Jolly Day Out to Zomba

Sunday has been a good day. This weekend lots of the other volunteers went off to the 'Lake of Stars' festival about four hours drive away. They booked their tickets months ago, so there were very few of us left. I have had a pretty quiet weekend. Friday I spent entirely at Mitsidi, reading, swimming, taking photos and thinking. Also making Shepherd's Pie for supper and inventing mango scones, which went down very well! It takes a while for impressions and feelings to settle and it was good to do not very much and let my brain sort out how I am going to tackle some of the work problems, but more of that on a work day! Saturday was quiet too, but three of us went out for lunch at Blantyre sports club where I put myself outside Chambo and chips on a khonde overlooking the rugby pitch! Today I got up early and went off to Zomba with Malcolm, one of the volunteers, to see if we could find some mountains. Yesterday it clouded over so we think the rains might be going to start soon. It was very hazy when we left Blantyre and we thought we might get up to 2000 meters and not be able to see anything, but we decided to go anyway. The road to Zomba is tarmacked, but full of holes so we had a bumpy ride! By the time we arrived we were covered in red dust! As we approached the town the vegetation began to change and become increasingly lush and although we could see mountains all the way, they became nearer and bigger. There were more palms and the plants were denser and greener altogether. On the way into the town we spotted a book store and coffee shop and the door was invitingly open, so we stopped for coffee, but were greeted by a man with an Irish lilt to his voice who told us if we wanted coffee he was sorry the shop was closed, but they were having a Bible study and we were welcome to stay if we would like to. This not being quite what we had in mind, we thanked him and drove further into Zomba which proved to be a pleasant looking town, greener than Blantyre and although there were many people on the streets there were few shops and restaurants open so we decided to find the mountain road and climb up to the plateau. We had only a rather rudimentary map and so got lost at the first attempt, but eventually found our way up the plateau. Even about a quarter of the way up the views were spectacular, if a bit hazy. It was really worth going. I took lots of photos. The ones I took out of the window of a moving pick-up, bouncing along dirt roads are pretty blurry and useless, but others do give a good reminder of what we saw, Zomba spread out about 1000 metres below us, waterfalls, viewpoints, baboons, half familiar flowers and trees, loads of butterflies…. We had a very expensive coffee in a posh hotel, which was a lovely place to sit to drink it, and had the advantage of providing up-market toilet facilities of which I took full advantage before we moved on! We ate our picnic lunch beside Chagwa dam, overlooking a lake with some lovely reflections. Everywhere we went we were besieged by vendors selling strawberries, raspberries, yellow raspberries, potatoes, bananas, craft items, postcards… One chap tried to charge us K100 to take photos of the waterfall, but we didn't pay! I don't think they can have had a very good day, because we were driving around for about three hours and during the whole time we were on the untarmacked roads we passed only three other vehicles. It was a great day out, I thoroughly enjoyed the trip. Tomorrow it is back to work, and for me that means another onslaught on all those application forms, and then for light relief a stack of Government/Unicef publications to familiarize myself with the legal context of childcare and Early Childhood Development Centres in Malawi.

Monday

Feeling pretty fed up tonight. I spent the whole day going through practically identical application forms. I feel that somewhere in that enormous pile are forms from people who are really passionate about working with children but didn't think it was appropriate to say so in a formal letter of application. I feel sure that somewhere there must be a Malawian guide to applying for a job by letter and it must give a model letter that reads something like this:

Dear Sir

Put the job title here and underline it

I am writing with respect to the above-mentioned job/course advertised in state journal in which you saw the advert and give the date of publication.

I am very interested to apply for this post.

I am very well qualified to be selected for this post because I wrote the Malawian Certificate of Secondary Education obtained in state year at state school and achieved state number and subjects in which you achieved distinction or credits. If you wish to have further information about my conduct and behaviour be so good as to contact state name and address of headteacher. I attach a copy of my certificate.

I am a state religion and denomination, Malawian male/female aged state age in years and I am married/unmarried with state number of children.

I sincerely hope that you will look upon my application with favourable consideration and I look forward to hearing that I have been selected and I promise that if selected I shall work hard even in odd hours.

Yours faithfully

Sign here!

 

I have about 2000 identical letters which tell me absolutely nothing that is not covered by the accompanying copy of the MCSE. Anyone who has written anything even slightly different stands out and the half dozen who have written passionately about the needs of Malawian children are on the course instantly!

The book needs to be revised PDQ to include an instruction to say why you would enjoy/be good at the job advertised, and to explain what skills you have that mean you are the right person for that job. Jobs are in such short supply the people must be applying for everything that there is the remotest chance of them getting. I have had CVs that say 'My career aim is to be an accountant' and they expect that to get them a place on a child care course!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!

Tomorrow, fortunately I have other things to do and so will have a day off sitting hunched over the paperwork without having any conviction that I am selecting the best people!

In the afternoon Jane and I will be demonstrating to her volunteers how to read stories to children and getting them to practice on each other, which sounds like a lot more fun! In the morning we shall plan how to approach the session, and in any gaps I shall get on with reading the Malawian Government/Unicef Early Childhood Development literature, which although a bit dry is a walk in the park after all those desperate letters!

On the plus side my toilet has been mended and I no longer have to flush it with a bucket of hot water! However when changing a light bulb it broke and got stuck in the socket so I now have only the crazy dimming table lamp in my sitting room and my kettle has ceased boiling water! Last night I saw a fair sized spider in the bathroom. My gecko is obviously not doing his job thoroughly!

There has been no internet connection on any of the sites all day, who knows when I shall be able to post these notes or check my emails! I still have not had a connection that lasted long enough to register for cheap phone calls to the UK so apologies for not ringing. Many thanks to Margaret and Annie for getting sorted and ringing me, and congratulations on being the first to manage it. A special prize to the first of my children to speak to me and no Father Christmas this year to the last!!

Tuesday

A much more entertaining day today. Our session with the volunteer readers went really well and we even managed to persuade the neighbours children to come and be read to. Everyone went home with a book to keep, adults and children alike. I found a little pot of bubbles left over from my leaving do at UEA and blew bubbles for the children. Again everyone seemed to like it and the volunteers took turns blowing bubbles for the children to pop! It was interesting that when we suggested that the volunteers translate into Chichewa as they read and didn't worry about whether jane and I understood it, they became a lot more animated and their presentation skills increased. The rest of the day I spent reading up on the law affecting children and rummaging through books stored away to be used in the Children's Centre. Tomorrow I shall have to get back to the application forms, but I've enjoyed the break!

I am getting a bit frustrated about the erratic internet access. I haven't been connected for more than 5 minutes together for about 4 days now and sometimes despite the fact that there is no signal my card is charged as though I was connected. Not only is this irritating, but I have to pay to be irritated! Right now I am sitting on the knonde at the big house on my own in the dark as I'm much more likely to get a signal here, however I shan't stay here much longer as already a strange, large beetle has collided with my head! I nearly trod on a toad as I went up the path to my house earlier, there certainly seems to be plenty of livestock about!