Open Day

For the last few weeks we have been working towards an open day to consolidate links with the local community in Chilomoni. The Children's Centre will open in two stages; with any luck and a following wind the day care building will open on 1 September. We shall not open all the rooms at the same time, but we hope to open one room for each age group and gradually to grow until we reach full capacity with 250 children aged between 6 months and 6 years. The second, multi-agency building will take a few months longer, but we hope that it will begin its outreach work by the beginning of January 2012. The theme for this week's training includes 'Working with other professionals', and the students have done some research into the neighbourhood, finding out about the organisations that work with children. We invited the local chiefs, people from Social Services and the local Health Clinic, a representative of Chilomoni Police, people from local churches and the mosque, the head teachers of the local primary schools. While I have been in UK, David and the students have been busy working on displays and presentations designed to inform the visitors about the children's centre and its aspirations to provide high quality education for the children of Chilomoni. We had colourful display boards showing the four domains of the Malawian Curriculum, Physical, Social and Emotional, Mental and Cognitive and Moral and Spiritual Development. We had a pair of boards entitled 'Celebrating Differences' and 'Celebrating Similarities' that looked at the things that all residents of Chilomoni share and the richness of diversity that is found here. There was a display of pictures and crafts made by the students. We constructed a 'cosy corner' similar to the book corners we plan for each room in the centre where children will be able to choose books displayed at child height and sit comfortably to read them together. The student's poems were spread out for the visitors to read and there were many photographs of students taking part in sessions of the course. My favourite display was a closely packed board of the student's reflections on the course, what they have learned, their feelings about it and their hopes and aspirations for the future of the Children's Centre.

Beehive is good at such occasions and we benefitted from the experience of Mary Kamwendo and her team of caterers who provided sausage rolls, samosas, cake and soft drinks. The formal part of the proceedings consisted of a series of talks; first Vince Owen spoke about the origins of Krizevac and Beehive and the vision for the Children's Centre. He spoke eloquently of the studies which show the huge benefits which high quality early years education can bring in later life. He talked about the development of Children's Centres in England and how they grew out of concern for abused children who slipped through the net of the caring services and died because professionals each knew only their own small part of the child's story. He told the audience of Krizevac's vision of a centre where all local services for children could work together to give children the best chances of good care and good early education. Then David and I introduced ourselves and explained how we had gone about developing a course to train care givers for the new Centre that drew on our experience of child care and child development at home, but that was appropriate for the local culture here in Chilomoni. We thanked all those who had helped us by giving their time, local knowledge and expertise. We did our usual double-act and managed to raise a few laughs and a few rounds of applause, which was reassuring. Then Annie Banda, who is a Vice Principal of the IT College in whose splendid library we held the event, spoke about her role in community liaison for the college. The students then entertained the assembled company with a poem about the future of the new Mother Theresa Children's Centre; a lively drama about the value of developing creativity in young children; an original couple of songs in Chichewa and English about Beehive, the Children's Centre and the Child Care Training; and a comedy duo who raised a lot of laughs, but I am afraid I cannot tell you much about what they actually said as my Chichewa is not up to the job, I heard my name though, followed by a bellow of laughter, should I be afraid! Lindy led a choir of all our students from both courses in three songs we have learned to sing with children. The performance was magnificent! In rehearsal I was a bit worried about some of it, not so much the content of each item, but the links between items and the level of professionalism, but it was 'alright on the night' and I was proud of them all. I kept glancing at the assembled guests, particularly the chiefs and I saw smiles and laughs and interested faces, so I was able to relax and thoroughly enjoy the show. The star of the day was Moses who translated the speeches into Chichewa so that everyone would understand. He did a magnificent job and by the time he reached the end I am surprised he had any voice left at all.

The programme closed with a few remarks from the Traditional Authority chiefs. I understand that the gist of these was that they approve of the project as they can see that it is a step forward in terms of development for the local children and ultimately for Malawi. They undertook to ensure that the building will be respected by local people and not vandalised or abused, which is really significant support. David led the group of chiefs on a tour around the exhibits and many of our students stepped forward to explain the significance of the different displays. The occasion finished with Mary's excellent refreshments.

