Half time

December 6th – Half-time

Our stay in Malawi will last for six months. On arrival and after a week away from mobile phones, fast internet and television I was aware that this could actually feel like a lifetime.

Yesterday marked our half way point, three months in. It has not seemed like a lifetime so far and if anything, I feel like we’re running out of time. Half time was signalled by us reaching the visa extension date stamped into our passports, indicating the need for us to leave the country. The Zambian border, just over 80km away from the lodge, would be our destination so, loading the vehicle up with coke bottles and water-proofs, we left with Patrick on a mission.

The dirt road journey was no different to any other road trip, reminding us of the variety in African life. We were met by a bright green boomslang crossing the road, then, just a little further along, by a chameleon who was attempting to camouflage into a small bush, lining the track. We came across tens of roadside traders, selling mushroom, mango and bananas before passing through small villages getting themselves ready for the rains through patching roofs and plastering walls.

Eventually we arrived at a barrier and a sign saying ‘Welcome to Zambia’. The sign was broken and a little scratched out but was, however unimpressively, doing its job. My imagination always tells me that another country will look different but looking over the rusted bar separating the nations; Zambia looked exactly the same as Malawi. Poorly built buildings and dry sandy roads.

As we parked the car and entered the boarder crossing building on the Malawian side, Patrick introduced us to the officer on duty.
“This is the gentleman who helped John.”
I greeted him in Chitumbuka, hoping that a little effort would help our operation run smoothly. Basically, we both wanted a stamp from Zambia and then to turn around and head back to the lodge with three more months available on our visa.

The procedure went unbelievably easily. We didn’t even enter Zambia. The officer on the Malawian side, a tall man with a totally emotionless face, took our payments for Zambian visas and walked off with a gangling lope. Within 5 minutes he was back, giving us a glance at Zambian visa stamps, before issuing us with another 30-day tourist visa for Malawi. We will never know whether our $100 payment for Zambian visas made it into the system or officials pockets, there were no receipts written and none mentioned either.

The media at home made me feel corruption was abundant in Africa. It’s a subject that often comes up in conversation with Malawi residents and visitors to the lodge. From what I gather, Malawi is pretty good compared to many African nations, which is a bit worrying considering what you can see on an average day even here. It’s something that comes almost as a way of life. Whether there’s more or less than in the western world, I don’t know. Perhaps they just need to learn how to hide it.


Our ‘Community Development’ role has been chopping and changing in recent weeks. Being very aware that time is against us we have had to prioritise projects to ensure we get done what we want to and don’t leave anything half finished behind.

Things are moving forward on all fronts but patience really is a key attribute at the moment. Everything is a little slow!

Our main project at the moment is converting a room at the local maternity unit in Luwawa station from a store into a visitors room for guardians of the mothers to be. The most important part of the venture is to make the whole operation accessible for the community. Whilst the funding is available to buy the necessary materials and the lodge will help by supplying the tools, our aim is to make the development community-led. We feel that it’s vital to get people involved in the work, so there is sense of ownership which we hope leads to care for the centre from the locals. This has been a problem.

The ‘real’ rains started this week and it has had a bit of an unfavourable affect on the behaviour of the Malawians. A laid back culture, they are. But when it rains it resembles something similar to England in the snow. Everything shuts down. We had arranged a work party for the visitor’s room and got our things ready, shoved on our water-proofs and headed off along the hazardous paths toward the forestry station. The paths now resemble something like a giant mars bar that has been left in the sun. Some parts allow you to sink inches into the ground, others, still solid, create a chocolaty ice rink for fun and games. It’s unpredictable and each prospective step leaves you with a tough decision of how much pressure to put through your feet. Russian Roulette for hikers.

A few slips and squelches later, we arrived at the maternity unit to be greeted by the nurse. After a quick “hihihowareyouimfinehowareyouimfinethankyouthankyou” she alerted us to the fact that nobody would be coming.
“It’s raining, they will not come.”
“What do you mean? It’s gonna rain for the next three months, we need to get this done!”
She just smiled. We worked alone that day, scraping at layers of smoked black paint that currently lines the walls.

Other, more enjoyable, projects are also getting onto their feet. Through the environmental lessons we have been teaching at the school, construction of a tree nursery has started. The students have also designed posters which are to be posted around the village encouraging care for the environmental assets of the area; trees and the dam. We are also preparing to head to the capital this week to visit irrigation companies regarding our boar-hole project. Once we have that in place at Hunga Village we will then start a nutrition and farming project with the local school children, teaching the important lessons of a balanced diet and therefore balanced farming!

Hopefully it’s enough to keep us busy but not too much to leave us with unfinished business.

To end on a lighter-hearted note… talking to anyone in English that uses it as their second language can at times cause difficulties and confusion. Fortunately, Malawians, on the whole, have an excellent grasp of the language and communication is not usually a problem. There is one main error in their spoken English though which does affect the quality.

R’s and L’s can be interchanged at any point in a word without changing the meaning. For Laura, this means she now responds to ‘Laura’, ‘Raura’, ’Laula’ and most commonly ‘Raula’. I’ve taken to Laula, it has a nice ring. This issue can cause other problems; sometimes we have cully and lice for dinner, the children have head rice, and people are leading newspapers. I never knew they could walk.

The classic though is one of George’s stories. A couple of years ago a member of staff ran up to him out of breath.

“Sir, Sir. It was just on the radio. The president has announced there’s a big election coming up.”

27th November 2010

Writing up what we are doing in Malawi is becoming a more difficult task. Things we get up to out here that are becoming more routine don’t really seem worthy of writing up into a blog, it seems inane and boring.

That’s where I’m wrong. I’m missing out lots of small points which I may have added earlier on and some of them are unforgettable and definitely thinking points!

Take for instance my discussion in the bar at the lodge last week about Christmas. Sat on a wooden stool looking along the bar at three of the Malawian workers at the lodge, I brought up the Christmas topic. “What are your traditions?” “Do you give presents?” “What do you have for dinner?” I asked with wonder. I got answers to my questions and they asked theirs. I started thinking of home, including the awful lights along New Street, wishing everybody ‘Seasons Greetings’. It would be rude to say ‘Merry Christmas’ eh?

My Malawian friends didn’t understand my explanation of political correctness in the UK anymore than I do. But it was when I got onto the subject of Father Christmas that they really lost it. Explaining that we convince little children that there is a fat man with a big white beard, belly and red suit that flies around on a reindeer (which I had to compare to bushbuck for understanding) powered sleigh, handing out presents, only once he has squeezed his way down a chimney, I saw their faces freeze in amazement. I couldn’t help but pause, laugh and announce, “It’s crazy isn’t it!”

