On my own

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Onturday 17th October
It's 6.30am and I wait at the side of the road for the woodman. I may have missed him, he goes by very early with a stack of wood on the back of his bike. We'll need wood very soon. We can make do with the little bits of offcuts from where the carpenters are making door and window frames,but we'll need some proper firewood to start the fire. Shelby is away from Monday, on a course for a week, and though I'm now pretty good at making a fire, I do need the right materials.
The previous evening, Friday, Shelby and I went to the market at M'bang'ombe. We each bought a necklace. Mine is like a choker with tiny blue beads, and a few white and red beads. Shelby bought two longer strings, and when a group of womem chatted to us, they told Shelby to tell me to get some for my waist. Apparently loose women wear them round their waist. Shelby has decided she'll only wear them in town, if that's the village connotation. And I don't know why they thought I should have some - do I look like a loose woman? Or perhaps they think I need livening up.
We also bought some strong rope to tie up the rush mat we use as a sunscreen above the picnic table. At the moment it's tied up with string, but it won't last long with the pressure of the wind.
The building work is coming on, the residential house will be thatched before the rains come, and the restaurant is getting taller. The large block of four composting toilets made from a lot of bottles is nearly finished, and the reception building at the bottom of the site is on its way. The church that was at the bottom of the site has been demolished, and is being rebuilt further away.
George, the site manager, feels the pressue of tje rain season approaching as seems to work seven days a week, but when he's away work slackens off.
I'm going to buy some paint for the school, to decorate the outside like the new school I saw at its opening ceremony. It had words and sentences round the top of the building.
I'm also going to make alphabet charts for each of the classes, the Head thinks it'll be a good idea.
Sunday I watched part of a football match. Some of the players play barefoot but most of them wear trainers. I'm not sure where the boundaries are, there's no sidelines, but the audience scatters and a whistle blows when the ball comes towards us. At one point the ball goes up onto a tree and the referee climbs up to get it. Earlier a few sheep meandered across the pitch, but speeded up when the teams moved up that end. Last time a game was on, a few chickens were on the pitch. Chikondi's mother comes out to introduce herself to me, she is married to one of the teachers and her house is right next to the pitch. I've heard that Chikondi is probably the star of the team, and he certainly looks very skilled.
Shelby and George went to a funeral this morning. The ten-year-old niece of one of our night guards died yesterday. She had diabetes, but Shelby said she hadn't seemed to respond to insulin, and had lost her toes to gangrene. Apparently the family were accusing the grandmother of witchcraft. Shelby says she is going to get information about diabetes to let the family know.
The family sit with the body inside the house while friends file past. Older family males make the coffin and dig the grave. It's so sad that in the UK or USA her death possbly would not have happened.
Shelby is spending the day making a book for children about Mrs Malaria who loves it when people don't use mosquito nets. People don't always use them in the right way; they drape them over the children, rather than hang them up. Mosquitos will bite through if the net isn't hung up. The book is designed to help children and carers use nets correctly. Many people do get malaria here; for healthy adults it's like flu, but for young children it's a serious disease.
On Monday Shelby and I get a ride into town wits George. He drives a different way into Lilongwe, driving further on the dirt roads and through a small industrial town that has thriving shops and industries, but still without tarmac.
First we visit where Landirani are building a new office, in rammed earth, as the rent for their existing office is high, and increases each year. They drop me off at the paint store and Shelby goes off to her conference.
I don't manage to get all the paint - I miscalculated - there's so many noughts on the kwacha (1000 is £1-25) that my brain decreased it all by ten, and I don't have enough money. There'll be enough to decorate with the writing, but not enough to paint tne wall nicely first. I go tp the school equipment suppliers, reprographic shop, food shop, then meet with Jack, the Landirani education manager. He shows me a list of pupils who have been supported at secondary, and now may want to go to university. It costs more of course, but people often share the support fees. Out of the ten about to leave secondary school, there are only two girls, (girls' education is not considered so important, in spite of various pressure groups and government initiatives, and it's mainly boys who pass). The best performing girl (second highest in attainment) wants to be a doctor. Go, girl, go.
I leave Jack and get to Mabuya camp for a swim. I've been there often enough for people to know me - its like going to the local pub. Swim and chat with Sarah the Landirani trustee then a hot shower and hair wash (brilliant, when you are used to a large bucket and pouring cups of water over yourself).
I met Shelby down at Ad Lib for a burger, (again), and as we're village people (!) we're dropping by 8pm.
Tuesday I get a lift back to Sam's Village with most of the Landirani team who are having a meeting in the library. I take groups from Standard 3, and we sit on the shade of a tree in the school ground. The Standard 3 class is with Standard 4 today and they are in the church which is in the school ground. It's better than a classroom, it's bigger and there are concrete pews to sit on. We play the lotto game which is mainly things you wear (vala), eat (kudya,) or play with (kusewera). I don't know whether the kids are learning English or I'm learning Chichewa, but we have fun.
Tues evening I cook a meal by myself, and get the fire going, and kill a huge spider. Bear was chasing it round the outside of the house, past the front door, but didn't catch it, so I was preparing to put newspaper in the crack under the door, and either it had doubled back into the house, or its mate was waiting for it six inches away from my hand, on the wall behind the door. I ran and got tne broom ,(a brand new broom that I bouhtt the previous day as our existing one got demolished by too much spider bashing. Goods here are not of a sturdy quality, and the spiders are very good at running along the angle between the wall and floor, so you can't get a clean bash at them). This one I had to give four whacks to get, and the head of the broom came off. But by then it was running around in small circles so i could stamp on it. On Sunday I got two outside by throwing a rock at them. One was a pregnant one, which made me feel guilty, but Shelby reminded me that its babies would be poisonous. I believe in karma and used to think I'd be reincarnated as a snail as penance for all the snails I've stuck in salt water, but now I know I'll come back as a wind scorpion, reviled by all.
I wish i felt the same about them as I do about lizards, who I'd happily share my living space with. But the lizards only seem to live on the outside of the walls. Or in the bamboo fence - in the evening you can hear them chirruping, and in the morning little ones chase each other out of a patch of sun on the upright posts. Bear likes to chase lizards too, but I rescue them away from him and put them on the window sill to recover.