My feelings at the end of the day were of pride for the students and for what they have achieved. Eight months ago when we began all this, we had no idea that in such a short time we would be seeing our students explaining their training to local dignitaries in such articulate and creative style. It has all been an extremely steep learning curve, not only for the students, but also for David and for me. The students and other members of the local community here have taught us a lot that has helped us to understand Malawian culture and we are constantly having to re-evaluate and moderate our approach to match what we have learned. There have been days upon which I have seriously thought that I had bitten off much more than I could comfortably chew, but today was a good day and a day on which I could believe that we have got more right than we have got wrong!

There was one presentation, a dance, that we were forced to abandon because it had not been sufficiently well-rehearsed for us to be confident that it would meet the standard we were striving for. That was a shame, and I worried that the students involved would be disappointed, but upon reflection I am sure that we acted in the right way. It is very important that the students learn to take responsibility for preparing their work well and on time. Of course some struggle with this more than others, but when they are working in the children's centre they will need to be accountable for the quality of their work and get their preparation done on time!

What would I do differently next time? Not much I think. Perhaps begin to prepare a little earlier, perhaps choose a venue that is a little quieter as the sounds of the building site and the hum of the generator sometimes made it a little difficult to hear the presentations. On the other hand it was good to hold the meeting in such a lovely room with views over the township and right next door to the Children's Centre so that visitors could see the progress of the building. It was good to welcome several other Krizevac volunteers. Jan, Principal of JPIILITA who kindly allowed us to use his lovely library; Lindy of course, whose contribution to the music and singing makes such a welcome difference; Melvin, the engineer currently supervising the building of the Children's Centre; Giacomo, the architect who provided such clear images of what the finished day care building will look like and took such trouble to present them beautifully; and Ged who acted as driver, odd job man and photographer, and who was so very helpful throughout the day. Thanks are due to them all for their participation and support. While I am on thankyous I cannot leave David out! We are so different, at such different phases of life and very different temperament, but we work well together and can certainly be proud of our joint achievements. When she recruited us George said to me that Vince is 'Head of ideas' in Krizevac and she is 'Head of worry' and because they are so different they work in a complementary way. She felt that David and I would similarly complement each other. I do not think that we can be categorised in quite the same way, but certainly we each have skills , knowledge and attributes that the other has not, and neither of us could have done this job in quite the same way without the other!

Waiting at Heathrow

The blog has been silent all the time I have been in the UK. It is over two weeks and it has passed in a flash! It has been a joy to see friends and family and I do seem to have fitted in a lot of people and pleasant social occasions. My flight home was my first flight alone apart from one little hop from Norwich to Amsterdam a few years ago. I was dreading my six hours in Addis Ababa, but all went well and I had a couple of interesting exchanges, one with a Daughter of Charity who told me if I was ever in Addis again to look her up, but omitted to tell me her name, and another with an Anglican working for an NGO whose work occasionally brings him to Blantyre.

Other volunteers have told me that they have been very struck by the differences between Chilomoni and their homes in the UK. One said that every time he went out in the car he noticed that the road was tarmacked, another said that the advertising hit them the minute they stepped out of the plane at Heathrow, others have remarked on the different palettes of colours, the different noise levels, the proportions of black and white faces, the affluence, the greenness of the countryside. All these things are true of course, but I was not really struck by anything. It all just felt familiar and a part of being home. Even the temperature was pretty similar, moving as I did from the beginning of winter in Blantyre to the warmth of late May in England.

I spent a few comforting days with family in London, seeing all of my lovely children, my brother and sister and my auntie. My brother and his wife made a real effort to get everyone together and provided a warm welcome and lots of lovely food! We walked in Banstead woods and enjoyed the meadow flowers although we didn't manage to spot any orchids! The elderflowers were out and we picked some for Jack and Becky to make wine. We had a barbeque at my sister Annie's and the family distributed themselves between the two households for a very nice couple of days. It was good to visit Karl's Mum and Dad.

Then it was off to Norwich to see what remains of normal life! Actually it was amazing how much there was! I was pretty disciplined about going to UEA every weekday to sort out what I am going to do about my MA dissertation and do some research in the library. Rather reluctantly I have been persuaded to defer submission of my dissertation for a while in order to give myself time to give it proper attention. It would be good to get it out of the way, but it needs more time than I can easily find while teaching and writing an NVQ-style assessment programme suitable for Malawi, and I do want to do it justice, so....

