Wednesday 9 October

Power cuts have been a problem over the last couple of days. But life here goes on as normal. The group spent the morning carrying out activities with pupils in the primary and the secondary schools.

"Today was a very fulfilling day. In the morning I went to St. Peter's Secondary school and we asked them to write down 5 things that they loved about Malawi as we had done the same thing with first years in St Matthews and we swapped them round. It was very nice to see the pupils excited and laughing and joking with each other while I also learned about things Malawian people liked that I previously wasn’t aware of.

 After we had finished the tasks I went down to St Peter's primary to meet with Tom, Heather, Anne and Sophie where they had been all day. I joined in as they taught the kids how to do ‘heads, shoulders, knees and toes.’ It was brilliant to watch the younger children get really into the routine and Tom showed the children his kilt that he had brought. In every class we went into it caused an uproar of laughter when Tom wore it then another round of laughter every time a different child put on the kilt. It was satisfying to know that for a moment I had made them genuinely laugh and have a good time.

 Then later on it was a first for me. I took part in a football match with Mr McGuigan and around 30 secondary school pupils. At first I thought it was going to be a bit of a carry on but as soon as the game kicked off I realised that the guys were taking this very seriously, asking me which position I played in etc. It was a great game that was well competed and I would never pass up on a game of football… I’ll never moan about a bumpy football pitch again that’s for sure!"

 Ewan Grant

 

"An early start today up for quarter to six to prepare for a morning in both St. Peter’s and Lunyangwa primary schools working with form 1, 4 and 7 doing multiple maths based exercises with the show me boards. Due to the pupils lack of English I was not able to do a mathematical version of bingo with the form 1’s; this meant that Sophie Lewis, Heather, Anne and myself split into groups of around fifteen working with them doing exercises such as “find the missing number”. afterwards I brought out my kilt firstly explaining the background to it, then giving the children a chance to try it on; the reaction was amazing  and the teachers also really enjoyed trying the kilt on in all the classes. We then went on to do art lessons by asking them to draw what they loved about Malawi. By far my favourite time in the primaries was when we shared different songs with actions: we taught them the action and words to “head, shoulders, knees and toes” which provided a wealth of entertainment for the children watching us doing the actions and singing the words. After lunch we went to St Peter’s secondary where we participated in their football and netball matches. Obviously St Matthews won the netball there was a great atmosphere with everyone being very warm and welcoming in the usual Malawian way. "

Tom Cochrane

 

More pictures to follow.