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Published: March 6th 2014
Mike the tortoise
When he was my pet I will recommend a cup of tea and some snacks for this, I had to have a tea pot full of tea just writing this!!
I hope you enjoy and take your time...
Lets start with a happy story..... Last week I had a pet tortoise called Mike for 30 minutes! One of the builders at work found him behind some rocks and gave him to me to look at. I picked the tortoise up at the surprise of everyone and took him to the kids, he was very strong and quite heavy, lots of teachers came to look and went away a bit sheepish of him except for Virginia who stayed with us. I asked her what we should call it, she came up with Mike, and it stuck. Lots of the kids came closer the longer I had him. I wanted to measure him so I balanced him on my arm and he fell off and landed shell side up on a child's head! It left a bump on her head and a small mark on Mike! I panicked and laughed at what I did, which wasn't the best thing to do as
Colour box 3
They may look board but they weren't the child was crying, it was then realised that I may not be the best tortoise owner, so I put him back near where he was found. Lots of the kids followed us and watched him as he slowly made his way back to his house. It was very exciting for them all.
These past 2 weeks has been really fun. I went to Glad Tidings on Monday 24th Feb for the morning and watched everyone sing the national anthem and other songs in both Chichewa. I took Colour Box 3 with me, Its the box that has 9 different colours with 8 different shades of the colour on separate tablets. I was in the little room at the front, the one with Emily's monkey, snake and frog painting. (if you know it.) I like it there as it had Emily's name and a heart that she painted and it makes me feel connected to England in a way. Anyway, back to where we were... The first set of 5 children that came in were really shy and didn't want to touch the tablets which was quite disconcerting as I am not used to that type of
Colour Box 3
Having fun... behaviour, but it was really nice not having to stop everyone touching everything at once. When they got used to touching them, the children and teachers put 5 of the colours in order and I messed up some of the orders to see if they would put them back in the order. (Just so you know they didn't and gave me a look like I was crazy.) I put them back in the right order and got the box with the other 4 colours. This time the children reached out and got the ones they liked and put them in the order, it was lovely looking at the older children who did it really quickly then helping the younger ones without being asked to help. I would not see this in the nursery. It was really relaxing once we all got to know each other, when we finished we talked about our favourite colours and tried to match the colour to anything in the room, including Emily's painting or all our every colourful clothes. When we found a matching one we all put them away for the next set of 5 children. I like doing it this way as all
the children have the same amount of attention and they all get a turn, instead of having all 40 children, it just wouldn't work. We had 4 different groups of 5. When I asked if they would want to do it again they all said yes. (I am going to take that as a good thing!) One strange thing I found was having a translator as they can't really understand English. It as odd having to stop after every sentence for everyone to understand what we were doing. I had to really slow my speech which was hard but I got there in the end. It was a good experience that gave me other ideas for next coming weeks.
That all happened in the morning, in the afternoon I was tried but happy from the morning so I went to Jessica's and just hung out there with her and talked about everything and nothing, which I miss from England. We just talked for hours and loved it.
Tuesday was the last day of the school that week as there was a holiday from Wednesday to Friday YAY! To celebrate we went outside onto the
football pitch (which I didn't know we had) and I took some balloons with different objects in to make them float in all directions and took the parachute to play with the balloons on, this worked until all the balloons popped. (Which was quite early on as everyone was trying to get them). Afterwards the children got a bit crazy with the parachute trying to stand on it and pull it around, I was worried it would break so I put it away and we went looking the long grass for some crickets and made them a house out of sand and mud. This was really fun and we carried on until lunch. After lunch we all went home and I read until it was dinner time.
On Wednesday all I did was read and swim in the pool, we had bible study which was lovely, talking about how to apply the scripture in our everyday lives. On Thursday I just read and swam in the pool all day until I had enough of the bugs and came inside to carry on reading. On Friday I read a lot more in the morning and afternoon, Jessica came
round in the evening and we watched another Sherlock episode, (the Blind Banker) with the rest of the wine. We went on pintrest as Jessica asked about it but there are lots of pictures of Sherlock season 3 on it and Jessica hasn't seen it so that may have been a mistake (she commented on the picture of Sherlock and Molly kissing)... We carried on talking about Sherlock and other things until we looked at the time and she decided to stay the night as it was raining heavily and it was really late. This was good fun as I haven't had a proper sleepover in years! In the morning she had to leave quite early and I went back to sleep.
