Hi there,

This week has been a bit less hectic in terms of rushing here and there. Its been nice to spend a whole week at home! Rains have still not come to Mzuzu although around the country there has been some rain. I have been in the office most of the week catching up on paperwork. We are having a 2 week training in Mzuzu Presbytery in December so I am busy organising that! On Wednesday I was leading morning prayers here at the Synod - the them was 'Fruit of the Spirit' - I actually enjoyed it!!

I finished off a craft project this week - usually in the evenings I am too tired to do any sewing but I managed to finish my quilt cover!!

This young man started the Pre-school here in Mzuzu when I arrived in the north. He comes to visit and I was delighted this week as he was able to read me a story (in English!!) - makes me feel proud when I see children developing like this.
On Friday night I attended a Thanksgiving dinner with some American missionaries who work and live in Mzuzu. There were quite a few kids there and after the food they were outside playing - it was dark. One of them saw something move and it was one of these.......a black mamba! This is not the actual snake as I did not have my camera. It did not survive long!!

For three days Enala, Nicolas and Emily our trainers were in Malangazi with the caregivers from nine nursery schools. They had a great time - here you can see Enala teaching. When they came back yesterday they brought me a gift from the minister of a large sack of ground nuts (peanuts) - absolutely delicious..........

As I don't have many pictures this week I thought I would show you some of the colourful trees we have here in Mzuzu! This one is a Cassia tree and it is my least favourite as just before it blossoms my asthma flares up!! It does look beautiful though.

This is the flamboyant bloom which is fabulous - in Mzuzu these days we have such a colourful display of them.

This in in my garden - the bourgenvillia - I love this blossom as do the birds in the garden.

Malawi is home to many frangipani trees both the pink and the yellow blossom - such a pretty tree.

And for Molly - your Gogo came to visit me this week - she is in great form and sends lots of love to you and your mum!!

Hope you have a wonderful week ahead.

Blessings

Diane

Chitipa trip

Hello again from a warm and humid day in Mzuzu,

I never thought I would be glad to hear the sound of thunder bringing rain our way, but it was lovely this morning to hear the loud brattle of thunder. Unfortunately it just brought a sprinkling of rain to Mzuzu but the temperature has dropped a few degrees which is nice. It must be raining somewhere nearby!

As I said last time, I went on a trip to Chitipa to meet with the District Social Welfare Officer about what we as CCAP are doing in Early Childhood Development in Chitipa district.

Chitipa is in the far north west of Malawi - it is one of my favourite places in the country. Its a rural area with a road leading to it that leaves a lot to be desired - its about two and a half hours of very rough dirt road. I was pleasantly surprised as it is one of the roads being tarred in Malawi and although it is still dirt, it has been smoothed out a lot and so the bumps were not as severe as last time. I am just glad that I had the opportunity to experience the 'real' Chitipa road, before it becomes tar!

However, as on all dirt roads at this time of year, there was an awful lot of dust with the result that I have been coughing ever since!! Here, this gives an idea of what it is like to drive behind a truck....

What makes up for the dust and dirt though are the colours at this time of year - the trees are fabulous - its like autumn when the trees are changing colour - stunning.
But of course, a journey would not be normal without being stuck in the sand! Coming close to Chitipa town there is a patch of road which is really sandy - we were approaching Chitipa just at dusk and there were many lorries heading back to Karonga and being bigger than us, we moved to the side, only to get stuck again!

But many folk came to push - its a great photo with the dust all over us!!

As I said Chitipa is rural and beautiful with such friendly people. I am always amazed at the resilience and hard work ethic of people here.

How would you like to send your child to this nursery school? It is made of local bricks and mud and has a grass thatch roof. It is small and has an attendance of about 30 children. This may seem very basic to you, but in a part of Malawi which is not easily accessible, I take my hat off to the people who have the initative to make their own structures and not ask for handouts. There are many nursery school similar to this all over the district and credit should be given to the trainer who works there, Foster and to the Social Welfare department. I had a good meeting with the Social Welfare, shorter than planned which gave me more time to visit the district.

At Chitipa itself we have a nursery school - you can see the church in the background. I was delighted to see that they have made some play materials like the see-saw and the swing. Its brilliant that they are portable and can be brought inside at night.

While there, I went to visit some nursery schools and on the way we passed a couple of villages like this - unfortunatley I did not manage to take as wide a shot as I would have liked. There is one house in the foreground which belongs to a man (possibly a chief) and then 4 or 5 houses around like the one in the back right - each one of these houses belongs to a wife of the man! A good arrangement!!

Another one of our nursery schools..........Maligumu CBCC (Community Based Childcare Centre)

With Nicolas and Foster inside - you can see the sunlight coming through the roof - so you can imagine for yourselves what it will be like in the rainy season which is soon to be here!

When we first did training in Chitipa in 2008, we talked a lot about hygiene and toilet training. A week after that training I went with Foster to see some of the centres and we found that one of them had made a local toilet for the children out of mud - a pit latrine. I went to see it last week and found that although it is now not being used (they have built a new one), it is still usable even after two rainy seasons!!

Chitipa is a place of many languages. Chitumbuka is the main language in the north of Malawi but in Chitipa there are 26 languages! This is partly because it borders with both Zambia and Tanzania. We travelled to a nursery school on the Tanzanian border and it was really interesting to see that neither Nicolas (speaking Chitumbuka) or Foster (speaking Chilambia) were able to communicate with the children! Eventually with the help of one of the caregivers, they managed to do a couple of games with them.

