Eight days a week

Almost every week I am wishing that there were eight days in a week as I always seem to be running out of time to fit something in, so I am pretending that a recent week really did have eight days in it as a means of giving you an overview of my life and work

Day 1 Saturday

On Saturday mornings I always have an early start as that is when the three solar lamp agents meet, pay in what they have collected and order more lamps. They are three cheery men who make you forget that they have got you up so early.

Then as a result of much planning 71 women and 3 men turned up for a full day session learning about family nutrition, delivered by two excellent facilitators, St Bernadette a teacher from St Mary's School in Zomba and Eve a children's nutritionist working at Zomba hospital.

The day taught the participants about food groups and a balanced diet whilst having due regard for cooking on a (very) limited budget. The day finished with the group all sharing their cooking skills and cooking and eating together prior to going home each with a nutritious moringa seedling to plant in their gardens.

Day 2 Sunday

A normal Sunday morning attending church, as lively as ever with lots of singing and dancing.

Knowing that I had visitors arriving during the week I spent the afternoon glued to the computer, catching up with lesson preparation, accounts and report writing, finishing just in time for supper ay 7pm

Day 3 Monday

The morning necessitated a trip to the bank as with the plethora of building projects in schools I am constantly needing more cash to buy building materials and pay builders. With cash in hand I went off to Nakhombe School where we are building a house on site for one of the teachers and then to Namisunju School where a lovely and cleverly designed classroom block is under construction.

The afternoon was spent with 70 very lively Form 1 (aged 14+) students in St Michael's Secondary School, teaching them English

Day 4 Tuesday

A visit to Chileka Airport in Blantyre to collect two trustees from Network for a Better World. As it takes a couple of hours to travel into Blantyre, it is usual to combine as many jobs as possible when making the journey. So in addition to collecting Mary and Angela, I managed a visit to the bookshop buying resources for schools, a shopping session at the plastic factory obtaining growing tubes for the seedlings in the tree nursery and a visit to the Queen Elizabeth central Hospital to finalise arrangements for a visit the following day.

Day 5 Wednesday

A return to Blantyre - most unusual to do this two days running, but whilst Mary and Angela ran a meeting with the ladies from the irrigation project I was freed up to take two wonderful children to the hospital to be measured for bespoke wheelchairs. the children, Sarah and Mphatso are both aged 10, both with cerebral palsy and both very wonderful and determined children. Sarah was previously issued with a wheelchair, (one which she has now grown out of) and as a result was able to start school at the age of six alongside her peers and has progressed exceptionally well taking all her exams orally. Sarah's condition makes it impossible for her to hold a pen, or support her body herself but she is very intelligent and determined to achieve. Having told me that her favourite subject was English, I asked her to act as my translator for the day.

Mphatso is equally determined but he is yet to start school. He lives with his grandmother who has taught him to read, but his mobility issues and lack of a wheelchair have made schooling impossible for him to attend. He is so excited about the prospect of starting school when his wheelchair arrives.

The technician who measured them was a delightful man who nearly moved me to tears when we were leaving. he looked at me and said "Thank you for giving these children hope". There is so much we take for granted in the UK but specialist resources are so scarce here in Malawi

Day 6 Thursday

You might recall that there are 17 primary schools in the zone where I work and a couple of years back a Head Teacher's Association was set up to enable them to come together, discuss issues, seek solutions and undergo training. This meeting was the last I would be attending and it turned out to be by far the best. In this environment of minimal resources there is often an "each man for himself" approach should any resources be on offer but today the headteachers demonstrated personal restraint and deep consideration for each other. As has happened previously headteachers have backed down with their requests for funding should others need it more than they and today they were not just backing down but also proposing ways in which some of the poorest schools could be assisted.

We had a very packed agenda and one of the items was ICT and here the heads expressed how they felt they were letting down their learners as not only was it not on the curriculum but they themselves had no experience or knowledge on the world of computers.

I have taken this on as a challenge for when I get home, to try and source solar powered computers as not one of the primary schools has electricity.

The meeting was followed by another trip to Namisunju School to facilitate the buying of more locally produced bricks for the classroom block

A staff meeting at Chirunga School, ended the day. Some of the issues with regard to learning are over time, as it is quite normal for Malawi time to be anything at all from the agreed time to two hours later. Often if I have an event booked for 8.00 it might not start until 9.00, 9.30 or even 10.00. This has been my major frustration here but as the year has gone by changes have become more evident with teachers and others understanding my obsession with good timekeeping!

At Chirunga School, I was supporting the headteacher as she introduced some strategies to encourage both teachers and learners to improve their timekeeping and to minimise the amount of learning time lost due to lateness. It wasn't an easy meeting but I remain hopeful that changes will soon be evident

Day 7 Friday

Climate Change Club at Mikundi School is a fun place to be. The learners themselves run the club and as well as learning more about the causes and effects of climate change they have been taking practical actions to mitigate against the effects. During this particular session the girls were learning how to make washable and reusable sanitary kits whilst the boys worked on the tree nursery sowing seeds and tending seedlings prior to planting out at the start of the rainy season in mid November

Friday afternoons are very regular for me with the same routine being followed. In the village we have a peer English programme operating; three more-able young people are teaching English to a group of 12, using less formal methods than are usually applied at school. The results are great with the young people becoming far more confident in their spoken English

Then my final activity before supper on a Friday is to play out in the village. Each Friday I appear with skipping ropes, frisbees or balls and play some games, often with mothers going in and taking over the skipping ropes. It is such a special time

Day 8 Saturday

Another 5.30 start with the solar lamp agents.

Unusually we had a second conference, on consecutive Saturdays; this one being on Climate Change. It was interesting that last weeks one on family nutrition was mostly women and this one mostly men. Matthews, the facilitator from LEAD, a company established within the University was once more brilliant demonstrating how much he knew his subject whilst delivering in a most appropriate way for the audience. Climate Change is always being spoken about and little by little personal and group practices are changing. More people are using fuel efficient stoves, saving around 50% of wood fuel and recently there has been a growing trend in recycling waste paper by turning it into briquettes, to use on those stoves. In this part of world CC effects are very noticeable; temperatures are increasing, seasons unpredictable and this year it looks like Lake Chilwa will soon dry up with locals walking across this great expanse which only recently was a lake