It was good to spend time with Sue who is taking care of my house. She is doing a great job. I thought it might be weird to come home and share with her the place I have lived in for so long, but it was not weird at all, it was comfortable and companionable. I hope she thought so too! Mind you. I was out a lot. I only cooked two meals at home the whole week I was there! It was good to catch up with what is going on with EYPS at UEA. These are of course difficult times and there are still many uncertainties about how the work of the department will be structured in the medium term, but it was comforting to hear of future plans and realise that we have not yet reached a situation where there is no hope of some work for me when I return. I managed to visit folk from almost all the compartments of my life in Norwich while I was at home, the book group, local friends from Thorpe Hamlet, colleagues from the Hamlet Centre, NANSA and UEA, fellow students from when I did EYPS, family and old friends. Highlights included an excellent home-cooked meal with the book club (when we discussed 'The boy who harnessed the wind' by William Kamkwanda and somebody else whose name temporarily escapes me! Incidentally this book gives a great idea of what life in Malawi is really like. Much, much better than anything I could write.) Also a trip to Bergh Apton Sculpture trail in excellent company; several pints of Wherry in the Rushcutters, ditto; supper with John and Joe; an unexpected haircut after a lovely dinner; and re acquaintance with Margaret's kitchen table on several evenings. We are definitely agreed that the metaphorical kitchen table that wings its way regularly over the email is just not the same! Then it was back to London via Peterborough for a meeting with George from Krizevac, for a last couple of days with the family, this time staying with Annie, while my cousin Toni and her delicious children stayed with Dave and we were able to spend the days together. I was so pleased to see the children again. The difference between three weeks and ten months meant that I would have been unable to recognise Tia if I had no one to tell me who she was, but Arwen was her own strong-minded and delightful self with an increase in articulateness (if that is a word!), that is astonishing in so short a time!

Ah! My flight is being called. The journey home begins!

Two days to Blighty!

Eeeeee! I can hardly believe it. In 38 hours I shall leave Mitsidi and almost exactly 24 hours after that I shall be met at Heathrow by Old Dave, my dearly-loved (note adjectival hyphen!) big brother. My students reckon that 'eeeee!' is my best Chichewa word, probably the only one spoken like a local, and used to indicate surprise or puzzlement. It has something in common with 'Really!' but is not exactly the same! Sometimes it feels as though I have been here a very long time, and sometimes not very long at all. Time is a funny thing, but I shall certainly be glad to see all the family again. I have a suitcase half full of little presents and I am getting very excited. I do hope that the Icelandic volcano doesn't cause me any problems, but I have looked at a map of where it is expected to go and fortunately there is no sandy-brown shaded area between Lilongwe and Heathrow.

Last week was a busy one. Despite being ahead of myself as far as preparation is concerned at the end of the Easter holidays I have still been doing at least a little work most evenings, and of course I had planned to do several things before I went home that remain undone! We have been looking at Communication, Language and Literacy, and Problem-solving, Reasoning and Numeracy. The subjects are so wide and so important it is difficult to choose what to concentrate upon. Also we must focus upon the Malawian curriculum and supplement it with ideas from elsewhere, which is of course a new approach for David and for me. David is the primary school teacher so he focussed on the older end of the age range for both these areas and I concentrated upon 0-3s. We did some nice activities. David encouraged the students to make zig-zag books based upon the new children's books on African subjects that some kind fund-raisers have sent from the UK. Incidentally they also sent a beautiful black baby doll in a nappy that fastens with Velcro with which the students were absolutely fascinated. Clearly they had never seen the like before and commented upon its African features. They passed it round, treating it almost like a real baby. When it was passed to me I asked 'Do you think it is a girl or a boy?''Agggh! Marian, there will not be a difference!' they said, so I undid the nappy and with a little embarrassment they had a good look. It was definitely a girl! They do not really believe me that it is possible to get anatomically correct boy-baby dolls, so I am hoping that our 'second-born dolly' will be male! But as usual I run off at a tangent! I had the students painting with water on the concrete paths and walls and as it was break time for the school pupils we were swiftly joined by at least fifty 5-9 year olds, all wanting to have a go. I had only eight brushes so it was impossible to be fair. I gave them out at random and settled to watch what the children did. I had demonstrated by drawing a face and the first group of children all followed suit. I picked up a stick and drew a car in the dust and soon all sorts of vehicles were appearing temporarily on the path and fading quickly in the warmth of the sun. After some time I realised that although I had started with a mixed group, all those who now had brushes were boys, the girls had moved (been forced?) to the edge of the group and were all watching. So I collected all the brushes back in and redistributed them to all girls, much to the disgust of the boys. Immediately the subject matter of the 'paintings' shifted from cars to people and flowers. Other activities included tying strips of material to sticks and waving them about, making snakes out of playdough and watching the trails they made in a sprinkling of flour covering the table, devising activities to do with talking postcards, and drawing in the dust with sticks. In the afternoon we looked at the role play area in a nursery playroom and discussed possible Malawi-appropriate themes. The church seemed to figure prominently in everyone's list and we had maize mills and markets, as well as the more 'usual in the UK' salons, hospitals, shops etc. I have made a real effort to combine the milestones of the Malawian curriculum with the Development Matters of the EYFS into something reasonably comprehensive to encourage our students to check that they are providing sufficient and appropriate activities to support the development of PSRN skills at least from 0-3 years. Not that the need stops for the 3-6s but this is David's responsibility!

