We begin again tomorrow

Friday was an extraordinary day! We went through the exam procedure with both morning and afternoon groups. Each candidate sat a 45 minute written test, made a toy and filled in a form saying how it could be used with a child and what the potential learning outcomes of playing with it were, and had a ten-minute interview with either David or me. Of the almost 30 interviews I did, only one student answered the question 'If you were offered a job in Chilomoni Children's Centre, would you accept it?' in the negative, and David did not have any 'Nos' at all! Nearly everyone turned up dressed in their best and some of them were very nervous. We had a last minute panic as Jane was booked to invigilate the written exam and she was not well enough, so we had to borrow a couple of Malawian admin workers from the site office at the last minute, but they did an excellent job so the day was saved! Lindy worked incredibly hard organizing the creativity assessment. We had put together a whole selection of local materials and encouraged the students to bring some stuff themselves as well. Lindy took a photo of each finished toy so that we have a clear idea of what each student made when we come to assess the forms they filled in. We had a lively discussion about a clay chicken made by one of the lads, who covered it with feathers that were obviously from a chicken plucked for the table fairly recently. It looked pretty good and it even had a little battery operated crowing sound that went off when you moved it, but it stunk to high heaven and was enveloped in a cloud of flies! Marty, the architect, argued that it showed considerable creativity, but both Lindy and I had serious doubts about its suitability as a plaything for preschool children! I haven't read the form yet to find out how he intended it to be used. There was a lovely bus made out of biscuit packets with loo roll tubes for wheels, several kites, some balls made from plastic bags, loads of clay models, some more elaborate and more original than others. My favourite piece was a treasure basket made entirely out of paper and packets. There was a mobile with mahogany seeds and balloons hanging from it, also several rather worthy games or activities designed to teach the alphabet or number skills.

The morning group had organized a get together after the exam was over. Hope was MC and called various people to make speeches, after Moses had opened the proceedings with a prayer. Prayer in my classroom, I can hear some of you ask? What is the world coming to? David and I each had to give an impromptu speech. Two students spoke on behalf of the boys and the girls, one of the women sang 'She sailed away on a lovely summer's day, on the back of a crocodile!' which I can remember my mum teaching me when I was about seven! James read two poems he had written, one in English and one in Chichewa. Eventually crates of coke and fanta appeared as if out of nowhere and crisps, nuts and cakes, and Hope insisted that he and I open the dancing. I was a bit worried about this but it turned out to be OK as he seemed to want me to keep spinning under his arm and I can do that from my experience in the Phoenix Fledglings, children's country dance club in the 1960's! I could even teach him how to do double handed spins! This was amazing as my knowledge of any other type of dancing is minimal and I have a rather poor sense of rhythm! The second group was not so organized but several of them insisted that I take them down to the building site and point out the Children's Centre and explain which building was going to contain which part of the services. This was interesting too, in a completely different way. David and I had arranged to take a photo of each class and paid to have a print made for each student as a memento of the course. These were very well received. The afternoon photo is at a very jaunty angle! In order to get us all in it at once we had to ask the school guard, he who is supposed to like the local homebrew a little too much, to take the picture. I don't think he had ever held a camera before and didn't seem to know what to do with it at all, but after several attempts achieved a picture which had us all in it, but leaning over to the left at quite a sharp angle! I found the whole day quite an emotional experience. The students really do all want to be picked for the next course and we cannot possibly have them all.