On Saturday Jessica went home and we had a family from Lilongwe around for the weekend, I had to move out of my room so the family could stay there for the night. This was quite nice as I stayed in the dorm area at the top and found out I could get very strong signal there for my phone YAY! It is also quiet and peaceful with a balcony that looks out to the
pool. (Great place to read). They all went to the lake for the day and left me here as I was doing some more planning for the school and I made a Lemon tart without cream, it was really fun while watching things on youtube as I made the pastry, rolled it out and whisked the filling. The 1st proper thing I made since arriving here. YAY! When they got back from the lake it suddenly got very loud and busy as they had 2 children as well. I played with them for a bit as we waited for the dinner to cook and then all sat down to eat and talk and get to know everyone. The mum was from Canada (Vancouver) and the Dad is Italian but was born and raised in Malawi. They have 2 kids, one 5 and the other 2. When everyone had eaten and the kids had gone to bed, we sat in the living room to watch a movie with Richard Gere in. It was ok but quite sad. We went to bed quite soon afterwards as on Sunday another family will join us and they have 3 kids.
On
Sunday the another family join us from Lilongwe and we spent the day by the pool, swimming, talking and generally having a laugh, the Mum is from Scotland and the Dad is from somewhere in Brazil I think... (I'm not too sure though) So there were lots of Languages flying around. For lunch we had the most amazing salad, all of the ingredients came from someone's garden, Including pomegranate, mangos and pineapples! Yummy, all fresh and picked the day before! For the pudding we had the lemon tart I made on Saturday with ice-cream, it went down well not much was left 😊. After lunch both families left and I went to Jessica's to get some space from kids. We didn't do much and just talked again really until dinner when I went back.
On Monday I went to Glad Tidings again and did The Insets with them (insets are Ten geometrical shapes in plastic. The frames are in one colour and the inset shapes are in another. The child uses the frame to draw the shape and then they decorate the shape or colour it in.). This was simpler than Colour Box 3 as it is
quite self explanatory, I gave the children a small pack of pencils and some paper. I did an example with the square and drawing in the square making it into a present and told the children to do their own. Some of the kids loved it and made 6 pages of pictures when some other ones just scribbled on the paper, looking at what the others were doing. After each session the children took 1 pencil home and all their work. This was really rewarding as all the children were smiling and they all said thank you when they left. I was in the office talking to the manager when some of the children gave me their work and said "thankyou gift" in English to me. This was really sweet and I still have the pictures!
On Tuesday I had to wake up at 5:45 because I needed to get a lift Madam Shone and had to be at her house at 6:30! When we got to the house at the school she showed me the kittens that had been born on Monday morning! they were so cute and small, (they reminded me of all the times
when Isabel had kittens especially when we tried to dress them up, and the time they were born on the sofa at my birthday party!) I had to be dragged away from them, I could have stayed there all day!
Once I was in the school we had a staff meeting with all the staff at the school sat around for the 1st time since I have been there and talked about what we were going to this week and on each days. I found this a really good thing to do as now we all know each others plans and can work together in completing them. I feel more confident this week and the staff meeting helped. Another great thing that happened that morning was some of the Montessori equipment had been made and ready to play with so I showed the teachers how to use them and then took them into the older nursery class. We had 2 spindle boxes and the spindles, the pink tower, Sandpaper letters both upper and lower cases and the numbers from 1-10 and circles from the Geometric Cabinet.
We put one activity on each desk and the children worked with
Emily's paintings
Still there after all these years... them, getting directions from me and the teacher. This went really well until the teacher left the classroom as I was getting everyone to switch activities, in hindsight I should have moved the activities instead of the kids, but we live and learn. This was hard work as everyone wanted to work with the Pink tower. I put them away and the teacher came back to work with the sandpaper letters, doing the alphabet with them. During break I started colouring in with a child in the office at school and read him a book about Donald Duck, this was really fun and relaxing for me! After break we went outside and did circle games including the Hokey Cokey and lots of jumping and dancing and singing in Chichewa. This was really fun, although I didn't really know what we were singing about. I tried to join in with what I could and got a lot of laughs when I did it wrong! It's embarrassing as most of these 3-5 year old's have better moves and rhythm than I do... This was really fun and very tiring so I was thankful when it was time for lunch! When I got
back to the house I went swimming and read some more, when it got too cold I came in and cut out lots of squares, triangles and rectangles for the Primary school year. Last time I was in their class I talked about houses and the different parts of the house. This time we are going to make houses from these shapes.
On Wednesday I brought some colouring books with me and everything I need for the houses including glue and colouring pencils. When I got to the school house I printed some pictures of houses from around the world and we could talk about the difference between them and the reasons why they are different.