Patrick agreed “You’re crazy people man,” as he turned to his Carlsberg Green. “Why can’t you just give them presents because you care for them?”

I understood his logic and agreed with it. It was just one example of such a small thing which I think of as normal, being a big difference between our cultures.

One thing our cultures share, which I guess is the same all over the world, is a love for music. Malawians sing amazingly. The churches here echo with fantastic voices, singing for hours on end in their local language. It’s quite moving. What I find even more interesting though is their taste in western music.

Climbing onto a truck last week containing two Malawian brothers from Blantyre, to get a lift up to Mzuzu, we began a musical discussion. The brother, who was not driving, had clearly had a few bottles of Special Brew on the trip north and was in very friendly spirits. He wore a ripped Chicago Bulls jacked, pale blue, ripped jeans and no shoes, smelt like a brewery and had a clear dislike of Scania’s poor quality truck which their father owned.

His taste in western music reflected that of many Malawian males in their early 20’s. “Aaaaaah man, you look like you in Westlife. Are you in Westlife? I love Westlife!” he called at the top of his voice. His brother agreed by howling and then chuckling like a hyena.

“Yeh yeh, and you must be Craig David?” I replied, waiting anxiously for his response, half predicting his answer.

“Aaaaaah yeeeaaaah! Craig David!” He was clearly a fan. Craig David and Westlife, along with Backstreet Boys are by far the most popular acts in this part of Africa.

This fact, along with another cultural difference makes for a very interesting scene when you walk past a Malawian bar at night. Men, who get along as friends, tend to hold hands and guide each other to different places. So an evening stroll here for a western visitor can, at any time, be met by two Malawian men falling around drunk, holding hands, singing ‘I’m flying without wings!” No one raises an eyebrow. Might get a different reaction on Broad Street mind.

Time-keeping is an issue which would bug even the most laid back Brit on a first visit to Malawi. I mentioned in previous blogs that I was to start a football club and we have begun teaching environmental lessons at Luwawa School. They have been going extremely well. The football team have won all of their recent matches and the students are really excelling with their knowledge of local environmental issues. It hasn’t however been easy.

We try to do things properly when arranging sessions or lessons with the school, by visiting the headteacher and setting a specific day and time for the events. However, organisation isn’t really a positive trait of most locals. Last week our conversation with Mr Makamo went something like this;

“Is football club still ok for Tuesday?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Ok, great. What time?”

“After two.”

“Oh alright, shall we say half past then?”

“Yes, maybe, well… just after two. They will join you when they have finished lunch.”

“…right…”

This just seems to be the way. Football club actually started that Tuesday at 3:30. I have become no stranger to sitting on the side of the pitch, waiting … waiting. They will come, just when they are ready. When the first child arrives, he takes the whistle and blows it in a repeated fashion for what seems like an hour to notify the others, who come smiling but very slowly.

Last weekend I was in the forestry station when one of the guys from the senior team called me and let me know there was a game at the weekend.

“Kick off at fifteen hundred hours.”

That seemed precise enough. I was there at 2. By 5pm we finally admitted defeat, the team from Chikwa were not coming. So we trained. Why had they not come? Had anybody actually told them in the first place?

On Wednesday I turned up for training. An hour wait this time and I gave up. Played with the 10 year olds instead. When the seniors did turn up for training last night, my adjusted approach now means that I don’t even ask what had happened two days earlier. I half expect it now. Though one of the defenders did let me know, “I hear that you came on Wednesday. We went drinking instead. You see, we like drinking.”

“Mmm, me too” I replied, accepting the conclusions which I had already come to. But they are keen, they are fit and genuinely they would like to be organised. It just seems the attitude is that a commitment is actually a suggestion. And a suggestion can definitely be out powered by desire, such as drinking.

The problem is, getting so used to these differences, will I begin to add them as features and take them home as personal characteristics? Turn up for football an hour late? Arrange to meet someone, not show and go drinking instead? Stop believing in Father Christmas? START LISTENING TO CRAIG DAVID!!?

We’ll have to be careful. Results could be disastrous.

November 23rd – Drama

So, last Thursday I woke up in the middle of the night and actually thought somebody had stabbed me in the chest. My first consideration was that Laura had finally had enough of me and lost control. This would not have been a real surprise but as I moved my hand onto my chest there was no hole and certainly no knife.

“Laur! Break off that mosquito coil, I think it’s poisoning me!” I manage to squeeze out under one big breath, which caused this invisible knife to sink yet further into my heart. Laura replied, groaning a mix of “What time is it?” “What the heck is wrong with you!” and “Are you ok?” all at once.

I like to blame Laura for most of my problems so the obvious response was “You put that blinkin’ mosquito coil on and I think it’s tearing my insides apart!” Anyway, I made my point and she turned off the coil but this wasn’t the end of my problems. The next morning I could not eat breakfast and by lunch time it was painful to even sip water. By the time Sunday came, I had decided enough was enough and the mosquito coil could not have been to blame, so sent Laura on a mission to surf for the answer.

So she did. The World Wide Web, answer to all queries gave us an answer. According to the symptoms I had described, the computer diagnosed a normal case of Esophagitis. Basically the web page explained that I was a muppet, had taken my anti-malarial doxycycline tablets at the wrong time a day, without food and with not enough water. Oops. So in return for being male and not reading instructions, the female part of my brain was punishing me by telling my stomach that it needed to start stewing up a load of acid and pushing it up my oesophagus. My oesophagus had responded by curling up into a ball and crying like a baby, thus creating major pain that mimicked Laura stabbing me in the chest.

On Monday I thought it would therefore be a good time for us to join a group and complete a 16km walk to a waterfall in 30-degree heat. Not being able to drink water was a slight problem, but feeling like ‘Mr Soft’ from the SoftMint adverts whilst walking around was an unrecommendable but slightly enjoyable (not to mention totally legal) high. This said, I had finally given up. I needed medical attention.

Tuesday we walked to the local dispensary and explained the symptoms and what we had read. Clearly out of his depth the health practitioner told me to make my way to Mzuzu, the capital of the north, to get further treatment. We returned to the lodge and left immediately towards the tarmac and Mzuzu. Diesel is still a problem in Malawi so we decided to get on the bus to save any fuel we could for the lodge.

Diesel was more of a problem than we thought. Sitting on the side of the road with the sun scorching down onto the top of our heads we saw no more than two buses go past within the first three hours. It wasn’t pleasant, not for either of us. But adding the fact that I couldn’t swallow water easily and then that little mud-hut shop only stocked coke (which must be more than Ph7), my day was getting worse.