I decided not to work all weekend to get the marking done as I have worked the last two weekends and felt I really needed a break, particularly since Saturday was the anniversary of Karl's death and hence a sad day for me. The day could not have been more different from the cold November day in Sutton last year. The sun was shining and Zoe and Lindy distracted me by taking me to the craft market to do a bit of Christmas shopping. Zoe made me drive the Land Rover for the first time along the unmade roads from Chilomoni into Blantyre. It was a bit tricky at first and I stalled it a couple of times before I even managed to get it out of the gate, much to the amusement of the guard and sundry small children. The track from the front gate to the road is steep and rocky and I stalled again on the steepest part. I had to put the handbrake on with all the strength I could muster to stop us rolling back down the hill and then I couldn't get it off again! This reminded me of Karl once again, as he often put the handbrake on in my car, so hard that I struggled to let it off again. By the time we had gone about 400 yards up the track I had got the hang of it and we proceeded into Blantyre without further mishap. I enjoyed haggling in the craft market. I had a good teacher in Gemma who has been here for over a year and has a name for driving a hard bargain. Then we met Emma and her two boys for an iced coffee and more shopping in a craft gallery before going on to the supermarket for more prosaic shopping and the material shop to buy fabric to get some handbags made. In the afternoon I had a quiet time reading and thinking and tried to phone Karl's parents but they were out. It was a shame I missed them, it would have been good to talk. I shall have to try again soon. In the evening the group of volunteers who are leaving in a couple of weeks had a barbeque as part of their farewell celebrations.

Today I went with Malcolm to a conservation area not far from Chilomoni for a walk. Our plan was to follow one of the marked trails and walk for a couple of hours, mostly through quite shady woodland. Despite the shade it was very hot, much the hottest day since the rains started and there has been no rain today. We saw one baboon, and one monkey with a very long tail, but it was moving so fast I couldn't have told you what sort of monkey it was. We also managed to lose the trail, and the path we were following petered out all together in the end and we were definitely lost, but all turned out well as we followed our noses and ended up in the car park where we had left the Land Rover more by luck than judgment I fear! I was reminded of several walks in Norfolk and Suffolk when Karl walked me off the edge of the map. He preferred that each time we went out we covered new ground and getting a bit lost was not uncommon. It was definitely scarier today though as I was fretting about the leopards and hyenas that are supposed to be found in the area, although we made a fair amount of noise, I daresay we frightened away everything. Anyhow we saw no more than birds, butterflies and lizards. When we eventually got back to Mitsidi I had a quick swim and then managed to sleep for an hour or so, before going out for a curry with five other volunteers. So I have really had a break this weekend, which has been good for me. Tomorrow we start all over again with two new batches of students….. It is good to be busy!

First courses finish tomorrow!

It feels surprising that already we have reached the end of the first set of introductory child care courses. They are only a brief three week course but it feels as though we have packed a lot into them and it has been a very intense three weeks. We feel as though we know the students quite well and they have certainly both worked hard and played hard. They have obviously been revising too because both David and I have asked questions about previous lectures this week and many of them know the answers. Vince and Peter visited again today to see the morning group of students. It appears to be the Malawian way to be fairly enthusiastic and effusive in praise. Peter gave a long speech about how much better our course is than any other child care course in Malawi, but I am not sure that he has much evidence on which to base his assertions. Please do not misunderstand me, we have worked hard to make this course as good as we can with the planning time available to us but I have studied the Malawian Early Childhood Development Training Manual in detail and I suspect that Peter has not, because our course has not imparted as much information in three weeks as that manual instructs one to deliver in two! Our course is undoubtedly more digestible and much more fun, but it is not as comprehensive. I do not know how anyone can take all that in, in two weeks. I have discussed this with Chaliza and she says that too much is tackled in one day as people are desperate for training and try to fit in as much as possible. She says that at the end of a day students on the Malawian courses are exhausted and suffering from information overload, but look, she said to me, your session is finished and most of your students are still here writing up notes and asking questions. It is good to leave them wanting more, then they will definitely come back tomorrow! Several students got up and made quite formal speeches thanking Beehive for putting on the course and saying how much it had meant to them to be able to attend. It is amazing the lengths people have gone to to make sure they could come. Several have taken three weeks leave from work to be able to come. Frank, who is a guard at Mitsidi, is one of these and he has already asked if he can do night shifts for six months so that he can attend the Intermediate Course if he is selected. One guy who works for the bus company in Lilongwe has been staying with a relative in Blantyre for the three weeks to be able to attend. Others travel by three separate minibuses each day, each way in order to attend the course for two and a half hours. Others walk significant distances. Everyone wants to be accepted for the next course but there are only 60 places. It is going to be incredibly difficult to decide who will go forward. Tomorrow is Assessment Day. There will be three 45 minute sessions in the usual two and a half hour period. The class will be divided into three groups and will rotate around three activities. There will be a written exam. I have written ten questions of which the students will be expected to answer six. I have worked out a marking scheme so David and Lindy and I can share the work of marking and have some hope of being consistent! There will be a creativity test which will involve making a toy and filling in a form to say which age group of children it is intended for, how they would introduce the toy to a child, and what they would expect the child to learn from it. Finally each candidate will have a brief interview, either with me, or with David. We shall ask each person the same four questions. The whole course is a bit like an extended selection process for the Intermediate course and the chance of a job in the Children's Centre. I cannot bear the thought that some of them will probably pass the course, but not make it into the top 60. Vince told them all that even if they don't make it the certificate they get will be a passport to other jobs with children, or other jobs of different kinds with Beehive. I wish I shared his confidence! I do hope that he is right!

