old friends, new friends, visitors and work...........

Hi everyone,

Its been a long time since my last blog but that is not because I have been lying idle!  Its been an extremely busy few weeks with visitors and work!  I had the pleasure of entertaining four lovely ladies from Myres Park in USA who were visiting the Synod.  I had them for lunch at my house and I felt as though I were with old friends.  It was great!

Then I had another visitor this time from Northern Ireland - her name is Joy Ryan and she was passing through Mzuzu and so I was able to provide accommodation for an evening.  It was such a joy when three other Pastors turned up later in the evening, and one of them was Rev Francis Matumba from the Anglican Church and he had been a student at Zomba Theological College.  We had a lot of chat to catch up on.

Rev Francis Matumba

Meanwhile work was continuing through all of these visitors and we had a workshop with four of our trainers to empower them to be supervisors for one of our training programmes.  We had Khwima from Euthini, Prescott from Chitipa, Daniel from Embangweni and Madalitso from Ekwendeni.  We chose them because they are in strategic places within the synod for supervision purposes.  It was a great time of fun and learning together.

Khwima, Prescott, Daniel and Madalitso

myself in action

Nicolas

Khwima giving a presentation

During the workshop, we discussed using locally available materials as play materials.  It was so exciting to see the gourds and seed pods which the participants brought to be used in our ECD centres.

It was during this workshop that I had another visitor for a couple of days, someone that people in Ireland will know well - Rev. Uel Marrs.  It was a pleasure for me to be able to show him one of our workshops as well as our CCAP International Pre-school and our new school building.  I hope Uel enjoyed the visit as much as I did!

In a previous post, I discussed workshops that we were doing with the Private Early Childhood Centres in Mzuzu.  The final one for this year was in November - we had a great time of discussion and learning together, and I hope that we see great things happening in our private centres.

Enala facilitating

one of the caregivers children - isn't he cute!

I also mentioned training the group from Nkhata Bay in a recent blog, where the World Bank have been doing a pilot study in Malawi in four districts.  Last week I was invited to a meeting in Lilongwe to review this study.  I was supposed to arrive on Wednesday night which means leaving at lunchtime on Wednesday.  However, there was no fuel in town (a common occurrence these days).  Thanks to one of our drivers I managed to find enough fuel to get to the meeting.  Well, imagine the pleasant surprise when I arrived in my lodge in Lilongwe to find an enormous room with a bathroom, bedroom and kitchen complete with flat screen TV and a computer in the room.  For those of you in first world countries this is probably standard but believe me this was a real treat for me!

After the meeting, I stayed another night intending to go home on Friday morning.  However, guess what........there was no fuel in town.  Absolutely no petrol or diesel anywhere.  So I had to move out of my nice lodge into a much cheaper place while I searched for fuel.  Eventually I made it home on Saturday night having bought it on the black market - otherwise I might still be in Lilongwe.

The fuel situation is becoming worse.  On Friday I had a meeting here in Mzuzu and one participant was coming from Mzimba (about an hour and a half away).  The meeting was at 8am and she arrived about 1pm - the bus had run out of fuel on the way!  These days we expect higher prices in the shops because fuel is scarce and businesses are finding it difficult to cope.  Who knows where we are headed!

However, today I spent a lovely afternoon with my good friend Estie and Jenny, and the good thing was I was able to walk there - no fuel needed!

Jenny and Estie

Back to nature - by now you must realise my love for the outdoors.  Yesterday I had some children playing in the garden and we were removing lots of hornets nests which are being built all around the house.  We also came across this amazing spiders web which is about 1 1/2 metres wide and extremely strong.  Its a spider of the orb family - not sure which one but I would not like to get too close to it!!

Usually the brighter the colour the more dangerous the spider......... but it is beautiful!!

One of the hornets nests with a couple of small hornets on it - God's creation never fails to amaze me!

And today, as I was walking back from Esties, I passed this beautiful tree with purple and white flowers - such a glorious sight.  Last time I mentioned that we had had a few days of rains - grass is green again and plants are growing very fast due to the heat and humidity.  We have not had any more rain but lets hope it comes soon.  We need it not only for the vegetation, and to fill the dam, but to clear the air..........

On that note, let me wish you a blessed week,

Diane

busy as usual..........

Hello everyone,

Its been another busy week - the beginning of the week was extremely hot even for me and I love the hot weather.  Then in the middle of the week we had a thunderstorm and some heavy rains - it rained in Mzuzu for a couple of days and this has cleared the air - the temperature has come down a few degrees!!  Its lovely to see the dust washed off the vegetation and everything looks new again!

During the week Nicolas and myself went to Enukweni to meet our trainers, Frank and Freeman.  Before we went to the meeting we took the opportunity of visiting the nursery school there.  We found one caregiver with 40 children. She had no resources as there had been a Presbytery rally in the church and some people had been staying in the vestry where the nursery school meet, and they had stolen all the resources!!  Her fellow caregiver was also sick.  What a job!  

On a positive note however, the caregiver was really enthusiastic and the kids obviously loved her.  Here you can see her singing a song with the children outside (due to lack of space inside).  It was really hot that day and the children were outside for about an hour with us and yet there was no water for them to drink.........

