The Dairy Mail...

Hello, I hope this finds you all well.

There's not a lot to report since I last updated my blog. I spent another week at Chimwemwe, one of the Joshua feeding centres. I'm finding the situation there very stressful at times. There are now two very good, very dedicated teachers called Violet and Monica which is great news, unfortunately I seem to be fighting an ongoing battle with the committee of caregivers. They have a rota so that there are at least four present each day, each caregiver comes in to help out once a week, and it should always be the same group of women each day so for example every Monday we should have the same four women helping out – two in the kitchen cooking the meals and two in the classroom aiding Violet and Monica with behaviour control. Unfortunately it is a rare occasion to have all four caregivers present, and over the course of four weeks I have only ever seen one caregiver helping in the classroom. With the help of Stevie who very kindly translates for me I usually talk to the women present about how important it is that they help in the classroom, but it's always another week (minimum) before I see them again, giving them plenty of time to forget their role! Earlier this week only one of the four caregivers turned up in the morning, so when she went to fetch water from a nearby borehole the guard ended up cooking the porridge! Definitely not in his job description...

I then spent a few days at the school where Lizzie is working. I won't describe it in too much detail, as most of you will hear all of this from Lizzie (email erheyes@gmail.com if you want to be added to her list so you can receive her email updates) but I'll give you a basic idea. It's a private primary school (associated with the Elim Church for those of you who've heard of this) with a few free places for children who can't afford school, sponsored by the fee-paying students.

[Side note: Government primary schools are free in theory, but in practice it seems some have introduced special fees (non-optional as I understand it) for various ridiculous things which means that pupils have to pay on a termly basis or they are not allowed to attend. It's not a huge sum, but it is more than many families can afford – especially when some have many children. Also, government primary schools are HUGE. Upwards of 90 pupils per teacher, and the teachers don't necessarily always turn up! Primary school is from ages 6-14 give or take, but you can't progress up a year until you pass so there can be quite an age range in the class. Lessons are taught in Chichewa for the first four years, but then in English for the rest of school.]

Back to the Elim school...There are eight classes (one per year) and eight teachers (one of whom is the head!) Lizzie helps out in standard 5 – this is the first year which is taught in English, and the class teacher is the headmistress who seems to spend much more of her time out of the classroom than in it. This is understandable as she has many duties as the head of the school, but is an absolute joke for the class who, until Lizzie joined them, were often left on their own with nothing to do and no idea when the teacher would return. Now that Lizzie is helping out with that class it means they're never left without a teacher, but the teacher has left in the middle of quite a few lessons, expecting Lizzie to carry on where she left off. Now this isn't a problem for some subjects, but when this happens in the middle of an agriculture lesson it can pose a slight problem for her! An interesting observation is that many schools have non-uniform days every Wednesday purely for the practical reason that most pupils can only afford one school uniform so they are given Wednesdays as a laundry day! I taught my very first lesson whilst I was there – I tried to introduce them to the concept of symmetry. In hindsight, this wasn't my best decision. Symmetry is one of the more descriptive topics in maths, and my chichewa is definitely not up to that standard! When asked how it was Lizzie simply said it was OK. Not sure whether teaching is something I should be pursuing after all!

After my few days at the Elim school I returned to Chimwemwe to begin my health monitoring programme. There was a slight hiccup at the beginning when I realised I had forgotten a tape measure, but I was saved at the last minute from having to make one using a ruler and paper! It went pretty well, although I was surprised at how few children there were for it, but it made the day a slightly less stressful experience! I was pleasantly surprised by the results – most children seemed to be of a fairly healthy weight (although a lack of reliable scales or accurate dates of births does make the results slightly suspect!) with only a few children in need of particular attention. The other surprise was that every single mother of the 35 children weighed claimed to be HIV negative. Given that there is a 20% incidence of HIV here in Malawi, and this was a selection of people from one of the poorer areas of Malawi you'd expect to have a few positive results so I'm not entirely sure what's going on there, or how to deal with it, but I'll find a way :)

The fuel situation out here is interesting, to say the least...! When we first arrived back in September there were no problems with fuel at all as far as we could tell. After about a month living here, the fuel crisis hit. It was much worse for Diesel than for Petrol (absolutely no idea why) but there were long queues for each. In October we queued for over four hours to fill up the tank in our petrol car. It stayed like this pretty much the whole time until mid-January, with occasional periods when petrol was fairly easily obtained. Then, totally out of the blue, the whole problem ended. For a month from mid-January to the middle of February both petrol and diesel were easily obtained, with no fuel queues to be seen anywhere! Then, a couple of weeks ago it returned, but this time around petrol is more tricky to get hold of than diesel. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to this, except a huge lack of forex in the country, and the situation can completely change over night!

Another funny observation which I don't think I have yet remarked upon is that in the Chichewa language, the letters l and r are basically interchangeable. On my daily walk to the feeding centre I go past the Mudi Frorist, I've driven past a Groly Shop a few months ago, many English words which are used for names are spelt funny (Chality, Frolence, Maly etc.), and I've been in a pre-school where the 'Dairy Routine' is painted up on the wall!! It's a good cause for a giggle every now and again.

