The Weekend, writing the last training session, and planning the last 8 working days before I set off for home.

Saturday On Saturday morning it was get up and out early to walk the Way of the Rosary with the Catholic children of Chilomoni. They do this every Saturday in the month except one, when they attend Mass. The children are led by Chris, who has taken this role for the last 24 years. The way of the Rosary leads around a peak of the mountain. There are 14 stations and the prayers are mostly to Mary. During the whole walk of about 5 Km the children repeat 150 Hail Marys. At each station one of the older children does a reading and there are prayers. The walk is beautiful. The path is steep and it goes much more up and down than the Way of the Cross which feels like a fairly steady climb. My step counter revealed that the number of flights climbed on this day is quite a few more than on the day I climbed up to the cross. Children present ranged from small toddlers who were often carried by brothers and sisters, to adolescents up to about 18 years. All took the occasion very seriously and participated in the prayers and chants. The first part of the walk took us to the back of the mountain with respect to Chilomoni. This side is much more sparsely populated and the views were stunning. It was a clear, bright day. There were flowers and butterflies to distract me and although it was a bit hazy you could see for miles. We paused at each station. At most there was some shade from small trees but again it was noticeable that many trees have been cut and the regeneration cannot keep place with the removal. After the last station children were offered a drink of water from a 5 litre container that some of the older children had taken turns to carry. There was only one cup and children formed a long queue for a turn to drink. I noticed that perhaps a quarter had brought their own water bottles, as had I. It struck me that the day before I had heard members of the Outreach team revising with parents about how to reduce cross infection with a variety of infectious conditions and that had included not sharing cups, spoons, towels etc, and here we were using the same cup for at least 40 children. We all walked back along the Chilomoni side of the mountain, breaking into small groups and chatting as we went. Many children wanted to talk to the mzungu and I had many similar conversations, I think more dictated by their knowledge of questions in English than by their curiosity. ‘What is your name?’ ‘Where do you come from?’ etc Everyone was friendly and when I stumbled or slipped on the stony path I was never short of a kind offer of a steadying hand. Everyone had shoes, which was definitely not the case 12 years ago, but most of the girls had flip flops, crocs or ballerina slippers which are not the best mountain-climbing footwear! The boys also had crocs but there were quite a few with trainers which were much more suitable for protecting the feet. After our return to the shrine the children were offered food and there was to be singing but I wasn’t able to stay as Bhavna was there to collect me. It was our job to meet up with the three engineers who have arrived for a six-month voluntary stint and show them various shops and venues around town that might be of interest to them while they are in Malawi. We picked them up from Blantyre Sports club, where they were enjoying watching a sporting event, and took them off for lunch at a pizza restaurant, and for a whistle-stop tour of the facilities of Blantyre. Sunday The plan for Sunday was for the five of us to go for a day out at Zomba but unfortunately Bhavna wasn’t feeling well so it was me and three young men who set off at 8.00am to find our way to Zomba and the plateau which is about 2000m above sea level. Fortunately for me and my aching muscles this mountain is accessible by road! It took a couple of hours to get to Zomba. We discovered some of the problems of using sat nav to find your way about in Malawi. Google maps does not give you any information about the quality of the roads it directs you along. When we got near the mountain it directed us up a very narrow dirt road. We had an automatic car with not incredibly high clearance and it soon became clear that it was not really up to the job. Finding a suitable place to turn round was not as easy at it sounds, but we made the right decision to turn back because we knew that there was a tarmacked road from Zomba town to the plateau and it looked like this narrow turn off was a short cut in terms of distance but not of time. Once arrived at the plateau we made a beeline for the Ku Chawe hotel which has lovely gardens, beautiful views, Mzuzu coffee, and a menu whose snacks include Welsh rarebit and steak sandwiches. At hour later, feeling fortified we set out to explore. We started with the curio sellers. Zomba is also famous for finding a variety of minerals and stones and selling them to tourists, so we had a good look at these as well. I am going home in less than two weeks so I took the opportunity to buy a few presents. The boys bought a beautifully hand-made, round games table with Bawo on one side and Chess on the other t the bargain price of 1000,000K (approx £40). The area around Zomba is greener and lusher than the area around Blantyre. We were higher up so it was cooler and the views were terrific. We first retraced our steps a short distance down the mountain to a reservoir and walked along the dam and part of the way around the edge. The reservoir is surrounded by trees. We didn’t have time to do a complete circuit and also see other sights, so turned back the way we had come and returned to the car. We set off to follow the circular track around the plateau in an effort to find Chingwe’s hole. This is a mysterious hole in the ground, close to a viewpoint, which is reputed to have been used historically to dispose of ‘unwanted people’ variously described as criminals, lepers, the mentally disturbed, who were thrown down the hole dead or alive. Very unpleasant, but we were not able to make it as the car again proved unequal to the task. This time finding a turning point was even more difficult but we managed, engineering is a very practical vocation, and returned to the hotel where we picked up a guide and asked him where we could go that it would be possible to reach in the car we had available. He suggested a couple of waterfalls and possibly The Emperor’s view point, so we negotiated a fee and off we went. We started with William’s Falls, a flight of relatively shallow falls with a pool at the bottom deep enough to swim in. I enjoyed dangling my feet in the water but one of the lads stripped to his underwear and had a proper swim. The falls were in woodland, the sun filtered through the leaves, the water was freezing. We inspected the track to the viewpoint but again felt that we shouldn’t risk damaging someone else’s car, so went to see Mandela falls which turned out to be at the far end of the reservoir from the dam. We purchased raspberries and Cape gooseberries from the roadside fruit sellers, dropped the guide off at the hotel and set off for home, making it back about half an hour before sunset. Monday Today has been a useful but not very exciting day. I have been struggling to put together my last formal training session for the CC staff. The Centre Manager wanted me to help the staff to have the confidence to take responsibility for improving the quality of what we provide for the children for themselves, to understand how to work productively as a team and to focus upon making positive change rather than complaining about everything that is less than perfect but doing nothing about it. I found settling upon an approach very difficult but finally settled upon a presentation called Mother Teresa Children’s Centre: A Centre of Excellence? I shall start by asking them to consider what it means to be a centre of excellence; to work with the other members of their team who are at the same training session to consider what it means to be a team; what their team is expected to do; how they divide the work; what it is we have to provide if we are to be a truly excellent children’s centre,;what our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are; how we can move forward to make things better, and what help we need to that? Let’s hope I can pull it off! I’ll let you know how it went after Wednesday! Having made the decision the whole thing was written in three hours, much to my surprise! The rest of the day I spent planning the next week, starting to talk to at least all the senior staff individually, and writing lists of questions to ask the managers, the ECD lecturer and the Head of the whole Mary Queen of Peace complex before I go home.