Lindy's music sessions on Tuesday and Friday afternoons have become a very popular part of our course, but she was unable to come last week, however the students were delighted because Jan has been on a recent trip to the UK and brought each of them an A4 document wallet in which to keep their songs. They are just buff coloured cardboard files, but they were received with delight and the students of both groups settled down to decorate and personalise them with great enthusiasm. There was much use of coloured pens, sugar paper, scissors, glue and pencils and when I put out glitter sent by my cousin from Wales as a special treat, they were thrilled! Ever since every student has had specks of multicoloured glitter on their face! It really does get everywhere!

We finished the week with a walk through Chilomoni looking for shapes and numbers and discussing how we could involve small children in fun and games with shapes and numbers spotted in the street.

The weekend was fairly quiet. Giacomo and I got up quite early on Saturday as Tony was reported to be escorting 400 children up the Way of the Cross and we thought we would tag along and see what happened. I counted only about 170 children, but nevertheless it was quite a crowd. Tony produced a box of rosaries from his car and distributed them to eager reaching hands. It was a joy to see the pleasure of the children and the delight on Tony's face as he handed them out. There were children of all ages from babes on backs, to older teenagers. Altogether there were perhaps eight adults. We had been misinformed; it was the Way of the Rosary that we were climbing that day. Off we set following Tony up the mountain. I was reminded of the pied piper as we sang our way up the mountain, moving at a lively pace. We stopped at each station and Tony described the pictures on the bronze plaques, pointing out their beauty and asking the children if they knew who the characters were in the pictures. Some of them were pretty good with their bible knowledge, identifying Gabriel, Elizabeth and Simeon correctly as well as the better known Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus. Even the identity of the child in Elizabeth's womb was provided by a knowledgeable child. Another adult provided a Chichewa translation of what Tony was saying. There were brief prayers at each station and a decade of the rosary was said. One of the adults explained to me and Giacomo that they came up here every Saturday with the children to teach them how to pray to help them in later life and in the hope that through having a regular activity they would be kept away from less desirable pastimes as they got older. We stayed with them for half a dozen stations and then slipped away back down the mountain the way we had come to join Melvin in our usual Saturday morning trip to town for coffee and shopping. The afternoon was spent at Mitsidi and in the evening it was off to Phoenix School for the concert of the Blantyre Musical Society which featured Melvin, Jan and Lindy in the choir, and Lindy on clarinet. There was quite a selection of music. I tended to favour the lighter items but I enjoyed it all, especially the Gershwin, 'My Grandfather's Clock', and' Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud,' which brought back memories!

Sunday was mostly taken up with the disastrous crashing of my computer. For a while I thought all might be lost, but thanks to emergency intervention by David Chagama, one of the Vice Principals of the IT academy my documents were all retrieved. The whole computer had to be wiped clean and everything will have to be reinstalled, but at least disaster was averted. Like most people I never learn and do not back up my files nearly often enough. It is not as if this has never happened to me before, but all is well that ends well!

