Last week of Training

We all had a fantastic last week of trainings, everyone was really enthusiastic. The adults were really keen to learn what we were teaching the girls.  It was a similar format to the previous weeks with activities including, First Aid, treasure hunts and a closing Olympics ceremony.  We also enjoyed sigma and some tasty chicken! After training we got a bus to Nkhata bay for a couple of days holiday together.

Nykarta Bay

 We stayed at Mayoka Village in little beach lodges.  It was extremely fun and we had lizards in the bathroom that kept on multiplying every time we went in!  It was great to relax with a cold beer and a couple of cheeky sambucas and time to look back on the fun we had over the project.  We enjoyed a lazy day by the lake and some of us took a rowing boat out.  The fun all stopped when everyone saw a 3ft long water lizard swimming in the lake! Didn’t stop us for long a couple of hours later we were back in the boat.  It was an early start the next day getting the bus back to Mzuzu then on to Lilongwe, just normal bus fun.  We were met by the same taxi driver Alex that we had the week before and booked a night at Mufasa lodge.  We went for tea at Don Brioni’s bistro, were we saw the ‘Girlguiding UK GOLD 2010’ plaque on the wall!

Parting Ways!!!!

In the morning we all went to the market to get our last minute gifts from Malawi.  After that we had to say our goodbyes to Ruth and Charity.  After 5 minutes of them leaving we were already missing them and felt weird as a four.

We prepared ourselves for the 30hr bus journey to Tanzania by stocking up with food.  We arrived At the bus station ready to leave for 7pm, We had Alex the taxi driver who said the others  got to airport fine and had made up a nickname for Ruth ‘mamma chicken’ he said she was upset parting from her chicks!!!!  The coach was quite roomy compared to other bus journeys we have experienced before but we soon discovered we had cockroaches for company!  As the journey continued the bus filled up with people in the aisles and few ended up just about sitting on us.  We got a little worried when we seemed to have broken down in the night. But it gave us a perfect opportunity to go to the toilet.  The journey was surprising not too bad and once we’d gone over the Tanzania border time sped by.  We arrived early hours on Tuesday and found a hotel close by.

Onward Travel

Tuesday - Exploring Dar es Salaam and got our tickets for Zanzibar

Wednesday – Boat trip to Zanzibar, saw a whale on the way! Checked in to Karibu inn in Stone Town and enjoyed doing our own walking tour including a guided tour around the Anglican Cathedral and old slave Market.

Thursday – We went north to Nungwi  bay to the beach, the sea was turquoise and so warm, had a couple of rain showers but nothing compared to back home,  Enjoyed a tasty meals of tuna and swordfish and watched the sun set over the habour

Friday – Caught a Dala Dala to the Jozani Forest were we saw red colobus monkeys we then caught a mini bus to the coast at Paje and enjoyed a quick dip in the sea then headed back to stone town. Explored the famous food market and tried some food including a Zanzibar pizza and sugarcane juice.  We had a really tasty meal at a curry house.

Saturday- Boat back from Zanzibar and on to north beaches of Dar es Salaam

Enjoyed a couple of days of relaxing before heading back to Dar es Salaam on Monday

Tuesday- Dar es Salaam textile markets and enjoying last day of the holiday

Wednesday- Homeward bound

3rd week of training begins...

Our third week of training began on Monday and we were excited to find that this week was really well planned. We arrived at 8.30 and started training at 9. English is the 3rd language in Mzuzu so some of the girls have limited English. They are incredibly enthusiastic though and love to participate, act and sing. We started the day with lots of icebreakers and singing then looked at leadership, communication and teamwork activities. The girls were particularly good at the random object game and were able to come up with amazing games using really strange objects. They are really creative! All of us felt really enthusiastic about the training and left looking forward to a great week ahead.

Sunday was a well deserved day off. Hurrah! We decided to go to Nhakarta Bay. We took a mini bus (after lots of faffing at the bus depot), and headed off to the beach. The drive was beautiful although slightly ruined by how packed the bus was. Some of us had passengers sat on our feet. Mzuzu and Nhakarta Bay are beautiful. The area looks nothing like the rest of Malawi. It is really green and hilly and full of huge trees.

