was pretty straight and led through a number of villages ever nearer to the Mountain. There were a number of dodgy bridges over rivers and streams and one stretch of water with spectacular white and purple water lilies. There were two or three unsignposted junctions where we had to use our initiative to decide which way to go, or exercise my dubious Chichewa again, but eventually we did arrive in Phalombe, 3 hours after leaving Blantyre and certainly by a different route. We pulled up outside People's Supermarket and Malcolm went in and bought Fantas, which were very welcome, while I consulted the guidebook, and then it was off up the Fort Lister Pass, along which the slave traders apparently used to walk groups of captives on the way to ports in Mozambique from which they were shipped to America. It must have been a steep and exhausting climb for the poor captives. Even up in the mountains we were rarely very far from human habitation. Once we stopped to investigate a faint track which reputedly led to the Fort after which the pass is named, once we stopped because we got a wheel stuck in a ditch, and once to admire the view, and each time people materialized out of nowhere to chat, offer advice, or offer themselves as guides. We branched off a brief distance up a side track and stopped for lunch with a view of Mulange Mountain in front of us and Mchesi behind. There was a lot of swirling iron grey cloud which sometimes obscured the mountain tops, but there was sunshine as well. Everything is so green at the moment, and there are so many shades of green. After 14Km of very rough driving and only the one encounter with a ditch, we came down the other side of the pass and turned right back towards Mulange town along another narrow dirt road. This one seemed to be one continuous village that went on for miles and miles. There were hundreds of people walking, biking and running along the road, but very few other vehicles. I have written before about the flourishing secondhand clothes markets in Blantyre. I did not expect to see the same so far out in the country, but beside the road, intermingled with stalls selling sugar cane, vegetables, dried fish and bloody carcasses there were many stalls with clothes in various states of repair varying from crumpled heaps of grubby fabric to freshly laundered and ironed clothes on hangers. I saw a girl of perhaps ten years holding a green satin and black lace bridesmaids dress up against her holed T shirt and simple cotton skirt. She obviously thought it was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen. Melvin has been looking for lightweight, light coloured trousers in the clothes shops of Blantyre without success, but I reckon he could have found what he wanted out here in the sticks, there were plenty of beige and fawn trousers hanging up to choose from. We had a few slightly hairy moments sliding about on a very wet and greasy muddy road surface but managed not to end up in the deep drains on either side of the road. Many helpful Malawians shouted instructions to Malcolm, such as 'Keep going straight!' as if he were deliberately making the Land Rover glide sideways for his own strange private amusement. Fortunately disaster was avoided! There were chickens and goats everywhere. There were a lot of turkeys gobbling around the houses and making stately progress across the road. I saw my first pigs since I have been in Malawi too. Three little black piglets with pink faces and feet. They appeared to have a death wish and rushed out into the road in front of us, but we managed to avoid hitting them.

On our way we drove around the Lucheri tea estate, where it is possible to stay in a comfortable Lodge for a 'relaxing weekend away from it all'. It looked delightful. We stopped in Mulange Town for a reviving cup of coffee at the somewhat anachronistic Pizzeria Basilico and now that we were safely back on tarmac I drove home!