I spent the 1st half of the morning in the younger nursery class, the teacher was in a bad mood and the kids were just sitting around not doing much so I got the colouring books and ripped out a page for each child. I put a lot of pencils on each table and let them colour how they wanted. Some of the children didn't really understand so I got a picture and coloured it in as well just to
The Pink Tower
This is how the carpenters made it. show them. Again some of the children loved doing this and asked to do more when other children just scribbled on the paper and not really doing much. But when I put the 1st pictures on the wall everyone got excited and kept colouring in more and more. By break time we had lots of pictures on the wall and even more coming.
For our breakfast instead of having porridge as usual, we had really sweet weak tea and sandwiches that had butter icing as the filling! (as in butter and sugar mixed together). This surprsingly yummy, I had 2 sandwiches 😉 I found the tea a bit sweet but drank it anyway. This was so much nicer than the porridge!
After break I went back in to the younger class and finished sticking the pictures on the wall. just as I had finished it was time for me to go into the Primary class and do my planned lesson with them. I had help from Virginia, A lovely teacher in training and was happy to help! This was really fun as I don't think the kids get to do much sticking and drawing normally. They all did
Pink tower again
Its may favourite one! them really well and carefully, putting the windows and doors on then drawing on the family and other details they want to put on. When they had finished I put them on the wall with Virginia's help. When everyone had finished it was lunch time so I didn't have time to talk about the different houses but I will next time. Virginia and I stayed behind to talk and clear up. She is a great teacher and very cleaver, she is studying science at Uni as she wants to be a secondary school science teacher. She invited me to her house for the weekend and to go to the lake.
On Thursday lots of the children were sick from Malaria so the school was quite quiet. I was with the younger class again, this time the teacher wanted to work with the new materials and we brought them to the classroom. It was more calm than before as the children were interested and there were fewer to work with. We put an activity on each table and explained to the children how to work with each one. I took lots of pictures and the children got every
Kids playing with tower
Yes I know its not pink! excited with the camera. It was a wonderful calm morning and at break time we had the sweet tea again but instead of the butter cream sandwiches we had raisin bread instead, this was yummy but not as nice as the butter cream sandwiches! After break I went back to the younger class to play Kim's Game. This is the game where you have lots of objects covered by a cloth and the children have to guess which one is missing. Once we had done that a few times we kept the objects covered and the children had to remember what objects were under there. If they guessed right they could have the object, at the end who ever had the most objects won. The teacher had a good idea of brining in little sweets or toys the children can keep as prize. I like this idea and I might do it next time, if I have time to find something that could do. This worked really well and I am very happy with the layout and set up of the game. What helped most was the fact that the teacher read my lesson plan before, during and after the
The Pink Tower
It is great fun game. So we were working together properly for the 1st time! It was fantastic!
On Friday I needed to go to Lilongwe to sort out my Visa as it was running out, but a massive truck bringing up bricks on the very muddy road coming up to the farm had tipped over into the ditch on the side of the road so we couldn't get anywhere as it was blocking the whole road. We were stuck on the farm. This was a problem for me as the Visa runs out on the Sunday and we were not sure if the office is open on Saturdays. We waited as lots of people on the farm helped to get the truck out and moving again. Thankfully they did late afternoon and we could go into Salima as it was too late for us to go to Lilongwe now. We quickly went got it done, without much fuss and bother so we went shopping for a bit of food and came home again. Panic over! Once I was back at home I texted Virginia about tomorrow (Saturday) and we got our plans sorted. I then went over to see Jessica
and we talked for a bit until she had to go somewhere. I went home had dinner and then read some more and tried to plan tomorrow! I went to some neighbours houses to see if I could get a lift off someone to take me down to the main road. It is a 15min drive, I would walk but there is lots of crime especially in the hungry season (which we are in) and I am an obvious target. (look at me I'm a target!) I asked the people who own the farm and they said they would drive me to the main road as they were going somewhere that morning.
On Saturday I had to wake up at 5:40am to get ready to meet Virginia at 8am in the middle of Salima. I talked to Jessica about how to get there via public transport as Maryanne has to go to Lilongwe to pick up Barbara from the airport, who will be staying with us for a week. Jessica said to get a bike taxi from the main road, this will take a hour so I would have to get there at 7. Just before I
Pink Tower
Some more children doing the tower left Maryanne told me to try to get a minibus instead of a bike taxi as it is safer and 1 hour on a bike taxi is not a good idea.
