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!!