I have just paused in my blogging to pick up my can of Doom for only the second time since I have been here to bring death to insects that have invaded my house! The first time was to the biggest cockroach I have ever seen! This time it is for a large number of flying ants which have appeared from nowhere and are swarming round my table lamp and the ceiling light. There is now a lot less activity in the pools of light but I have a very tickly throat and am coughing a fair bit. I wonder what is in that stuff, it can't be good for me. Just spotted another cockroach and Doomed that too!! I have used the old-fashioned and kinder method of trapping things in a glass with a postcard and putting them outside the door quite a bit, but tonight there are just too many. I hope it is not because the rains have started, but I fear that it is! I suppose now I shall have to get out the dustpan and brush and dispose of the corpses before I go to bed! Anyway, it is time I did, busy day tomorrow! Night night.

Rain!

'After today they will start planting the maize', Chaliza said to me as we sat in the corner of the classroom while the students worked in four groups on activities to do with babies. The rain was thundering so hard on the metal roof that I could barely hear her even though I could see that she had raised her voice by the effort that she put into speaking to me. Fortunately I had finished the lecture input on working with babies just before the rain began. Lindy had crossed the yard with a group of girls to prepare some English and Chichewa songs to sing with very young children. Chaliza, David and I had between us three groups, one looking critically at the contents of a treasure basket that Lindy and I had hastily put together last night from things we had picked up in the grounds at Mitsidi, bits and pieces lying about in our own houses; and household items we 'borrowed' from Charles' kitchen; one group looking at stacking, posting and knocking down activities and trying to find ways of making these from local materials; and one group sitting happily in the book corner selecting books simple enough to be enjoyed by under ones. The cacophony was so great that I was tempted to put my hands over my ears but the Malawians took it in their stride and appeared to work in exactly the same way as usual. Perhaps their heads were closer together than normal as they discussed their tasks, but they did not seem to be put off task at all! When Chaliza and I went down the road to the Beehive site office where we get our lunch I asked her if it would rain today. She looked critically at the gathering clouds which were white and puffy and appeared innocent enough. 'I don't think so,' she said. Two hours later she was eating her words. Rarely have I seen so much water at any one time. I could not see the mountain that dominates the view from our classroom window. The steps up to the door were a waterfall cascading onto the dirt playground. There was so much water it seemed to be flowing in both directions. The friendly school guard took refuge with us in our classroom and stood in the doorway with an enormous squeegee redirecting the invading water back under the door. The school is on a steep hill and the water from the steps flowed across the playground and carved a channel in the dirt driveway as it descended to the road. Vince brought Peter Nkarta to see us this afternoon and although towards the end of the visit the rain lessened enough for us to hear their voices at first I had to resort to typing instructions to the students in a word document and projecting it on to the screen we use for Powerpoint presentations. Vince followed my example and introduced himself and Peter via technology. Fortunately the rain lessened just enough for us to be able to hear them speak. They said nice things about the feedback they have received about the course and the students said that they were enjoying it all which was good to hear.

