Grown men crying.

Today I cried for the first time during this visit. I'd somehow prepared myself for the poverty I would be seeing, but I was totally unprepared for what I saw today. I awoke to the sound of the cockerel crowing. Mr Moyo is making me feel very welcome at his house. The days here are different as life begins at first light, today it was around 4.45am and finishes early with most people in bed by 9.30pm. There is a lull in the middle of the day as it is so hot, around 35 + degrees Celsius. As we are close to the equator, daylight hours don't vary much and the hours of light don't vary much all year round. When we get home it's going to be difficult to adapt back to our working hours as we have been waking at 4.30am (which is 2.30am at home) every day. As Mr Moyo is well placed in the community his house has many things that aren't affordable to others, these include a car, fans and an old box television. I watched some 1990's Mr Bean episodes with his son this morning. It's funny to think that he finds exactly the same things funny as my own boys and all other children in Llandudno. Last night he refused to go to bed as he wanted to stay up to hear the adults talk, again just like at home. This morning we had a Connecting Classroom meeting. The proposed starting time was 9am, but as this is Malawi only the Welsh contingent had arrived at this time the meeting finally got going at 10.10am! We talked and talked; the things we had seen over the past week, what we had learnt, what we will take back to our own schools, things we could help the Malawian schools with, the success of the project this past year and what we hope to achieve in the future. The past twelve month have been exciting and lots achieved in all schools - growing of vegetables in all schools, the keeping of chickens, knitting projects, sending letters and postcards and learning about each others countries. However next year will be even more exciting; strengthening the communication between the learners and teachers in all countries, working on sustainable energy projects, reducing litter and learning about waste, studying foods of each others cultures and also sharing the games we play on our playgrounds. We talked until lunchtime, sat around a table outside in the shade under a palm tree next to the lake. I wish our meeting venues at home were similar! After lunch, we set off on the half hour drive to Mkondezi School where the school netball and football team were playing local rivals Chingulele school. The pitch was out in the bush and consisted of a dusty, hard surface. The supporters were out in their hundreds and we soon got them singing and dancing and doing the Mexican wave with PC Williams running up and down the front of the crowd whipping them into a frenzy. The netball was a close affair with Chingulele winning by a single goal. The play was fast, fair but fierce! The football was similar, with great skills shown on each side, especially considering half the boys wore no footwear and played barefoot. Mkindeze scored and a pitch invasion of celebration ensued. Chingulele battled to the end, however, the home side increased their lead towards the end and another invasion took place! As the teams settled down, I noticed a player lying on his back having sustained an injury. As no-one was reacting Cosmo Bartman, a South African colleague and friend and I ran to assist. What greeted us was not nice, with the boys bone protruding through his foot. We called the teachers over and they immediately moved him and started wrapping bandages. This was not how first aid is taught in Britain. However, with one in ten suffering from HIV here, and no gloves available I was unable to help as I wanted. Suffering is part of life here and I felt that the Malawian way was far too relaxed in the situation, this boy should have been in hospital. However, with the cost of transporting someone to the local doctor falling on the patient it seemed they would have preferred for him to stay in the village and hope for the best. The project teachers insisted that he took our taxi to the hospital, but with petrol so scarce our hosts insisted the game be finished, the speeches take place and the boy accompany us in our transport when it was time to leave! What happened next, I was unprepared for. We arrived at the hospital in Nkhata Bay (after pleading with the driver to take him first and forget about taking us home). I ran into the hospital as the boy was now going into shock. It took me a while to find a nurse and I walked into a few wards asking for help. People were lying on hard beds, skin and bone, cooped up in dark, sweaty conditions. How could this place be clean? Wards were full and people sat everywhere both inside and out waiting to be seen by a doctor, or waiting for a relative to get better. I'm sure many will never get better as several looked very ill. I couldn't help thinking how many of these people had HIV, Malaria, Cholera or Typhoid. The whole time I was there I saw one Nurse and one Doctor attending to all these patients. I couldn't help staring at one man, probably the same age as me, skin and bone, his ribs protruding through his body. He had little life in his eyes. I wished the boy well, left and cried. This evening we had our farwell gathering. We were humbled by the kindness of our hosts, showering our schools with gifts; locally carved wooden items , flags and a prospice Malawi t-shirt. Our hosts included the District Commissioner, the local magistrate, the chief of police and many other dignitaries. Speeches ensued and we finished with dancing the evening away. These are kind hearted people with much warmth and friendship to give. From the dignitaries and those who have accompanied us each day, the teachers and their families and even the locals who are etching out a living from the land, all have been so kind, greeting us with a smile and wanting to talk to us. Despite the poverty and conditions, we in the western world could certainly learn a thing or two from them. This small landlocked country has proved it certainly is the 'warm heart of Africa'.

Great support at the football match


Football teams about to take the field and one poor boy carried off to hospital.