Big Kids...

So this is just a quick update on what I`m doing this week. Unfortunately I am typig this on a Belgian keyboard where the letters are in the wrong place so if you see many misspellings then it`s due to the keyboard – not me.

As I said before I am now at Nkhata Bay staying in a place called Butterfly which is a mix of a tourist camp and a volunteering place. I arrived expecting that I would be the only volunteer, however I am one of 8 volunteers working here, 1 Scot, 1 Irish, 1 Northern Irish, 1 German and 4 English... so it`s a nice mix of people. For the first two days I have been working at a local nursery that was set up by Butterfly for kids aged between 2 to 6 (an age group I have never worked with before!). The kids are, in a word, crazy... I spend half of my time there with 6 of them crawling all over my trying to get me to pick them up. But they are also the most adorable kids aswell with the cutest smiles and I can see why Madonna adopted Malawian children!!

At nursery we start at 8am with letters, this week we have be learning the letter A which is going okay but most of the kids are struggling with the tail of the small A. After an hour of learning we have Play Time which is chaos, little children running around everywhere making mud pies and eating them! After play time is porridge which I think is one of the most important things for them as all of them get one decent meal a day. The porridge is maize porridge and is just basically maize and water, they even give me a bowl and I have to say that it isn`t the greatest thing in the world, generally I find the thinest child and fill their bowl up more. But I think it is great that they get the porridge and they all love it, fighting over the scraps left in the bowls. Then we have `Nap Time` which is a favourite for me, jokes... it`s such a big waste of time as the kids never get settled enough to sleep, they just end up rolling around on top of each other for 45 minutes and playing with my leg hair (they are amazed by my leg hair as Africans don`t really have any so they think I`m a bear or something!) I have found something that keeps me entertained during it though, pick up the naughty kids and spin them around... they love it and watching them dizzly bumping into things is hilarious! Then we have another hour of learning, doing numbers or colours... some understand but many of the boys have the attention span of a goldfish and hold up something green and proudly announce that it`s orange.

The nursery is very challenging for me as I`m not used to the age group and they have so much bloody energy!! So I have spent the afternoons hanging out in the lake and mastering the canoe with the other volunteers. Today I am doing something a bit different with a visit to a disabled childs house. The German girl and myself are going to assess how he is progressing and do a few lessons with him which should be good hopefully. At the weekend we are all going to another school set up by Butterfly with our paint brushes to give it a make-over.

All in all I am loving this week at Nkhata Bay, plently of interesting stuff to do with some really nice people to work along side. Not quite sure what I am going to do next week, been invited to stay here, go to Nhkotakota with some Lattitude volunteers or go back up to Maji Zuwa... who knows!?