Last week I successfully completed my 48 hour fast. Thank you so much to all of you who sponsored me! I'm really looking forward to spending it on the children, and I'll upload photos onto here of what the money is used for. (If you haven't already, and want to, you can still sponsor me – if you email me at julietheyes@gmail.com then I can send you my bank details and you can do a bank transfer, or alternatively you can post it to my sister – address on request).

And last, but by no means least, Vic has joined us at last! Along with Dan. They arrived safely on Sunday evening, and the whole Heyes clan is now back together again at last :)

Love,

Juliet/Julez x

Jumping Goats It's Another Entry...

Hey y'all! It's me again :)

There isn't a huge amount to report since I last updated this blog – no more exciting proposals for me, I'm afraid. I've been focussing all my efforts on one of our feeding centres/pre-schools called Chimwemwe.

On average there are 35 children coming every day. There's a committee of 22 caregivers, and two teachers – Violet and Agnes. In theory both teachers and four of the caregivers (according to a rota) come each day, but the caregivers don't always make it in, and they're not very good at advanced warning! Violet is fantastic and is present every day without fail, but Agnes rarely shows up, and when she does she spends most of her time lying down on a bench!

Ideally, two of the caregivers would work in the kitchen cooking the porridge, and the other two would be in the classroom with the teachers helping make sure the children behave themselves. Unfortunately, this is not actually happening! The priority is that the kids get the food, so when there aren't all four caregivers those that are present need to be in the kitchen. However, often when all of the caregivers turn up they still seem to find it necessary for all of them to be in the kitchen! We're working on this.

Unfortunately, this means that most days Violet is left on her own with up to 40 children, most of whom are fighting with each other. The age range is from 2-8 years which limits the number of appropriate topics available for teaching. The oldest children are capable of simple maths, whilst the youngest don't even know what numbers are. Violet is paid by the committee who get their money from renting out the centre for use by a local church on a weekly basis. She works from 8am to 2pm Monday to Friday and has a baby at home to look after. She gets paid MK2,000 a month, which is £8. At the moment she is supported by her brother, but he says he can't afford to support her for much longer so Violet may not be able to afford to keep working at our centre for much longer.

This is an area where the Joshua Orphan Care Trust is really trying to make progress. We're desperately trying to find ways for the centres to earn some money for themselves to try and help them become a little more self-sufficient. If anyone has any ideas or knows someone with some background in this area, my email address is julietheyes@gmail.com!

There is one child who attends our feeding centre (approximately five years old) who is deaf. Out here there is very little provision for children with disabilities of any kind, but there is a deaf school run by some nuns a little way out of Blantyre. I've been told that if a child gets accepted there, then a sum of about MK10,000 should cover their whole primary education there (8 years). This is the equivalent of about £40. However, there is some debate as to the worth of such an education. I'm not saying that they wouldn't get excellent teaching whilst they're there, but there is a shortage of jobs out here as I understand it, and I don't know of any anti-discriminatory laws here meaning that, as I see it, if there are two people equally suited for a job, but one of them is deaf and therefore considerably harder to communicate with, the other candidate is much more likely to get the job.

Hopefully within the next week I will begin my 'medical' work with the children. I want each centre to have a book in which they keep health records for the children. I'm going to buy some scales and weigh all the children (hopefully something that will be continued, so that the kids are all weighed on a monthly basis) and measure their heights and it will all be written down in the book. I would also like the centres to keep a record of the kids' medical history – any serious illnesses or accidents, any HIV/Aids in the family etc. Hopefully I will also be able to arrange for an afternoon when all the parents come for a meeting, and I'll talk to them about health and hygiene in the home – brushing teeth, washing hands, keeping cuts etc. clean but this could be more difficult to sort out if the parents all work.

Lizzie is settling in well. She's doing some private violin and piano teaching in her afternoons, and volunteering in some of the schools around Blantyre. I won't tell you much of what she does as I'm not totally sure, and I won't say it as well as she will, but if you want to receive her updates, drop her an email at erheyes@gmail.com and she'll add you to her mailing list!

Dom's still enjoying himself. School every morning, a few clubs in the afternoons – sports, mountaineering and an orchestra although that's not meeting at the moment. He's making a fair few friends, getting invited to parties, and chatting with everyone he meets (he's a lot more sociable than I am!)

Mum and Dad are continuing as before – spending long hours at work, treating lots of people and learning more as they do so! Now that Brandon's returned back home Dad and Mulinda have to share the workload between them – so they are on call every other night and every other weekend which means dad's working long hours and doesn't have a lot of free time. Mum seems to be making a bit of progress finally with the UN re her UNV status which, if it gets sorted out, will make things a little bit easier for us out here from a financial point of view.

