D and G

LAST DAYS IN MALAWI: Well, this is it folks..... our last blog from Malawi although we may continue to write on here from time to time as the journey continues. I left you suddenly on the last entry... sorry about that. I was describing meetings. Our experience of the SUPOCHO meeting, where Derek and I were really excited by the ownership of this community project as the attendance was good and people engaged with it and showed that Webster and Wilfred have the support they need. The other meeting was in a village near to Chintheche where women from a few neighbouring villages are asking for support to help vulnerable people and orphaned children. It was a very different meeting but important as the local politics are getting sorted out to enable the group to function ... read more

NKHATA BAY: TEMPORARY RESIDENTS! It's been a long time since I have written. Forgive us folks! We have been very busy and now that our time for leaving beautiful Malawi is in sight we are very keen to get as much done as possible to help SUPOCHO and have all the information we need to bring back to the UK and get on with the task of fund raising. What can I say in a short period of time? The Internet has been playing up for days but today is good! Our house share is going well although the moving in process was hard. The day after we actually moved was the first day of BIG rains for Nkhata Bay and we had a flood in the house! Derek and I returned from a trip into ... read more

Settling in Nkhata Bay: The last time I wrote, we had just gone back to Nkhata Bay to put some more time into supporting SUPOCHO and the computer school. We were there for a week and it was an important time. We made a decision not to go all the way down to Mulanje to see the beautiful sights of the mountain and tea plantations. Basically, the constant travelling gets very wearing after a while and we both want to put as much effort as we can into helping SUPOCHO set up as possible. So we are presently travelling slowly down to Blantyre so we can visit the IT Schools Africa project worker there. We are hoping the lap tops will have arrived from Mozambique, but at the last communication 2 days ago, they still hadn't ... read more

CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR CHITIMBA First let us wish you all a very Happy and peaceful New Year and thank you for all the good will messages we have received. Our seasonal celebrations were enjoyed on the shore of lake Malawi, at Chitimba where we were able to have exclusive use (as tourists!) of Mdokera's Paradise Campsite. It is the best campsite we have ever stayed at. Mdokera and is lovely family have been wonderful hosts. No electricity, no piped water but we still had hot showers when we wanted them and have been welcomed to join in with every day life and not such every day life too. On Christmas Eve there was a gathering of local people to come and play drums, to sing and to dance. This was after Gill had spent time ... read more

NKHATA BAY AND CHINTHECHE AGAIN Webster and Wilfred Nyirenda are brothers working with dedication and enthusiasm to set up SUPOCHO, an organisation recently formed to support vulnerable orphaned young people in the Nkhata Bay region, to have access to and learn computer skills. Derek met Webster last year when travelling in Malawi and following a simple enquiry from Webster about the cost of transporting computers, we are now awaiting the arrival of 10 donated laptop computers from Wales all the way to Nkhata Bay. A brilliant organisation called IT Schools Africa has helped and SUPOCHO has formed as a Faith Based Organisation with 3 Traditional Authority areas involved. Part of our visit here has been to attend a trustee/member meeting about the setting up of the computer school. There is still so much to do and ... read more

DEDZA to NGALA This time I am writing about a day travelling! On Wed. 8th Dec after a couple more days in Dedza where we climbed half way up Dedza mountain, visited the famous pottery, and enjoyed much cooler temperatures while putting up with quita a bit of rain, we set off for a long journey aiming to reach Chinteche again. We got a bus quite quickly from Dedza bus station and we had a comfortable enough, standing room only, ride to Lilongwe. Travelling through the hills we saw so many more people out in the "fields" planting. We saw a long line of people outside one Farmer's co-op type store queueing for maize seed...... the government are providing subsidies for seed and fertilizer at this time. But I think from newspaper reports that distribution has ... read more

LIWONDE: We arrived to the kind of heat which zaps our energy and renders us unable to think! Find our way to Shire Camp on the bank of the Shire river and near the barrage. Our room is wonderful..... About 15 ft. square and a high thatched reed roof and walls of bamboo canes and on three walls hung with heavy drapes in dusky gold and pinky maroon covers..... not designer you understand but I love it! And the bed is high off the shiney compact mud floor. It's basic and I feel at home... and knowing we will stay here for a week rather than constantly moving on.... that I like! Have been a bit of a wimp about the little critters but getting better..... I'd be in a constant state of nervousness if I ... read more

MZIMBA We stayed in Mzimba for a couple of nights; not a town visited by many tourists. The hotel was about a quarter full, mostly of working Malawians, some from the blood transfusion service and others from Save the Children charity. In the evening the bar is very quiet and Derek is able to play pool on a wonky table with challenging cues! One has no tip and the other has a tip like a burst thistle. We did a lot of walking, making enquiries about the whereabouts of a friend. Amazingly, but not surprisingly, Richard calls us 2 days later as the messages have got through to him! We meet Arthur in the internet cafe and he comes to find us in the evening to talk about the nature of democracy and world leaders and ... read more

Hello from Mzimba. We left Nhakata Bay yesterday where we have been staying at Butterfly Lodge where they have chalets for the tourists but also support the local community through some good projects including an H.I.V support group, a single women's support group and a youth project. It is a very relaxed and creative place to stay. Weve met so many people including those who met Derek last time he was here. It's hard to remember everybodies names! Much of our time was taken up with meetings in connection with SUPOCHO. They are a charity organisation setting up a computer school for orphaned, vulnerable young people. We have been to the building which Derek has been sponsoring, to have a meeting with around 12 people from the community. There were many speeches.... all translated so everyone ... read more

We got to the lake on Tuesday, staying at a lovely peaceful lodge near Chinteche.... after 8 hours on a bus (about half of it standing room only!) and then a 3 km walk with packs on our backs and 35 degrees! The best Fanta drink ever at the end of that! The lake is warm and clear with beautiful gold cichlids swimming everywhere. The food is wonderful, chambo (lake fish) and rice followed by mangos which are ripening on the huge trees in the lodge grounds. The swallows left for Africa, from Wales, before we did and it's wonderful to see them here as they speed fly through the air feeding on lake flies. The lake flies were rising like smoke, in their huge columns on the horizon of the lake..... then blown inland in ... read more