It is now gone eight o'clock and it has hardly stopped raining. We walked home tonight in a light rain that was warm and quite comfortable. I was not bothered even though I was wet enough to want to take off my wet things and have my first warm shower in the seven weeks I have been here. Normally I cannot be bothered to wait the five minutes it takes for the water to run warm. There is often a power cut on a Wednesday night, but tonight the power was off for only about ten minutes, but in my terrace of houses it might as well be off as it is so reduced that my 100 Watt light bulbs are struggling to produce a quarter of their usual brightness and I have to set the fan on maximum for it to move at all. Despite the rain and a considerable drop in outside temperature it is still very warm in the house, partly because I have had to close the windows to avoid further puddles on the floor. I have been forced to light candles in order to be able to see the keyboard to write this even though the power technically is on!

We heard yesterday that Cheryl who was to be the third member of the child care training team will not be joining us and George has asked us to consider whether we wish her to rush around and find us a new volunteer, or whether with some input from Lindy and some from Chaliza we shall be alright. I think we will, but the implications need to be thought out properly before we make a final decision.

I realize that I have not told you who Chaliza is. She is a Malawian who for the last five years has had a very good job with UNICEF in Lilongwe. Because of cuts she has been forced to leave, but their loss is our gain as she has agreed to work for us for six months to plan the new children's centre, work out policies and procedures and begin some outreach projects. After that time we hope to be able to persuade her to stay on as Children's Centre manager. She is very knowledgeable about Early Childhood Development in Malawi and will be a great support to me and to David in terms of getting our training right for Malawi. Yesterday she sat in on my Child Protection training and it was good to have her reassuring feedback. I sweated blood trying to get that subject right and I can't have done too bad a job because Gift, the child protection worker for Chilomoni, who is doing our course came up to me after the session and said with barely concealed surprise, 'Congratulations, Mariam, you did it right and you have not been trained!' He seemed almost put out! I think he was anticipating that the crazy mzungu would not do the necessary research to make the training sufficiently Malawian. But he was big enough to let me know that he thought it was OK, which made me feel good!

Guards, gates, walls and fences

When I first arrived in Malawi I was really struck by all the walls and fences that there are around buildings not only in Blantyre, but also in the poorer township of Chilomoni where the Beehive Projects are based. Our administration office is on Chilomoni High St, but you cannot see the single story building from the road as it lurks behind a high brick wall and a substantial metal gate. The building is guarded 24 hours a day by guards in green trousers and white shirts who jump to attention when anyone arrives and click their heels together smartly and salute, especially if the visitor is Peter Nkarta who is our Malawian Managing Director. He likes everything to be smart and run smoothly, and expects the guards to call him 'Sir'. David particularly objects to being called 'Sir' and is working hard to persuade the guards not to spring to their feet when we arrive and to call us by our first names. We are gradually making some headway on this, but it is an uphill battle. The guard at the admin office during the day is called Peter too. He is a cheerful soul with a smile like the sun coming out on a dull day. One cannot fail to be cheered by his 'Good morning Madam!' and I cannot bring myself to tell him off for his mode of address on a daily basis, so if I am not with David I just smile and return the greeting. I have just about managed the complicated three-stage handshake that most of the young Malawian men seem to use. Our students also struggle to remember to call us by our First names, but they are getting used to it. David corrects them every time, but I am happy to answer to anything so long as it is not rude. I certainly would not choose to be called madam, but as several students have explained, 'This is our culture, it is what we expect,' so who am I to object?