This week I shall only see the course once through as I shall be on the way to Lilongwe on Thursday morning when Group 2 start their first session. David will deliver my session on the Key Worker System as well as his own on Transitions on Thursday, and on Friday they will be looking at the positive management of challenging behaviour as we did today. This was interesting. Of course there are many similarities in expected behaviour in UK and here in Malawi, and in the way children are taught to behave, but there are differences too. I made notes on what was said in class, so I will not repeat them here.

Tomorrow we shall work on planning our Open Afternoon which is to take place on 15 June, between my visit home and David's, and then by seven on Thursday I shall be on the road. I am so looking forward to seeing friends and family.

Long weekend

Today is a National holiday. I am sitting at the khonde table at Mitsidi, enjoying the view and the birds in the garden, and getting very excited at the prospect of my trip home which begins in ten days. Most of the other volunteers have gone on a trip to Majete, but although this is a place I have never been I decided to stay at home. I realize that as I am here for so much longer than the average stay for a Krizevac volunteer that I have plenty of time, and anyway, there is such a lot of work to do and my life will be so much easier next week, and the students will get a better deal if I am properly prepared! However there is more to life than work alone, so here I am blogging again. It is so hard to draw a line between what is work and what is not. When I write about what has been happening during the past week of the course it is a vehicle for reflection that helps me in planning not to make the same mistakes next time! It also helps me to be aware of what has gone well, and reminds me to feed back to the students how proud I am of their achievements, as well as the ways in which I want them to work harder, question more and consider the feelings of each other as practice for the way I want them to relate to the children! I am struggling to find time to work on my MA dissertation. Is this work? Is it leisure? On Saturday I had a lovely lazy day which included cappuccino and biscotti in African Habitat, which is run by Italians; an amble round Chichiri Shopping Centre while other volunteers did bits of shopping; a light lunch on the khonde; an afternoon of baking bread and buns, and I rounded it all off by cooking a chicken for everyone in the half bottle of white wine left over from last weekend. Yesterday I spent most of the day on the khonde of my own little house, preparing lectures and discussion sessions, reviewing the course so far, marking Easter holiday assignments. It was a pleasure to be interrupted by a visit from two of the students one of whom is about to go away for a fortnight 'to work in the field' and who wanted to bring me her homework to be marked before she went. In the evening I enjoyed phone calls from home, one of which was interrupted by Tony bringing me a glass of red wine (that's wine twice in a week, and this is Malawi!). Later, after a scrambled egg supper, I returned the glass and he obligingly refilled it and I spent a relaxed hour listening to him talk about the origins of Krizevac and the journey that brought him where he is today. I shared some of my feelings about the training and I think we each came to understand the other a little more.

The theme of the week has been 'Fostering Creativity'. To develop an environment in which the creative and problem-solving skills of Malawian pre-schoolers can be nurtured and supported is the reason why David and I are here. It is a huge challenge. Our students are the product of an education system that cannot easily promote either, because of sheer force of numbers. Many, but by no means all, of our students have never had access even to the limited range of materials that we can provide on our course. Our feedback interviews from the introductory course show that the chance to play games and do art activities were the parts of the course appreciated most by a significant number of the students. Even now, after six months there are many students who still need more time to explore the materials and allow their own creativity and confidence to develop before they will be ready to stand back and let children explore and discover for themselves. This week we arranged two sessions for each class of students to work with groups of children from standards 1 and 2 of the primary school within which our classroom is situated, i.e. four sessions in all. The plan for the first session involved setting out the construction kits that have been donated by Children's Centres in England across the concrete floor of an empty classroom, dividing the students into 'observers' and 'care givers' and letting the children choose which resources they played with, allowing them to explore in their own way and move between activities as they chose. After an initial brief hiatus where the children stopped in the doorway with eyes popping out of their heads with astonishment at the quantity, colour and variety of resources in front of them, they did not seem to have a problem with the plan. It was the students who struggled with it. The 'observers' did pretty well, managing upon the whole to stay at the edge of the room and note 5-minute observations of what individual children were doing, but some of the 'care givers' could not help intervening. One seemed to think that it was necessary to have roughly equal numbers at each activity and tried to move children bodily from busy to unattended activities, others raised their voices to bellow instructions to individual children across the echoing room where the target child would have been quite unable to discriminate that the message was meant for them; one woman soon had her group sorting Mobilio into heaps of pieces of a particular colour, which was not the inclination of the children themselves at all; others managed to watch until a child had a difficulty and then jumped in and finished the whole model for them rather than just providing enough help to set them off again on their own voyage of discovery. On the other hand I also saw examples of good practice everywhere. I saw children looking to students for support and being passed quietly exactly the piece they needed to get over their immediate difficulty. I saw children leaning trustingly against students sitting on the floor at their level and heads together in conversations in Chichewa that I could neither hear, nor could have understood, but I knew that the child was being listened to and gently supported. I saw one tall male student crouching on the floor supporting a huge trolley being made by a six-year old girl with a clear idea in her head of what she was trying to do. One student drew my attention to a little boy building with large wooden bricks. 'Look at him,' he said, 'he has been at this activity for the whole session and he is completely absorbed in what he is doing.'