I walked to the house where I was going to get my lift to the main road this was nice as I don't know them that well, we talked all the way down to the main road. I saw lots of bike taxi's on the main road but I didn't want to get one so I waited for almost an hour at the side of the road for a minibus to come, one came but it was too full to pick me up so I just waited for something to come, hoping I wouldn't be too late. Finally a truck came past and I jumped on thanking them for stopping. I was in the back where there is no roof and it was very windy and cold. There were 5 other people in the back and we tried to talk but we couldn't hear each other that well.
When we were dropped off I had passed where I was meant to be so I had to get
Finished the tower
These two were really happy doing this, they didn't want to put it away! on a bike taxi to take me to Virginia, this only lasted 5 minutes but it was very wobbly and I didn't like going in the potholes that were everywhere! When I finally got to were we were meeting, Virginia's Grandma was with her, we were all happy to see each other. We started to walk to her house when the Grandma went to the market. We met up with her brother on the way, they said "hello" to almost everyone as we passed. The walk was about 10 minutes to get to their house. The house was brick with what looked liked 3 rooms, a kitchen/living room and 2 bedrooms. (the bathroom and toilets were outside) What I didn't know is that if there are 2 sisters, and one of them gets married then the other sister will move in with them as well. So in this house there was Virginia, her brother, his wife, her sister and their 5 year old daughter. When I walked into the kitchen/living room the tables were on the sofas and one sofa was blocking half the doorway to a bedroom. They had a small but modern TV with good speakers and what
looked like a big media centre where you can control the sound of the radio/TV/CD player. When we sat down the brother put on a football game on the TV and asked if I liked football, I said I preferred rugby so he changed it over for me to this weird type of ruby called something like super rugby with really quick games and teams called the sharks and the bulls. We watched 2 games with tea, bread and butter.
When we had finished we went to see their Granddad, Grandma and Uncle at the bigger house in the village. This house was very dark, the hall way was also the kitchen (a bit like our hall way in England when our kitchen was being extended). Her Granddad and Grandma were sitting at the end of the hall cooking on the floor and drinking tea. Virginia showed me into the dining room, it was even darker and had a large oval table with 6 chairs around it and 4 chairs against the walls. Virginia left me there to go and get her Grandma and Granddad, her Grandma came in with a bowl of freshly baked bread that was still
Spindle box
Counting spindles warm. I spoke the little Chichewa I knew to her and she laughed and said 'good' and 'Thank you' back in Chichewa. She went to get the Granddad. When the Granddad came in we talked at little in Chichewa again and then Virginia translated the rest for us. He is very proud of his house, he built it and raised his family there, 2 boys 1 girl.
When he left Virginia's Uncle came in, we started in Chichewa but he switched to English, He lives here with his Wife, They have 5 children 3 boys 2 girls, they are all grown up. He is a social worker and goes to different houses trying to help in anyway he can. (from what I could gather it sounded a bit like the work we do in England but without all the paperwork and faff). Once I had met everyone and finished the bread, I waited for Virginia to get ready (I think most of her stuff is in this house as there is much more room) and we left to go back to their house to pick up the Brother, as we were waiting for him the Grandma ran out of
Spindles
More Spindles her house to give me a tetange, she wrapped it around me laughing and ran away, it was a bit sudden and a lot of Chichewa was spoken fast so I didn't know what to do.
When I had composed myself we walked to the main road. Everyone was talking very fast and in Chichewa, there were lots of minibuses, cars, tok toks and bike taxis. Virginia's brothers talked us into an over packed car. It was a normal 5 seater car but with about 8 adults and 2 children, there was 3 people in the boot so we had to drive with the boot open all the way to the lake.
On the way we dropped people off and picked up others. So it look longer than normal. When the car dropped us off we had to walk for about 10 minutes to get to the lake. On the way we passed the brother's offices and his in-laws house. When we finally got to the club house, by the lake we ordered a few drinks and went down to the sand. I was the only white person there, lots of people were washing clothes and having baths
Spindles
He was proud that he didn't need much help (which reminded me of Dad camping on the river and that time our shower broke). Lots of people were fishing and kids playing. We walked down the lake until we got to a space. We dumped our stuff and ran into the glorious warm water! It was bright blue and we could see our feet. It was heaven. We swam quite far out, and tried to do lifts and flips in the water. My only problem was that I forgot my nose-clip so lots of the water went up my nose, or I couldn't control the flip so would hit my head on the bottom. But it was really fun and lovely. After about 2 hours we got out and had lunch, and then back swimming for another hour. I had to get home before it got dark, it gets pitch black here as there are no street lights nor light pollution. So we left the lake at 3 and went to the In-laws house to say hello and use their toilet. We walked back up to the main road and waited for a mini bus to get us back to Salaima.
