Good News and Bad News

A lot happened today, good and bad.

Quite hungover we continued painting in Temwanani, the orphan day centre. The second coat was going on well as we were listening to the World Cup qualifier match between the reigning African champions Egypt and the minnows Malawi.

Some neighbourhood kids were helping us with the painting. It was pretty gutting to see one of our youngest helpers was being ruthlessly bullied by the other children. We think she’s a bit simple but the others have no respect for that. I considered scolding them but then thought to myself… what’s the point?

The match was a pretty dull affair until, twenty seconds before it ended, the only goal of the game was scored, by the Malawian striker! The Malawians were going crazy – this kind of upset doesn’t come around often!

Half an hour later however the mood suffered a serious reversal when we got the terrible news that the daughter of Ungweru’s director, Patrick Chilambo, had died. This AIDS victim had just qualified as a nurse.

It was a huge shock and work on all projects was put on hold until further notice.

Some of the local efforts

This morning we went to visit the Temwanani Day Centre for Orphans. Dids and Val have been down there quite a bit as they are having a look at the set-up, but the rest of us were seeing it for the first time. Three volunteer teachers run the nursery school for about a hundred orphans-its pretty amazing that they manage to get anything done considering how wild the kids are…they are extremely patient women! The incentive for the kids to turn up is the meal they get when classes finish at 11:00.

We made some progress with our project as well. Jamie met with Vickness, the second teacher at Lusekelo who was able to tell him a lot about the operation of the classes. Tomorrow I’m going to meet with some of the students taking the courses to hear their opinions. Once we’ve spoken to everybody involved, hopefully we will have some ideas about how the classes can be run more efficiently.

This afternoon I was going to go to football training with the Ungweru Youth team. It was cancelled though which allowed time for us meet Brave and some of the Youth Committee about another idea of theirs. On Friday morning they are going to Luwinga Secondary School to speak to the students there about various aspects of positive living. On the agenda will be issues such as AIDS/HIV, Community Development, and Issues for Women. They would like a few of us to offer our views on positive living and speak about lessons we have taken from our education and experiences.

This evening we tasted a local maize beer called Chibuku. It smells like stale beer, has the texture of reddy brek, and leaves the drinker with the general sensation of having vomited. A litre costs Kw60, around 27 cent. I haven’t developed a taste for it.

I’m pretty impressed with the work that the Ungweru Youth Group do. They give very generously with their time. With no compensation, they go to hospitals to clean, they clean the homes of orphans and the bedridden, they promote positive living amongst their peers and younger children, and they have made huge efforts to make us feel very welcome.

Getting Stuck In

After having the craic yesterday, this morning Jamie, Jack and I made our first steps in the volunteer work we have come here to do. We hope to improve the operations of the computer centre aspect of Ungweru. We have guidelines on how we can do this from an analysis on Ungweru carried out by a recent volunteer, James Judge.

James’ report covers the history and objectives of the learning centre, and highlights the path forward. Jack will be focussing on the mzuzu.org project – a proposed initiative to set up a web design business which will raise funds for Ungweru – whereas Jamie and I are going to analyse the Lusekelo School of Computing. These will be our primary projects, but we hope to have time also to tidy up the computers, and the network that links them, as well as installing a printer.

The Lusekelo School of Computing makes courses in basic computing skills available to members of the local community at affordable prices. Here students can take courses in Introduction to Computers, Typing Skills and the use of Microsoft Office products, Word, Excel, etc. At present 2 teachers use 10 computers to give 30 hour courses to some 25 students per month.

The general operation of the school requires attention, with a view to improving its efficiency. It will be our task to analyse the classes offered, how they are run, how much each course costs and how many classes are included in each package. In addition, we hope to take measures to overcome some recent difficulties encountered by the school such as damage to key equipment caused by a lightening storm, and the high turnover rate in teachers.

This morning we met with Kelvin, one of the teachers at Lusekelo, who gave us an overview of the school. Our plan from here is as follows:
- Jack to meet Macneil Mhango who is most familiar with the proposed mzuzu.org project
- Speak to John about installing the new equipment we brought with us from Ireland
- Meet with some of the students attending the school
- Meet Vickness, the second teacher at the school
- Ask Patrick about the possibility of obtaining insurance for the centre and protecting the equipment from lightening damage

The morning was fairly successful, and we agreed to work towards our meeting with JohnPaul, the tomorrow evening. This afternoon we attended a drama production by the St Augustine’s Drama Group, who write and perform plays with strong social messages. Today they were condemning the traditional practice of inheritance which is synonymous with polygamy, whereby the brother of a man who dies inherits the widow and her children. This has exacerbated the spread of AIDS.

At the play we were introduced to members of the local home based care group, who are adult volunteers from the community who dedicate their time to supporting orphans, widows, and the ill. They provide practical to these people who cannot support themselves. They clean the houses of the ill and provide them with blankets and sometimes food. They give clothes to orphans and pay their school fees.

Getting There and Getting Settled

At two hours, mass this morning was the longest I’d ever attended, but was not boring in the least! The choir were in full voice and hearing John lead the prayers in chitumbuka was quite strange. The dancing was nearly constant throughout, and when the girls joined in their attempts were greeted with huge laughter! Afterwards John told us it took him a full two years before he was at ease speaking the language, but by now he may as well be a native.

Last night Jamie, Jack and I arrived in Mzuzu, and the occasion called for a few beers. John was delighted with his new bottle of Jameson’s, cracking it open immediately and thrusting double measures into our hands! A game of charades helped to break the ice – the banter started flowing straight away. We had John acting out the bible, and Roseanne acted out Sex and The City. It’s a good thing John doesn’t disapprove of blasphemy!



The journey from Cork to Mzuzu passed without much incident…I left my phone behind me on one of the planes which was pretty stupid. I found a dodgy phone dealer in Lilongwe who sold me a nokia at a bargain price. The only problem with it is that the battery won’t charge properly!

This afternoon we were invited to watch a football match between Ungweru Youth and their local rivals. The match was pretty fast-paced – which has me a little worried ahead of my debut with Ungweru Youth next week. There was an Irish guy, Dave, playing with the opposition. He’s here for a year teaching some of the locals about solar power as a power source. An entire year is a pretty impressive commitment.











Ungweru youth then put on an evening of performances for us followed by a disco…what a night! We irish were put to shame on the dance floor. To put it this way we never felt so white in our lives! The Malawians, like all Africans, are incredible dancers. We taught them some Irish as well, “conas atá tú?”, “póg mo thón”, and of course “what’s the craic?”.