I Danced: 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.