So what else could happen? Well, in the distance we heard a clatter. Being just outside the forest, we presumed this was some loggers throwing some timber off or onto a truck. It happened again and this time it sounded much more familiar. All of a sudden the sky turned black and the hairs raised on the back of my neck. BABOOOM! CRASH! The clouds exploded. It began to rain. Wait, rain is not strong enough. I mean it poured, it tipped it down, it emptied itself! I say it rained, yet this wasn’t rain as I know it. This was like rain on speed. Big, immense, golf-ball like droplets where being flung to earth by a million little men with catapults, sniggering as they watched us flee to cover. They bounced from the tarmac almost as high, so that even the flabby skin under my chin was getting a shower. Within minutes the roads, the mud sidewalks and the indigenous woodland were all a part of intermingling streams that were racing downhill, each one trying to get there first. We managed to get cover under a thatched roof veranda, backed up against a mud wall but even this didn’t work as a suitable buffer between us and the rain as the drips found their way through gaps in the roof and continued to soak us!

Enough was enough and we decided that we would get on the next bus to pass whether it was heading to Mzuzu or the closer town of Mzimba from where we could change and get a further bus to Mzuzu. A small minibus approached with a cardboard sign ‘Mzimba’: it appeared full to its limits but we are quickly learning that in Africa, a bus is never full…. There is always room for 1,2,3 more bodies. Always.

We got on and managed to squeeze up next to some people, chickens and bags of maize. It was, to put it nicely, cosy. As the bus slowed down to let some people off a few kilometres down the road I think we all breathed a slight sigh of relief. But as the matola opened its doors, yes you guessed it, it was time for another three people to clamber onboard. One with a conveniently oversized suitcase, which pushed the ceiling of the bus to its limit as he perched himself onto a metal arm-rest and the case onto his lap. Laura managed a polite smile too as a teenage girl sat on her lap without a consideration as to whether it may be considered as rude or an invasion of personal space! “We’re like beans in a can!” I announced to my fellow passengers who broke into laughter. The guy whose job it is to organise passengers into this Tetris like existence sucked his teeth. For the rest of this blog I will refer to these guys as ‘Joey’s’

Driving is very much different here. At no point does a driver of a car, bus or truck think of pedestrians. Vehicles have right of way and if you are in it, tough luck. On arrival at Mzimba this opinion was proved fact. Leaving the Heinz tin to change onto another rickety excuse of a bus which was bound for Mzuzu was no less eventful than the journey to get there. Once the Mzuzu bus’s Joey had spotted us, he knew he had a catch.

“Where are you going bueno?” Bueno meaning something similar to ‘brother’.

“Mzuzu,” I said, disinterested as you must seem to survive.

Mzuzu Joey sprung into action! He had a potential mzungu passenger. Mzungu’s tend to pay a couple of hundred kwacha (less than one pound) more for their journeys. And there were two of us! So he proceeded to get the bus, which was a decent size, probably containing 30 or so seats, to back up and park under the iron sheets, so that we could get on whilst avoiding the rain and small lakes which had appeared in the bus station from a couple of hours rain. Nice move, I didn’t fancy walking out into the gun pellets. If he managed it, he had my custom.

“Bueno, zakuno!” (brother, come!) he called to the driver. So he did, he reversed towards tens of people who were patiently waiting under the shelter on wooden benches. He would stop before he reached them, wouldn’t he? No is the simple answer. This resulted in ladies with children strapped to their back, young children and old men diving for safety, dragging benches out of the way before the bus screeched to a halt.

“Get in,” the Joey said.

“Pepheni!” (sorry!) I called in the direction of the scattered waiting Malawians. They laughed and called out thanks in tumbuka. To them, this was just usual business at their bus station. For me, craziness! But craziness I’m getting used to.

The three hours towards Mzuzu consisted of a leaking roof, no leg room, crying babies and a worsening pain in my chest. I started to miss home. Things I have never appreciated in the UK, things I have often grumbled about, started to seem really good. The NHS was something I was about to add to that list.

Arriving in Mzuzu, the even larger, more frantic bus station sent shivers down my spine. A guy who’d spotted us on the bus from the gate followed us and greeted our arrival in his city. “I am cheapest taxi.”

“Good, take us to your car.” He must have sensed my loss of care and energy from the window of our bus. His well kept Toyota took us to the hospital.

“6km, 1000 kwacha!”

“I’ll give you 500 hundred and maybe call you later for another ride” I mumbled,

“Ok, give me your number sir.”

“No, you give me yours. It’s no good you calling me guessing when I need a ride is it?”

He gave me his number and asked me to flash him. I think that means to give somebody your number by calling and hanging up before they answer. I kept my trousers on either way.

Mzuzu Central Hospital was, other than the new parliament building in Lilongwe which has been built by the Chinese, the most impressive building I have seen in Malawi. Not big, not flashy, but clean, well laid out and spacious. For a hospital it didn’t have that whole death feeling about it either. Myself, Laura and Yami, a guide from the lodge and all round nice guy, walked into the emergency room and asked to see a doctor.

“He is not here,” (Shock! Malawians are rarely where they are supposed to be.) “He will be here soon.”

“Look,” I replied. “I’m not being funny but it’s been a long day. We have been out for seven hours to get here. You say to me ‘soon’ … is this a ‘5 minutes soon’ or a ‘Malawian 5 hours soon’”

“I don’t know, he should be here.” She replied whilst looking the other way. Yami interrupted and spoke in a calm, quiet and very soft tumbuka. He turned to us and said “We can take a seat.” Assuring, maybe.

Eventually we were called into the doctors room. I sat down and explain my symptoms. I added the fact that we’d done some of our own research and that my doxycycline could be to blame. As with many doctors, this guy decided that I was just a ‘normal and stupid being’ and that there was no way that as an untrained person, Laura or myself could have identified a problem and diagnosed it accurately.

So he sent me to the Radiology department for a chest x-ray, with a note on a scrap piece of paper saying Aspiration Pneumonia.

“Pneumonia!” “Am I going to die!?”

“There absolutely to chance it’s pneumonia, this is ridiculous!” Laur replied.

I hoped not, but went for the x-ray and got it back within a minute to take back to the doctor.

Returning to the emergency department and my not so friendly Malawian doctor I felt as though the whole trip was a waste of time. I was going to get treated for pneumonia, which I was 90% sure I didn’t have, and keep these horrible symptoms which had not only taken food from me, but beer also, for almost a week!

I handed the x-ray to my new friend who snatched it out of my hand and held it up to the light. My ribs looked just like the ones on pictures of normal skeletons. This was reassuring, and although I did not know what I was looking for, my eyes were locked on the picture of my insides.

“Hmm, I will need to discuss this with my colleague. Just wait outside” he announced. A second opinion … that might help.

