Time.........where does it go???

Hello everyone and thank you for visiting my blog once again!  Its been a few weeks since I updated it - it seems I never have time as it takes a couple of hours to upload the photos on our good old internet!!

Have been really busy with some travelling and I thought I had better update it as I am on the move again on Monday!  Here is the latest billboard in Mzuzu which I think is great - we have a lot of child trafficking in Malawi with it being a landlocked country and borders are not secure.

About 4 years ago, I asked on the blog if anyone would be able to help me with fees for this young man - this is Fidelis who I met in Chitipa in 2008 when he was also working in child development.  He left in 2009 to join African Bible College in Lilongwe where a couple of weeks ago he completed his degree and graduated.  I was able to get help for his second semester and then a few people gave me some a little every now and then so its been a struggle, but at last he has finished.  You can see he is a happy guy and is now thinking about the future!  Thanks to those who have assisted me over the four years in paying his fees at college.

While I was in Lilongwe for graduation it was a real joy to meet Peter in the photo below.  Peter stayed in Zomba when I first came to Malawi and we were neighbours for a couple of years before he moved back to the states.  Since then we have met a few times on and off in Malawi and in South Africa!  He just happened to have a couple of days in Lilongwe when I was down and we met up - great to catch up on what has happened over the years  (and to compare each other's grey hair!!).

Back from Lilongwe on Sunday night only to find out that I am due in Mangochi on Tuesday for a workshop........so Monday was a hectic day trying to get organised to leave on Tuesday morning for the long drive to the southern lake shore.  Going down the lakeshore road I passed the rubber plantations and there was good light in the morning to take a picture of the rubber tapping process!!

I had not been in Mangochi since my time in Zomba 7 years ago and the roads have vastly improved!  There are more people and more cars too.  However the villages are mainly just the way they were all those years ago!

Part of the reason for going to Mangochi was to visit a pilot project of Save the Children's where they have been using a community radio in their nursery schools to assist in rural areas where teachers are not trained and there is low level of literacy.  Here you can see children in one centre waiting for the programme to start - the radio is on the floor in the middle of the circle!

After the programme it was playtime outside and this young lad was having a great time beating the drum!

Another early years centre where we arrived as the children were having their morning porridge!!

The Southern lake is very beautiful but I did not expect to find camels wandering along the lakeshore!  We were in the meeting on the second day up to 8pm so we did not see the lake at all really.  At 5pm we broke for afternoon tea!! and I noticed these camels on the beach - they belong to the owner of the lodge we were staying at!

The main mode of transport here is bicycle and on the way home to Mzuzu I was driving along and saw these two poor pigs on the way to market!  The one on the right did not look too alive but the pink one on the left was squealing his heart out!  The irony of it all is that the area I was passing through is a Muslim area (where people don't eat pork!!)

Back home and the sunrise the next morning was quite stunning!

A few days ago, Matt in Ekwendeni (who many of you will know) and I were invited to go and have lunch at this guy's restaurant.  He has opened his restaurant in one of our markets - we had great food and it is good to see him so happy!

This morning I had a call from a colleague that the Girls Brigage in Mzuzu and Ekwendeni were meeting for the GB world day of prayer which is on Monday but they were having their worship today after marching round the city!  I was called to photograph the event! It was great to see and be part of.

Apart from that I am organising training for caregivers and committees in our rural areas, organising monitoring by our trainers and organising a workshop in July to be held in Ekwendeni and another one in August!  So its a busy time.  I am due to go on deputation in September but what I really need is a holiday!

Have a great weekend and a good week ahead!

Blessings,

Diane

Another packed week!

Hello everyone

I hope this finds you all well!  Once again its been a busy week with one or two unexpected things adding to the job!  Nicolas, Rodney (one of our trainers) and myself travelled to Phiri congregation in Nkhata Bay to meet the committee of one of our Early childhood centres.  This is one of our centres which was build by donors, but unfortunately the donors are controlling the centre and there is no committee involvement even though the donor is pulling out in 2013.  So my job is to set up a sustainability measure to make sure that the centre will keep going after the donor leaves!  Here you can see the minister of the congregation on the left Rev Chimaliro together with some of the committee.  The chairman is the one on beside Rev Chimaliro with the amazing smile!!

Here you can see me listening to what the committee have to say - I don't know if I have the pen under my chin to keep me quiet until its my turn to respond!!!

While we were there we had to visit the centre and found many of the children busy playing with blocks and they seemed healthy and happy!

Outside  a lot of children were also having fun in the newly built sandpit!  The centre is one of our most beautiful and I hope we can work out measures for its sustainability!

The next day, I had planned to organise a lot of activities that are taking place in June when I got a message that a container from PCI has arrived.  I thought there was not much for Early Childhood so I wasn't too bothered!!  The container was opened and had to be inspected by the customs officials before unloading and after unloading!!

