From Presbytery meetings to visitors.......

Hello everyone

Seems like so long since I have updated the blog........the days are just flying past!!

This is the time of year when all the Presbytery meetings are on - we have 24 Presbyteries and every weekend three neighbouring Presbyteries meet until the middle of July.  As Head of Department, I am meant to travel to each Presbytery and present a report on Early Childhood Development.  However, apart from it being really tiring (its every weekend), the distances are great and I end up being exhausted!  I went to Loudon, Luwerezi and Champhira a couple of weekends ago and we left really early in the morning and returned past midnight.  Travelling on really bumpy roads and being really cold is not a good combination.  I was so tired the next day.  However it was a fruitful experience as we had a lot of good feedback about our programmes.  Here you can see the three guys I travelled with and I am sure those of you in Ireland will recognise the head of Health Department, Sangster Nkhandwe!  We had great fun on our travels!

Arriving back in Mzuzu after midnight we found it had been raining all day and as we went to drop one of our passengers, we couldn't get through - the road was a complete quire and there were about 10 cars stuck in the mud.  The people on the right were pushing vehicles out!

Some of you have met Annex who works in my garden.  His four month old son who is called Preacher, had hot tea accidentally spilled on his hand and it was quite a severe burn.  He was taken to the hospital and they just covered the raw hand with a bandage - here you can see his distress!

We then took him to a private clinic where he was well treated and the hand is now healing nicely - it is such a relief to see him not crying!  Here you can see him with his parents!

We have been busy making guidebooks and manuals for Church leaders and also for our trainers in the Presbyteries.  To do this we have had various meetings with Trainers who are doing the translation work and adapting our manuals.  Here you can see Mercy and Madalitso busy working on translation! (with a chicken looking on in the background!!)

I have been involved in a workshop in Blantyre where we are trying to develop plans for Early Childhood in Malawi.  On the way I had a 30 minute stop over at  the lake.  It looks lovely in the photo but earlier that day there had been a terrible storm on the lake and 24 fishermen were drowned!

This is the team who were in Blantyre - spot the mzungu....me!!!

As I left Blantyre in the afternoon it was not possible to drive to Mzuzu in one day so I had a stop over at Nkhotakota - a beautiful spot on the lake side!

Moonlight

Sunrise

A couple who I am quite friendly with are adopting a Malawian child who was abandoned - she is like a little doll!  Here you can see another child sucking her toe - it was just so cute I could not resist taking a picture!

Our Presbyteries are split into 4 zones and we had a zonal meeting with our Trainers from the Loudon zone in Mzimba for two days.  In the room I was staying, this notice was on the wall.......

and the wonderful poinsettia bush outside!  A little different from the small pot plant people have in their homes at Christmas time in UK!

Our meeting was concerned with quality of Early Childhood Centres and so we visited two during the second morning.

Hlezipe, Emily, Mary and Angella

Khwima and Nicolas

The first centre was not great for children............

The second one was much better..........

Last week three volunteers who go to Stranmillis college came to visit - they are in Malawi for 4 weeks and are with me for just over two.  They have been volunteering in a few of our Early Childhood Centres in Mzuzu.  However, we are conducting training of committee members and caregivers with one of the local Community Based Organisation outside Mzuzu, so yesterday they came with me to monitor the progress of the training.  On the way we found these two ladies pounding and they let the girls have a go too!

Some of the participants

Here  you can see the girls being introduced to the participants!  People were commenting that they were dressed well - in other words they had their legs covered!!

Today another team are busy working on another manual for Presbytery Early Childhood Committees.  They will finish in the morning and then in the afternoon I will head out to the training again for the closing ceremony!  Its all go.......

Wishing you a good week,  

Blessings,

Diane