Monday in Mzuzu

We arrived safely here in Mzuzu at around 7.00 p.m. on Saturday evening having left Scotland at 4.30 p.m. on Friday afternoon. We flew from Glasgow to Amsterdam to Nairobi (overnight) to Lilongwe, the capital city of Malawi. From there, our luggage was piled into a pick-up truck while we all piled into the diocesan minibus for the 250 mile trip north to Mzuzu. Monica’s innocent “does the minibus have air conditioning?” question provoked quite a bit of hilarity given the reality of life here in Malawi.

Our driver was Fr Andrew Chunda, the parish priest at St Peter’s Cathedral in Mzuzu who is also the Director of St Peter’s Secondary School. The road from Lilongwe to Mzuzu is called the M1 but the only similarity between the Malawian M1 and ours is that the road is tarred – it is only a two-lane road and is pretty bumpy. All along the way there are people selling things like tomatoes, sugar cane, potatoes, furniture – and barbecued mice complete with fur, paws, heads and tails!

To break the journey, we stopped at Nkhamenya Girls’ School which is partnered with St Maurice’s H.S. in Cumbernauld. The Headteacher, Sr Kaunda, was very pleased to see us – she met our group the last time we were in Malawi and, when she was over at St Maurice’s last year, Bernadette and Sheila (Taylor) went up to Cumbernauld to see her. We were treated to our lunch at Nkhamenya and the pupils entertained us by singing and dancing before Sr Kaunda gave us a tour of the school, including the pupil dormitories. Saturday being washday all the girls had spread their clothes out on the grass to dry – no tumble driers (or even washing lines) here! Anne and Monica took a turn at operating the hand pump which supplies the water which the girls use to wash their clothes. The two Michaels seemed to make quite an impression on the girls in the school although the asking price of 10 cows for a wife did put them off a bit!

The last half of the road journey from Nkhamenya seemed to take forever because we were extremely tired and darkness had fallen meaning we couldn’t even distract ourselves by looking at the countryside but we eventually arrived at St Peter’s where we were warmly welcomed by members of the local community and served yet another enormous meal! Tiredeness quickly got the better of us and we all hit the hay before 10.00 p.m.

We all slept soundly although only Celia did not get woken up at 6.00 a.m. by the bells of the cathedral next door announcing the start of a new day – no need for alarm clocks for the rest of the week because that apparently happens every morning! Our first (yes – first!) Mass of the day was the English Mass at 7.00 a.m. following which we had a quick breakfast before returning to church for the Chitumbuka Mass which was an incredible experience – singing, dancing, holding hands, clapping (wait till you see the video!) – and lasted for the best part of two and a half hours! At each Mass, Eric had to say a few words and introduce our staff and pupils – he did this in Chitumbuka at the second Mass which seemed to go down quite well despite some rather questionable pronunciation and phrasing! All of us were genuinely affected by the whole experience and by the warmth of the welcome we received from the congregation which included a couple of Ngoni warriors who were very keen to get their photo taken with us – and vice versa!

Following the Masses there was a formal welcome lunch for the team in the Church Hall at which the Chair of the School Board, the Secretary of the Parish Council, the School Director (Fr Chunda), Bernadette and Eric all had to make speeches. After we had woken Ally up, we took a wander into town to show those who hadn’t been in Malawi before what Mzuzu is like. We visited the market – ask the pupils about the fresh(?) fish section – although we missed out the second hand clothes section! Michael N thought he had made a new friend until he realised that he was being persuaded to buy postcards!

Towards the end of the afternoon, we headed to the Mzuzu Hotel, a favourite watering hole of Bernadette’s when she was here in 2002/03, but Celia was distracted en route by the sight of Mzuzu Golf Course and wandered on to the less-than manicured fairways for a photo opportunity. One “Kuche Kuche” each later, the group returned to base camp for yet another huge meal and a working session where gifts were sorted out, teaching materials were prepared, Scottish dances and songs were practised and arrangements sorted out for school this morning.
Our accommodation is great – the beds are comfy, most of the showers are nice and warm and there are relatively few beasties about (although Frances did depart her room in a screaming hurry last night because there may be a large unidentified flying thing lodging in her wardrobe and the boys are sharing their room with a small lizard). Ally has already developed an unhealthy addiction to cherry and plum flavoured Sobo (don’t worry, it’s a fizzy drink, Mrs McGuigan!) and Dominic made the serious error of trying a whole red chilli at dinner last night – we think Caroline persuaded him that it wasn’t all that hot but it was and copious amounts of water, milk, oranges, lemons and bananas until his mouth returned to something approaching normality. Monica’s sleepwalking may turn out to be problematic – as Jennifer will testify following an unexpected guest in her bed on our first night! Paul has asked the name of everyone he has met so far although whether he has remembered any of them remains to be seen. As you can see, everyone is really enjoying the experience so far – although, if Eric uses his Chitumbuka speech many more times (4 so far and counting!), that may not remain the case.

More from us tomorrow if we can.

Having trouble with photos - hence only one in this post!