As we waited in the lobby, next to a guy who had seemed to have destroyed his shoulder and another who had cut his toe, I sat cautiously, with no idea of what would happen next. I had lost faith in the doctor, the receptionist didn’t care, and the journey from Mzuzu to Lilongwe was looking like a forgone conclusion, so that I could get some ‘proper’ advice. Until…

A mzungu doctor walked through the door. Not just a mzungu doctor, but one with an English accent! “Alright mate?” he calmly asked.

‘Much better for seeing you!’ ran through my head as my lips muttered “Erm, kinda!”

I quickly ran through the symptoms of my problem with my fellow countryman before he began asking the question “Ah, are you taking any..”

“YES! Doxycyclene!” I called in a sort of excited ‘you know what you’re on about’ voice.

Dr Mzungu turned to his colleague and motioned to hit him over the head with the chest x-ray. “What did you take one of these for, you Muppet!?” he joked. We all laughed. He continued to explain my difficulties almost word for word as we had read them on the internet search. Gastritis was the diagnosis. Relief is not quite a strong enough word.

Dr Saviour wrote down a few things I needed to get from the chemist, Omeprazole and some Magnesium Trisulphate. Through my ignorance, I had never heard of either of them but the sounded right and therefore I was happy.

“You’re chest looks fine by the way.” Dr Knight in Shining Armour noted as he walked out of the office with a cheeky little wink that suggested ‘You’ll be fine!’ He had just told us that he was actually based in Blantyre, Malawi’s largest city in the south. He was only up in Mzuzu for two days each year, this was one of them and it was after working hours. My luck was definitely in!

So we left and I got my tablets. Only one thing had left me disappointed from the day,

“No beer, no smoking, no spicy food … for another week.” None of those actually came to matter, as I couldn’t swallow for the 5 days following.

I am all well now but the one thing I have taken from the experience is how lucky I am to live in a country with a good health service. I have since learnt that the gentleman who I first saw at the hospital was probably no more than a health practitioner and not a doctor but his diagnosis was wildly incorrect. It can’t be helped to think of how many others are misdiagnosed daily. How many lives does it cost and why?

Well the truth is that healthcare in Malawi is improving rapidly. There is a training school for doctors in Blantyre and more are qualifying. Unfortunately vast amounts of them move abroad as pay is hugely increased, with South Africa and the UK usually being the destination. I have heard a fact bounded around and whether it is true now or not, it certainly used to be.

‘THERE ARE MORE MALAWIAN DOCTORS IN MANCHESTER THAN MALAWI.’

Something to think about.

November 8th - Pictures

Local children admiring their own picture taken by a Lilongwe teacher.

 

 

Laura with some new friends that she made in Donija village.

 

Three young Mzgambuzi students mulling over some answers in their mud block classroom.

The Mzgambuzi mud block.

Teaching environmental lessons at Luwawa Primary.

The children were given the task of finding solutions to current environmental issues affecting the area.

Watching over the approaching fire as it races across the landscape, destroying everything in its path.

The lodge staff worked tirelessly to prevent the fire from encroaching further towards the buildings and their homes.

George surveys the destruction.

Leading a session by example, taking the John Terry role in defence (no, not sleeping with my team-mates mrs).

Looking out over Chikwa village as the sun starts to set at the end of a long day.

The Kalwera School at Chika. The building of the block to the right was overseen by the last volunteer John.

John waves goodbye before leaving for sunny Scotland.

Painting visual aids at Kalwera School.

Sitting proudly under our recently completed painting of map of the south African countries. Spot any mistakes?

28th October – Changing the world.

28^th October – Changing the world.

When I think back to September 5^th, I remember sitting with Laura looking out onto a darkening runway at Heathrow not really knowing what the next stage of my life held in store. Knowing what I wanted was not the problem, we both wanted to be able to give something to a country which is developing, help it along. But what would that be in detail? We didn’t know the people who we would be helping or exactly what we would be doing to help. Almost 2 months into our six month stay I think it may just be starting to make a little sense and the penny has finally dropped. We’re not going to change the world.

Naturally we came to Malawi with hopes, ambitions and targets, but realistic were they realistic plans or just dreams? Never having been to Africa before and relying on Jonathan Dimbleby, Ewen McGregor and the likes for most of our imagination’s forecasts, one may consider some of our objectives to be naïve. But we’re always told to aim high.

Without discussing it, both Laura and I would admit to being frustrated during our time here. We keep saying the same things to each other; “Why is it taking so long?” “If only there was more money!” This is not new to Malawi. As time passes and we meet more and more people whose need is so high we are learning to adjust our goals, make them smaller yet greater at the same time. You can’t change a country in 6 months but what we can do is make life a little better for some of the people we touch. So in essence we can change the world, for a portion of its community.

To change the world for a community in northern Malawi is much simpler than doing so in the UK. That might sound like stating the obvious just a little but an input of a few thousand dollars into a society here can dramatically change lives, whereas it may barely tweak a few areas of our own. Take for instance a village we visited last week.

Hunga is a rural community based just outside the boundary of the Luwawa Forest Reserve. The school there, Mzgambuzi Juniors, is based at the top of a relatively tall hill, with extremely steep banks on either side. The rest of the simple buildings are spread across the ridge which winds its way up from the forest in a zigzagged fashion. It’s the ladies job to collect the water and somehow manoeuvre their way around the rocky edges and up the slopes to their basic homes. A tremendous feat for any person! Walking it in my technical gear was exhausting, bare footed with 10 litres on my head would have been a death sentence. The water collected is from a shallow hole, dug at the base of the hill. It is dirty, both in terms of its colour and contents. It’s their only option.

The school itself is headed by a hardworking gentleman named George. He has recently been joined by another teacher and consequently has added a new year group to the roster. They now have Standards 1-4, meaning George now only needs to teach two classes simultaneously, rather than hop between the three that he had previously been doing. Unfortunately for the school, the rains are on the way. They have a two-classroom mud block which is covered only partly by a grass-thatched roof, once there is rain, it’s unusable. What is inside is barely usable at the moment either; termites have scurried around forming a 5ft mound against the front wall. Whilst considering painting this black and naming it a 3D chalkboard, I think it maybe inappropriate.

So for Hunga, there is a plan to change their world. We are hoping for some money to come through to cover the costs for a boar hole and well. Providing accessible water to this area would have numerous benefits. Not only would this make things easier for the ladies hiking the hill several times per day and improve health & hygiene through cleanliness for the 400+ users but it would improve opportunities at the school. George feels that the school would be a popular choice for teachers, as the surrounding land is so fertile for farming and extra income but the lack of clean water puts them off.

Currently, students who pass Standard 4 move onto another school located 7km away from Hunga. Due to the distance, very few of the Mzgambuzi leavers make it and therefore their education ends at the age of 9 or 10. Attracting teachers would therefore stop this, allowing the school to extend and continue offering education all the way up to secondary school. Clean water can really have such an affect.

