gathering chickens for Africa....

Hello everyone from a very hot and sunny day in Mzuzu!!

I thought I should update the blog today as tomorrow I am off to Chitipa for a couple of days. As you saw in an older blog, on the car which I drive are the following words......the gathering for Africa. I will come back to this later............. (had to put the picture here as I just thought about it!)

Its mango season, and although this mango may not look as perfect as you can buy in Sainsbury's or Tesco's I can assure you that the taste is much better............

and the price is not bad either - I could buy about 25 mango's for a pound!!

I thought I should give you an update on the school. The finish of the first building is coming close ... plastering is being done and pointing outside and hopefully drains will be put in next week before the rains come.


Inside the building is looking good - this is only one half of the 3-6 years classroom. Its a wonderful space for children.

and we have squat toilets which will flush (but due to not having the doors on yet, we can't put the cisterns or they will be stolen).

So I am happy with the progess of the school , we just have to pray for more funding so that we can complete the whole project.


On Friday I went with Nicolas to Embangweni to meet Hlezipe our trainer in Loudon Presbytery. In the picture below Hlezipe is 2nd from the right. The two ladies in the photograph are the caregivers at Loudon CCAP Nursery school. Hlezipe does an amazing job - she cycles to the nursery schools for monitoring and training and distances are huge. God is doing an amazing job for the young children of Malawi through the dedication and committment of people like Hlezipe.

We were also priviliged to vist Hlezipe's home village while there - this is Hlezipe with her son and her mother in law.

In the village there is a women's co-operative where they are growing mushrooms. I found this very interesting - you can see the homemade green house with plastic sheeting and grass outside.

and here are some mushrooms growing...........

Arriving back at Hlezipe's house, in true Malawian style Nicolas and myself were given gifts of chickens (live) to take home and a large bag of beans from the garden. I was given a symbolic white chicken...............(job for later is pulling its neck!!)

and Nicolas was given a black chicken!!!

On the way back to Mzuzu we pass through Chikangawa forest. This is a very large forest plantation although over recent years it has been shrinking due to deforestation. Over the past month there have been raging forest fires and last weekend two men died due to the fire. There are areas of the forest that we drive through which is completely blackened. As we came up the road, we could see the smoke coming across the road, and when we got to the point where the fire was it was quite dangerous as it literally was on the side of the road - we just prayed our way through the smoke. The land is so dry as we have not had rain for some time and it is extremely hot these days which adds to the problem. Hopefully when the first rains come it will cool the fires.

Just before we reach Mzuzu there is a permanent road block. We were stopped and the policeman asked where we were going. I told him and he asked me what was the significance of the gathering for Africa on the car.......to which I replied that we were gathering chickens for Africa if he would like to check in the back...........hence the title of this blog!! We found it very funny at the time!!

This morning I was at a wedding of Rev Banda's second born daughter. It was a very happy occasion. Here you can see the bride dancing down the isle with her father looking very happy! Coming towards them you can see the groom with his father also dancing.

The proud father's hand over their children to each other and then they dance back up the isle with the new bride and groom following behind.

The bride and groom with both sets of parents after the ceremony.

As I sit here writing the blog, the Air Malawi plane has just landed at the airport which is a few minutes walk from my house. This is the plane, and I am not sure if it is clear enough but you can see the road with cars driving just behind the plane, and another road with people walking just in front of it. I reckon its quite a dangerous place to have an airport. As the plane takes off it just misses the roof of my house and sets the car alarm off every time!! It is quite frightening sometimes driving along the road when you hear the roar of an aircraft and find it landing just beside you!! The joys of living in Malawi!!

Wishing you all a wonderful week. Thanks for all your comments - much appreciated.

Blessings,

Diane