The second practical session was a carousel of activities around which groups of students and children moved together, so that in an hour they spent 20 minutes with David doing blow painting with straws and runny paint; 20 minutes with Lindy listening to a story about the sun and the wind, and learning a song with dance moves and actions to go with it; and 20 minutes with me, making 'snowflakes' from folded paper. My activity was problematic in that I had assumed, wrongly, that children aged 6-7 years would have had the opportunity to use scissors before. Some obviously had done, but many others had not, and a cutting activity involving cutting through several layers of paper at once was much too difficult for those who had not had previous practice in cutting. However the difficulty brought out the best in several students. I observed one young woman sharing a chair with a child so that she could put her arms around her and cut in front of the child to demonstrate an easier way to hold the scissors. The little girl was snuggling in and the student was talking quietly into her ear. Of the thirty children, my attention was drawn to two who persisted in attempting to cut with the scissors in their left hands and in both cases the student near them noticed and provided left-handed scissors. I helped several children who had not used scissors before by holding the folded paper for them while they concentrated on manipulating the scissors and I saw several students doing the same. There were one or two students who took over, rather than scaffolded the children's progress, but I saw much to be proud of. I was very concerned that I had chosen an inappropriate activity for the children, although incidentally it did provide many learning opportunities for the students, but I was comforted later by David whose activity followed mine. He commented that the children arriving at his room were pleased and proud to show him what they had made. He also remarked that he was glad his activity followed mine as there was much interest in his activity from children from other classes, and if it had not been for the fact that the children he was supposed to be working with were carrying snowflakes he would not have known who to let in to the classroom. There is much food for thought in this simple observation. The children coming to my activity had just left Lindy's and the third group arrived marching in a long line singing a couple of lines from the song she had taught them over and over, being enthusiastically led by a couple of students doing the actions with energy and enthusiasm and singing at the top of their voices. Broad smiles and sparkling eyes showed the children's pleasure. I loved it!

The rest of the input this week has involved the students in considering what they have observed and reflecting upon it. I had the unenviable task of relating what we had been doing to the milestones of the Malawian Curriculum and pulling in extra Development Matters from the UK curriculum to help students to check that they will be providing the right sorts of experiences for the children in their care to have the chance to develop creative skills. It did feel a bit like reducing creative opportunity to tick boxes, but I did my best! Note to self, do not keep such sessions for the last input of the week, especially with group 2 on a hot Friday afternoon. At the point when I counted three students actually asleep I made them all stand up and move about for a minute or two!

Visit from Amanda

Last weekend was a pleasure. Amanda came on a visit from Ntcheu, and it was great to have another woman about the place! Since Sharon and Philip went back to the US Lindy and I have been the only women at Mitsidi and lovely as she is, the balance is not quite right! Last Saturday evening however with Amanda visiting me and Jennifer visiting Lindy there were four of us for a little while and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience!

On Friday after work Malcolm and I went to pick Amanda up from Blantyre and brought her back to Mitsidi for supper. Several of us ended up in the Liquor Garden later in the evening. We were joined by Talimba and several other local friends and acquaintances and ended up dancing, after about the third Green. Charles the Magistrate (the tallest man in Chilomoni!) was pleased to see us and spent a long time chatting. He always asks me how Jack is getting along and this time asked to be remembered to him and bought me yet another Green which I managed to slip into my handbag when he wasn't looking as I really couldn't manage another just then! Why is it that bottles of drink in my handbag seem to figure in the blog when I go out with Amanda? I can't think!