Add a few hundred pounds to clear the current classrooms of termites, re-roof them, and add plaster to their partly-completed brick built classrooms and they are well on their way. Quite simple; relatively cheap processes which are definitely life-changing for stacks of people.

There are similar problems faced by many of the communities here. A lack of classrooms, teacher’s housing and good roads name just a few. The problems in Malawi are deep but are going to take tens of years to sort out. We can’t change that yet we can make an immediate impact to some of its inhabitant’s lifestyles. We are keeping our fingers crossed for more donations to the trust.

Another of our projects whilst here is Environmental Education within the forest. A couple of weeks back we took on the task of delivering environmental lessons to three standards at Luwawa Primary. Having spoken in depth to George here (the owner and MD of the lodge, not the Mzgambuzi head teacher!) about the issues and discussing some things which we had noticed ourselves, we broke the subject down into three topics, all of which are relevant to the locals; the forest, the dam and littering.  Over the last two months we have seen examples of problems in all three areas. In fact we have seen examples in all three areas during the last seven-days!

Within the forest there have been huge fires of late. Last night as well as this morning every member of the staff here has been out, east of the lodge pre-burning huge areas of land to stop a fire which has spread and travelled kilometres through the forest, over hills and through valleys to put the lodge and its staff under threat. This isn’t the first time it has happened but the Forestry workers are either not bothered, too lazy, under-staffed, unequipped or a mixture of all. It seems that their ways won’t change unless rulings come from above. We hope by educating the children of the area of the importance of the forest as a source of income, materials and beauty, along with being a habitat for the animals that we can improve its future.

We see (and hear, via gunshots) poaching and illegal fishing (with mosquito nets) on a regular basis. We hear of the forests depletion due to lack of planting and burning of new and old trees. The forest and its contents are a great resource for the area and the country but at the moment it is mistreated and disrespected. It’s sad and frustrating. The phrase ‘education is the key’ is bounded around and we hope it’s true. Next week we begin construction work with the children on our new school nursery, we are anticipating that a sense of ownership of new trees can spur the next generation to look after them and make their business sustainable.

Away from community development over the last few weeks we have seen much more of Malawi itself. Other than returning to Mzimba and Lilongwe, we have driven through the Viphya Plateau and up to Mzuzu, the capital of the north and travelled to the south of the lakeshore to a small place named Nkopola, north of Mangochi.

The reason for our visit to the lake was for the growing music festival which goes by the name ‘Lake of Stars’. Arriving early in the afternoon it was clear to us what we were to expect over the next 3 days (other than a load of music and trips to the beach bar), 40 degree heat. It was scorching!

After pitching our tents no more than 100 yards from the beach, we made the short walk along sandy paths to the arena. Before reaching the main gate to enter the sectioned off area of white sand, you were forced to walk through a section of market given to the locals to encourage trade with tourists.  I haven’t felt like a tourist at all since being here, yet knowing that each and every person walking through the gate had paid more for their ticket alone, than the average Malawian would earn in 6-8 weeks made me feel more than uncomfortable. It was hard to look a local in the eye when you know that they know this fact too. I cringed each time we passed through the forced bottle neck but couldn’t convince myself that I needed a hammock or fake football shirt either.

They festival runs with the slogan “there’s no festival in the world like it”. And there really isn’t! Imagine Glastonbury … take away the huge crowds, grey clouds, burger stalls and muddy ground. Replace them with sit-down restaurants, views of mountains below clear blue skies and people scattered across a white, sandy beach with a cool glass of gin & tonic in their hand. Then you’ve got maybe a sniff of the relaxed atmosphere it generates.

The event started with Malawi’s first ever skydive. News quickly spread that it was the Minister of Tourism that was going to making his entrance from high above the shore and land on a small plastic sheet that people in matching t-shirts had laid out just metres from the waters edge. Of course there where whispers of “wouldn’t it be funny if…!”

As he fell from the sky, the crowds tilted their heads back and stared. “Come on,” I heard whispered from over my shoulder. “Finish in the water.” Everyone chuckled a little and brushed it off, but reached into their bags for digital cameras and eagerly switched to video mode. Thankfully for the Minister it all went well, he landed on the spot, crowds cheered (video’s were deleted and cameras put away) and it was a pretty cool kick-off to the weekend.

It was a great experience. To summarise, we were assaulted by ants, robbed by monkeys, jeered at by Malawian Man United fans (Boing Boing!). We ate dinner with the Noisettes, peed with Goldierocks, conversed with Mistajam. Had passports stolen, passports found, drank too much and ran out of diesel 40km from home. I couldn’t start to write about it all now but there’s a stack of stories for a rainy day in Brum.

Get in touch, take care everyone

Dan and Laur. 

 Looking cool in my sunglasses!

 How about this for a view whilst watching the baggies!??

 The school at Mzgamuzi under the careful watching eye of George, headteacher.

Close encounters

The most common complaints at Luwawa health clinic have so far consisted of malaria like symptoms, chest pain and sore throat with the occasional musculo-skeletal pain from causes such as ‘the tree trunk fell on my leg’: not altogether too surprising as the main means of employment in the area is within the forestry department. I have had one man walk in with his box of shake shake beer in hand, clearly extremely intoxicated at 10am (also not such an unusual sight around here: alcoholism is quite a major issue with the men of the area!)

However one patient I will never forget is a man of about 50 who came in complaining of chest pains. After myself listening to his chest, I was not too worried about any sputum retention but Lucky, the practitioner at the clinic, asked me if I could do some chest physio for the patient so I figured there was nothing to lose! The patient wasn’t greatly compliant so it was not my most successful attempt at ACBT (for all you physios reading) and he appeared in too much pain for much more hands on treatment. We eventually discovered the real reason for the man’s pains and that there had indeed been no need for any chest physio at all. The man had two wives; one who had recently given birth. He had therefore been spending most of his time at home with this wife. On return to the house of his second wife, she was not extremely welcoming towards him and instead of running and throwing her arms around him, she beat him with a wooden plank around his chest. I am sure that this may also be quite a common occurrence in Malawi as polygamy is widely accepted.

Another major issue in Luwawa is the process of child birth and the follow up care that these babies receive. Although educated of the importance of giving birth at the maternity unit and planning for expectant mothers to be in attendance here far enough in advance to ensure that this is likely, births en-route to the clinic remain regular. One such birth occurred last week. The woman was meant to already be residing at the maternity unit, however she was awaiting permission to leave the home from her mother in law! This permission was not granted until the woman went into labour and so, unsurprisingly she gave birth along the path to Luwawa. The situation was worsened as they tied the umbilical cord wrong and the baby was bleeding badly when they arrived at the unit. Lucky claims that however much he attempts to educate the women, they are not willing to change tradition and things will therefore continue like this for the immediate future.

