Training, beginning to tie up the ends and a leisurely Saturday

Wednesday Wednesday is training day. I followed the plan I outlined a couple of entries back. I did think that asking people to think about strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats might unleash all sorts of cans of worms and, of course, I was right! However mostly they were worms that I had met before, or at least suspected the existence of, so the experience was only slightly terrifying. Unfortunately with both groups we spent so long talking about strengths and weaknesses we did not have enough time to give opportunities and threats the full attention they deserve but we did at least address them a little. I am currently halfway through putting all 12 of the SWOT analyses, 1 from each group of 3-6 students, together to try and express a collective opinion about what is good about MTCC, what is weak, what we could do to move towards positive change, and what we could do to counteract the effects of perceived threats. My greatest comfort is that the list of strengths is a lot longer than any of the other individual lists. I spent quite a lot of the time available trying to convey my overall high opinion of what all of the different teams are achieving at the moment. When people start to look at faults they often forget to look also at what is going well. I also want them to recognise that putting things right is something they can do for themselves and that sitting back moaning and expecting a mzungu to sort it for them is not the best longterm solution! Watch this space for further analysis of action points arising from all the info on the flip chart sheets that I have yet to go through. Thursday I have received a lot of information from many different members of the CC team that they feel a bit isolated from the rest of the other members of the Mary Queen of Peace group. We are all human and we all need a bit of recognition and praise when we do things well. If our team leader appears to take little interest in what we are doing we get discouraged and the level of grumbling in corners is raised. This generally leads to negative effects. A bit of this has been going on for a while I think. I resolved that I would encourage two visits, one out into the community to see the work of the family support and extended schools teams, and one to see the changes suggested by my action points for each team in the Daycare, and for the Centre as a whole. Thursday was to have been the outreach trip, and we have arranged it once before and had to postpone it because our visitor’s plans were changed. Oh dear, a vital meeting with another department came up at the last minute and it was postponed again and I have only a week of working days left before I must return to the UK. However, every cloud has a silver lining and this gave me another day to tackle that old knotty problem of the Resource Room! Off I went to find the Practice Leader only to find that she has taken two days of leave. It is now a fortnight since I asked her to label the shelves and book boxes so that anyone going in to the room would know instantly where to find whatever they were looking for. I went to the Resource Room. It looked exactly as we left it two weeks ago except that a few extra unsorted items had found their way in and lay on the floor in disconsolate heaps. My heart sank. I knew she had started to make labels for the book boxes about ten days ago, and so I went on a search and soon found a tray of bright yellow, neatly laminated labels. Hoorah! For me the priority is to get a system going whereby Room Leaders can come at a fixed time at least once a week to exchange resources to make the most of their weekly planning. Therefore I left the labels where they were and made another set, pink this time, to label the shelves where the boxes of toys, craft materials etc are kept. It took me about two and a half hours to do the job, and some boxes will have to be moved in order to make all the labels tell the truth, but a little progress has been made! Friday The day of the Day Care visit. This happened. The visitor arrived on the dot of 9 o’clock and we went up to the office and had an illuminating conversation about finance pathways from Krizevac via Beehive to Mary Queen of Peace and eventually to MTCC. Then we proceeded to the Day Care. We were joined by the Day Care Manager who had made some preparations of her own for this visit, although I was not aware of these until I started walking around the rooms. We started with the youngest children and worked our way upwards. Each room was, clean, fairly tidy, given that children were playing, and the quality of activities on display was excellent. I have been bumping on about sand and water play on every possible occasion since I arrived, and today there was water play in every room. The babies room had coloured the water green, the Ducks were having a lovely splashy time pouring and filling and emptying, the Guinea Fowl were helping to clean the plastic bricks and thoroughly enjoying it. By the time we reached Eagles it was snack time and they were all eating bananas, but there was evidence that water had been out here too. Every class was using both indoor and outdoor areas, toys were sorted, puzzles mostly had all their pieces, noticeboards had been revamped and it was clear that a start had been made on making the indoor environment more number and language rich. Ducks and Guineas had made changes to their sleep areas and what is more all four Room Leaders were able to tell the big boss exactly why all these changes would increase the learning opportunities for the children. I was very proud and was able to be full of genuine praise for the way everyone had taken on board what I had said. Strikingly the noise level in each room was reduced compared to the days when I first visited, rooms had been subtly rearranged to increase play space in the more popular areas and, because the resources were more sorted and better cared for, the children were more deeply engaged in what they were doing. The Day Care Manager and I pointed out the outstanding maintenance issues, some of which have remained unattended to for as long as two years. We had a conversation on top of the wooden play structure which has seen better days, about kerb appeal and how much more attractive the nursery might be to fee-paying parents if it was mended and painted in bright colours which would immediately demonstrate that this was a well-equipped place for children to learn even at times when there were no children in the playground and garden. Mission accomplished! On the way out I asked him what he had learned about what we do? ‘Not much’ he said; but he is going to write a brief report about what he saw and what he thinks about it. I await the result with interest. One of my three remaining days next week will be devoted to that trip with the Outreach teams. In the afternoon I talked with the Day Care Manager about other outstanding changes we can make to raise standards a little more and we discussed the possibility of rewriting the Job Description of the Practice Leader so that her role is described more clearly and gives an indication of roughly how much of her time each week should be allocated to each part of the job. No fundamental changes but the language of the job description is quite flowery and would benefit from clarification. I finished the afternoon by making these adaptations. In the evening we finally made it to the Ethiopian Restaurant, which I thoroughly enjoyed. We moved on to the Amaryllis Hotel roof terrace and enjoyed hot chocolate in the cool of the evening whilst looking out over the lights of Blantyre. The roof terrace has a swimming pool which Joe and I were so busy admiring we almost walked into it! This hotel is not as posh as the Ku Chawe in Zomba, but quite posh enough to provide a sharp contrast to the streets of Chilomoni. Saturday So far Saturday has been a typical volunteers day. I visited the tailor who is making clothes for me, for Jack, and for all my grandchildren. Bhavna and I set out to catch the minibus to Blantyre but ended up getting a shared taxi at 600K each. We went back to the Amaryllis because there was a dress I took a fancy to in the window of the hotel shop the night before, but sadly the shop was still closed. We wandered about buying a few last minute bits and pieces and ended up in Vege Delight for spiced Indian tea and Dhosas. Exactly the way we began my first weekend in Malawi which simultaneously seems like yesterday and a long time ago! Back home by taxi too as Bhavna is only prepared to travel by minibus if she can get the front seat! Tonight we go out to eat again with Julianne and Leslie, for me this will be the last time this trip.