more wildlife....

Hello from a very humid Mzuzu

This week has been extremely hot and humid with some torrential rains showers, which in turn brings out the wildlife! Here you can see one of the many snails which live in my garden - they are in abundance - shame that we don't eat them - there would never be a scarcity of food! They are rather large compared to snails found in UK.

I felt very bad the other day when I lifted a basket in my house only to find that I had scared this poor lizard and so he shed his tail. Here you can see the poor lizard without his tail, and on the next picture you can see the tail without the lizard!!


On Wednesday, a PCI container arrived in Mzuzu so there was great excitement as it was opened between showers! I received many boxes for preschool and I want to say a big thank you to all the churches and groups who sent them - already we have given boxes of materials to 11 schools within Mzuzu, and they are delighted to have some materials. We are planning training in the next two months within Mzuzu so the training boxes are really useful. Thanks to one and all for these gifts of love to the children and caregivers in Malawi.

One slight problem when a container arrives is that we do not have anywhere to store the boxes until we can deliver them so this picture shows you the state of my hall today!!! My spare bedroom is also packed full, so no visitors this week please!!!

My camera was not on hand this week but we are blessed in school with a German Volunteer who has come to YWAM (Youth with a Mission) in Mzuzu. She is a young girl doing a gap year before going to University. She has been a great help as we had 2 teachers off sick and 1 admitted in the hospital! Life is never straight forward here.

One of our colleagues in Education department was admitted in hospital during the week and sadly died on Friday. One of our teachers from school was admitted to hospital on Wednesday afternoon - it was Thursday evening before a doctor saw her. I was with her today (Saturday) and the doctor had come again this morning and put a drip up and took blood from her. The drip had finished at lunchtime and had not been checked since (it was about 4pm when I visited). Please pray for our teacher that proper medical care will be given and that she will recover soon.

In between all of the above, I entertained visitors from Ballymoney, and have been planning our training programme for the next two months..........

So its been a busy week with one thing and another, but its been enjoyable.

Wishing you a great week ahead

Diane

Planning and spiders...

Welcome to another blog........its been quite busy at school as we have 3 teachers off,two are sick and one has a sick child. Also one of our cleaners is also off to work in her garden. So out of 9 workers we only have 5 and its been hectic for the teachers who are present.

Fidelis is a young man who used to work with World Relief in Chitipa and is currently studying at African Bible College. He is on holidays at present and has been volunteering with us each morning helping in the toddlers class. I am so thankful that he has been with us due to lack of staff! Here you can see some of the toddlers singing a song and doing the actions!!

I am so proud when I look at this picture of our 3-6 years classroom. It is hard to believe that its the same place as 3 years ago when I arrived. Children are all busy doing something to aid their development.
Nicolas is a young man who is doing his work experience with us. He is currently studying for a Diploma in Montessori Early childhood Education through Montessori London. It is tough as he is doing it by distance learning. However, so far, he is doing well and I am looking forward to having a qualified Malawian on our team.

This is Lumbani deep in concentration as he syringes water from different containers - good for building muscles in the hands and fingers!!

On Thursday I was attending a workshop for the Education Department Strategic plan. It was really good - all departments presented their work (including me with Early Childhood Development). Here you can see our facilitator Martin who is from the Netherlands and works in the Synod as Capacity Building Officer. He is with my colleague Happy who works in accounts. All the paper stuck on the board behind are part of our plan!!

And this is Vincent, one of the project officers with myself as we do some group work!

Drama again in my house on Friday night - saw something moving across the wall and it was a visiting tarantula - it was enormous - the door frame below the spider is 5cms wide and the length of the spiders body is 5cms! Sorry to say it is now late!! I didn't fancy sharing my house with it!

Yesterday I had a friend here for lunch and she brought a German volunteer with her who wants to spend a few days volunteering at school. So.......God is good - he provides when we really need help!

Wishing you all a good week.

Blessings

Diane

looking back...

Hello there

Not a lot has happened this week - just the usual although we have had some fierce weather the past two days. Yesterday we had torrential rain and wind, thunder and lightning - I thought the house was going to blow away. Among the rain were ice drops (not hailstones as they were too big) - lumps of ice - the picture does not really do it justice. The noise was amazing considering we have tin roofs on the houses!! Today we had the rain and lightning again without the ice thankfully!! I would not be surprised if some people have lost their houses in Mzuzu - my garden fence blew down!!

