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.