Mwaya Mondays- Vol. 26, Monday 3 December, 2012
This week’s Mwaya Mondays blog comes on a Tuesday due to the very poor internet connection at Mwaya Beach yesterday. However hopefully it is worth the wait! This week’s blog by RIPPLE Africa volunteer Ashley:
“Another week of sun soaked days and moon lit nights has rushed past. We enjoyed an incredible dusk at Makuzi Lodge on Saturday night and watched in awe as the red moon rose over the horizon whilst we ate dinner on Thursday. We also welcomed in December with tuneful renditions of classic Christmas numbers – highlight being “All I want for Christmas is You”, sung at full volume with us all standing on the table! But it hasn’t all been sitting around watching the sky… promise! Lots of great work has gone on in the community this week too!
For Phoebe, Grace and myself the highlight has been the pre-school teachers training day. Every member of staff from the eight pre-schools attended and gave huge amounts of enthusiasm and creativity to the tasks. It was wonderful to see what great ideas they all had and what committed teachers the children have. We sang songs, danced and laughed our way through the day and all came away feeling inspired to try new activities with the resources that are in place at the schools, which will help with their phonics, letter and number work. There will also be new resources going into four of the local pre-schools from Monday. Phoebe has been working incredibly hard to get sacks of goodies set up for the library to deliver to the schools on Monday. The children will have a chance to read new books and play with the parachute and matching games before returning them on Friday and getting a whole new bag of tricks the next Monday. We can’t wait to see how they go down!
Other gifts of bags have been given to the community, but this time filled with stones! Monika has had bags made for use as weights for her patients who need muscle strengthening. Isaac, a five year-old boy who has been severely weakened through malnutrition, had a wonderful time tossing the bags back and forth with Monika and the rest of his family. Collins, head of RIPPLE Africa’s Disabilities and Rehabilitation Project, said that he has never seen Isaac smile before but he was grinning and giggling away with this new game. Very special!
Lindsey has also provided a treat for Kachere clinic and baked a delicious chocolate cake for Nurse Ashley, who was leaving this week. She also gave the supply cupboard a much needed sort out!
Geoff, Susie and Charlie have been working away attending to various projects and meetings. Sadly Grace said her goodbyes and headed down to South Africa to meet her dad so numbers are getting smaller and camp is getting quieter! To wave her off we drank Mwaya Moonrise and prepared her for safari by dressing up as the Big 5!
And it’s goodbye from me too…my incredibly special and positive time here is drawing to an end and it is hard to believe that three months has gone so fast. I don’t think I will ever stay anywhere so beautiful again and will miss a daily dip in the lake once I’m back to freezing temperatures! The more I have understood about Malawi and development work the more I admire the great work that RIPPLE Africa does and I feel very privileged to be a part of it. Finally, a huge thank you to every single kind, patient and smiley person that has made my experience so wonderful. Staff at Mwaya, the children and teachers, locals and other volunteers, I shall miss you- take care and lots of love!”
Don’t forget to check back next week for the next instalment of Mwaya Mondays!