Nicolas enjoyed the time and he played some games with the children too!!

The inside of the building where the children were!!  Health and safety is not an issue here.

Beside the church where these children meet, a new church about twice the size is being built.  One of the children ran off and was in the middle of the building site and the poor caregiver was horrified when the workmen shouted at her!  Looking after 40 children is not joke!

On Saturday the PTA at our own school in Mzuzu decided to do more fundraising towards our new school building.  I am struggling to find finances to finish this building, and also struggling to find time to deal with it.  The function was well attended and I await to see on Monday how much money they raised.  By the look of things everyone was having a good time.  These three girls were so busy dancing and showing each other new moves!  It was really quite funny!

Due to the rains and the hot sun, the PTA hired a tent from the army.........

The Head teacher was the Master of Ceremony and she did a brilliant job!!

 Kids on the bouncy castle having fun!!

Apart from that we were busy preparing for workshops that are coming up in the next couple of weeks.  I also spent a couple of hours in the bank on day waiting for a cheque to be cleared.

We have received a new minister at our church, Rev. A M Phiri who was in Chitipa.  This is good for our congregation as we always have the moderator as our minister and because of duties, he was never there!  So we are hopeful that the spiritual life of the congregation will grow with our new minister!

Wishing you a wonderful week of blessings,

Diane

Cape town to Mzuzu...

Hello everyone from a very hot and sunny Mzuzu,

I intended to write last week but lots of things were happening and the blog did not become a priority!  So here we are.  A couple of weeks ago, I was in Capetown for a break with my sister.  

The journey there was quite eventful (as my niece says, always a drama with Auntie Di!!). The car broke down on the way to the airport and so we had to come back to Mzuzu for another vehicle (bear in mind its a 4 1/2 hour journey to the airport).  We got there, now with me having raised BP, and I checked in.  Then we had to wait, and wait....there were no aeroplanes at all in the airport.  At last the plane landed and with the turnaround time I knew that my connection in Johannesburg was going to be tight.  Eventually we took off and I was still hopeful as we approached to land in Johannesburg, when just as we were about to touch down, the plane took off again.........and began circling around, by which stage I knew I had no hope of catching the flight.  After another 15 minutes we touched down, I ran to the desk and explained that I had missed my flight.  The lady checked her computer and said she was very sorry but all flights to Capetown that night were fully booked!!  Then she phoned through to the gate only to find that the flight I was supposed to be on was still there.  So she advised me to run through the airport.  I ran to security and if you have ever flown through Johannesburg, you will understand the queue for security is about a mile long.  I shoved through the people apologizing on the way, and yes.........I made it to the flight. I was the only passenger they were waiting for and I was hot and sweaty after running through the airport.  It was cool in Johannesburg and all the other passengers were wearing sweaters and coats......... but I didn't care, I made it!!  Meanwhile my sister has no idea where I am as the flight should have been earlier and I had no way or no time to get a message to her!!

After this drama, we had a great time although it was quite a lot cooler than Mzuzu. Here are some of the photos...........  table mountain of course.......

a visit to the winelands.....here you can see the vines

the spectacular coastline.......

Camps bay...

music at the waterfront ........I am a Jazz fan, and as usual there was a lot of live Jazz which I really enjoyed!

and just as in Malawi, the craft markets.........

a treat - a cappuccino with a lovely heart design on top!

Not often you see an Ostrich by the sea....

I just love the penguins........

and a lovely picture of some baby owls (owlets??)

while walking in the bush I almost stepped on this rather large beetle!

a seal enjoying the evening sunshine...

and something I would rather not see but it came to meet us as we walked on a path round the back of table mountain - the Cape Cobra!!  This is not the actual one - I asked my sister why she had not taken a picture.....you can imagine the answer!!!

Of course Capetown is well known for its variety of flowers and fynbos and below there are a few pictures of fabulous floral scenery.....

For those of you who know me well, you know my love for art and sculpture and this was an amazing sculpture of a mother and child.......

Inside St Georges Cathedral in Capetown, where Archbishop Desmond Tutu still conducts a service once a month.

the beautifully painted houses of the Cape Malay part of the city.......

and the fabulous bead work.....

The view over the city at night - quite spectacular.......

Then it was back to Malawi, and straight back into work again.  We had the final week of training for some of the Nkhatabay training and here you can see the closing ceremony where the certificates were being handed out.  The Guest of honour is on my right hand side.

This was one of the participants children with his toy, a very special child!

The whole group with their certificates...

This past week has been really busy with meetings of one kind or another - I did not take my camera to any of them.  However, yesterday we had the second day of training with the caregivers from the private schools in Mzuzu - a great day but it was so hot that in the afternoon concentration was not so good!!

As I said its really hot and dry these days - there is a lot of dust and many bush fires around so the air is not as good as usual.  It always amazes me at this time of year when everything is brown and dry that we still have a lot of colour from the trees and flowers.  Here is one of the roses in my garden......gives me something to smile about when there are so many other stressful issues to address in the day!!

Wishing you all a week full of blessings,

Diane x