Blessings at Easter....

Hi everyone,

Its been a few weeks since my last posting and you will see that I have been kept quite busy - I just never seem to have time to sit down with a nice cup of tea and relax........

As I said in my previous post, our trainers are doing volunteering practice and so either Nicolas or myself visit them at least once during the month they volunteer in a centre. Kamoza is in a nice centre which is being supported by a Norwegian lady and so they had lots of toys and papers and pens (something we never see here in our early years). However, sustainability will be a problem when she pulls out!

Kamoza singing with the children

Cooking porridge at the centre

Enjoying the porridge

Nicolas and myself went to Lilongwe for a day to discuss opening two centres in the city. Livingstonia Synod have some really large congregations in Lilongwe and the Early Childhood Centres will cater for those people who cannot afford to go to any nursery school in town.  I hope that it works!  We had a lovely time sharing with our ministers and other people from the church there.

Of course we have elections on 20 May and there are posters up everywhere in Lilongwe - in Mzuzu its not so bad, but we do have a lot of campaigning going on.  Much of it takes place at the sports stadium which is behind my house, and of course loudspeakers are necessary.......not much peace and quiet these days, and I imagine it will be worse before it gets better!

Its the end of the rainy season (at least its supposed to be but we had heavy rains this morning!).  People are busy harvesting tobacco as you can see here and the auction floors have opened in Lilongwe!  We grow a lot of tobacco in this country - its the main cash crop.

Bringing home tobacco

Coming home from the garden

We went to visit Freeman on his volunteering practice too but were disappointed to find that he was not there and had not told us.  It was not a wasted journey though as we sorted out the mess that the caregivers were calling play materials.........

The children in this centre had no materials and so were very rowdy as there were a lot of them with nothing to do.  Some of them however used their imagination and you can see these two girls found a hole in the floor where they took out sand and filled one of their shoes with it.  As I watched they then progressed to pretend the shoe was a sieve (its as if they were being mummy in the village here!!).  

The chairman of one of the Community Based Organisations (CBO's) came to visit us in the office one day as they have two ECD centres and they wanted training for their caregivers and committees.  Before we committed to anything however we decided to go and visit one of the centres and this is what we found............

This is a typical rural ECD centre in Malawi and the village were really concerned about their children.  After watching the caregiver at work, I was also concerned as she was being very much a teacher with a big stick!  We have agreed to train their caregivers and committees probably next month.

One of the caregivers

the village headman

The children were being checked for weight 

with the parents and some children

End of school term has come very quickly and I was the 'guest of honour' at Enukweni Early Years Centre on 4th April!  It was a good morning and the children were very enthusiastic (except one who cried when she saw the mzungu....the white person).  

With Rev Mtika, the minister of Enukweni

Parents and older children watching

While the children were busy, these two were playing with the mat!!

The day before our school here in Mzuzu closed and three of the children had birthdays so I was asked to go and take photos for the parents.  I thought it would only take a few minutes but it became hours..........

Deborah and Emmanuel below are twins

This is Peace

Last week I was in Johannesburg for the whole week working on Material Redevelopment for Africa with colleagues from all over sub saharan Africa.  It was a great week - wonderful to catch up with old friends and we worked hard but we also laughed a lot! We were writing booklets on Early Childhood Development for teachers which we hope are simple enough for them to understand the concepts!

The whole team

So, its Easter week and thankfully there are no signs of Easter eggs on the shelves here!! However, Easter week services are taking place daily and the Anglicans will be having their way of the cross walks on Friday which is very meaningful to all.  I wish you a blessed Easter time as we celebrate the risen Christ.

Diane x

One of the many birds in my garden!

Hello everyone,

Its been a busy few weeks since my last blog.  Nicolas and myself have been out in the field quite a bit and will be for the next few weeks too!

We had a workshop in Ekwendeni with the ToT's (trainer of trainers) and it was the first time we were all together since I came back to Malawi.

Unfortunately we had to let two of our ToT's go as they had not really done much for the past couple of years, and it was a difficult decision.  We also have lost Enala who was one of the first ToT's and worked in Mzuzu Presbytery.  She was probably the best trainer in the bunch and has gone to Zomba Theological College to train for the ministry......so what could I say as its where I began my work in Malawi!  We will greatly miss her but I know she will be an asset to the ministers in Livingstonia Synod.  Here you can see her receiving a gift from George on behalf of the ToT's.

All in all, it was a useful workshop as we shared experiences and also had the opportunity of doing some observation in some of the local ECD centres.

Children lining up to wash their hands.......

one of the centres in Ekwendeni....

Our trainers are doing an exercise where they are volunteering in their local ECD centre for one month.  This is to enable them to be caregivers so that they understand the problems caregivers face when they are training and monitoring the centres.  We visited Madalitso in Ekwendeni Presbytery.......

Mercy in Jombo Presbytery.......

This centre had received a donation of lego from one of the local NGO's and the children were really enjoying it.