At Nhakarta bay we did lots of walking, sunbathing and spent lots of time avoiding stray dogs. The lake was beautiful but of course none of us swam in it because we understand the importance of health and safety. The day was very relaxing and really felt like a holiday. The area looks almost Mediterranean, it's so green and the water is so crystal clear. Our minibus ride back was on an extremely shoddy vehicle. It stopped a lot to fix engine problems, all part of the fun I say!

Bus to Mzuzu 

We didn't manage to get the national bus and so after a quick goodbye to Tionge and Gloria we jumped on the Axa bus for our 7hr journey to Mzuzu. The bus was incredibly busy and we only just managed to get a seat each. Our journeys' were eventful to say the least. Ranging from babysitting cute kids, sat on a three person seat with five people which happened to be a vomiting family, a crazy preacher thrusting a bible on Sarah or a hairy American peace corp. 

End of Lilongwe training

Thursday's training was all about first aid in the morning with girls trying to make slings, trying out the recovery position and particularly enjoying practising hitting someone 'choking'. At lunchtime we got to go to one of the girls houses and meet her family who were all really friendly. The afternoon was all about the promise, with some Malawian songs thrown in.

Last night we had a power cut whilst making tea, so ended up drawing pictures, playing cards and singing along to the iPod for a while. Our hosts then made us tea when the electric came back on as our food had turned to mush.

Before training on Friday we got to go to the mill to grind some maize which was needed for lunch. Walking through the village we saw loads of market stalls selling everything from tomatoes to coffins. In today's training we had about 45 girls from brownies to rangers, so we played lots of games, sung songs and made a few crafts. The training ended with a lovely closing ceremony where the girls did lots of marching and singing.

After training we were taken to worship at an open air fellowship which was amazing! We were sat in front of the congregation and introduced as special guests. Ruth was given a bible and was really afraid she'd have to choose a passage to read. The service involved lots of singing, clapping and some very unique fast praying. We were given a microphone to introduced ourselves but thankfully no one was made to read anything! This was a very exciting experience and gave us a proper taste of Malawian culture.

We finished off an amazing day with a Chinese - can't complain about that.

Lots of love, team Malawi. X

The last few days...

Hi everyone,

We've had an interesting few days. This started with Sunday's bus journey back from Blantyre - in which Lyndsey got attacked by a chicken (previous GOLD teams had warned us about this to be fair). The bus was pretty quick but much less exciting than on the way down. We arrived in Lilongwe and went to the Golden Peacock hostel before heading in to town for supplies and an exciting trip to the market. The team enjoyed the friendly harrassment of the market guys trying to sell their goods!

On Monday we were expecting to start training but with nothing confirmed, limited communication and lots and lots of waiting around this was sadly not the case. We moved to the MAGGA building though which was nice - and spent the afternoon in the sun. Everyone's highlight of the day was getting in to a MAGGA car which turned out to be full of 100s of cockroaches! There was lots of laughter from the drivers as we screamed and jumped out of the car. Luckily this problem has been fixed.

On Tuesday our second week of training began. Four hours later than planned. We arrived at midday with only about 6 participants, and very little idea of what was going on. Gradually more people arrived and we were able to start with songs and a good old game of splat! By the end of the day we had 30 Brownies, Guides and Rangers. We looked at the general topic of leadership and played get to know you games. The day ended weirdly as there was still no clear plan of what was going on for the girls. They had been expecting to stay over but the necessary food and equipment had not arrived. They therefore went home. We hoped that Wednesday would see an improvement in communication.

Wednesday started with us making eggy bread - such a classic guiding treat! We got to training at around 9am but as people were still arriving we didn't begin until 10. Today we looked at communication and teamwork in the morning and The 5 Essentials in the afternoon. We sang lots of songs and played games as the girls today were a little younger than yesterday. We had 35 girls by the end of the day which was great. Food has now been sorted out for the girls so things are starting to look a little more organised. I am happy to say that the Crazy Elephant song has proved just as popular as last year - and I'm not even sick of it yet!

All the best,

Team Malawi xxx