Life.........

Hello everyone,

hope you are having a relaxing weekend!! Today, I have been busy with household chores and after spotting this beautiful butterfly feasting on a fallen papaya (pawpaw) in my garden, decided to write a few words. The black blob to the right of the picture is a large fly so you can see the size of this lovely butterfly.

During the week I had the opportunity to go to visit Phiri at Nkhata Bay where before I left, I wrote about two European girls who were intending to build a nursery school for Phiri congregation. Well, here it is..........

The building is really large and spacious and great for early years. Here you can see some of the children enjoying the almost complete facilities.

This is one of the caregivers in her new room - such a difference from being in the church building.......

And here is the morning porridge being cooked!!

After visiting Phiri, I stopped at Limphasa congregation to check how things were going. Unfortunately due to another early years centre being opened across the road by an NGO, many of the children have left. The NGO provides free provision of food, and resources. However, as it is a project, it will finish soon and I am hopeful that the children will come back again.

It was interesting that while all the children were posing for a photograph, this little lad was very busy playing on his own..........

Its always good to go to a place to find children who were in the Pre-school at Zomba now living. This is Chancy who was in the Zomba school - he is such a lovely wee boy and is in primary 3 now.

Our own school building in Mzuzu is coming on well - since I left in December, plumbing has been done - unfortunately I was not able to talk with the builder to see how things are progressing, but hopefully this coming week I will meet him.

Last week Matt noticed a caterpillar hanging from his door frame - he left it and look what has happened.........

This is stage two............it seems to have lost its head.............

Watch this space and maybe next week you will see stage 3 - I wonder what will emerge!! Its very exciting!!

Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead. I am writing this today as the next few days will be busy with guess what........more visitors!!

Blessings,

Diane

Beautiful creation...........

Hello everyone,

Its been another busy week in Mzuzu. Monday was a national holiday - it was Kamuzu Day, and I was taking a friend back to the airport in Lilongwe. On the way we did some walking in the hills of the Vyphia - it was a beautiful day, the flowers were stunning, and so this weeks blog is really all about the beauty of creation........

Lovely yellow flower peeping out of the grass...........with a gorgeous blue below

Small yellow daisies provide masses of colour...

the protea - the national flower of South Africa........out of focus but still a nice picture

stunning scenery - really could be anywhere in Ireland.........only it was a few degrees warmer!!

Army ants - not something you want to stand on. Many a poor traveller (myself included) has had to remove all clothes and jump into water to get rid of them - they have quite a sharp bite!!

I love the light of the sunset beginning...........

A wonderful shot of a beetle hanging on.........

The colours of the flowers are amazing at this time of year..........

The rest of the week was spent in the office, trying to sort out files and letters which had been received in my absence. Then on Friday afternoon, I got all the stuff which came in the container and with Fiona, tried to organise it to send to our Early Childhood Centres.........as you can see there is quite a lot!! So, now at least it is in a more manageable form. We are going to have Presbytery competitions to encourage caregivers to work hard in the Early Childhood Centres, and the best one per Presbytery will receive a lovely gift for their centre.

Once again, we have a fuel shortage in Malawi - there was no fuel for 3-4 days and now that I have some I am reluctant to use the car as we never know when it will come again!

A good friend lost a daughter this week too, which was very sad - she had been ill for some time but was a young woman who could have had a bright future.

So a busy but fruitful week. I hope you had a good one too.

Wishing you many blessings until next time,

Diane x

Back to porridge......

Hello everyone,

Good morning from a sunny bright morning in Mzuzu. Its been a busy week with many visitors passing through just for a change.....

Its nice to go into the garden, look up into the tree and see this lovely face peering back at you. Pemphero has just learned to climb my tree to find a ball he lost - unfortunately the ball was never found!!

On Monday and Tuesday we had an International Partnership Conference at Ekwendeni where the CCAP invited all their partner churches and organisations to come together to discuss the way forward.

Everyone received t-shirts with the logo on the back!

The workshop had reports from each department within the Synod as well as reports from all the partners, so it was a tiring couple of days for all concerned.

Quite an amusing moment when I spotted Rev Mvula deep in thought with his glasses hanging off his chin - he spotted me taking the photo and started laughing!

The two PCI delegates.......... anyone know who they are???

On another subject entirely, a lovely mantis outside the door one evening at home

Some of you will recognise this lady - Florida Nyambose who has been to Ireland a few times. She came to visit on Friday - she is my African grandmother - Agogo.

As many of you know Matt Williams is staying at my house for a few weeks before he moves to Ekwendeni. I also have another girl, Sara, staying but I don't have any photos of her. Here is Matt learning to wash his clothes African style........

And here.....its looks like he is being led away by this fierce young man with dark glasses, - in fact they were playing football!

Matt's prize possession.......his new bike - if you ever visit and diesel or petrol is in scarce supply as it is at present - don't worry, Matt can carry a passenger...for a fee of course!!

It was wonderful to go back to school and see the good work going on there. The children were so excited to see me again! I was not in school much the first week as I was struggling to do my assignment, but this past week it was all go again.

The children all look so happy and healthy...... In Early Childhood Development, we are going to have a workshop to train more Trainers of Trainers (ToT's) in for Presbyteries who do not have them. We will be conducting interviews as we look for suitable people. Please pray that the right people will be chosen for this challenging volunteer work.

Its good to be back in the warm heart of Africa, where the sunsets are lovely (mind you the weather during my stay in Ireland was good and sunsets there were spectacular too). I hope you all have a good week.

Until next time, blessings,

Diane

Dust, mould and frogs!!!

Hello everyone

Its been a long time since my last posting and I have had a busy time in Ireland. It was good to be with friends and family but I missed Malawi very much and its great to be back. I was very tired on leaving Ireland and the flight was good although not much sleep. By the time I reached Mzuzu I was shattered. However, just last Thursday a container had arrived from PCI and the contents were stored in a hall, so the following day I had to go and get all the boxes for Early Childhood - there were many! Thanks to those who contributed. Now I have the job of distributing all the contents!!

And how do I know I am back in Malawi - well, the visitors have begun already! I had one the first couple of nights and now I will have two people stay for some time........

The house was very dusty as some rooms had not been opened in four months. I was delighted not to find any unwanted animals apart from cockroaches! Some things were a bit mouldy as I had been away during the rainy hot season when it gets quite humid at times. I did find this poor wee frog on the door handle of one of the rooms but he looked quite sweet!!"

Not a lot to report this week - am extremely tired and have an assignment due on Friday so hope that I manage to get it done on time. Will write more next week when things calm down a bit (in my dreams).

Thanks to everyone for their kindness, for giving me lots of cups of coffee and buns and food galore - so much in fact that when I went to put on a skirt it would not close! The diet has gone back to more basic food already.

Till next time..........have a wonderful week and hope the Royal wedding was enjoyed by all - I saw photos and it looked very nice!

Blessings

Diane