We didn't have to wait
Spindle box
We needed help with this one... long as there was a mini-bus on its way. This one was also packed and Virginia and I had to share the front seat. The bus was going really slowly, we were the same speed as a bike! The radio was talking about the elections coming up, it was interesting from what I could gather. I found it very hard not to fall asleep, Virginia kept having to elbow me. When we finally got to the bus station in Salima we got bombarded with people and bike taxis trying to get us on their bikes. I left the negotiations to the brother and we got 3 bikes to her house. This one was the most unsteady one yet and I felt I was about to fall. I was thankful that we stopped and I tried to get off as gracefully as possible (which wasn't that graceful). We got to their house and lots of men were watching football, Virginia and I went to her room which was quite big, it had 2 large double beds and a bit of space between them. All the clothes were in suitcases in the corners. We talked about work and things for 30 mins,
Geometric circles
Finding the right circle in the right place. then I had to go back home. The brother found someone who was driving towards Lilongwe and I got a lit with them. This was the most comfortable mode of transport yet! He drove up to Kindle and as the road was so bad and bumpy and the car was really low and small, we were worried we wouldn't make it. He dropped me off as soon as possible and then drove back. I walked for about 15 mins to get back. When I got home Barbara, Thea, Lacy and Jessica was there. It was a lovely surprise. They were about to go swimming so I went upstairs and got changed, When I got to the pool, everyone was getting out. I said goodbye to everyone and went swimming with Ammara. We only stayed in for about 5 mins when I got cold, we went back inside. I had a shower and talked to Barbara about the last time we saw each other. (She is the lady who had wonderful stories about the Witch doctor). She is a fantastic person who is full of brilliant stories, for example she got stuck on an elephant for 3 hours once, she was
Geometric circles
She really liked doing this activity a nurse so she has fantastically gross stories about people she treated. We talked for a while but she has been up for about 2 days straight so I let her be.
On Sunday Barbara, Maryanne, the kids, Jessica and I went to the lake again. We went to a new place that I haven't been to yet. It was very small, we were the only ones there, it was very peaceful and lovely. Jessica and I found a little beach that was secluded. We went swimming together and swam around the big rocks. When we got out we sat in the sun to dry off and a guy who was selling bracelets and necklaces came over. Jessica brought lots of bracelets as gifts and I got one for myself. When lunch came so did the monkeys, we had to scare them away so they wouldn't take our bags or food. They were beautiful monkeys that were quite small but annoying, they were in the tree above our table and looking down on to our food. Daniel had a water pistol and aimed it at the monkeys, this scared them away. After lunch we sat in the
Geometric circles
They found this one really fun! sun talking, a baby scorpion walked up my leg, when I flicked him off he landed in my bottle of fanta so Jessica and I spent about 5 minutes trying to get him out without spilling any, we did it and surprisingly he was still alive. We went to the kitchens to order some brownies and ice-cream, went swimming until it came. The brownie was warm and covered in chocolate source. YUMM! We left soon after as the kids were getting tired. Once at home Barbara and I talked a lot about here and her plans for the coming week. She is interesting and very funny.
During these last 2 weeks I have had some more encounters with some interesting animals, as this is the rainy season... On Thursday I went to brush my teeth in the bathroom but when I turned on the light there was a huge red cockroach on my toothbrush, I freaked out and ran out of the room as fast as possible!! I went into the living room to tell Maryanne my encounter, I stepped on a half eaten lizard that actually squeaked under my bare-foot. Ewww! Maryanne came to
Finishing the circles
We liked this one a lot and kept doing it over and over my rescue and had a closer look, we saw that the lizard had half its guts coming out and its mouth open. It was literally torn in half by Daisy the cat. We guessed that the bottom half had already been eaten by the cat. Neither Maryanne nor I wanted to pick up the remains of Daisy's snack so we left it hoping that she will eat it as a night time snack. (Thankfully she did, so we didn't have to touch it). Another day I was just sitting on the sofa when I felt something tickle the bottom of my foot, when I looked I saw a horrible back millipede that was quite fat and really long. I picked it up in a box and threw it outside. On Sunday when we were all at the pool we saw a massive cricket half the size of my hand, on my leg and that was scary! Last week I opened my wardrobe and a scorpion fell on my foot! Luckily my amazing reflexes kicked it off before it stung me, it scuttled under the wardrobe. Daisy also gave me a mouse head, she ate the rest. It was next to
my bed, I'm very glad I put the light on...
I's sorry its so long again, as I wrote something another thing happened!
Thank you for getting this far, I will try to make the next ones shorter.
(I hope your tea hasn't gone cold)
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