The minister at Ipenza, Rev Bipa is a new minister and he is passionate about Early Childhood Development - they are planning to build their own centre just beside the church. We were graciously hosted by him and his wife.

Back to Mzuzu after a tiring trip, to catch up on much report writing and to prepare for a Parent Teacher meeting on Saturday. However on Thursday we had more excitement as our school was turned into a clinic in the morning when we had two nurses from the hospital to immunise the children against H1N1. Usually in Malawi, we have under 5 clinics where parents take their children for immunisation or health checks. However we are finding that it easier for health personnel to come to a school, and with the parents permission, we can do the job in a shorter time. All children under 5 in the country are being immunised this week.

The children did not appreciate the visitors - we had a lot of screaming as they received their injections. Children were in a queue inside the school and the nurses were outside on the verandah. Each child came in crying after their jab which did not instill much confidence for those waiting. One brave little lad said 'I will not cry'. After his injection didn't cry... he screamed!! However, after a few minutes he was fine, and then he laughed at the children coming after him crying!!

Nicolas had to do an assignment for his Diploma course which was to make an exercise for the children to do in class. Here you can see it successfully taking place as one child is blindfolded and trying to match local objects! Its always exciting to see progress at school!

All in all, a good week. We had a very successful Parent Teacher meeting yesterday - it is a pleasure to work with the parents we have, they are very understanding.

Wishing you a great week as you prepare for they Christmas rush, if it has not already started. No sign of it here yet thankfully!

Blessings

Diane

PS...thanks for the lovely comments - makes doing this so worthwhile!!

gathering chickens for Africa....

Hello everyone from a very hot and sunny day in Mzuzu!!

I thought I should update the blog today as tomorrow I am off to Chitipa for a couple of days. As you saw in an older blog, on the car which I drive are the following words......the gathering for Africa. I will come back to this later............. (had to put the picture here as I just thought about it!)

Its mango season, and although this mango may not look as perfect as you can buy in Sainsbury's or Tesco's I can assure you that the taste is much better............

and the price is not bad either - I could buy about 25 mango's for a pound!!

I thought I should give you an update on the school. The finish of the first building is coming close ... plastering is being done and pointing outside and hopefully drains will be put in next week before the rains come.


Inside the building is looking good - this is only one half of the 3-6 years classroom. Its a wonderful space for children.

and we have squat toilets which will flush (but due to not having the doors on yet, we can't put the cisterns or they will be stolen).

So I am happy with the progess of the school , we just have to pray for more funding so that we can complete the whole project.


On Friday I went with Nicolas to Embangweni to meet Hlezipe our trainer in Loudon Presbytery. In the picture below Hlezipe is 2nd from the right. The two ladies in the photograph are the caregivers at Loudon CCAP Nursery school. Hlezipe does an amazing job - she cycles to the nursery schools for monitoring and training and distances are huge. God is doing an amazing job for the young children of Malawi through the dedication and committment of people like Hlezipe.

We were also priviliged to vist Hlezipe's home village while there - this is Hlezipe with her son and her mother in law.

In the village there is a women's co-operative where they are growing mushrooms. I found this very interesting - you can see the homemade green house with plastic sheeting and grass outside.

and here are some mushrooms growing...........

Arriving back at Hlezipe's house, in true Malawian style Nicolas and myself were given gifts of chickens (live) to take home and a large bag of beans from the garden. I was given a symbolic white chicken...............(job for later is pulling its neck!!)

and Nicolas was given a black chicken!!!

On the way back to Mzuzu we pass through Chikangawa forest. This is a very large forest plantation although over recent years it has been shrinking due to deforestation. Over the past month there have been raging forest fires and last weekend two men died due to the fire. There are areas of the forest that we drive through which is completely blackened. As we came up the road, we could see the smoke coming across the road, and when we got to the point where the fire was it was quite dangerous as it literally was on the side of the road - we just prayed our way through the smoke. The land is so dry as we have not had rain for some time and it is extremely hot these days which adds to the problem. Hopefully when the first rains come it will cool the fires.

Just before we reach Mzuzu there is a permanent road block. We were stopped and the policeman asked where we were going. I told him and he asked me what was the significance of the gathering for Africa on the car.......to which I replied that we were gathering chickens for Africa if he would like to check in the back...........hence the title of this blog!! We found it very funny at the time!!

This morning I was at a wedding of Rev Banda's second born daughter. It was a very happy occasion. Here you can see the bride dancing down the isle with her father looking very happy! Coming towards them you can see the groom with his father also dancing.

The proud father's hand over their children to each other and then they dance back up the isle with the new bride and groom following behind.

The bride and groom with both sets of parents after the ceremony.

As I sit here writing the blog, the Air Malawi plane has just landed at the airport which is a few minutes walk from my house. This is the plane, and I am not sure if it is clear enough but you can see the road with cars driving just behind the plane, and another road with people walking just in front of it. I reckon its quite a dangerous place to have an airport. As the plane takes off it just misses the roof of my house and sets the car alarm off every time!! It is quite frightening sometimes driving along the road when you hear the roar of an aircraft and find it landing just beside you!! The joys of living in Malawi!!

Wishing you all a wonderful week. Thanks for all your comments - much appreciated.

Blessings,

Diane

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