Tuesday's Blog

Another day dawned bright and early – yes, those cathedral bells again at 6.00 a.m. and even Celia heard them on Monday morning. We all gathered together for breakfast at 6.30 to be greeted with 3 steaming tureens of porridge – brilliant! Because this was going to be our first day in school, we had decided to give 6.30 a.m. Mass a miss and headed over to St Peter’s school for the back of 7 o’clock. After being introduced to the staff in the (very small) staffroom, we took part in morning assembly where we had to suffer Eric’s Chitumbuka speech again – we all thought he must be telling jokes because of the pupils’ laughter but, apparently, it was simply the result of his poor pronunciation!

Our morning was taken up with a tour of St Peter’s and then visits to Lunyangwa and St Peter’s Primary Schools – a real eye opener for all of us, even those that had been before. In Lunyangwa, they have turned two small classrooms into boarding facilities for the Standard 8 pupils (equivalent of P7); 45 pupils sleep on the floor in each of the rooms and the cooking is done by volunteers on a wood fire on the back porch of this block. This provision is the school’s attempt to raise standards of attainment and get more pupils through the examination they need to pass to get into secondary school – it certainly puts the St Matthew’s school improvement plan into perspective! However, the Standard 8 pupils are the lucky ones because their two classrooms have desks; the rest of the pupils in the school learn in very cramped conditions and they have to sit on the floor all day. Mary’s Meals also operate in Lunyangwa and Celia couldn’t resist a bit of stirring before we were entertained by some dancing led by the girl guides in the school. We presented the school with 2 footballs and a netball from our substantial supply of gifts.

St Peter’s Primary School is next door to Lunyangwa but is in no better condition – a fact that proved to be a bit emotionally overwhelming for some of the adults in our party, never mind the pupils. However, the pupils and staff were so pleased to see us and the inevitable dancing and speeches followed our arrival. We met with the staff in one of the classrooms (one of the few with desks) and feasted on Fanta/Coke/Sobo and custard cream biscuits! The pupils were persuaded to try some food that the youngsters from the primary school had prepared – suffice to say that the cooked bananas with meat did not go down too well, with the fact that it was stone cold adding to the unappetising nature of the dishes! Monica and Caroline seemed particularly unimpressed!

Bernadette had prepared us with dire warnings about the food in Malawi but, once again, our fears were unfounded with delicious fried fish for lunch. We spent the afternoon in St Peter’s Secondary with staff and pupils observing classes before we convened a staff meeting to discuss the project and what we hoped to get out of it this week. While staff met together, the pupils were looked after by senior students from St Peter’s.

Shortly before 4 o’clock, we all went to the Women’s Development Orphan Centre next door to our lodgings on the St Peter’s campus. Here, around 35 orphans were waiting to meet us and they were very excited when we gave out pencils, glider planes, T-shirts and other “goodies” from the stock of gifts which so many people back home had generously donated. The look on their faces was the best “thank you” that any of you could ask for!

Eventually, the “real” Malawi which Bernadette had been warning us about came in the shape of our first power cut not long after darkness had fallen – this was only really a problem for Celia who happened to be in the shower at the time and couldn’t see a thing! Another delicious meal (yes, really!) was followed by a brief trip to the Ilala Crest Lodge Hotel with the Head Teacher, Board Chair and Fr Chunda before we crashed out exhausted knowing that we were due at Mass at 6.30 on Tuesday morning.

It’s great to see so many “followers” on the website – keep watching for further news.

P.S. Feel sorry for us - it's cold and wet today!