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!
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