Unlike where the container is loaded, we have no mechanical devices to assist in the unloading so it takes a lot of man power!  And it takes a lot of time - all afternoon to be exact!

Many of the materials unloaded waiting to be checked!

Of course the unloading has to be supervised so a member of each department is around to check that their materials have come.  Here you can see Nicolas from ECD, Luso from the Secretariat and Sangster from Health Department.  Many of you will have met all of these three as they have all been in Ireland!

And I said I did not think there would be much for ECD - well my office is full, my spare bedroom is full, my living room is half full, the khonde (verandah) is half full and the shed outside is full!  Now to the job of sorting and distributing the materials...........  But the comments from the customs people and all the Department representatives were that the quality of materials was fantastic.  So thank you to one and all who contributed to this container!

On Friday, to say thank you for the hard work in unloading the container, I took Nicolas and my staff at home Mr Nyirenda and Annex out for lunch.  They were so excited and the comment from Annex was that 'since I born, I never been in a restaurant'!  Made me feel very humble but I am glad they had a great time and I am sure it will be the subject of many stories over the weekend!

On another note altogether, my lemons in the garden are ready...........maybe I need to set up a stall in the market to sell them all!!

And finally for this week, I went to visit one of my colleagues here Mrs Mpamba who inherited these beautiful children when her sister-in-law died.  The children were just two months old when their mother died and they are now 9 months old!  They are growing really well and are really different not only in appearance but in personality!  The one on the left, Thokozani, is full of life and full of fun, while chisomo, his older brother is very timid and scared and tearful!  I admire Mrs Mpamba for the way she has taken these children into her home to add to her family, and for the love and compassion she has for them.  She is a truly amazing lady!

The following day, I wanted to take a few small things to Mrs Mpamba for the children. As I arrived at her house I was surprised that some children were shouting 'Teacher Diana'.... I knew that none of the children at our school were from this area, but then I found out that some of the children go to another of our centres and they recognised me! Its not easy to be anonymous in Malawi when there are children around!  As you can see they were really excited!!

So its been both a busy and fruitful week and I thank God for the many things that have happened this week.  I also had a disappointment as someone I considered a good friend has really let me down and I am extremely hurt and would value your prayers.  Sometimes people turn out to be different from who you thought they were!

Wishing you all a great week ahead!

Blessings,

Diane

Happy days and sad days...

Hello everyone from a bright and sunny Mzuzu!

Its been a few weeks since I updated the blog but that does not mean its been any less busy!  I have been all over the place!  A few weeks ago I was out in the city to visit a friend and on the way I had to cross a very deep ditch which was full of running water - it had been raining for a couple of days before this!  Anyway, I got through and this shows the road (yes its a road!!) that I went through to the house.  However, on the way back this is what I came across - this lorry was stuck in the ditch, and it had a load of bricks on so it was not moving anywhere fast!!

That meant I was quite stuck in here as there is only one road!  Having gone to assess the situation, the guys on the lorry plus the hundred spectators assured me that I would get through beside the lorry!  Well, what choice did I have??  Off I went but I was not too hopeful thinking I would probably get stuck too!  Indeed I did - not only did I get stuck but I skidded into the lorry and heard a loud crash of smashing glass - thought I had wrecked the back light!  As it turns out its only cracked thankfully.

With some pushing and shoving and the four wheel drive eventually I got out and went home in a filthy car, but I heard that the lorry was still there the next day, so am glad I tried!!

I had a meeting in Lilongwe to review the Early Childhood programme that the World Bank were doing in Malawi and so I had to travel down the day before.  I took my time and took a few pictures on the way.  There are fields and fields of sunflowers at this time of year - grown for oil and seeds and I just love them - they make me smile!!

Its always fun to drive through a trading centre on market day and here you can see the scene at Jenda - ox carts and people carrying their wares to sell.

In Lilongwe it was great to see how to change a wheel on a bicycle - you use a panga knife - not sure how the tube would have fared though!!!

And of course on the way back, the broken down tobacco lorries - the tobacco auctions have opened and lorries like this are travelling on the roads these days, most of them overloaded and many of them broken down!

Back to Mzuzu on a tuesday and back to Lilongwe on Thursday this time bound for Stellenbosch in South Africa with Nicolas for a conference!  We arrived on Friday and on Saturday we had a free day so we went to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela had spent 17 years in prison.  I had been there before some years ago but for Nicolas it was his first time in South Africa and he was so excited!  This is a view of table mountain from the boat.

The conference was a Southern African Montessori conference and the keynote speaker was Lynne Lawrence from UK.  She has published many books and is a fantastic speaker.  We had a great time - met many different people from all over South Africa and learnt about a project taking place in rural Kenya!  The conference was outside Stellenbosch so we had the privilege of having dinner with one of our Malawian minsters who is studying there!