Most private houses are behind walls and anyone with any money has guards. There are at least four guards at Mitsidi at any one time. It is quite a large plot of land with a dozen small houses and a large one. There are two big metal gates at the top and bottom of the property. It is part of the guard's job to open the gates and let visitors in and out, whether they arrive on foot or by car. The guards are supposed to be spread out around the grounds but in practice they are often all four chatting together right in the middle. When a car arrives and hoots at the gate one of them will run towards the appropriate gate and draw up the bolts and swing it open to let the car in. The walls around Mitsidi are hardly intruder proof, there is one wall of Hydroform blocks which is pretty robust, but the fence along the road is simply woven straw panels, the third side is the river and the fourth is not fenced at all but can be freely approached through rather scrubby bushes. The other day while we were having breakfast a rather shabby looking woman appeared out of the bushes and there was no guard to be seen anywhere! I have decided that the most boring job in the world must be to be a night guard for a smallish household that only merits one guard. Twelve hour shifts in the hours of darkness, with no one to talk to and nothing to do but open the gate when the householder comes home or let the occasional visitor in. How one would avoid sleeping on the job I have no idea!

I think that most fences are more about privacy than about security. The smaller, poorer houses tend to be fenced either with straw panels or with makeshift screens made of old cardboard boxes or cement bags. Just after David arrived we were walking home from work and we heard loud clanging sounds coming from behind a house. David said 'I wonder what on earth is going on there?' and quick as a flash he was through the gap in the cement bag fence and round the side of the house. I followed with some trepidation and I was followed by at least three women and a couple of children who poured out of the house to see what the crazy mzungu intruders were up to. We were met by two or three men who did not appear to have a word of English. David asked what they were doing and before long we were being treated to a demonstration of how to make a tin bath. The original cacophony having been caused by a man beating the flat piece of tin that was to form the curved side of the bath into shape with a large hammer. We were at the bucket makers!

We are slowly making friends with the guard at the school where our classrooms are. I don't think he has ever told us his name. At first it seemed as though he had very little English, but I think he just thinks we should try harder to communicate with him in Chichewa. Now that we return his morning greeting in the way that he has taught us he has become more communicative and I have learned that he is 68 years old and has been working for Beehive right from the beginning of the time the project has been in Chilomoni when they were building the way of the cross. The headmaster says he is getting old and that he likes a drink too much!

The Mount Soche Hotel where we go for a swim in a pool that is perfectly circular and always a clear sparkling blue, unlike our own pool which is often rather green and murky with too much dust, has a barrier rather reminiscent of a level crossing barrier that is lifted as we drive in. The guard then gives the driver a card which has to be returned upon leaving to the guard at the exit barrier. I can only think that this is to discourage car theft from the hotel car park which is right on the main road in the centre of Blantyre. There are more guards standing in the entrance who greet us very politely as we go in to buy a beer or a bottle of Fanta at a price that is probably about a quarter of their daily rate of pay. Yet the annual fee for membership of the swimming club is about £32 per annum. How much cheaper is that than a sports club in the UK? I cannot get my head around the vast disparity between the economic systems of the two lands. Malawi is so much a place of contrasts. It is possible to live very cheaply but many things that we take for granted are impossibly expensive to local people.

