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.