I had a funny conversation the other day with one of my Malawian friends. We were discussing the differences in the weather here and back in England – at the time it was about 30°C in Blantyre and -5°C back home. He was struggling to imagine such temperatures, and then he said to me “I have black skin, yes. If I went to England, would my skin change colour?” A little confused I said no, and then asked him why he thought it might. He explained to me that often when white people come to Malawi, their skin changes colour. He's seen many people's skin turn red! I explained that that's sunburn and it's only a temporary thing – he was very surprised to hear this. It made me chuckle!

On Wednesday 22^nd – Thursday 23^rd February I am doing a 48 hour fast to raise money for the feeding centres where I am working. Thank you so so so so much to everyone who has already sponsored me, I am really excited about the possibilities of what I can do with this money – at the moment I am thinking about maybe using the money to pay for a play ground for the kids at three of the centres.

If anyone still wants to sponsor me, you can donate via my sponsorship page at http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/JulietHeyes. If you would prefer to give it directly to me then I can email you my bank details, or you could post it to my sister Victoria (again, address available on request), preferably before she joins us at the beginning of March.

Inside Chimwemwe Feeding Centre

Outside Chimwemwe Feeding Centre

Chimwemwe Kitchen

Goat On A Trampoline...

Good luck to all of you with exams/essays/dissertations/assignments that are taking up your time at the moment.

Thinking of you all,

God Bless,

Juliet

x

Happy New Year!

Hello There! I hope you're all well and settling back into work/school/university after a wonderful Christmas holiday. Things have changed quite a bit out here since my last entry. My sister has joined us at last (after a rather stressful journey!), the rains have begun in full force (later and heavier than usual) and we have moved house. Several times!

As many of you know, we spent Christmas away from Blantyre. We went to the lake for a few days where most of us got sunburnt! And then spent Christmas day itself at a nature reserve just outside Blantyre. It was a very surreal experience, swimming in an outdoor pool with a view over the East African Rift Valley, then having a barbecue for lunch outside with people we hadn't met before, accompanied by a local, traditional music group. It was a wonderful day, but I still prefer your typical (white) English Christmas.

Early January Sylvia returned from England so we had to move out of her house, but we had a three week gap before our next house sit. We spent a week house-sitting for a german family we know, and then Mum, Dad and Dom moved in with a couple who work at Queens. Unfortunately, there wasn't space there for Lizzie and I so we had to fit ourselves in where-ever there was space. This involved us staying with a friend for 4 days, then another friend for a night, and then back at Sylvia's until this Wednesday when we finally moved into our last house during our time out here. Needless to say, we are very happy to finally be settled into a home and able to unpack!

The Joshua feeding centres have started up again, after a month off for Christmas which allows the women from the villages to make sure their crops are coping with the change in the weather. For the rest of my time here I'm going to be focussing on three of our centres – Chimwemwe, Kasinje and Makolo. These are the three that Lauren (the teacher from England) started to help. I'm going to carry on with the work she started, making sure it's maintained and continuing it where appropriate. This is where I will use the majority of the money I raise. For those of you who don't know, I'm doing a 48hr fast on Wednesday 22^nd – Thursday 23^rd February. If you wish to sponsor me, you can do so here http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/JulietHeyes . If you have already sponsored me then can I just say Thank You very much! To be fair, given that this is my blog, I can indeed say that!

A couple of weeks ago I went with Lizzie to visit the Joshua Secondary School. It's quite different from UK schools. Class sizes range from 60 to 100 pupils, all with just one teacher. Teaching is more university lecturing style - the teacher stands at the front talking about a topic, a few questions interspersed here and there. Students, as far as I can tell, only take notes once the teacher has left the room!! Every Wednesday is a non—uniform day, as this allows the students to wash their school uniform at the weekend and on a Wednesday.

Another observation about Malawi that amazes me is the ingenuity of the people here. We're house-sitting for a family who have a sunshade made from a disused satellite dish! Many people use converted bicycles as wheelchairs. Out here lots of things are sold in bags – milk, sugar, water, gin, cream, chips, chicken etc., and I've seen children using old sugar bags with string threaded through them as school backpacks. At some of the centres the kids use loads of shreds of plastic tied together for skipping ropes.

One thing that still disconcerts me, though, is the way we (white people) are treated by the locals. Apart from a few exceptions everyone acts as though we are hugely important. If you ask someone to do something for you, they will do it gladly and thank you for the privilege of being asked! I was walking to one of our feeding centres and a young boy ran up to say hello to me, I said hello back and shook his hand. His excitement at this was the most adorable thing I have ever seen – he was laughing and dancing he was so happy, but it does make you think about why shaking a white person's hand is such a wonderful event for these children. Imagine the situation in reverse...

On a weirder note, I received my first proposal this week. Whilst waiting to meet up with a friend at the minibus station, a guy came up to me and started chatting. He asked for money, started talking to me about Nelson Mandela, then told me he wanted to marry me! This wouldn't have been quite so weird if he hadn't only been wearing a pair of too small underpants. Slightly embarrassing for both parties.

That's all I have to report for now, hope you enjoyed reading.

Love to you all,

Julez

xxxx