Introductory Course Week 2

David began on Monday morning with a presentation on Communication, Language and Literacy. On Tuesday it was my turn with Problem Solving and Supporting Children to Develop Thinking Skills. On Wednesday we made them do presentations to us. Working in pairs they had to describe an activity to do with pre-school children, say what age group it was suitable for and tell us what they thought children would learn from it and how it would support their development. This was interesting from many points of view. David and I learned quite a bit about making toys and equipment from local resources. Quite a number of them made props from clay. One pair made an archery set including a homemade bow and arrow that worked pretty well and targets that managed to teach colour, shape, tall and short and nos 1-4! There was a marvelous imaginary play set up for 2-3 year olds around playing house with some lovely little clay people and all sorts of other bits and pieces including a bicycle made from sticks and crown caps, and a car made from a match box. Crown caps in different colours featured a lot. My favourite piece was an abacus made with alternating green and red caps on a piece of string in a cardboard frame. There was another abacus made with homemade clay balls on a piece of string supported by a curved stick. I only had my little camera with me so the quality of my photos is not great but you can get the ideas. Many of the activities were rather formal and led from the front of the class. We have a way to go before our students will fully understand what a difference it makes to have UK staff ratios and therefore the ability to plan for individual children and enough staff available so that children have room to move around and for several different activities to be going on at the same time. We keep describing it, but until they actually see it for themselves I am not sure that it is going to sink in! On Thursday David tacked the 'observe, plan, do, review' cycle and on Friday I looked at Play and how children learn through play. David had them all writing a retrospective plan for the activities they presented the day before, which was interesting but slightly limited because without having any group of children to observe in the first place it was difficult for them to understand how the whole process starts. I got each group of four or five students to describe a group of children playing and then go through Tina Bruce's twelve features of play and say which of the features they could see in the play episode they had described and then say what the children were learning following on from each feature they identified. I've never taken that approach before and I was pleased by how well it worked. Yet again we learned new Chichewa games and activities. We had boys playing with homemade clay lorries and tanks, a game which was very like hopscotch but with a court of a different shape, a game with something in common with 'Piggy in the Middle' and another that was 'Keepy uppy' really, played in a circle. I guess across the world children invent the same games to amuse themselves over and over again. I worked out an assessment system with a maximum of 12 points for each presentation, and David and Lindy and I each assessed the presentations separately and then added the scores to give a maximum of 36 to each pair of students. There is a weakness here in that the work done was not always equally distributed between the partners, but we did our best! We each took a slightly different view, Lindy concentrated on what she thought the activity would be like for the children on the receiving end. David and I focused more on the student's awareness of what the children might be learning as they did the activity. I was a bit more generous with the points than David was, but there were not many presentations about which we did not broadly agree. We have been playing a lot of different games with the students because we want them to experience for themselves the process of learning through play. We have done table top activities such as painting and playdough but we are so short of resources until our container gets here that this has been a bit restricted. I managed to make playdough from nsima flour, I brought the food colouring and cream of tartar with me. It worked well! David and I come from quite different places as far as games are concerned and the result has been rather a rich mixture, with him providing a lot of high energy, competitive stuff and me drawing on my history of involvement with New Games UK and playing more cooperative and generally, but not always quieter games. We have played a few name games which have helped me to remember more of the student's names but I am still struggling with some of the more unfamiliar ones. After the session on Play I decided to play a drama game called 'The Line' where groups take it in turns to draw an imaginary line across the room and then mime what sort of line it is. I began by drawing a line from wall to wall at a height just above my head and miming hanging out the washing. This was quickly guessed and a whole succession of innovative ideas followed from the morning group who quickly caught on to the idea and mimed scenes including walking along the white line in the middle of the road to prove you are not drunk, a river, a particular type of Malawian trap for catching animals, a net used by fishermen on Lake Malawi and so on. In the afternoon the group is younger on average and more excitable, certainly more competitive, and the game quickly disintegrated into a shouting match about who may or may not have been cheating and which was the best team. How differently different groups of students approach the same session! We managed to calm them down through playing quieter games and talked to them about what happened and how we could all learn from it, so the play session was not wasted! In the afternoon we had the first rain to fall while we were teaching. It became quite impossible to hear ourselves against the rain drumming at top volume on the metal roof. I do hope it is not going to rain like that every afternoon now, as if it does the afternoon group will be at a considerable disadvantage. I tried to pass round the way to play the new game from person to person rather like Chinese Whispers, but they didn't really catch on, perhaps that is not a familiar game here.