Of course, these are not sustainable in our centres so we also use locally available materials and here you can see Mercy playing with the children using what you would probably call 'rubbish'!!

We also visited Rodney in Limphasa Presbytery..........

Rodney talking to a child

In this centre, we had given them some puzzles a few months ago.  When we arrived I was surprised to see the puzzle there but it was still wrapped in its original wrapping. This is because the caregiver had no idea what to do with it.  So we unwrapped it and showed the caregiver and the children what to do, and it was used the whole morning as one by one children played with it.

We have had some really heavy rains these past few weeks and the day at Limphasa was no exception - this poor lady was soaked as she passed by the centre.

Nicolas also went to Njuyu Presbytery to visit Ernest.  Transport to Njuyu is not easy and on the way back he had to walk for 3 hours to find transport home!!

I also had to go out to visit on of our Primary Schools this last week.  It is a CCAP school called Thandazga and is only four years old.  The school has 7 classes but only four rooms so the other classes meet outside which is not great in the rainy season as you can imagine.  In fact, I was glad it was not raining the day I visited because I would have needed the four wheel drive to get there!

The other excitement this week was that I had an owl in my garden for two days - I have never seen an owl here before - this beautiful creature was looking straight at me when I opened the curtains the other morning.  Then the next day I heard the birds making quite a racket in the garden and when I went to investigate they were yapping at the owl.  Its a Pearl Spotted owlet for anyone who is interested!!

Hope you all have a great week!

Blessings, Diane

Back to life as usual.........

Hello everyone,

I had hoped to write the blog last week but time just seems to be passing my by and I never have a chance to sit down and write.  For about a week we have had heavy rains almost every day which is good for the crops but not great for taking photographs although I did manage one or two!!

Before I came back to Malawi, I had been contacted by a student from South Africa who is doing her masters degree.  In her research she is focusing on early childhood centres in Malawi and although I was not here when she arrived, we managed to find her a placement at two of our centres.  She has been staying in a village with one of my trainers, which has opened her eyes to village life (with no electricity and no running water), and comes here for respite at times!!  

Another student who I met before in Malawi from Northern Ireland is staying with me for a few weeks too.  Her name is Elizabeth and she is doing research for a PhD.  It was her birthday during the week and Thandeka the other student was here so we had a birthday tea!!

Since my last blog I have moved offices - I was told that the office we were renting was needed by another department so we had to find somewhere else to have an office.  So ...we are now in the boys quarters at my house - a bit close for comfort but there seems to be no other option right now!!  It is smaller than our last office and not as airy and light.  Here you can see Nicolas in our old office followed by a picture of my part of the new office!

For those of you who follow Malawian politics, you will know that we are having presidential elections in May.  The candidates were registering their names last week and so we had lots of people in town.  This is the view from the old office of a lorry load of DPP supporters singing and dancing as they go along.

I was heading to Lilongwe that day and I was stopped to watch the PP party going past, first on bicycles (dressed in orange, the colour of the party), then in vehicles behind! There is nothing you can do when you meet these guys, you just have to wait until they go past!

I know you have heard me say many times that we need prayers for safety when we travel on the roads here.  I went to Lilongwe to a meeting and then planned to get my car serviced while I was there.  Everything went well except the garage could not find some spare parts for my car which meant that I was not leaving Lilongwe until later afternoon to drive the 5 hours to Mzuzu.  Driving at night here is quite dangerous as there are few lights on the roads and even on the vehicles, and when there are breakdowns on the road, it is difficult to see them!

As I was coming back, there was a lorry parked on the right hand side of the road and I was travelling at speed.  It was my right of way so I wasn't overly concerned!  A petrol tanker was coming towards me on the opposite side - unfortunately whether he did not see the stationary vehicle or his brakes were not good, he did not slow down and literally missed my vehicle and the stationary lorry by I would say centimeters.  It gave me quite a fright.  On I traveled and suddenly a vehicle began overtaking a lorry and he was coming straight for me.  Again, he missed by a narrow margin.  I was really very relieved to get home safely - so please continue praying for safety on the roads.

Traffic in Mzuzu

The country is lush and green at present with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, and flowers around!

and with chickens in the garden................

 Many of the children around come to play at my house and they are all growing up so quickly.  It was Chisomo's birthday this past week - he was eight and we had a birthday party in his home in the evening which was a lot of fun.

Nicolas went out to a couple of our Early Childhood Centres this week with another organisation who were donating play materials.  He found a lot of children at the centres and it was great to see them eating porridge as this is a time when food can be scarce just before the harvest.

As you can see the roof on this centre leaves a lot to be desired - its probably as wet inside as out when it rains!  But it was good to see children and caregivers making an effort.

Monday is martyrs day holiday here although we are having a workshop with our trainers next week in Ekwendeni, so there is a lot of preparation work for that!  

I wish you all a great week and please do comment if you have time!

Blessings,
Diane