Wednesday, Thursday and Friday seem to have run into each other rather. I cannot really remember exactly what I did on each day but I have been working on the following projects: 1. Working with the ECD trainer to finalise the ECD Diploma course and get it accredited. This a bit tricky because she will tell me when she is free and then either change her mind and cancel when I have spent time preparing my half of the job, or just go off and do something else so that I turn up and she’s not there. The one meeting we have managed to have was pretty productive though so at least I still have hope! 2. Tackle the horrors of the storage and care of resources. Finally on Friday I managed to get the Practice Leader into the resources cupboard and start the process of sorting the toys and other resources into those we want and those we don’t, those we can sell, those that need cleaning or mending, (an awful lot), and a heap of absolute rubbish. We did about a quarter of the contents of the room I should think but it was hard work. At lunchtime I was glad that I had promised to work elsewhere in the afternoon because I was reminded of the American railway song we used to sing on car journeys when I was a child, ‘In eighteen-hundred and ninety-four my back was bent and my hands were sore, My back was bent and my hands were sore, through working on the railway!’ For ‘railway’ please read ‘resource room’!! 3. Spent a bit more time in the Eagles Room observing practice because they did not get a full day because I was sick. Unfortunately I was called away to deal with stage no. 948 in the saga of trying to get the broken window replaced in the baby room. 4. Tried to get the broken window in the baby room replaced. Apparently there are a number of broken windows in the CC but the baby room one is a high priority in anyone’s opinion. The system appears to be this; you see a broken window, you report it to senior staff. The manager sends a request to the guy who is in charge of maintenance in all the Mary Queen of Peace buildings. He comes to the Children’s Centre and measures up, then he goes into Blantyre and gets three quotes for each item he needs. The quotes come back to the person who requested the repair. They agree which is the best one to go for. The person who requested the repair then scans the estimate and sends it to finance, copying it to the wonderful lady in admin, the head of Mary Queen of Peace and at least one person in Finance. According to my staff in the CC, the most usual outcome is that the response comes back that there is no money. By the time there is money the quotations are out of date , inflation is rampant here. So the poor old head of maintenance has to go into Blantyre again and get more quotes. No wonder the CC staff get dispirited and give up. Hence, ten broken windows in the CC. But the one in the baby room, just at baby height, I, who have been brought up on UK Nursery Health and Safety guidelines, cannot allow to remain any longer in the state it is in because I come from a world where if I see a hazard and do nothing about it, it is my responsibility if a baby gets hurt. So I have had a series of wobblies of increasing degree of intensity, and we have bypassed finance, created a complex arrangement of loans between departments, and sent the poor guy to Blantyre for the third time to actually buy the glass and fit it tomorrow, which is a Saturday so it will probably cost me overtime. But I don’t care because there will no longer be a nasty accident waiting to happen in the baby room. And if you thought that was a rant, don’t start me on nappies!!!! 5. Write a CPD presentation on children’s sleep. This was not too bad because I could use all the Sleep East Workshop material and just rebrand it for MTCC. All I have to do now is plough through the Malawian Early Years Curriculum and see if it says anything at all about sleep and if so what? 6. Write a whole presentation on play especially targeted to help the CC staff understand the importance of the free play sessions in their daily timetable and how they can help to foster true free flow play as described by Tina Bruce in her twelve features of free flow play. This one was more of a challenge. Not only did I have to start from first principles, but also i have a clear agenda to raise practice in the rooms, so I have to get it right. I miss David! We used to share ideas about such things and divide the work between us, and this time I have to do it all myself. Not only that but the poor Daycare Manager has been off with malaria all week. We have been working together on a lot of things and I have missed her too. However life is not all frustrating as Vince, Bhavna and I have decided to give ourselves a proper day out tomorrow and we are going to Majete Wild Life Reserve. So don’t be too sorry for me, tomorrow i have a good chance of seeing Zebra and Giraffe in the wild. Hoorah! I say ‘Goodnight’ and am off to get my binoculars out of my lock box.