Here I am at Chileka airport again, sat in the café with time to kill, waiting for someone to arrive. In this case it is Chris somebody, the new volunteer, an engineer. And that is literally all I know about him! I have no idea how old he is or what he looks like and he is expecting to be met by Vince, so he certainly won't be looking for a slightly over-weight, middle-aged woman with an overgrown haircut and purple glasses! I have just delivered Brian and Sue to Departures and have half an hour to wait until Chris's plane touches down and then probably almost an hour until he emerges from Arrivals. The two months Brian and Sue have been here have passed in a flash but they have certainly had a significant impact on the preparation for opening of the Children's Centre. I think I have said before that they are good at all the things that I am not and that the Children's Centre really needs to get right. It is important that not only does it provide excellent services for children but also that it is run on sound business principles. It is so important that the services provided are sustainable. It would be a great pity to offer this hugely different approach to child care and then to have to withdraw it for lack of funds. Continuity will be very important for the children. We are already looking at what might be done to work with the local primary schools to support the children who move on from our Children's Centre when they reach statutory school age. With this in mind David and Sarah have joined Marc in St James' this week, which is the first week of term and the introduction to school life of a new cohort of 5 and 6 year olds. Apparently the first few weeks they do not follow a formal curriculum but a transition programme designed to help them to settle comfortably into school life. This aim did not preclude the teaching of the 'letter A' this morning however! I just popped in to get the key to the office. David, Sarah and I have only two keys between us and both were at the school this morning.
Today is full of little bits of jobs again. I look forward to having a few days to myself to get on with the assessment tasks, but there is a lot of random stuff that needs doing… I dropped Annie and Linda off at the bottom of 'The Way of the Cross this morning so that they can do the climb at the cooler end of the day and look down on Chilomoni and Blantyre spread below them. They were well equipped with water, sun hats, little snacks and lotion, and will take their time. They expect to be back down in Chilomoni in time for lunch and they have a date with Martin, the choir master of the construction choir to attend practice after lunch. The plan is that they will teach the choir an English song and the choir will teach them a song in Chichewa. I arrived at work to find I could not get into the office. This took a while to sort out and then I helped Linda(Rogers) to deal with a little printing problem that was driving her demented and so I had only an hour or so to get my head down over the writing of practical tasks. Then it was back to Mitsidi to begin the airport run.
It has been a real joy to have Annie and Linda here. It is not always easy to combine looking after visitors properly with working full time, but I have done my best! I am looking forward to my week off next week when I hope to be able to relax properly. I think we rather overdid it on Saturday after they arrived as although we had a quiet afternoon at Mitsidi we dropped in to the Liquor Garden for a quick drink, collected Marc and Sarah and then went to Chez Maky to meet Sue and Brian for an azungu, candlelit supper which included my first gammon steak for 30 years! I am still not used to the fact that I am no longer a vegetarian!! Sunday was another domestic day. We had a swim and helped prepare a celebratory barbeque to honour the imminent departure of Brain and Sue. During the course of Sunday night Annie managed to tread on a scorpion which caused us all a few anxious moments but I am happy to report that all has ended well although she was uncomfortable for a while. As she has recorded the incident in detail in her own blog I shall not say more here except that I took her to a GP recommended by Lindy and I share Lindy's good opinion of that lady. On what was left of Monday after the scorpion incident and on Tuesday we have spent the time in Chilomoni, visiting all the Beehive projects and drinking in local atmosphere. Lin particularly has taken loads of photos and we have met a lot of people. Both of them helped with the first class of the short courses programme for the Child Care students and with a new project, teaching basic English to Beehive staff.
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