This has been another busy weekend as far as lesson preparation is concerned. David is working on care of basic needs and professional partnerships this week and I have Child Protection and care of babies to think about. The final session will be an assessment. I have done loads of research and thinking about the Child Protection presentation because I am acutely aware that it must be appropriate for Malawi, and also because one of the afternoon students is a Child Protection Worker and therefore I have to get it right! I am used to thinking of four main categories of child abuse; physical, emotional, sexual and neglect, but the Malawian Early Childhood Development Basic Training Manual adds Child Labour, Child Trafficking, Harmful Cultural Practices and Stigma and Discrimination to that list. Fortunately this is only an introductory course so I have been able to keep things simple. We shall be looking at 'What are child rights?', 'What is child abuse? ', and keeping the appropriate action when a care giver suspects there may be child abuse to discussing the situation with the line manager and taking advice from the local Child Protection Worker who will act as an intermediary with the District Social Work Office, tribal chief or Police as appropriate. I hope it turns out OK! I have also written an exam this weekend and devised various forms etc to keep assessment records. I still have to do the working with babies session, but compared to Child Protection that should be a piece of cake so I am not too worried about that! I hope I don't live to eat my words!!

Yesterday I went into Blantyre and investigated a couple of fabric shops. I bought a couple of chitenges which are now brightening up my room. We finished up in the café that does the iced coffee, which was very nice and then wandered on to the food court for lunch. I had a chicken salad which was fresh and herby. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Eating out here is not very varied. Basically you can have beef, chicken, or chambo with chips, rice or nsima, sometimes there are vegetables. It is definitely not great for vegetarians! Despite my decision to eat meat while I am here I am not sure that I shall continue to do so when I come home. It's OK, but although I quite like the chicken I am not particularly enjoying the beef, although I must say Charles makes great gravy!! David came home early on Friday to find Charles and Stanley butchering a pig on the khonde. Jane says it was not a pretty sight, lots of fat everywhere. I think I am glad that I did not encounter the pig until it was turned into roast ribs for supper! Today has been a lazy day, finishing my presentation, making mango tartlets for pudding tonight, (Yes, mango again I'm afraid!) and writing the blog. I want to thank all of you who have been calling me on the phone. It really makes my day to talk to someone from home, and although I have arranged cheap calls from Malawi to England now it is still about five times more expensive than it is in the other direction. I really don't understand why that is, but there you are, it's a funny old world!

Malawia!

I feel that I have rather wasted this weekend. I planned to spend one day working and the other having a nice time doing something interesting, but unfortunately I chose to work first and then had such trouble concentrating that I got very little done and then felt unable to go out and have fun the second day also. I have had, if not the galloping gut rot today, at least the trotting variety and it has been extremely hot with little breeze. Therefore I have been rather uncomfortable. Nevertheless I got through a bit more work than yesterday but not really enough to feel prepared for the next week. On Monday nights we almost invariably have a power cut so at least my Tuesday lecture should be written by now, but unfortunately there is about a quarter of it to go. When one feels poorly and things do not go well it is so easy to let everything else that is not going well rush in and get into a downward spiral; I am afraid I have done a bit of that this weekend. Amongst the volunteers it is called 'Malawia' and apparently it happens to us all at one point or another. So this weekend was my turn. I hope it doesn't come around too often.

I have learned from Jane's mum who was here on a visit a few weeks ago the cooling technique of wringing out a flannel in cold water and placing it across the back of the neck. It certainly works even if it doesn't look particularly attractive! Jane says her mum used to put a wet cloth over her head and then put her sunhat on the top of it so she looked a bit like a French legionary. I don't think I shall go that far, but the principle is a good one!