On Saturday we had a pleasant, low key sort of a day beginning with a leisurely breakfast and moving through morning coffee at African Habitat, and a little light shopping, to a trip for me and Amanda to the azungu hairdresser where we enjoyed having our hair washed and heads massaged before having our hair cut by the very efficient Joyce from Zimbabwe. She seems to average about 15 minutes for a cut and blow dry, which is faster than anyone else I know, but she does a good job. We both came out feeling pampered and beautiful!! Then it was back to Mitsidi for a bit of lunch, lots of talking, a swim, dinner and a film. Lovely!

On Sunday we went for an expedition to Mua Mission which had been thoroughly recommended by Sharon. We got up early, planning to be on the road by seven, but were thwarted by the key to the land rover breaking in the ignition! Giacomo was forced to knock on the door of poor Derrick who emerged looking tousled and pulling a T-shirt over his head, but he lived up to his reputation of being able to fix anything and before 8.30 we were on our way. Giacomo drove all the way and we did not break the journey arriving shortly after eleven. It was a beautiful day; the sun was shining from a clear blue sky. The mountains were as beautiful as ever. It has not rained for about three weeks now so I think we can safely say that the rainy season is over. Already the landscape is changing colour. There is still a lot of green about, but it is not as lush as it was and there is just a tinge of red to the landscape already. Even the air seems a bit redder, probably because there is dust rising from the road as you drive along again. It has not taken many dry days for a layer of fine powdered soil about an inch deep to cover the roads. Wheels send it into the air in great clouds and even feet kick it up to knee height. White trousers are definitely not a good idea! The country roads seem to be lined with bushes covered in what look like sunflowers, about three or four inches across. Two weeks ago the bushes were green, then one or two flowers appeared and now there are loads of them adding glowing patches of gold to roadside and mountain. We enjoyed Mua, although Sunday is probably not the best day to go as not everything was open. There are galleries and a shop with art and craft items to view and buy, mostly carvings. The gardens are beautiful and the buildings attractive. There is an amphitheatre with a gorgeous curved iron canopy overlaid with matting that filters the sunlight. Giacomo took loads of photos, I suppose he took a professional interest in its design. We ate our picnic in its shelter where it was peaceful. We could hear a fast running stream behind us and we enjoyed flowers, butterflies and birds in the gardens. We went in search of coffee, but to no avail so we set off on the road over the escarpment and went to Dedza pottery for tea and cheese cake. The road through the mountains was beautiful and we got out a couple of times to admire the views. We all took a turn at the long drive home via Ntcheu where we dropped Amanda off. I hope she comes gain soon. Having her there changed the dynamic of our little group and everyone enjoyed having her with us.

End of the first week of term

It never ceases to amaze me how differently the same class can go with a different group of students! Our Monday and Tuesday group are a relatively mixed bunch, some noisy, some quiet, some enthusiastic, some thoughtful; and in some ways the same can be said of the Thursday and Friday group, but the personalities of the groups themselves are utterly different! The first is relatively easy to teach, they ask questions, but are satisfied with relatively simple and straightforward explanations, they listen attentively most of the time; they take notes; they are polite. I could wish that they would be more discriminating about what they write down, most of them try to transcribe every word on every slide, but at least they are trying to keep a record of whatever it is we are trying to encourage them to learn. However, when it comes to creative ideas they can drive me to drink, or even to despair! On Monday I read them 'Nanda's Surprise' and at the end I asked them what activities they could think of that might use the ideas in the story to teach pre-school children. I was met by such a wall of blank faces that I gave them a couple of ideas and then said I would ask them again before lunch, to give them time to think about it. When we returned to the subject three hours later things were not that much better. David and I managed to drag a few ideas out of them but it was like drawing the proverbial teeth. If someone else says 'We could use it to teach colours', again when presented with such a rich resource, I think I shall have to retire defeated! We repeated the experience with the second group yesterday and as soon as I had asked the question ideas were being offered from all corners of the room: tasting, comparing, cutting, preparing fruits; finding out more about the animals in the story, exploring the feelings of the characters in the story; making up dramas, making baskets, having races over obstacle courses while balancing the baskets on their heads, talking about favourite fruits, looking at the adjectives used in the book to describe the fruits, the suggestions just kept on coming and in the end we finished the session before the class ran out of ideas.

