Our First Group of 2010 Volunteers

We welcomed our first group of 14 volunteers from High Worth Grammar School in Kent to the site last week with  Engcongolweni Primary School hosting the visitors in the school grounds, providing washing and toilet facilities - African style! The group worked very hard at bush clearing and then brick making - a staggering 1052 bricks in a day and a half - and in between time they enjoyed meeting the local children, attending church, playing football, socialising with local families and sampling Malawian food and hospitality.  They will be posting their own blog and linking it to our website so more to read about from them.

On their last evening they camped in my back yard in Mzuzu as they had an early start to their journey south the next day. It was great company for me on a very cold Mzuzu night as the group was in good spirits, not dampened by the rain or the cold as you can see from the photos ...........if I manage to get them uploaded!

Well, I seem to have them uploaded but I wish I could figure out how to have them placed with the text flowing round the photos..................hints and suggestions welcomed.

Before leaving Engcongolweni they donated lots of stationery, pens, pencils, pencil cases etc to the primary school as a thank you for the hospitality provided them.  They also donated sewing kits for the women's tailoring classes due to start once the classroom blocks are completed.  Thank you to this group for all their hard work and we hope you will follow our progress and perhaps take up the Pedometer Challenge on your return - full details on our website.

Back to Malawi

After a break at home for 6 weeks I was quite looking forward to coming back as word from Malawi was that the classroom blocks were finished and due to be handed over on the 15th July and the staff house would be 3 weeks later. This was a 'malawianism'!  Imagine my disappointment when I found that the classroom blocks were not finished and the staff house not even off the ground. It looks as though it will be another couple of months - given the rate of progress of the contractor - unless we take drastic action...............hmmm..............that just doesn't work in Malawi.................manyana, manyana, manaya comes to mind.  They will tell you it will be ready on Monday but don't tell you which Monday.  Is that this week, next week, sometime never????????? It's very frustrating but just for the record here is where we are:

Two classroom blocks nearing completion!

We now have our first group of volunteers from Outlook Expeditions here so some interesting postings to come next time.