My work at the clinic has been put on hold for the time being as, after a recent visit to the district health officer (DHO), it appears that I need to provide my qualification documents in order to proceed. This is pretty difficult as I will not be receiving my certificate until late November so could inevitably become quite frustrating. The DHO has however claimed that he does not want this to stop me from working here so is having a meeting with his boss (so apparently I will be discussed at government level) to try and figure something out. I will hopefully find out the outcome of this meeting next week so we all have our fingers crossed for satisfactory news!

Our trip to Mzimba to meet with the DHO was an interesting one and my typical ditsy personality came across for the first time since arrival in Malawi! Whilst waiting in the car for Patrick to do some shopping myself and the local VSO volunteer, Lolita decided that we were in need of some hydration and so headed towards the ‘supermarket’ in search of a coke. I was being safety conscious so ensured all the windows were securely shut and all the doors locked. However, after closing my door I realised that the car keys were still in the ignition and due to my care for security we were completely locked out of the car. Luckily Patrick found this hilarious and managed easily enough to find some kind person to break into the car and retrieve the keys! In normal circumstances I may have found it worrying as to the ease that this man broke into the car (a bit of an expert) but I was just so relieved that my stupidity hadn’t caused too much trouble that I was instead very grateful!

As I have not been working at the health centre this week, I have had much more spare time to do other things and experience different aspects of life in Malawi. Yesterday we visited a small and typical Malawian village called Hunga. The journey there ended with a near fatality! I was shocked as John slammed on the brakes of the car and even more shocked at the whimpering sound I heard immediately after this. It was heart breaking to turn and see a small puppy appear from under the car, barely able to move and the sound it was making made me feel physically sick! We stopped briefly until the owner got to the dog but have no idea the poor animal’s plight.

The village of Hunga is much worse off than Luwawa. In fact its name is very applicable to the state of the place. We parked by the school which was mostly a dilapidated mud hut although, fortunately, a recent couple of volunteers had fundraised to provide new flooring and roofing for one of the school buildings. It was still however not near any level of decent standard. The school only had one teacher and 3 year groups so the children of Hunga were sadly missing out on any decent standard of education.

Whilst at the village we were shown the ‘well’. A ten minute walk down a steep slope laid a pungent pool of browning water decorated with leaves and clutter. Clearly not appropriate for drinking and I am in awe of the women that return back up the hill with over my shoulder! Fortunately for the village, a kind French couple of put up the funding for a proper and well to be built in Hunga and this will be one the community development projects that Danny and I will be a part of.  From the well we were taken to see some of the village houses and offered some of the wine one of the women was making. This wine was not fermented and honestly looked like a bucket of dirt with some bananas floating on the top. We all politely passed on the offer of a taste and watched in amazement as she took a big cup of the drink and downed it in one!  

Our snake sightings were at a grand total of zero until about 3 days ago when I saved Danny from the painful and venomous jaws of what we have since identified as a Boomslang snake. One of the workers at the lodge proceeded in throwing bricks at his head after deeming it a threat to human safety! My second sighting came yesterday during a nice leisurely afternoon jog. I had just turned out of the lodge gate when I literally had to leap from over a puff adder; the snake responsible for 90% of venomous snake bites in Malawi! I didn’t give it a second glance and swiftly continued at an increased pace for the remainder of my run! The only other animal we have had regular encounters with is the monkey which I love but the locals see as vermin! However, one morning in my way to the health centre, a troop of monkeys followed me along my way, throwing things out of the trees!! Clearly not my biggest fan! We have been hearing hyenas howling during the night but have not yet come face to face with one……..

Contrast

Contrast

Dolce and Gabanna hats, G-Star t-shirts, Nike shoes and swaggers to fit. No way … it couldn’t be … it was! No, not a Sixth Form class from an English inner-city comp but Standard 5 students … from a Malawian school!

Bishop MacKenzie International School (BMIS) students to be exact, arriving from Lilongwe last Monday for 3 days of hiking, orienteering and adventurous activities not available in their local vicinity. Essentially their visit to Luwawa was exactly the same as  many primary schools in Birmingham run at centres such as Bell Heath and Stansfeld, both of which I have experienced before. Only this one has a bit of a twist.

Their stay at the lodge began with a short introduction to the lodge and a safety briefing from the assistant manager here, Patrick. Patrick is no more than 5 ft 5” tall with a smile almost as wide. He picked us up at the airport just less than 3 weeks ago and has been fantastic helping to us both settling in. His excellent grasp of English makes him an outstanding figure at the lodge and a doorway into the world of Malawian wildlife and culture.  He finished his opening speech to the children by warning of the dangers at night. The mention of hyenas struck fear into the toughest of the 10-year-olds. Mission accomplished – they wouldn’t be out of their rooms after dark!

Laura and I joined the team on a small walk round the dam towards the village, learning more about the area, wildlife and environment as we went. The guides then lead the children up one of a million paths that intersect the area to the school which I had started at the day before. There they met the head of the school who marched them over to the football pitch behind some of the shabby village housing. The BMIS crowd were met by hundreds of lively local children, each pleading with their teacher, who stood with an old, slightly browning football under his arm and whistle in his mouth. In the blink of an eye, two teams were lined up on the dry, dusty field ready to kick off. There were no kits or bibs to identify one from the other, yet determining who belonged to which team/school/village/social class was unmistakably easy.

Hundreds of children lined the edge of the pitch, screaming and shouting for their side and it was no surprise when a skinny, bare-footed chap slithered his way between, past, under and over his opponents before lashing the ball between a set of rusting posts and into the blue gums. Wow. I’d compare the celebrations to that of Aston Villa winning a throw-in in the opposition half; kids cart-wheeling, throwing branches in the air and running in random directions. Great fun.

The game ended 2-0 to Luwawa. I’d been taking some stick from the guys of the lodge because, in their words, I would be supporting ‘my school’. Who couldn’t? These children with nothing would keep it in their memories for years to come. I was ecstatic for them! On the final whistle I left my perch on a 12-inch high metal stool and headed for the centre circle, heading for the first goal scorer. “Great goal little guy!” He looked at the floor with a shy grin which disappeared before it could begin. I lost him in the crowd of villagers instantly but I will no doubt meet him again. I am starting football sessions next week, which I hope he can be involved in. The most natural athlete I have seen in my life. No surprise really - everywhere you go in the day, children are out playing, running and having fun (even if that is sometimes by lighting fires!) Whether they are eating a balanced diet, or enough at all for that matter, they don’t have an ounce of fat on them! But energy, my word, that team had truck loads of it.

