Three weeks from tonight I shall be all packed up and ready to go on Thursday morning to catch the bus to Lilongwe on the first stage of my journey back to Norwich and home. I have begun thinking about what I shall take home with me and what I shall leave behind. Some decisions are easy, I am not going to bring home any clothes that are larger than a size 14 for example. I had acquired three big boxes of books during the time I have been here, I am a librarian's daughter! These I have distributed some to the CC, some to Bee Books to be resold, some to other volunteers. I still have quite a large pile to go back home with me, largely things I brought with me to finish my MA and which will now have to go back with me for the same reason, as the job has not been done! I have bought a few African artifacts which will be travelling with me. There is my camera, laptop and a few other bits and pieces. I would like to bring home my little rocket stove, bought on the market for MK350 but it is heavy and I suspect it will have to stay here.
It feels so strange that all the people I see on a daily basis I may well never see again. Yet at the same time I am excited at the prospect of picking up relationships with friends and family at home again.
The students are working very hard to get their Diplomas done if not before David and I leave, at least before the contracts run out at the end of August. If anyone has not completed by then it will be because they have not taken the trouble to do the work, not because they have not had the opportunity. I have been spending time with Alison the new manager, looking at the probable staffing needs for the CC in September and thinking about each Care Giver in turn, looking at their strengths, interests and enthusiasm. Who will work well with whom? Who will be best suited to working with babies? Who has the experience to ease the transition from CC to St James' School with its big classes and shortages of teachers and equipment? Who has worked hard and achieved their Diploma? Who is good at fostering creativity in children? Who can be self-motivated? Who has leadership potential?
The last few weeks are going to be a bit of a social whirl I think. This weekend we have a barbeque to welcome Zoe's dad who has come on a visit from UK. The following weekend is David's birthday and the one after that there is going to be a leaving do for David and me.
I am continuing to spend as much time as I possibly can assessing and mentoring Care Givers and urging them ever nearer to getting their Diplomas. I stood on the balcony this evening with Alison looking down on a lovely activity being assessed by Kirren in the garden below. The children were sitting on a parachute having a lovely picnic of kamba puffs (not the best thing nutritionally, but they like them!). We couldn't hear what they were talking about but the interactions between Care Givers and children were animated and everyone was smiling. This morning I watched Maria make porridge with the children using maize flour, sugar, water and groundnut flour. It was delicious. The children loved taking part and were very careful around the rocket stove. She served it with fresh papaya and the children thoroughly enjoyed having a different snack. She told them how each ingredient was good for their bodies and would help them grow, protect them from diseases etc. Moses 'read' a great story to the children today to complete his task on positive behaviour management by adapting an English story book, translating into Chichewa as he told the tale and altering the story to make it more African so that the children could relate to what the characters were doing. It was skillfully done and he is a great story teller, full of expression and interest, holding the children's attention for a long time.
Conversely, for the first time I actually put a stop to an activity in mid assessment this afternoon because it just wasn't doing the children any good at all. The candidate was trying to promote sharing between babies and she provided three trikes for six babies and expected the unlucky three to just sit and watch and wait for a turn. She provided no alternative activities. Needless to say half the babies ended up crying either because they didn't want to get off a trike to give someone else a turn or because they didn't like waiting with nothing to do! I didn't blame them, especially when there were more trikes in the store. So we fetched more equipment, the babies had fun, and afterwards the student and I picked apart what had gone wrong and why her expectations were unrealistic for children of this age. I guess it was a learning experience!
I suppose it is in the nature of volunteering that one never really finishes a job and has to accept that someone else will come along and continue the thing you have started. Indeed I suppose David and I have been lucky in that we actually did start the training part of the CC project. Most people take over from someone else at the beginning and hand on to someone else at the end of their stint. Nevertheless letting it all go will not be easy, we have put so much of ourselves into this project.
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