Zoe has cooked a proper Sunday roast with two chickens, roast potatoes, and about four sorts of veg and David has made Yorkshire puddings. It's hardly the weather for it, but it still seems appealing. I seem to have fallen into the role of pudding chef and as yet again all we seem to have is mangoes, this time I have made a mango cake, using an apple cake recipe that is tried and trusted and just substituting the apples with mangoes. It looks alright and I don't see why it shouldn't taste good too.

The last two days of the course last week went well. The visitor from UNICEF didn't stay as long as I'd hoped or ask as many questions as I would have liked but she seemed interested and I think she will remember the visit. I would have liked her to talk to the students and get heir feedback on the course but she showed no signs of interest in doing that. She arrived in a huge shiny white car and Vince made her walk all round Chilomoni in the heat to see all the different parts of the project. She didn't seem to mind!

On Friday David did a presentation on Cognitive Development and learning key concepts, followed by a selection of activities at which the students were supposed to make up things to do with the equipment and say what concepts the children would be learning. This was quite a hard task for some of them. They definitely need a bit more practice at it. I think many of them and particularly the men, will really have to learn how to get down on the floor and play with children. I am becoming more and more aware of how different what we are training them to do is from what happens in local reception classes. We will have to challenge quite a lot of local assumptions.

The Colours of Malawi

The colours of Malawi have changed subtly during the five weeks I have been here. I suppose that basically they are the same: the strongest are shades of green and brown. The countryside seems very dry to me but there must be some water about somewhere as there are many shades of green. The grass at Mitsidi is bright because it is watered, but there are many shades also in the leaves and fruits of the trees, from the bluish eucalyptus to the dark skins of ripening papaya, gradually turning to yellow in the sun. When I arrived the most striking shade was the purple of the Jacaranda blossom which manages to be both bright and misty at the same time. How can that be? Over the weeks they have gradually faded as the leaves have sneaked in after the blossoms, and the blossoms fallen, transferring the purple from the canopy to carpet the ground in a widening circle beneath each tree. Just before the purple finally paled away the flame trees began to glow, at first softly in the distance and gradually more and more vividly until now they are astonishing splashes of a colour that is too deep for orange to be an adequate descriptor, but red is not right either. I suspect that when one day soon I actually stop the car and get the camera out to record the blooms in close up, I may find that in reality the individual blossoms are part yellow and part red, and that is why from a distance I really cannot feel sure what colour they are. Anyway they speak to me in a way that I cannot recall a plant doing before and make me feel warm and excited and absolutely satisfy that thirst for colour and vibrancy that I sometimes feel when surrounded by tasteful monochrome beige or grey! The intensity is surprising and because it is a tree the patches of colour are significant in size and cannot be missed. Other things are also redder than they were. The view from our table on the khonde across the valley to the hill the other side of the stream is gradually blushing, not as you might expect from leaves turning in colour before they drop off for the winter, but for completely the opposite reason; new leaves are growing and the young leaves are tinged with red which gradually is taken over by fresh spring green as they stretch out their fingers and turn themselves towards the sun.

The sun is getting almost, but not quite, imperceptibly hotter every day. After the two consecutive days when it rained a couple of weeks ago, there has been no more, although it has clouded over threateningly on many occasions. I have begun to learn what it is like to sweat copiously which is not something I am really familiar with, being almost the most unsporty person on the face of the earth. I am sorry Dave but I am going to talk bodily functions, so skip this bit if you cannot handle it! I am drinking far more water than I have ever done in my life but I am peeing far less. I have to put a lot more salt on my food than I normally do and am indulging my liking for crisps, as I have woken several times in the night with horrible cramp in my legs which leaves a dull nagging ache lasting all day. The salt and crisp regime seems to be working which is good news indeed! I could talk for ages about the state of everyone's bowels and the effect of drinking unboiled water, but out of deference to the sensibilities of my dear brother suffice it to say that I have decided that it is prudent to buy bottled water or boil everything that passes my lips. Also that the advent of a perfectly formed poo is gradually moving from being a rarity towards being an everyday occurrence!