School has been going well for me. At the moment I am teaching Maths to Standard 6 and 7 in the mornings. This way I am starting the day early, beginning teaching at 7:30 and returning to the lodge before 12, leaving the afternoons for other activities. Given the length of time it takes to get things done here, I need it! The children are picking up my English better each day and really enjoy their Maths too. Teaching students who are so willing to learn makes things that bit easier and enables a nice flow within the lesson. I can’t help but enjoy seeing them discover and improve each day.

I had the first ever sick day of my working life last week! I’m ashamed – I know we men don’t suffer with illness! I can hear people’s sympathy as I write this but don’t worry, I had totally recovered by the afternoon and managed to jump into the car to Mzimba.

Mzimba is the local ‘town’ to the lodge. A 20 minute ride to ‘the tarmac’ and a further 20 minutes on the main road brings you into the heart. It’s a busy place with a lot happening but impossible to predict a population or even a boundary! We spent the time there shopping for the lodge and finding our way around. Patrick, Laura and myself found our way to the bar. The ‘Mabweze Boozing Club’. Your option here is basically Carlsberg bottles. The range consists of the lager - known as ‘Green’ by just about everyone in reference to the colour of its label, Stout – the darker alternative, Special Brew – the over 5% stronger drink and Elephant – a 7.3% petrol bomb! Stout is my preference. Laura glugs on the Green.

At the weekend we had some time to wind down so, along with John and three guests of the lodge, set some wood burning in the sauna. A lovely addition to the place, the sauna sits in the garden hidden away nicely behind colourful trees and bushes. They have placed a cold shower outside to really get that hot/cold contrast in staged intervals. I can’t remember the recommended time allowed in those things but we sure exceeded it.

As any good man would, John decided it was the day to break the temperature record of the lodge. Currently standing at 75 C we believed it to be easily surpassable,  however, during our first stint in the wooden construction we heard a hissing from the door. Air was escaping! How would we beat the record if air was escaping? We tried pulling the door, holding it shut but we couldn’t stop it. We could hear it going! Maybe it wouldn’t be our day. We got the thermometer reading over 70 C but it just wouldn’t get any higher. Rule soon became that if you left to get the cold shower, you must be out and shut the door behind you as fast as humanly possible. Unfortunately, during one of these episodes an intruder conquered our defences. A bee! Within the smallest fraction of a second Laura was curled up against the back wall cursing the world and John was whaling his flip flop around whilst the rest of us watched the event unravel. It was night time! Where had that come from?!

It didn’t matter anyway, John had sent the buzzer to it’s death via a flip-flop thrashing and danger was averted … for the time being. Moments later another appeared and Laura had had enough. Not a fan of our flying friends she left for the lodge. Good thing too. By the time I had taken my next cold shower and turned to return to the heat my eyes took me to a dark ball clinging to a wooden beam of the structure. There were thousands of them! My arrival back into the sauna was timed well with Johns first sting, shortly followed by his second. The thermometer was creeping up with more water poured on the stones but enough was enough, out of bodily fluid to sweat and with the imminent danger of the swarm buzzing buggers I left for the lodge too, along with one of our guests.

After drying and explaining to Laura the fortune of departure (as eye contact with the cloud of crawling creeps would have sent her into some kind of rage/fitting action I have seen before) John burst through the lodge doors complaining of his third and fourth sting! Still, nobody else had taken so much as a tickle! Towelling himself down our fellow volunteer again leapt in the air “I’ve been stung again, aaah, and again!” This continued with putting on his t-shirt and finally, rubbing the salt in, gaining a sting on his palm when grasping his beer bottle. The night ended Bees 10, John 0 and we only managed 73 C. No pride was restored when John got the watchmen to get the “Doom” and destroy the bees, it felt like they did our dirty work. And I still don’t think Laura will return to the sauna.

Sunday morning began as usual. A slightly later than normal start, including three or four large cups of coffee, followed by a gentle stroll back to the campsite for a shower and to sort out our room, which is left in a mess from the week. John went off to pick up ‘Bonnie and the guys’ from a mid-point in the Luwawa to Lake Malawi walk path, where they had been widening certain areas to make the walk more pleasurable. He took with him Patrick’s 10-year-old boy, appropriately named John.

By tea time there was no sign of the Johns. Surprisingly, there was a phone call from Bonnie asking the lodge where John was. We were wondering the same thing. His phone was out of signal and unfortunately the only other vehicle at the time which was running sat in Mzimba with Patrick. After several failed attempts at getting Davis, our champion mountain biker, onto a motorbike, Patrick returned. Obviously worried, he chucked myself and a couple of the guys into the car and sped off on the only road towards Bonnie’s location. I say sped off, we did to begin with but these roads limit you to between 8 – 10 miles per hour. It felt fast, my head took a few poundings from the Hi-Lux roof.

Patrick and I shared no more than 10 words on the way out, yet both of us had the same thing on our minds. There were several steep cliffs along the way, with many less than convincing road edges. We peered over each one. Eventually, a 1971 Land Rover Series III peaked into view. There it was at the bottom of a steep hill at Mzimba Bridge. As we pulled up along side it – there was no John and no John. Strange, I thought – the vehicle looked fine. We carried on up the road where Patrick turned towards what is an magnificent house, built on stilts, in the middle of amazing scenery. John, came running up towards the car, closely followed by his name-sake. “The wheel fell off!” He cried. After a brief explanation of the events that preceded them leaving the car, we left to get Bonnie. As the sun plunged itself behind the rolling hills, we were in darkness. Another 30 minutes of driving through the bush, we found the pathmakers, huddled around a fire, 5km nearer than we expected them. They had started walking.

The return journey consisted of 12 males squashed together in the Hi-Lux sharing their stories from the day. Each from a different perspective. Only little John sat quiet, probably thinking ‘Daddy, never let me go out with crazy Mzungus again!’ Their safe return to the lodge was warmly welcomed by Laura, who was writing an hourly account of the drama into her diary, and Sandra, Patrick’s wife and Johns mother.

Sandra is the head of the kitchen here. Six days a week, three times a day she serves the most delightful of meals. Rapidly becoming a favourite of mine is the ‘Nsima and Beef’. Nsima is the staple food of Malawi. Created from maize, it can sometimes be firm, sometimes more of a sloppy alternative to mashed potato. You eat it, only in the right hand, by dipping it into all kinds of gravies and relish. Quite enjoyable but as anyone who knows Laura will already be sure of, she isn’t a huge fan.