Farming
The pressure is on to get the fields tilled and sown before the rain comes. Whole families are out in the fields before sunup, and all the fields are furrowed in neat rows. It's important to get the furrows facing across the hill, so that when the rain does come, it will not run straight down onto your neighbour's field, but will run along the furrow and irrigate your land. It's all hand tools being used, which must be hard when you're hungry. Food is scarce now, last year's harvest will be finished, and people are having to buy maize meal. Landirani went to vidit an orphanage where they have stocks of food to last till December, and the harvest won't be ready until May. Last year was a bad year. There were floods in the south of the country that killed hundreds of people, but the central and northern regions suffered from drought conditions and consequently didn't grow as much food as normal. When you are living such a hand to mouth existence, the effects of climate change are catastrophic.
I noticed in the supermarket yesterday, (and this was a posh supermarket in town) that the selection of vegetables is far smaller than we get in the UK; all the vegetables are locally grown, or come from South Africa, which is where most of the manufactured goods come from. There were aubergines as big as marrows, but these are grown at Sam's Village (thoupofbitsder than this) and anyway as Shelby is away it would be too big.

Yesterday, I started taking the Standard 3 class, and continued today (Wednesday). Unfortunately I got into such a swimg of it, that I completely forgot I was supposed to be visiting another school at 10am. I got there at 11.45, and tne Head was absolutely charming about it, 'It's humanity', he said when I explained that I'd forgotten it was Wednesday today. He must have thought I was mad, I'd been there yesterday with tne Landirani team, and said I'd see him today.
Anyway, he wanted me to take a class, so I went in with Standard 6 and Standard 8. He'd handpicked about 20 learners for each so it was fairly easy to do a lesson on the hoof.
On Friday I'm visiting another school, so I'll go prepared. I'd intended to take a couple of bits with me anyway.
I've had to come to tne airport to get some cash out, so I'm taking the opportunity to send this and by have a chicken and chips meal.

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