Progress

The web design course is coming along nicely. The students have coped very well with building some simple web pages. Tomorrow we reach the half way point and we are going to assign them the projects which will be their test. They each have to build a website for an organisation in the local community. In this way they will learn about the whole process of delivering a web design service, and not just how to build web pages. They got very excited today when they got to play around with the digital camera.

Val and Deirdre are hoping to complete the painting at Temwanani before they leave on Monday. The good news is that the suggestions they made in their report on the day centre have been taken on board by the committee and work has already begun on the planned vegetable plot.

Last weekend we went to Nkhata Bay on the lake and stayed at a class hostel called Mayoka Village. On Friday we celebrated Val’s birthday…we were steamin! Nobody ever plans to combine Kuche Kuche and Malwian G&Ts but it happens I guess…Val was in bed by nine o’clock, pretty disappointing for her twenty-first! Our rooms were a few feet from the water and the view across the bay was amazing. Sunrise over the lake was even more impressive. I enjoyed two long days relaxing in a hammock, listening to some Nick Drake. On the way home we stopped at a craft market, where after extensive haggling I picked up a few bargains. I got a nice notebook which I might use for a photo album, and a beautiful wood carving of a globe. It’s kinda heavy to be lugging around with me but it’ll be well worth it once I get it home.

At John’s suggestion we’ve been brainstorming the idea of an Ungweru Volunteer Hostel. It would provide accommodation for future Ungweru volunteers or any other volunteers coming to Mzuzu. There’s also of course the possibility of targeting the backpacker market, which could have potential for another source of income for Ungweru.

Edson, our mandazi (local donoughts) supplier invited a few of us round to his house this evening. It can be difficult to know what to say when visiting somebody’s home. They gave us samosas and cokes, but didn’t have any with us. I guess they had a more affordable meal for themselves after we left. The family was a mixture of various ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’, terms used very loosely in Malawi. Some of the older girls in their twenties had babies. Then there was a group of three in their teens which included Edson. I didn’t want to press them too much to find out exactly what relation they were to each other, and obvious question of where the parents were.