stuck.........in the sand.......twice!!!

Hello everyone......

Yes, its been a long time since I last wrote. First of all one of these friendly little creatures gave me malaria, so I was not well for a few days, but thankfully much better now.

Then my computer lead decided it had had enough and it would not work anymore. I had a major panic - all my documents are on the computer for work, emails are there, what was I to do?? My good friend Carson came to my rescue - he was able to get a new lead and send it to me - thanks Carson!! It arrived a few days ago and now I have life in the computer again! Its amazing how much we rely on computers - although I had most important work on an external drive, its no good unless you have a computer to plug it into!

And........to top it all, when I got back from the field yesterday and went to download my photos, they had all disappeared!! So, this morning I got onto the internet and have managed to retreive most of them! The joys of technology!!

A few months ago a new nursery school was opened in Mzuzu which is under the Catholic Church here. I am on the Board of this school, and it was officially opened on 9th October. I was invited to the ceremony - its a beautiful school as you can see and I know that many children will gain a lot from here.

The Director of the school.


The climbing frame.


The homemade slide - made out of plastic drums. Notice the purple jacaranda trees in the background - Mzuzu is in full bloom at present.

The kids having fun showing the guests what they can do. It was a great morning.

Occasionally I go for a walk with some friends around Mzuzu dam - its amazing to think that we are in the city when you look at this photograph!

Such a still beautiful setting...........

Boys fishing in the dam, even though it is not allowed!!

A couple of weeks ago we had a training in Rumphi where two of our trainers conducted a workshop. I went there last week with Nicolas to talk with the trainer and find out if the training had been successful. We found the caregivers busy playing with the children.

Here you can see a new caregiver - Nicolas was chatting with her to see if she understood the concepts she learnt at the training the previous week.

Nicolas having fun with the kids...........

Last week we took the new car on its maiden journey to Bandawe Presbytery to meet the trainer there and deliver some books (thanks to Hill St Pres Missionary Committee) to some of our centres. All was well, the roads were narrow but fine.................

unfortunately it is on the lakeshore, there is a lot of sand. We reached our destination but there was not a place to turn the car. So.......I found a lovely clearing and as I tried to turn......

we got stuck in the sand...........

Local people were very helpful and we managed to get out quite quickly!

One of the bridges we had to cross..

We came across this lovely playground in the middle of nowhere. Locally available materials can make a lovely play area for young kids.

Yesterday we left early in the morning for 3 days training at Usisya which is in Mzuzu Presbytery but is really quite remote. It is north of Nkhata bay on the lakeshore - there is only one road to Usisya, it is impassible in the rainy season but access can be made by the Ilala, the lake steamer. This was our second attempt to reach Usisya, the last journey was cancelled due to the road being closed.

As we travelled down from the mountains, this was our hazy glimpse of the lake............

The view of the bay......

Usisya - such a beautiful place, but very hot and very sandy at this time of year.

As we travelled along, our trusty men in the car decided we should go off road for a shortcut. The result...........we got stuck in the sand. Here you can see Nicolas digging sand from behind the wheel before we managed to find planks to put in.............

Pushing the car out of the sand........eventually..........in the sweltering heat of the morning.

The job in process - we had 8 caregivers from the four nursery schools, who as you can see were really enjoying themselves. Unfortunately I do not have a photo but lunch was nsima (thick porridge) made from Cassava, which makes it very stodgy and glue like, and small fish. This is not my most favourite meal in the world, but when in Rome...........

While the caregivers were busy dancing inside the church building, outside there was a herd of cattle desperately looking for water. Usisya is extremely hot at this time of year - even at 9am it was too hot for me (and I like hot weather)!!

Here you can see me with Rev Tembo and his wife who God is using to do many good things in Usisya. To all you good people out there who pack boxes for the PCI containers, you can see the boxes behind in the picture. We have 4 nursery schools in Usisya and we gave each school two boxes. In such a remote place, this will really help the caregivers in the schools.

Take note of the beautiful albino child on the back of the lady behind us. Usually when I meet Malawian children for the first time they are frightened because of my colour, but it was interesting that this child had the same reaction - even though we are the same colour, but she had not seen many white people in her young life. The climate in Usisya is not favourable for this child.

Due to some work I have to do I had to come back in the evening, and leave the trainers to complete the work. Some of the road has been graded but there is a lot of sand and dust and it is slippy - just like driving in frost. Some of the road is extemely steep (like the Torr Head road) and its on a cliff edge!

As we travelled along I tried to take photos - this is the road we have just travelled on from the opposite side of the valley - I thought the gorodi road to Livingstonia was bad but this one is definitely worse!!

What a fabulous sunset - the colours were amazing. The picture does not do it justice!

I hope you all have a great week and don't have the problem I seem to have these days of getting stuck in the sand!! Its great to feel well again! Hope you all have an exciting and blessed week,

Diane x

'learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow'