Nkhata Bay Boys Secondary School: Shirts vs. Skins match report.

 

Nkhata Bay Boys Secondary School: Shirts vs. Skins match report.

Friday 27^th January 2012.

Both Shirts and Skins went for a traditional 4-4-2 approach going into the game and my team (the Shirts) decided to put me up-front, obviously they had never seen me play football before!! I have never played as a striker before and so I was quite excited about being given the opportunity to show off my talents (or lack of talents)! My excitement quickly changed to nerves as the game kicked off as I felt under pressure with at least 60 of my students watching my every move. I initially started to play a role of sitting on the last defender and calling for a long-ball over my head to run on to… however they don’t seem to know what a long-ball is and had to quickly adapt my style of play. I then changed to a more Theo Walcott role, bombing down the right flank and looking for through balls – however I don’t have much pace so my influence was limited! Having said that I had the first proper chance of the game as I gambled on a 50-50 ball and somehow won possession from the defender, I was then through on goal – within the penalty area. I had never been in this position before and I tried to be too clever with a dinky touch with the outside of my right foot… the shot had little power on it and the keeper managed to get a hand to it. Chance wasted!

The Shirt’s defence seemed to be in good shape as we had cleverly chosen the biggest guy to be our centre-back, however he did have a tendency to try and dribble his way out of defence (he was wearing Arsenal shorts – probably where he got this idea from!) With the Skin’s not having a proper chance we managed to break their defence once more… this time the sports prefect ran through their defence with amazing skill, Messi like in some ways as he shifted the ball from one foot to the other. He then calmly finished off the move with a powerful shot in the bottom right-hand corner of the goal. Shirts 1 – 0 Skins.

After about 30 minutes of play my legs started to seize up and this seemed to be the same for the whole of the Shirts. The defending got sloppy and suddenly we couldn’t get the ball out of our own half. Eventually the ball worked its way out to the right wing and with a bit of trickery the youngster managed to lob a ball into the box, it worked its way to Anthony who got his head to it (probably because he was about a foot taller than the students). The ball then bounced perfectly for the Skin’s centre-forward to finish the ball nicely into the back of the net (there weren’t actually any nets!!) Shirts 1 – 1 Skins.

Soon after the goal the game became a scrappy affair, mostly dominated by the midfield. But then there was some nice play along the right wing by the Shirt’s – which involved me and the ball landed at my feet just inside the penalty area. Immediately my head was full of different ideas, but quickly ruled out passing and decided to go for goal myself. This time I put power behind my shot and aimed for the top corner, but I leant back far too much and the ball sailed about 2 foot over the bar. I landed on my backside and got a large jeer from the crowd – I think they quite liked to see their teacher on the floor, in a heap!

After about 1 hour of play I realised that there must not be half-time which I was longing for as by this time my legs were really seizing up and I was now playing the Zigic role (walking a lot and not bothering to defend at all!!) My head was starting to throb as I became dehydrated in the blistering sun. I gave it one final effort as I chased down a defender who was taking his time to clear his lines. Even though I was practically walking at him I somehow closed down his clearance and the ball bounced kindly for me and I was through on goal once more. This time I had none of my team around me so I had no option to pass, my mind was made up – I was going to have to go for goal. I ran closer and was surprised when the goalkeeper didn’t come to close me down, once I was about 5 yards from goal I launched a powerful shot into the bottom left-hand corner. It flew in and suddenly I was filled head to toe with adrenaline… the crowd cheered and I felt the need to whip off my shirt and wave it around my head like a mad man! Everyone seemed to appreciate my enthusiasm and I was greeted back to the centre with my team high-fiving me! The feeling was so good.

 Shirts 2 – 1 Skins

From that moment on the Skins didn’t see the ball much. There was a lovely passage of play for about 5 minutes where the Shirts passed it around the Skins as if they weren’t there. It was great to be part of a team playing such good football and suddenly the chances seemed to come thick and fast. This time when I went through on goal I passed it back to my oncoming peer who took a shot from just inside the box but somehow managed to balloon the ball over! What a sitter. Then the ball went out to the left hand side and I called for the ball in the middle, the cross was whipped in and came straight towards me. Full of confidence from my goal I tried to emulate that Paolo Di Canio volley for West Ham, the result didn’t go as I planned and the ball flew towards the corner flag. I put my head in my hands and turned my back to the play. The next time I looked round the sports prefect had the ball on the outside of the penalty area and with great power he blasted the ball into the top corner of the goal. I still want to claim an assist for this goal but Anthony tells me I am being silly!

Shirts 3 – 1 Skins.

The game then became slow as after an hour and a half of high-tempo football in 30 degree heats without a break tends to get to you. The final whistle sounded and we had won, a deserved victory for the Shirts.

Final score: Shirts 3 – 1 Skins.

Moving up north...

Wow, well so much has gone on this week. So much to fill you up with and I don’t know where to begin. I think I will begin near the end and then jump around all over the place like they do in cool movies (my parents will really hate this as they hate those sorts of films!)

My Maths class "hard at work".

So anyway, like I said last time… BIG important news. We are moving away from Nkhata Bay and heading up north to Livingstonia (or near there at least). This hasn’t just been a spur of the moment thing and we have been hoping to move for quite some time now. The problem is that the school we are teaching at is quite well-off and is one of the top 12 schools in the country. Class sizes aren’t too much bigger than they are in the UK and the school has a 99% pass rate at the equivalent GCSE level! All this makes us wonder why we are here; we don’t feel particularly needed and even if we were better teachers than the previous ones we wouldn’t be that much better! I feel I could have stayed at the school for the 6 months but when I got home I would have seen it as a bit of a wasted time and I wouldn’t have made the most out of this trip. So we asked to be moved into a school that is far needier and that we can feel like we have achieved something when we leave in 5 months time. Matt, our country manager, has been very good and has found us another secondary school up north near where he lives in Karonga. We don’t know much about the school and place yet but we are terribly excited about the move – probably more so than when I left the UK actually! We will be living in the same area (ish) as quite a few of the other European volunteers; apparently very close to Anthony & Lycarion and about 20km from Chloe & Elizabeth. We hope that we are far enough away to live our own lives but then close enough to meet up for an odd weekend and have a meal or go travelling. The place we are going to is apparently very rural so there won’t be as much internet access around but I will try and log on every week or two and update the blog.

Leaving Nkhata Bay is going to be difficult. I have grown to love the bay itself and we are now known by loads of people in the town. I will miss our favourite internet café with the people in knowing that I am the most forgetful person in the world (I always manage to leave something behind and they run after me with it.) I will miss our favourite restaurant with the lovely waiter that gives us extra portions of rice as we go there so often. And most of all I will miss the bay itself, it is simply the most beautiful place to live and sitting on the beach always reminds me of home – except its double the temperature!

So yes, that is the big news. What else happened this week? Well…

This week started out with a desperate attempt to find a new mosquito net. I bought one over from the UK with advice from my brother to get a pop-up net instead of one you just hang up. The net was okay but everytime I rolled over in bed the whole frame would slightly move and then there would be a gap for mosquitoes to get in. The result of this is incredibly bitten arms and feet – my malaria tablets have been working overtime! I have also assessed the amount of insect repellent I have and have calculated that if I continue to use the same amount of the spray as I do now then it will probably run out in June – time to start rationing! I went around Nkhata Bay and I eventually found a shop that sold a decent mosquito net for 1,500MK (£6)… so I took it immediately. That night I excitedly put it up and admired the new net dreaming of a good night sleep finally… and then it dawned on me, the holes in the mosquito net looked far too big, surely a mosquito could fly through them. I was lying inside my net comparing the size of mosquitoes to the holes then I saw one fly straight through the net – making it redundant! So after classes the next day I went into Mzuzu (the nearest city) hoping to find a great net however it was the same story in every shop I tried, “We do sell them but we are out of stock at the moment”. I couldn’t believe it, I must have tried 30 shops in the city and none of them had a single net.

Joshua and John

Whilst trying to do some work in the house I was getting frustrated with some children playing football outside, at first I was trying to ignore it but then I thought – if you can’t beat them, join them, this turned out to be a great decision! I went outside and asked the group of children if I could play, the teams were me and Joshua (11) versus John (14) and Dewayne (11) (unsure of spelling). It is really true that football can unite anyone; just with a few plastic bags scrunched up and tied together we were able to play a good game of football with me knowing none of their language and them knowing only basic English. Their technique was brilliant but Joshua and I stole the show with our silky passing and skills – Barcelona like at some times as I took advantage of Joshua’s pace and set him through on goal with some great passes. We played until the bags split which was just as it was getting dark so I gave them some more bags to use for the future, it was times like those that I came to Malawi for… to have fun with the children and make a difference at grass-roots level!

Recently I am sure someone has turned up the overhead heater in Malawi, it is now stinking hot and I have a feeling that it will only get hotter! I have realised that the only time I am at ease with the temperature is around 8 – 10am, anytime after that and it is too hot. We both have been feeling the extra heat in the past few days and everytime we eat a warm meal the sweat drips from our faces (sorry about the terrible image). Those who know me well will know that I love cold weather and right now I would quite happily swap this 30 degree heat for a day with frost and ice again. The girls in Bwengu (our closest fellow volunteers) have a fridge; I am very jealous of this and feel I would spend most of my days sitting quite happily in the fridge right now. Added to this our hygiene issues, we don’t have a proper shower and have to hand-wash ourselves. Also we have to wear clothes for twice as long as we would normally do to save on washing – you can imagine the consequences of this!!

On Friday after school I was approached by the sports prefect who told me that the football pitch was ready and he invited me to a game with some of the students. I changed into my shorts and Birmingham shirt in anticipation for a hot and sweaty kick about. When I got down to the pitch there were about 50 students all preparing the pitch and they asked me to go to the centre. I was put on the shirts team and Anthony was placed in the skins team, after what seemed to be an eternity of team talks the match was just about to get started. I have made a separate blog post for the match report as I feel many of you won’t want to read it!

So far I think transport is my favourite thing about Malawi – I know this sounds strange but I find hitchhiking so much fun! Waiting on the side of a road and sticking your hand out when there is a passing vehicle, what could possibly go wrong?! You can end up in any type of motorised vehicle from a lorry to a small hatchback. One thing that is common about vehicles here is that as long as they have a good stereo then they are roadworthy! The engine will barely tick over, doors will be falling off and there maybe 30 people in a 12 seater minibus but if it has a loud music playing device then everyone is happy. My best lift is still the lorry on the first day with all our luggage, there was something special about arriving into your new town on the back of a corn lorry! However there was another awesome lift I received, after waiting 45 minutes to see a car eventually I stopped the first one I saw. It was a big posh car and it was owned by the MP on the neighbouring area, he was formerly the health minister for the government. His name was David and we got talking about Malawian and British politics. It was perhaps the first good conversation I have had with a Malawian and after he dropped me off we exchanged phone numbers and he promised me a tour round the Malawian Houses of Parliament – not bad for a 15 minute drive!

So from Nkhata Bay it is over and out, but I have a feeling that my adventure is only just beginning.

Our new abode and such excitments!

We moved into our proper teacher house on Monday after one week living at the Pastrol Centre which was about 11km away from the school site. The house looked very grand from the outside and when we finally got the door open my first impressions thought the house was very western with a dining area as you walk in, sitting room just down the steps with many sofas and chairs. The house also has 3 bedrooms, a large kitchen, a bathroom and a store room. However you can never tell a book by its cover… after the headteacher finished the guided tour and we were left alone, I started to do some investigating. First the TV didn’t work (I was actually pleased about this as I didn’t want a TV in my house!), then the kitchen sink wasn’t plumbed in, most of the lights didn’t turn on, the toilet didn’t work, the sink in the bathroom was majorly blocked and the shower didn’t work. Also there seems to have been a fire in the kitchen as all the walls are charcoal black and the ceiling has been taken out. But all of this is a blessing in disguise really as I had wanted to live in more basic accommodation and now I was. I still don’t think this is a “Malawian house” more like a Greek house you see on these property development programmes during day-time TV where the British couple is trying to renovate a terrible house into their dream apartment! It was in our house that I saw my first rat of the trip… unfortunately it was in our bedroom and there were at least three of them. At first I was really un-nerved by this but after living with the animals around our house for the past few days I have come to not notice them and now it is quite fun when I see a lizard walking up my bedroom wall.

After two days of living in our house I received a phone-call from the deputy headteacher. He told me that the previous owners of the house were coming round in 2 minutes to take some of their stuff. I desperately tried to clear up around the house but failed, then a couple of minutes later a van drew up outside. The people were perfectly nice but watching them take the stuff in the house felt like watching bailiffs removing your possessions! After 10 minutes they left and our house was minus the cooker, cutlery, plates, bowls and any pictures they could find. The kitchen was now completely empty other than the taps and basin which weren’t plumbed in! This immediately worried me as there was no way of cooking any of our meals anymore. We would have to rely on cornflakes/sandwich for breakfast, sandwich for lunch and go to Nkhata Bay for dinner. Anthony bought me a delightful present to make up for our loss – peanut butter… that sandwich was the best ever. And we have since found some lovely frankfurter style sausage, it probably has about 2% meat in but it is so tasty after 2 weeks of rice

In the evenings, at the moment there isn’t much to do other than read (I am currently reading Long Way Down by Ewan McGregor & Charley Boorman), plan lessons and play games. We have been playing multiple games of chess and boa’s and now we have a big enough table to keep the boards there the whole time. So far I have lost 10 games of chess and only won one, but what a win it was! At least I won the last game of boa’s so I have decided to retire from the game on a winning streak of two! I have finally tried the local beer – the “Shake-Shake” as it is most commonly known over here… why “Shake-shake”, well basically you have to shake it before drinking. I had read that most of tourists don’t like the shake-shake but I thought I am open to most beers so I would definitely like it. This was not the case. It is perhaps the worst beer in the world as it looks like a milkshake and is very lumpy, but the taste is the worst part of it… all I could taste was yeast and maize, but at least I can tick Malawian beer off my list of world beers to try!

At school this week I came to the end of the unit in maths and social studies so I prepared a “mini exam” for my students. After a whole week going through adding and subtracting of negative numbers I hoped they would be quite good at it, if not then it was down to my teaching. It is actually quite a nervy thing and whilst marking the tests I got a little energy burst when one got over 80%, however the complete opposite when they achieved a fail. Out of the 80 students I teach in maths 92% of them passed which I am quite pleased about but I still know where I need to improve on. One of the students got 100% and I have decided to buy him a coke for his success – promoting healthy schools!! My Social Studies exam didn’t go as well as I only had a pass rate of 70% which is quite annoying and I may have to go through the constitution of Malawi once more – which is quite dull.

I really wanted to play football with some of the kids but when I went and inspected the football pitch the grass was about 4 foot high. This led Anthony and me to a plan… to help slash the pitch on Saturday with some of the students. Slashing is a form of punishment here and basically involves a large metal stick that is sharp which you swing (a bit like a golf club) to cut the grass. We told the students of our classes to meet at the football pitch at 9am on Saturday morning but we had no clue how many people would turn up. We wondered down at 9 and there must have been around 60 boys all gathered and willing to help, it was an incredible turn out but there were only 13 slashing sticks so many were waiting around. I was given a stick and gave it my best effort, at first I was given a large round of applause by the students but that soon turned in to laughter and shortly after I was relegated to raking the grass up. I can really see why slashing is used as a punishment as it is so incredibly tiring and I now have many cuts and blisters on my hands. The experience showed us how unfit we are and how very fit all the students were!! After a good 2 hours of slashing we had made a progress of about 1/6 of the pitch when the kids decided to start a mutiny and said they would come back on Monday and do some more. I was actually quite glad of this as I was shattered. The early finish meant that we could travel into Mzuzu and meet up with Sarah, Jess and Marcella who live about 2 hours from us. The afternoon was great as we caught up with the girls, compared placements and showed each other photos of our accommodation. Theirs is very much like ours except they do have a fridge which I am very jealous about!

We have agreed two trips at the start of February which I am really excited about, getting out of Nkhata Bay and travelling would be lovely! On the first weekend of February we are going to visit Jen and Julia in Nkhotakota (about 150km south from us). We have booked a nice room in a tourist camp near to where they are staying. From there we will be able to visit the surrounding area (including a possible safari) during the weekend. Nkhotakota is an interested town/village, first of all it has an awesome name and second the area played a huge role in the slave trade in the 19^th Century. The second trip is a birthday surprise for one of the Aussie volunteers on the second weekend of February (so let’s hope she doesn’t read this blog). We are travelling down to Blantyre (a LONG way, can’t be bothered to calculate the distance but it will be 10 hours of travelling or so!). Quite a lot of the other Lattitude volunteers will also be making the trip, so we can explore the area as well as spending time with plenty of lovely people once more! It will be interesting meeting up after a month apart and seeing what experiences we have or haven’t learned from each of our placements.

Anyway, I have just noticed that I have written over 1,500 words and should probably finish but I could happily write about my experiences for hours. I am quite hopeful that in my next blog there will be some very important updates, but I can’t spill the beans yet. Talk about cliff-hanger or what!?!

Teaching and all the other excitements!

Monire (Hello)!

Yes, I am now learning the language at ultimate pace… been here for 2 weeks and I know 2 words, impressive eh?

Local women around Nkhata Bay

Anyway, I am starting to get used to everything now, there will always be things that mystify me about this country and Nkhata Bay, for example the slowness of everything! But in general I am getting used to the people, the hitchhiking and the food! I realised that in my past two posts I have missed some essential information as I was rushing my blog due to being in an internet café. However this time I have been wise and I am using Anthony’s netbook to type everything! Anyway…

This past week has been a one of differing moods. I started off feeling quite annoyed by my placement as I wanted to go to a poor school and make a difference; instead I am at a fairly well-off school that achieves very good results. It isn’t perfect for me but I have decided to give it a proper try. We met up with Chloe and Elizabeth in Mzuzu on Wednesday and they were quite upset as their placement hasn’t worked out but now they have moved up-north to Karonga to start another project – hopefully this works for them as I really did feel sorry for them when we bumped into them in the city! Whilst in the city I bought some quite jazzy shirts that I am going to wear into school, green and white stripes are definitely appropriate in this country!

Thursday saw my first day of proper teaching. I have had a bit of preparation during my time at Oakfield Primary School being a teaching assistant but Thursday it got real! My first lesson was double maths with 1A at 8:20 in the morning and it’s fair to say that I walked into the classroom incredibly nervous! I did a little introduction to myself, where I was from and what I was doing and then cracked on with 1 hour 20 minutes of estimation and approximation. The kids seemed to pick it up really quickly which sort of destroyed my lesson plan as they went to quickly that I finished with 30 minutes to spare!! I then used this time for a Q&A session with the kids asking questions about me and my culture. But then the tricky question came up, “How old are you?” Bearing in mind that I am only 2 years older than some my pupils I sort of dodged the question and said “Old enough.” This bought a fair amount of laughter aimed at me! After a long Q&A session I was straight into another double maths with class 1B… this was difficult for me as I was repeating the exact same lesson which got my confused (doesn’t take much to confuse me, I know). Then finally in the afternoon I had 2 single lessons of Social Studies to 1A and 1B, in which I introduced the topic of the constitution – this went down well, I think!

Since being here we have become slightly obsessed with a local board game called Boa’s (we think it’s called boa’s!!) We bought a lovely wooden boa’s set from a street vender called Kelvin in Nkhata Bay, it cost us 1000MK each, a small price to pay for a game of such class! On Friday night Anthony played some of the locals in a bar and has received a master-class so now I stand no chance in beating him so I have challenged him to a game of chess, but I fear he maybe better at chess too!

On Saturday I did my first solo-travelling in Malawi as I went from Nkhata Bay to Mzuzu (50km away) to do a bit of shopping. The experience was amazing as it was just Malawi and I for the first time. Once in Mzuzu I went into the first supermarket where I was recognised by a man who knew Matt, country manager. His name was Justin, which I remembering by Justin Bieber (luckily he wasn’t like Mr Bieber at all!) He then showed me around the city and all the shops collecting the items that were on my shopping list, including: a needle and thread, paper and some medicine! He was great and stayed with me about 1 and half hours whilst shopping! Whilst he was showing me around I bumped into a nice western guy called Matty who was German. He is also on his Gap Year and is volunteering at a Primary School about 30km from us. He was filling me in with all the local knowledge as he had been here for about a month. Hopefully we will be able to meet up with him and his German friends in the near future! It is so nice to talk to a westerner now and again as speaking to Malawians can be quite annoying. Conversations aren’t very interesting and you can spend 30 minutes talking about the weather and not really discussing anything! I definitely miss good conversation!

On Saturday I persuaded Anthony to go out to the town to see what the area was like on the weekends. We were quite shocked at how empty the town was as we walked around, so based on this we decided to go to a local tourist bar (I know, not really in the Malawian spirit of things!!) But I am glad we went as we got chatting to some girls from the Netherlands along with some of the locals. It was during the walk back that we found to have picked up some followers, two dogs were walking along side us for the whole of the 40 minute walk back. At some points this was quite dodgy as they started fights with other dogs as we walked through the town… I am absolutely terrified about getting bitten by a rabies dog and the walk back was one of the scariest for a while! The dogs seem to be our companions now, whether we like it or not as each time we go into town the two dogs find us and follow us where ever we go. After another 4 hours of following through the town I decided that we should name them. One was ginger so I called him Lenin (obviously) and Anthony named the other one Trotsky (obviously). So now we have our own bodyguards in Lenin and Trotsky!

On Sunday I was walking up to the football pitch on the bay to go and see if the children needed any training or anything, what I found completely surprised me. All around the pitch there was a crowd of at least 2 deep watching a game going on. The game was between Nkhata Bay and Mzuzu City, so of course I had to have a little watch! I was amazed by the professionalism of the game as both sets of boys (aged around 18) were decked out in brand new kits and trainers. However I will never complain about the state of a football pitch in the UK again as the pitch was half sand and half over-grown grass! The conditions led to a fairly scrappy game with many long-balls from goal-kicks (something I hate with a passion!). But then when the ball was played on the ground, the skills and talent of the players was quite clear. When I stopped watching the score was Nkhata Bay 2 – 0 Mzuzu City with some quite interesting refereeing going on, all bias to Nkhata Bay of course! The passion of the crowd was clear to see as well as when Nkhata Bay scored their second there were parties going on around the pitch! This led me to the conclusion: I must go and see Malawi play before I leave the country!

The food here is very nice, yet a tad predictable! As we still haven’t moved into our school accommodation we are served breakfast which is some bread and butter, egg and chips. This is brilliant – chip butte for breakfast! I have since realised that the bread and butter is meant for a jam sandwich or something, but my chip butte goes down well! At the school we are given lunch until we move into the on-campus house… this usually consists of a lot of rice with either egg, chicken or fish as well as something green (which we are not sure what it is, but it is alright!). Then for dinner we usually go out and buy chicken and rice which would cost about 500MK (£2 or so)… it’s good as it fills you up, although I am sure that I have already lost a fair bit of weight due to the lack of snacking! Chocolate is relatively expensive over here as they have to import it all in, a small bar of Dairy Milk costs around 200MK.

Over the past couple of days we have had some massive thunderstorms as a result of tremendous heat! Thursday’s storm was the most impressive to-date. The thunder was the loudest I have ever heard and the weather sent the whole area into a power-cut for most of the day. At the start of the power-cut it was fun and interesting but after a few hours without any power the “fun-factor” starts to wear off a bit! Generally the weather is okay, quite a bit of rain around at the moment as we are in the rainy season but I am pleased to say that I have picked up a bit of a tan already – 5 months and 3 weeks to go… the tan should be pretty good by then!!

One thing I love about the Malawian culture is the hitchhiking (I am not sure if I have already mentioned this in my blog!!) but to get to school I walk up the road until I see a car going my way. I wave my arm a bit and they take me a bit closer on my journey. It would generally cost about 100MK for a trip from our place to the bay which is about 2km away, not bad! And you get to experience some strange things with 8 people piled into a stranger’s car! Yesterday I hitched a lift from school from an ambulance with a patient already in there! This should definitely be introduced into the UK – okay maybe more urgency about saving people’s lives actually! It is actually quite difficult to get into school as there are so few cars on the road… Malawi is going through a massive fuel crisis and it can cost up to £4 per litre of petrol, so basically no one can afford to drive round here! Today I walked for 30 minutes along a main road and saw 1 car. This does have its advantages though – the roads are far better than the roads of the Isle of Wight!

There is definitely one thing I won’t miss when I get home – the music. African music is so terrible, it is playing at about 1,000 beats per second and every song sounds the same. In the staff room one song was played on repeat 15 times the other day, this is now my most hated song but yet I know every word to it! Malawian music has nothing on Oasis or other brilliant British artists!

I am sorry for the length of this blog, I got a bit carried away as I didn’t have a time limit to type in.

Speak to you soon!

Nkhata Bay!

So this week brought a sad event: leaving everyone that I have become close friends with! I know I have mentioned it before but during the week I have become so friendly with the 21 other volunteers and really want to see them as much as possible. I already miss them all so much and have been texting everyone lots. I had to get up at 5am to see everyone off to their own placements, it was the strangest feeling I have had in a while, but I can’t think about that too much as now they are all spread across the whole of the country and I will never see some of them again!!

Anthony and myself had to travel from the capital, Lilongwe, to a small town of the Lake called Nkhata Bay… over 7 hours of travel! Me and 8 others bundled into Matt’s small truck thing and set off to Mzuzu where we would have lunch. The truck was already terrible but with the weight of 9 of us and all our luggage it was painfully slow! The journey was supposed to take under 5 hours, instead it was 6.5 hours! After lunch Anthony and I had to split up from the rest of them and make the 45 minute journey to Nkhata Bay ourselves. We were shown which minibus to get on and managed to just fit into the tightly squeezed vehicle. Everything was going well until the minibus veered to the right about 20 minutes into the trip. The driver did well to hold the bus on the road but the damage was quite obvious to see. There was smoke in the bus and at this point we quickly evacuated the vehicle and took all our bags with us. After having a quick look at what was wrong, it was clear that it wouldn’t be fixed, so this left us on the side of the road – about 15km away from our destination with all our luggage. We were stranded. We tried desperately to flag down passing cars (of which were few), but they all drove past and laughed. Then a lorry came along which stopped by the broken minibus. All the locals piled on the high lorry which looked to contain some sort of grain. Anthony and I quickly chatted over our options and then we decided to go for it, after all, you only live once! The decision was the best I have made this trip, after piling on our luggage we sat on the top of the bags of grain as we were escorted through the countryside. The views were quite remarkable and I think it is the best way to see the area – I would definitely recommend hitching a lift on a lorry around the Isle of Wight!

We arrived at the place we would be staying for the next week (not on campus as the room at the school is not ready for us yet.), but the doors were locked and no one seemed to be around. Then we were invited to join two men on the lawn for a chat while we waited. There is a phrase that is commonly used here, “Malawi Time”, basically meaning whatever will be, will be and there is no rush! This was my first proper experience of this. We sat there chatting to the 2 men about the UK, Ireland and Malawian history and gradually we were joined by more and more men. After about 30 minutes there were around 10 people all sat around the lawn on cheap, plastic chairs enjoying beer or reading the newspaper! This was purely brilliant! Eventually the “man with the key” arrived and we were shown to our rooms which were quite basic but had everything you needed in there really.

After quickly getting changed we were met by the Principle and Vice-Principle of our school. They were so friendly and jokey that we immediately felt comfortable around them! They took us down to the bay in the school minibus (about a 2km drive). We came to the lake-shore and looked out… it was the most beautiful thing I had seen in many years (well excluding Anthony’s lovely bed-hair!). The view took my breath away and I actually shed a tear whilst looking around. After a couple of minutes of looking in amazement we were given a little tour of the market area and then taken to a local bar where they were showing the F.A. Cup (but at the moment I can’t remember which game, but it involved Wigan!). If there is one thing to know about Malawi then it is that they are completely sport mad, particularly the Premier League. The deputy principle and myself had a long discussion about Birmingham which was amazing! Anyway, the area is beautiful and then people seem lovely. After they dropped us back off at our temporary accommodation we agreed to be picked up at 9am the next morning.

We were both waiting outside our camp at 9am on the dot, but remembering this is Malawi the minibus didn’t come until 9:45 so we enjoyed a chat with the local priest who seems very friendly! Eventually we made it into the school which is about 10km from the bay, it seemed very nice and incredibly big as all the teachers and staff lived on campus. We were given a seat in the principal’s office whilst they worked out what we would be teaching. Again their love of football was obvious as they we showing another F.A. Cup game, this one involving Fleetwood!! They looked at our strengths and weaknesses and I was given Maths Grade 3 and Social Studies Grade 1 and then we were shown the syllabus’s and whilst reading the Maths Grade 3 syllabus my initial reaction was, “Ohh heck.” (Again the wording has been censored due to the family nature of this blog! The maths was identical to AS Maths, which I took 2 years ago and got a D for my efforts. In theory I could teach it as I could study it all over again but this would be very tricky. After much panic I suggested that I should teach Grade 1 – this is more like my level of maths!! We sat in on one class for a few minutes but then quickly went back to our accommodation.

We decided to go to the bay again, as there is not much to do in our rooms. Anthony took his swimming stuff and I took my camera to take photos of the stunning views. Whilst Anthony was in the water I met 6 kids on the beach who asked for a photo. They then spent the next 30 minutes playing around and posing for photos… they were seriously cute and their smiles would light up a room! So happy with the photos.

Again we went back to the school today and started planning on what to teach. We were given our timetables and I have made initial plans on how I am going to start the first lesson. Both myself and Anthony are a little surprised about how well off the school is, hopefully we can be of use to them!

Anyway, I am not sure on the plan for the rest of today but I am sure it will involve a beer or some coca-cola! I have spent 1 hour 3 minutes writing this blog up to now and my hands are beginning to ache slightly… I will try and upload some photos but this maybe problematic! I hope everyone is okay back in the UK and hope you enjoyed reading my story up to now!

Yebo! (Thankyou).

My first Malawian week!

Well I have so much to update you since my last blog post. First of all, I am in Malawi and I am having such a great time out here. Let’s start off with travel…

The journey was relatively decent, obviously a lot of sitting and being bored but nothing major went wrong. We flew to Addis Ababa first and I was sat between an American man that looked like he wanted to kill me and a mixed up South African! We met Claus and Jess in Ethiopia and travelled on from there. Lilongwe airport is seriously tiny… think Sandown and you are thinking way to big however they have massive jets landing every so often. We had been told to bring a brolly and they weren’t joking, we stepped off the plane into the pouring rain (I’m not sure we actually flew anywhere if I’m honest!

We all got a taxi to the place we would be staying for the week – Mabuya Camp. The drive was awfully slow and all we wanted to do was sleep and wash. However once we arrived at the camp we were met by 8 excitable Aussie girls so this ruined our plans of setting a good first impression. We all sat in a big group – all 24 of us and chatted to Matt about what we were doing here. Instantly there was such a bond with everyone and banter has been flowing ever since. The camp is amazing, full of tourists and Is like a halfway house between Malawi and the western world. There is a pool table, swimming pool, bar and western food to eat. So it has been a transition period into Malawian culture.

We have been doing lots of orientation work to do with Malawian history, politics, culture and language… most have been boring but we had a fantastic talk by a Malawian politician that was working on a human rights report for the UN. She was so fascinating to listen to and told us some useful knowledge about the area we are now in. The language is very complex, I can only say one word – “Yebo” pronounced, “yewo” and this means thankyou. Let’s hope that Anthony is equally as bad as me and we will just get by on English. Getting used to the currency is tricky as it is around 250 Kwacha to the £1 therefore everything seems so expensive, spending several thousand on chocolate! But generally things are nice and cheap here, you can get Coca-Cola for 40p!

The evenings here are AMAZING. We spend hours playing pool and different card games. A beer costs around 70p so needless to say we have been letting our hair down a bit! There are 24 of us in total and we have only know each other for 5 days but I honestly can’t believe how close we have all got. Everyone here is brilliant and so cool to talk to. We have all struggled with names of everyone but eventually I am just about there. We are separating into our pairs tomorrow and I will miss so many people here, I wish we could stay together for longer however we are about 50km from some of the volunteers so we can meet quite a lot. I know it is bad to pick favourites but I think everyone agrees here that Claus, the Danish guy, is awesome! His English is very good and is the most sarcastic guy I have ever met, his one-liners are fantastically funny and he quite clearly doing quite well with the ladies here.

Lilongwe, the capital city, is very western with a huge supermarket very similar to Tesco (obliviously not as good!). But the one thing that has most surprised me is how quiet the city is, I was expecting similar chaos as Dhaka but it is as quiet as Newport would be!

The people that own the camp here are from Hampshire, so I travel over 5000 miles and I am still around local people. They also own the diving school in Nkhata Bay (my placement) so I am trying to become very friendly with them so I can get discounts on diving sessions – fair game I would say! Anthony and myself have been asking everyone about Nkhata Bay and they all have the same response, “You are going to LOVE it!” so I am fairly excited to move to my placement area tomorrow.

I have to be up at 4:30 tomorrow morning, something I am not looking forward to as I can’t go for my 6 am swim anymore! Ohh and one more thing…. I HATE MOSQUITOES! I HAVE BITES EVERYWHERE AND THEY ARE SO ANNOYING!

So this is a fairly quick update on how the first week has gone. Once we get to Nkhata Bay I will hopefully be able to go on the internet a bit more. I am sorry if this doesn’t make fully sense as I am recovering from last nights party (one of the girls had their 18^th last night… was quite messy!). I have probably missed so much but this week has been such an experience that I can’t remember everything.

Until next time…

Departure Day.

So today is the day. 2^nd January 2012. The day that my life changes. The day where I leave the UK and start my trip to Malawi.

To start with, let’s fill you up on the facts and stuff! I leave the Isle of Wight on the 14:30 ferry heading towards Heathrow Airport. My flight is at 20:25 to Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), after a short stop in the airport I arrive in Lilongwe, Malawi at 12:20 (as yet I am not sure if this is GMT or local time).  Once I get to Lilongwe we will be met by our Country Manager, Matt and he will take us to Mabuya Camp which is a tourist camp area (Google it!). The place looks lovely with a swimming pool and Wi-Fi! We will stay here for 1 week whilst we learn how to teach and then we will split up into our pairs and head off to our placement locations (Nkhata Bay).

The past month has been quite strange for me as I have been saying goodbye to my colleagues, school-children, friends and family. I thought this would be easy as I was keen to get off the island and start my new adventure; however this couldn’t be further from the truth. First of all I would like to say a massive thank you to Oakfield Primary School who employed me as a Teaching Assistant one day a week. I was only there for 3 months or so but I quickly started to love the job. The kids were so great to work with and I hope I helped out the school as much as I could. I was given lots of nice gifts and cards from my class when I left and I would love to go back after I return from Malawi.

I also finished my job at Tesco in December, this I won’t miss as much. I was there nearly 6 months and I never want to hear the words “I only came in for a few things.” again! Customers are so annoying!! I moan but in truth I have to thank Tesco as they have been great employees, very flexible and I have met some lovely people.

But saying goodbye to friends and family is the worst. I am only going for 6 months but I am going to miss everyone here dearly, however I am sure I will be able to keep in touch with everyone and within a flash I will be back on the island. I had a New Year’s party with my friends and then I'm going to Thorntons with my closest friends in a short while which will be a nice send off. I will miss them to pieces… no more Wetherspoons on a weekend or business chats with Tyler!

Everyone keeps on asking me whether I’m nervous or excited and to be perfectly honest I have never come across this emotion before. The words, “Oh gosh what on earth am I doing!” are going round in my mind, over and over again (obviously the choice of wording is slightly different but this is a family blog!). I am worrying over the silliest things such as the probable lack of cow’s milk! This got me thinking, what will I miss and what will I enjoy being 5,000 miles away from? I will miss so much but peanut butter is high on the list, along with our weekly Wetherspoons trip, Football Manager, my comfy bed, my cat and of course my laptop. At the moment the only thing that I am looking forward to spending 6 months without is the Go Compare advert. I really do hate that man!

Anyway I could ramble on for pages, just talking about what I am feeling but I have to go now. I wish all my readers a happy new year (and for those who don’t read this, I wish you a terrible 2012!). See you in Malawi!