travel and visitors....

Hello all...

I had intended to write last weekend but I was called away to another Curriculum workshop on Monday which meant I had to drive all day on Sunday. I left Mzuzu at 9am and arrived in Zomba just after 6pm. The journey was beautiful as I took the lakeshore road. In Mzuzu we still have much rain every day and its cold but along the lakeshore it was beautiful with the sun shining and the warm temperatures. The land is really dry as you can see in the photos.

I had a challenging journey - there were many people going to church so the roads were congested with people walking, and many goats running out in front of me, and cows crossing the roads......concentration is the key to driving in Malawi.

You can see how dry the terrain is here.

I was amazed - its only 3 years since I moved from Zomba to Mzuzu and yet there are many more new and beautiful mosques along the lower lake shore and along the road to Zomba.

As I approached Zomba passing malosa, it was getting dark and I took this rather dramatic picture - there was a large fire in the mountains - the picture does not do it justice as I had driven almost past it before I thought about taking a picture but it looked pretty ferocious and hot.

When I reached Zomba it was in total darkness - no electricity for a couple of hours - the next night it was the same!! Makes me glad to be in Mzuzu where we do have electricity usually in the evenings.

I was attending the second curriculum development workshop for Early Childhood Development in Malawi which was really good, challenging and gave us cause for many arguments about child development and the way forward for the country of Malawi. Here you can see some of my colleagues at work!

and some just relaxing!!!

On Friday I left at 5am for Lilongwe where I was picking up a team of 15 from Ballycarry Presbyterian Church who are in Malawi to work alongside Kachere CCAP doing a Bible club with the sunday school and building some play materials for the nursery school. We arrived home around 8pm on Friday night so they were all tired. The road was long because the minibus was feeling the strain with so much luggage on the roof!

Last night, we had a meal together and then there was choir practice as the group were singing in church this morning....

Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of them singing in church. Maybe next week. It was a long day as there were two services so we began at 8am and finished around 1pm!!

Here you can see the minister of the congregation - the tallest man on the left hand side of the picture. He is standing in the site of what will be their nursery school.

This picture shows where the outdoor play materials are going to be built so if you check out the blog next week, you might see a different picture of the same site!!

We had a great service in church today - Rev Mwanza was preaching about life in the Spirit and he was fantastic - here you can see him in action - any ideas why he is hugging a cushion?? Answers on a postcard please! Only joking. You can ask any member of the Ballycarry team when they go back to Ireland!!

Wishing you all a blessed and joyous week.

Diane x