This week has been more down to business. The daily school routine was only disrupted for one reason and that was school painting. Bishop Mac returned with their IB students, 16-18 year olds looking for a slightly more challenging week than their Standard 5 equivalents. I spent last weekend’s afternoons, which drifted into Monday, designing and drawing up visual aids for the Standard 6 classroom at Luwawa. I did so with a gentleman by the name of Wiseman. Wiseman was formally VSO lady Lolita’s watchman. “Why do I call him Wise-man when he is not so wise” she exclaimed one day. I’d have to judge that for myself. He had decided that she wasn’t offering him enough money and that to support his family he would instead take an artistic route. This was his first job. Bishop Mac would have the task of completing the room with paint

Wiseman started without me on Saturday, under the head teacher’s guidance. On arrival, I noticed that a few things were a bit skewed, off centred and perhaps a little bit of mis-scaling was catching the eye, but generally it was ok. I decided to give him a few pointers, draw up a picture of my own and leave him to it. It was when I arrived the next day that Laura had to hold by jaw to save it from crashing into the battered concrete floor. What pap he’d drawn. My thoughts went from giant rubbers, to laughing Bishop Mac kids, to burning the whole building down. We couldn’t leave it as it was.

John appeared moments after we had arrived and caught a glimpse of the science sections, where ‘Wiseman’, which was now becoming debateable, had drawn the muscles of the arm leading to a hand. It resembled something we could only relate to that of the ‘strong hand’ scene from Scary Movie. You’ll know what I mean if you’ve seen the clip but basically it was a huge arm with a tiny hand. One muttering of the movie’s line and we were both trying to control our laughter. We didn’t want to offend Wiseman, it was his first job and he was trying.

On Monday, after teaching Maths to Standard 6 in their temporary classroom, which was the main hall, Wiseman and I set at it again. If he is going to make a business out of artwork he needs to learn quickly and whilst he has some flair, it was obvious from the weekend work that his mathematical mind was not linking to it. There is plenty of work for a ‘sign-maker’ (I have no idea what the actual name for one of those is, if there even is one) in Malawi, and simple maths can make all the difference. So we spent the afternoon using his level and ruler to creating accurate headings, centred on the wall with evenly spaced out letters and words. It looked at lot better than it did at the start of the day and ready now for painting. Wiseman was paid in cash and paint brushes for what he had done. Hopefully he can use them along his new skills to make a good business for himself. Haven’t seen him since!

The Bishop Mac guys had a whole morning painting the room and created some additional designs the templates we had drawn. There certainly was some talent in their class. Many of them come from very wealthy backgrounds, children of Malawian politicians, European and American businessmen, John reminded me some of these students would be running Malawi in a few years time. Let’s hope they make a good job of it.

So this week ended with a football focussed weekend Man City vs Chelsea and then the BIG one. Quite a few people crowded into the bar for the game, I sat with Patrick and Powex, a very knowledgeable nature guy on the team here. The game of course was Arsenal, who were at home, against my new promoted Baggies. In the bar though, everyone, much like being in Birmingham, was a Liverpool or Man Utd fan. No Arsenal, although they are hugely popular here.

A few minutes into the game the Albion had a good following. “Come on Zebras,” Powex shouted. Laughing, I corrected him – “it’s blue and white man, navy blue and white”.

“Blue Zebra’s,” he carried on, “they look like Zebra’s to me!”

At 3-0 up I was sure somebody was messing with the aerial, was this really West Brom? It was. I was actually stunned. My evening turned a little into a blur from there on, Boing Boing.

Laura and Lolita, with a bit of help from myself and Mr Zgambo from the school have been creating bibs for the last few days (for our netball and football clubs of course, not because the nsima has been dribbling down my chin). It has taken a lot of effort, more than I thought, to turn 10m reels of yellow and red material into coded vests. But looking at the size of them on Sunday I thought we should just check that they will fit the children before we continued with the second half. I went to find John (the littler one, Patrick and Sandra’s kid) to try it on him, yet Sandra informed me he would be in the village as there was a football game.

So happy with football after the miracle the day before, I didn’t have to think before making the decision to go down. Unfortunately however, I went alone. Arriving at the dusty, bare field I could feel an atmosphere developing, so close to kick off. There were at least a hundred people there already. Over to me walked an excessively tall gentleman who spoke near perfect English. “We are short of a centre midfielder, can you play?” He’d obviously seen me wearing my Albion shirt and thought I was the man for the job.

Within a flash, I was having a team photo, kitted out in a tight Adidas strip. All green with just three white stripes on the arms and white edging, it looked half decent. No time for me to warm-up the game kicked off and the excitement grew in the crowd. There were more than 300 Luwawa residents lined round the pitch, many of the women seated on steps and the men, well, politely put they were hammered. Dancing around with ‘Shake Shake’ cartons (local, cheap beer) in their hands and occasionally staggering into the 6 yard box at either end, it made the mood that bit tenser.

I don’t feel nervous playing football but there was certainly a tightness in my movement which I didn’t recognise. My first touch of the ball improved that feeling, pulling a ball out of the sky directly into my own path and pinging a pass over the full-back into the path of our bare-footed striker. He had trainers on before the game; I didn’t understand why he had taken them off. One can only presume he prefers it.

Half time came and I’d gotten into the flow of the game. That said, I was sweating like a pig and my heart and lungs were thudding like a steel road drill. Still, I hoped they wouldn’t take me off. More players had arrived after the first whistle and I hear they have a strict policy for ‘no training, no playing’.

They didn’t and I began the second half, almost scoring once, then swinging a cross directly onto our forwards head, only for it to flash wide of the post. The game was almost all in the air. A 10 yard pass along the deck could easily end up bobbling off the rocky ground which hasn’t seen water since March before whizzing past your ear. And as you can imagine from watching the African sides at the World Cup, there is an awful lot of attacking and not a whole bunch of defending. Therefore it was no surprise one goal was followed by another and another. We went into the final 5 minutes level at 2-2 before disaster struck. Mzimba’s number 16 had been the key in almost all of their attacking play and when he received the ball on the half way line after a Luwawa corner had been cleared. The stout, athletic midfielder had one thing on his mind. Fortunately after skipping past our last line of defence he didn’t connect with his shot which scuffed along the ground straight towards our ‘keeper. As our cement bag fell to his left to collect the slithering effort it glanced what could have been anything from a food wrapper to a chicken’s foot on the six yard line and raised itself into the middle of the goal. 3-2. Within moments it was over and the fans dejectedly walked off. There wasn’t any applause for efforts.

Leaving the pitch with Andrea, another worker from the lodge, we saw our keeper fighting with some of the locals. ‘Goalkeeper error’ was the blame in our dressing room and maybe the sidelines too. I don’t think he took it well.

Catch me if you can!

Kids with their new stationary. Massive thanks to the Rossi's for this. (I don't know why the lad in the middle dipped his in green paint but I told him to clean it off and that no teacher would mark his work with green paint all over it)

!

Wiseman was very happy to complete his job!