In good old Northern Ireland style I am sure you do not need to hear me rambling on about the weather. I have to do a presentation on Thursday about Early Childhood Development and have been looking for inspiration in some of my old photos. Thought I would give you a laugh as you see how the ageing process works. Unfortunatley I do not have digital photos before 2005 or maybe its fortunately!! This is me in Zomba on the beautiful mountain and looking at this photo made me realise that I miss the place a lot. Don't I look young!!!

The good old nursery school in Zomba still has the pictures which I painted back in 1995!!

At the last graduation ceremony for the students which I was at in Zomba!

With the ZTC community at the Womens' Ministry in 2006 just before I left Zomba to go to Mzuzu.

At my watchman's church in Zomba...

Leaving Zomba Theological College Pre-school - here you can see me opening a gift from the nursery school committee.

I think a lot of you have seen this before - when I spent the year in South Africa in 2004, I worked in an afternoon club for Aids orphans called Jim Jam. This is me with Thabo the cutest child in the place!! (and probably the naughtiest too)

My first big job when I arrived in Mzuzu was to help in a training programme for some nursery school teachers at a centre within Mzuzu. The lady in front of me is one of our teachers in Mzuzu CCAP International Pre-school.

The first big workshop with the trainers for Early Childhood Development in 2008 - in case you are wondering about some of the attire, we were beside the lake!!

and later in the year as I was planning a training workshop in Chitipa - had to sample some of the cooking!! Now you know why I never lose any weight!! The picture looks hazy - its actually the smoke from the fires they were cooking on.

and finally, the reason why I am here..

Blessings, have a good week

Diane

somethings going on below us...

Hi everyone

Just a quick note to tell you that last night about 1.15am there was another earthquake in Salima this time further south but on the lake shore. Nothing like the Haiti one, this one was 4.8 magnitude but still frightened a lot of people. There are a couple of experts here from USA at present so maybe they can help the people to understand why all these earthquakes are happening at the bottom of the rift valley!

Have a good day

Diane

snippets...

Greetings from a beautiful sunny day in Mzuzu... (apologies for those of you in the snow and ice!!).

Just a few snippets from this week. I forgot to mention that at the end of the year the Synod had an emergency meeting in which they wanted to present a petition to the Government. They had intended to march to the regional office here in Mzuzu. It was a colourful morning with all the ministers in their robes! However, as you can see by the newspaper headline, the march was stopped by the police. In fact, truth be told, it wasn't stopped at all - as soon as the ministers heard they couldn't march, they gave a press release instead. However, imagine my surprise as I had been out in town and when I came back home I couldn't get in because of armed police surrounding the Synod offices! It was drama!

Today in Church the petition was read out - it is dealing with the quota system for education which the Government have just put in place again, and which people from the north believe is excluding them.

This week I have been at school all week, and in the evenings trying to write my assignments where were due on Friday and which I had to ask for an extension until Monday. The good news is that one is completely finished and the other is close to completion.

Here you can see some of our lovely children. These two are in the queue waiting for a nappy change - don't they look happy!

and this one is on the mat about to have her nappy changed!!

This poor child fell at school and was in floods of tears. Although it was a minor cut we made a bit deal and put a plaster on it. She would not play after that but just sat on this bench and showed off her plaster to any who wanted to look at it!

I had the unfortunate task of dismissing one of our staff members on Friday - not an easy job and I felt really sorry as she will have no income for herself and her family, but I had to follow the procedures.

The earthquake is still much talked about and in church today there was an announcement that Karonga Girl's Secondary School (where Claire McIntyre once worked), is going to re-open tomorrow and the girls will stay in tents (like the one in the picture) until the hostels are rebuilt. Its rainy season now and some of the classrooms are badly damaged so classes will also be held in tents. The tents at the school have been donated by the Red Cross, unlike the outpatients department at Kasoba which you see below which was donated from UNICEF. Many thanks to some donations which have been received for the disaster area.

and...just so you know I am fine, here is a picture of me with a book, not a study book but just some reading about the Montessori child. I am looking forward to having no study to do this week!