On the other hand, on Tuesday and this morning we had a couple of speakers from Chilomoni Health Centre talking about child health issues. Both groups had asked for more speakers as part of the 'feedback on the course so far' sessions. They are keen to hear from specialists and we are trying to get speakers who work in the local area so that we can begin to build relationships with other professionals working with children who will share the client group of the families who live around the Children's Centre. The North building will not be finished as soon as the South, Day Care building, but we hope that both will be functioning properly by Christmas and some of the local professionals may well end up working in offices within the Children's Centre. The speakers presented in a mixture of English and Chichewa. This was their choice. They said that it was easier to explain some aspects in English, and others in Chichewa. The first group received the lecture fairly attentively and asked a few questions. The second was noisy to the point of being rude and asked questions that occasionally seemed to me to be more designed to catch the speakers out than offered in a spirit of enquiry. I felt quite cross with them.

The first day of a new term

Today term started again after the three-week Easter break. It was good to see the students again. A lot has happened over the break and it feels like a long time since we were last teaching. We began the term by reviewing students opinions about what they had learned in the previous term, asking them what they thought had gone well and so on. We asked them to state three important things they had learned, and what difficulties they had encountered. Then we asked them how they thought we could help with the difficulties and what they thought they could do to help themselves. We told them some difficulties we had had as their teachers, and how we thought they might help us. Then we asked 'What went well?' and told them what we thought had gone well and how proud we are of their achievements. Then we enquired what they wanted more of in the second half of the course, and finished by asking whether there were times when they had used what they have learned on the course in their own lives. David led this session and I sat quietly at the back and noted down everything that they said to help us with the planning of the next few weeks. They came up with ten important things they thought they had learned and I was pleased to note that that after some discussion they were able to agree that the most important three were: Observation, Play and Nutrition. Observation and Play I don't think any child care specialist would argue with anywhere in the world, and I think that here in Malawi most people would recognize how important it is that children should receive good nutrition and that this will have a profound effect upon their ability to learn and develop as well as upon health issues. The other important things listed were: Developmental theories, Developmental Milestones, Children's Rights, the importance of Key Concepts to later learning, Creativity, making story sacks, and Fun. Not a bad selection I feel. David wanted Fun to be one of the most important three, but the consensus reached was Observation, Play and Nutrition. That is good enough for me!

Under difficulties we had a lively exchange about the cultural appropriateness of the approach to early years teaching that we are taking; debated again the difficulty of deciding whether issues and milestones are Moral, Spiritual, Social or Emotional; discussed the difficulties of making good observations and of linking theory to practice, considered whether or not it mattered that some of us are not 'good at drawing'; and discussed the relative merits of using larger print on handouts to make them easier to read or economizing on the amount of paper we use. Handouts are the major expense of this course as there are over 70 students and paper and ink cartridges are expensive in Malawi. However the handouts build up into a useful resource to be used by the students when they become care Givers in the Children's Centre. I could write a lot more about this session but it is late and I am tired, however I do have my record of the session so can go back to it at a later date. It is worth noting however that in answer to the question, 'What is the most important thing you can give to a child?' we received the following answers: Time, Praise, Play, Attention, Love, Care, Freedom balanced with safety, Rights and responsibilities. Not a bad list. We must be getting some things right at least!

 

In the afternoon I led a session looking at Reflective Practice and how it can/should be beneficial both for the learning of the children and the professional development of the Care Givers. A group of students demonstrated a new activity involving using a piece of Lycra material with a couple of rhymes, and then I encouraged each student to write their own entry in a reflective diary about the activity they had seen and how useful it might be to them in their work with children. Then they discussed their entries in small groups. Tomorrow we have a visiting speaker and I have asked them all to write a reflective diary entry about how they can use the information learned when they are working in the Children's Centre. The idea is to encourage the practice of reflection for the benefit of both staff and children.