Lynne Lawrence

 Nicolas was sitting at a table of all women and as you can see he was in his element!!  In fact there were only a couple of men there as is usual in early childhood all over the world!!

Coming back we left Stellenbosch at 4.45am to get the flight from Johannesburg to Lilongwe.  After having seen Capetown and Joburg from the air, Nicolas was really shocked to see Malawi - the thing that shocked him most was the lack of tarred roads.......we laughed a lot!

While we were in Stellenbosch I received a message that Rev Ted Mwambira had passed away very suddenly.  Many of you reading his met Ted - he was a very outgoing and loving person and well respected all over the world.  On our arrival back to Mzuzu, we found that the funeral service was the following morning.  St Andrews church is a large church and it could not accommodate the number of people coming to pay their respects to the family.  We were there all day and eventually the service began just before 5pm when the remains arrived from the mortuary.  Its a long story which I will not go into here!!

After the service, the funeral then proceeded to Karonga for burial the next day.  Rev Mwambira will be missed by many both in Malawi and abroad!

The ladies from Umanyano (womens guild) with the wreaths going into the church

Today I have some caregivers arriving from Karonga to spend the next two days in some of our centres in Mzuzu so that they can learn!  On Friday Nicolas and I went to various centres to see which would be the most suitable for them to go to.  We went to one centre where we found the toilet had collapsed in the heavy rains last week......

However, this did not deter children from coming and as you can see they were very happy and in fact kept pestering me to take their photographs!

So today, Sunday, I went to church and have been catching up with emails and other correspondence ever since.  Once the blog is finished and posted I am out for a walk!  Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead!

Blessings

Diane

trip to the lake.........

Hello everyone and welcome to another blog!

I had hoped to write one earlier in the week but I have been out of office for 2 weeks - in Blantyre and then in Salima so I had a lot of work to catch up on in the office!

I headed off to Salima on Easter Tuesday for a workshop to refine the Early Learning Standards for Malawi.  As I was going down the road to Nkhatabay, I had to stay behind this vehicle for quite a while.  As you can see it is packed full of people and tomatoes and iron sheets and plastic basins - and that is only what I can see from the back!!  The road here is so narrow that its impossible to pass so while I was slowly dawdling along behind I thought why not take a photo!

As you can see safety belts are not an issue here!!

This is the view in Salima but when I reached there it was 7.30pm, pitch dark and no street lighting and I had no idea where to go, and neither did anyone I asked!  I phoned a colleague who told me I still had quite a drive to go through sand dunes - I drove another hour before I reached my destination but it would have only taken 30 minutes in the daylight.  The place was in the middle of the sand dunes but I would not have cared it was in the desert I was so tired!!

As I said we were a small team refining one of the documents for Early Learning Development Standards in Malawi.  We always do some ECD songs and games at our workshops and here you can see the Director of Children's affairs in Malawi with Dorothy from Save the Children taking part in a game!!

We did not have time to even look at the lake as we worked all daylight hours!  However I spotted fishermen bringing in these two big fish and Francis decided he wanted a photo with them - they were enormous and very heavy!!

I arrived back on Friday night tired once more from the long drive but thankful to be home in one piece!

Then last week we had various training courses taking place in different areas.  One was in Mzuzu so I took a few minutes to go and see how they were getting on.  Here you can see Madalitso our trainer taking a class - they had a great time!!

Schools started back this week after the Easter holidays (I think I missed Easter this year), and of course there are always challenges and problems at the beginning of term so I had to go and sort out an issue at one of the centres in Mzuzu.  This is the caregiver with one of the children - such a pretty girl!

The past 3 days we have had horrendous weather here - its has been teeming down with rain day and night and because of that bugs and other small creatures are plentiful!  The snails are still in abundance in the garden and some of them are enormous!

And for those of you who appreciate spiders I thought you might like to see this orb spider which has woven an enormous web outside my door.  Here he is actually munching on a fly and I watched him munch munch!  Today he was eating a grasshopper!  I have no idea if he bites or not so am hoping he stays outside. All the more reason to put the mosquito net on tonight I think!!

I am always talking about praying for travel on our roads.  Another incident happened yesterday but thankfully everyone is safe.  The road that I travelled on from Salima has many bridges to cross on it and from Nkhatabay to Mzuzu there are also a few bridges.  Colleagues were in Nkhatabay on Saturday and on the way home they were stopped because one of the bridges has literally washed away with the heavy rains!  I am not sure if they managed to get home or not but I heard people were being transported over the river in canoes!  I will know more in the morning.

Wishing you all a blessed week,

Diane

PS I am taking four days off this week to make up for having no time off at Easter!  I would take a full week but I have an important meeting tomorrow - no rest for the wicked!!