Blessings, have a good week and for those of you in the UK, I hope it heats up a bit for you.

With love from Diane

PS look forward to a comment or two.......maybe nobody reads this!!

Happy New Year... or is it??

Greetings from Mzuzu.

I have not written since before Christmas so I hope you all had a great day celebrating the birth of Jesus. As you can see in the next two photos, church here was absolutley packed on Christmas day - in fact we had so many people they were in the vestry and outside even though it was raining. The sunday school did the drama of the Christmas story and you can see Mary and Joseph in this photo!

As you can see our church is quite big - I would think well over 1000 people on 25th December. Bear in mind I am at the front of this end, there are many more people behind me!

Since Christmas, I have been trying to do my assignments but really not getting on very well at all - everytime I sit down to do something, a knock comes to the door! Two assignments are due next week and I am not at all confident, but here's hoping that the inspiration will come!!

Today I set off to Karonga to see the earthquake damage for myself. I took a driver with me, usually I drive myself but I think I am becoming lazy in my old age! This is Owen Singini and he is an exellent driver! Its a 3 hour drive to Karonga.

On the way the scenery is beautiful - here is one of the bridges we have to cross on the main road.

a fishing village by the lake shore...

its lovely and green at the minute as we are in the rainy season - the lake in the distance looking across to Tanzania on the other side


..and as we approach Karonga, the oxen ploughing the fields. In other parts it is done by hand.

On arrival at Kasoba village, I went first to the church and if you recall the last photos I sent of the earthquake, things have become much worse since then. The last big quake on 20th December caused already weakened structures to collapse or become really unstable. The church is actually sitting at an angle - this picture shows it slightly.

Looking into the church from the front door - I did not venture in as it is really unstable.


and the poor manse has also fallen down more with the last quake and is quite unsafe.

At the village the health centre has also a lot of structural damage and so UNICEF have provided two tents, one for outpatients and one for maternity. The front wall collapsed.

This is the maternity wing!!

The primary school is also badly damaged and will not open as planned on Monday. This photo shows a block which was built recently and all the pillars at the front have collapsed.

And the nursery school which was built with help from Hillsborough was damaged in the second big earthquake. It has bad cracks at both ends of the building leaving it structurally unsafe to be used.

Many people have lost some or all of their homes and are living in structures like this one. Its quite pathetic when you consider this is the rainy season and its torrential rain we are talking about. Some are made of grass and some with plastic sheeting, and some have no shelter at all!

This is a temporary manse which the Red Cross brought yesterday for a family at another village.

and this is the doctor at Kasoba's temporary home. His house is seen behind but it is really quite unsafe inside. Its strange as some of the houses look okay from the outside but when you see the inside its another story.

Here is a man's home with his temporary home beside it.

the maize mill - as you can see the roof is quite unsafe.

an old lady in despair - she had worked all her life to build this house and its badly damaged at both ends and the other walls are slanting so if another quake comes it will collapse.

This home belongs to one of the caregivers at the nursery school.

and this inside wall of another house looks not bad but if you see it in reality it is sitting at an angle and I would not stand under it...

another home inside...

and the man with all the responsibility to look after his villagers - the village headman from Kasoba who, even after all the earthquakes and the tremors which are still occurring daily, keeps smiling!

Its been a good day in some ways and a very sad day in others. The scenery was beautiful as we travelled to Karonga. It was very hot and sticky along the lakeshore. Arriving in Karonga, seeing many buildings fallen down, many people's livlihood destroyed in an instant was not a good feeling. I feel sad for these people who have worked so hard for all they have only to have it fall down around them. Even today tremors are being experienced. A couple of experts from USA are coming this week to Malawi to visit Karonga and see if they can explain why this is going on for so long.

Please spare a thought for the people of Karonga in this rainy season, when life is tough enough as people are preparing fields for planting their crops. The photo's do not paint the picture as disturbing as it is first hand. Some help is coming - today some tents were being distributed, but much more is needed.

And yet, in the midst of all of this, people are telling me God is good because we are alive. We have seen 2010! It makes me feel humble when I see friends who have lost so much and still can praise God.

Till next time...

Have a good day

Diane