aching limbs and exhaustion!!

Hello all

Apologies for no posting last week - this was due to a number of factors - the internet connection was so bad that nothing would work, I had a very busy week as usual, and I think I am suffering from exhaustion. I woke up this morning with aching limbs and no energy - all of last week I have had a dreadful sore head, but lets hope it gets better soon!

This did not deter me of course from the usual hectic schedule. We were in Rumphi for a morning at the nursery school trying to encourage the caregivers and give them a few ideas of what to do with the children. As you can see everyone was having fun! Take note of the number of toys and the amount of equipment available to the children!!

We had our second meeting with directors of nursery schools in Mzuzu and we addressed the topics of discipline and Monitoring and Evaluation. The discipline topic was long as it is a big issue in our nursery schools. One question asked was how to deter a child from biting another child in a school. We opened the floor for answers and the most dominant answer was that to deter a child from biting you put some chicken dung on the child's arm and ask them to bite it, and guess what.........they will never bite another child again! We were horrified by this and by a few other answers, and by the response we received when we encouraged positive discipline, I reckon it will be a long time before things change in the schools!

Last weekend, I went to Chitimba on the lake with Fiona. It was lovely after the rain of Mzuzu to see the sunshine again. Here you can see Chombe mountain in the background with the lovely green surrounding the villages in the foreground.

Me relaxing at the lake!!

I have been in Malawi for some time and the sun rising and setting never ceases to amaze me. This was a sunrise - so beautiful!

I had a call from an Irish lady who is involved in a project called 'Well's for Zoe' here in Mzuzu. She was asking for help in training the caregivers in their nursery school. I went to visit the school to find out more about it. Its a beautiful setting with a lot of land and beautiful buildings and outdoor play materials for the children. I was discouraged by the teacher centred approach to learning but we can assist the caregivers to understand more about child centred approach and play as a mode of learning.

A team is coming from PCI in July and I would like to take them to a couple of rural nursery schools so last Monday I went with Fiona, Nicolas and Memory(in the picture) to see where would be suitable. Unfortunatley the two schools we had chosen were not in operation that day. One school's building was being used for school exams so the nursery was not happening, and the second one where the photo is taken was at a primary school, but the caregiver had gone to the hospital with her child and so the school was not on that day! These are the challenges we face in villages. Memory in the photo is the trainer in Ekwendeni presbytery and she has to travel long distances by foot to reach these schools. As you can see the primary school children were very excited to see us..........

The Association of Pre-school Playgroups in Malawi is organising training for caregivers at the end of May for 2 weeks and have asked CCAP to be the main facilitators. We had a meeting on Wednesday to discuss logistics of the training and in this photo you can see Mr Kajani from the association with Nicolas and Enala as we plan for the workshop.

and this just made my day...the other morning when I was in school and the kids were arriving, this little boy just looked at the little girl, and shouted hug and this is the result. Such happy kids, I hope it makes your day too!

So life continues to be busy, sometimes too busy - everyone wants you to deal with them and its difficult with such a big catchment area trying to organise things! But its exciting to see so many good things happening to help the lives of our chidlren in Malawi!

Wishing you a great week wherever you are in the world.

Blessings

Diane