Travels and training....

Hello everyone........

Thank you for your messages and prayers during the time I was down with malaria. It was a horrible time - I was off work for a full week! However, I am happy to tell you that I am feeling much better and the past week and a half have been travelling visiting trainers in their various locations and co-ordinating training.

We went to Kajiliwe to train a committee and here you can see our trainer Kamoza in action. This was a lovely training as we had three traditional leaders with us, and they have learnt a lot about Early Childhood Development and are keen to assist the church in the nursery schools. This was actually the day I realised I had malaria and I had to leave the training half way through to go to the doctor!!

Group work learning about milestones of child development. The man in the pink shirt on the floor is one of the traditional leaders.

At the beginning of last week we travelled to Iponga near the border with Tanzania. There was a lot of interest in the car - the children were so excited to see us!!


Here, we were sensitizing a committee and caregivers from an existing nursery school and a new one which was going to open the next day. Here you can see the Presbytery trainer Grace in action!!

While there, I stopped off at Kasowa in Karonga to discuss some issues with Lucy or trainer there. Here she is with the bicycle she uses to cycle many kilometres as she monitors the nursery schools in the Presbytery. The school where she is based at Kasowa won an award recently for being the best school in the district - they are really proud of it, and I am really proud of them too!!

On Wednesday and Thursday this week I did a lot of travelling to visit three other trainers - unfortunately I did not have my cameral with me......

but on Friday I travelled to Malangazi in Mzimba district to visit Emily our trainer there. It is a long way on a very dusty road - these days everything is dusty and dry and extremely hot as we await the first rains (in the South they have already had a torrential downpour but not here yet). Although everything is really dry, we still have a lot of colour as you can see in the flame tree at the top of the blog. The road is under construction as part of the way will have a tarred road in the near future - it will be horrendous when the first rains come, which is why we decided to go now!! Imagine being on that bicycle or walking along the side of the road when the cars pass by and kick up so much dust...

One of the bridges being constructed..........

On the way we pass through the village of Mzalangwe and it was market day...

At Malangazi, I had to meet with some of the local Community Based Organisation (CBO) to discuss issues pertaining the nursery schools - they were a lovely welcoming crowd of people.

On the left of the picture is Emily, our trainer with her baby Matthew on her back sleeping!!

Today we were in Henga Presbytery where we had a really large gathering of caregivers - there were 120 as well as about a dozen small children. We were sensitizing the Presbytery about our training and finding out how many people need training in ECD. Turns out most of them do!!

Frank our trainer in Henga and myself addressing the caregivers..............

At the end of the session we gave each registered nursery school a bucket with a tap and a basin for handwashing. If you can imagine living in a place with no running water, it is not easy so these buckets really assist the caregivers in hygiene in the centres.

The caregivers were so excited that their centres will have handwashing facilities...

and........before we left, we went with Frank our trainer to meet his lovely wife. Frank is 78 years old and he acts like a 60 year old. He is a lovely Christian man, a former primary school teacher and a joy to work with.

Tomorrow I am looking forward to a well earned rest - its been a busy week and with the hot weather it is also tiring! I hope you also have a wonderful weekend wherever in the world you are. Thanks for all the messages on the blog - keep it up, its great to get feedback!!

love and blessings

Diane x