June Update

Dearest friends, family, supporters and senders of chocolate (Jon and Mum..),

Sincere apologies for the lack of contact – or perhaps there are those of you who are sick to the back teeth of gap year newsletters, or any newsletters for that matter – and therefore I apologise for this one! (You can always just scan to the bottom… how will I know?!)
How are you doing? I hope life wherever you are is good…

Malawi is as ever fabulous – there are of course moments of stress, of frustration, of ‘why-the-hell-did-I-come-out-to-this-stupid-country?’, but whenever I come to type my newsletter I can only recall the good things, which I suppose means the good stuff far outweighs any of the negative and I would of course prefer it that way…

It has been a long time since I wrote one of these and I don’t intend to cover everything I’ve done in detail – for one I don’t have time (I’m taking a lunch break now from painting in the board room…) and for another you would find it intensely boring. Rest assured in the knowledge that I have been very busy, work has definitely picked up a few gears since I last did this!

I recall writing one just after returning from our scout to Mchinji orphanage – going back for a few days to hang out with the children and work with them was amazing. The whole place oozes love and care, I suppose you expect orphanages to be sad places, full of tragic stories, sick children and dark rooms. But the Home of Hope is the opposite. Of course there are tragic stories to be heard, the children are there, for the most part, because their parents have died of AIDS and you can be sure that 1 in 4 of the children has HIV, but what strikes you about the place is the love and the hope that the Pastor in charge has for all of “his children” – in the home of hope they get the attention, love and future that many Malawian children can only dream of. The faith of Pastor Chipetta (fondly known as Pastor Penfold due to his resemblance to a certain cartoon character) challenged all of us – I mean often the guy has no money in the bank and no food for his 330 children, he prays, and something has always turned up. Whether you believe in God or not, you can’t deny that that kind of coincidence is pretty damn cool. The place has touched me so much, as soon as I got there I knew I wanted to return and if that’s not possible I’ll be supporting it financially… may have taken a lot of photos, but who can blame me?? The children were sooo gorgeous!!

Our schools program is over now – we’ve taught all of the lessons and the whole course culminated in a ‘Lifeskills’ Weekend, where we took 50 students from various schools away and taught them how to teach the course we taught them. The idea being that ‘peer educators’ within each school can teach the course when we’re gone, and quite frankly they will be able to reach people better than we can – being able to communicate in Chichewa to those who don’t understand English – and based on the theory that a Malawian can communicate to a Malawian better than any English person ever could. It was so encouraging to see our students perform a lesson of their own at the end of the weekend, I felt like a proud parent to see their own dramas and posters teaching each other of the dangers of AIDS and how to care for those with the disease. And seeing Maclean and his rapper mates perform a piece they’d written themselves on HIV was incredible – I hate rap music but even I could see these guys had talent! It made me feel like all of the preparation and hard work had really been worth it, the thing being that our work is now sustainable – it won’t stop when we go home and the messages we started to spread will continue…

A couple of weeks ago we (team one, team two and some of our Malawian co-workers) spent just over a week at the lake on a building project at a place called Kande, it was damn hard work making bricks for a campsite and community centre right by the beach. We carried water up the hill to the tank (as the pump is lost somewhere between N. Ireland and Malawi…) we busted termites, we mixed cement, cleaned windows, put up new mozzie netting on the windows…it was so so good to be getting our hands dirty and working until we were properly tired. But of course there was time for chilling out – every time we got too hot working we’d run down and cool off in the lake. Both Tearfund teams went horse-riding, for a few hours and at the end we rode bare back into Lake Malawi until our horses swam, possibly the most awesome experience I’ve had here! Then on the last night we camped out under the stars on the beach with a camp fire and yes we even had toasted marshmallows… it was one of those moments when you realise just how fortunate you are to live the life you do… I know how lucky I am to be here.

Since Kande we’ve said goodbye to David McCullagh who’s now back in Northern Ireland, we’ve left the country for Zambia and been on a fab safari. I’ve visited my first Fair Trade Co-op, and seen the difference fair trade really makes to a community (in two weeks I”ll be seeing another!!) And we’ve continued work on renovating the S.U. office, now the library and 2 offices are newly painted and looking ace, we’ve begun work on the Board Room – hence as I write this I have speckles of light blue paint in my hair and white paint all up my arms… well it sets off my tan nicely.

Next week we’re heading down south to climb Mt Mulanje, which is both exciting and very very scary at the same time – also its going to cost quite a bit, eeeek that means budgeting! Lets hope the running and ‘toning time’ I’ve been doing has made me fit enough not to die as I attempt to scale the peak. The day after we return we’re off on a road trip with our boss ‘Hot Rod’ all over the country… and then I believe we only have 4 or 5 days left so it’ll be a matter of packing down the house and getting rid of stuff, buying last minutes souvenirs and reminders and saying goodbye…(hankies at the ready)

I guess I’m winding down now, the trip is coming to an end and so you get all reflective and wondering what you’ve learnt and how you’ve grown since being away… We’ve got less than 3 weeks left and I cannot believe how quickly its gone! I wonder how it can possibly be June and where all the time’s gone, but I am nearly ready to come home and definitely am looking forward to being back to a country where things work and where buses come on time (not 3 hours late) and where your kettle doesn’t blow up every week or so, and of course my main motive for coming back – I get to see Jon again!! Yay!! But I have grown to love this country and the people here – life at the S.U. office is sometimes hard at times with personality clashes and work ethics, but the country is wonderful and so so beautiful how could I not love it here?

I guess I’ll leave it here now, thanks for your emails and letters while I’ve been away and no doubt I’ll be making more personal emails when I get home! Take care until we see each other again…

Rach in Malawi x x x

April 18th

Can’t believe we’ve been here a month already, but sure enough we have to renew our visas today (or we become illegal immigrants…!!)

We’re all settling into Malawian life very well, its really strange how easy it is to adapt to a totally new culture. We’re making loads of friends, with Malawians and ex-pats alike, don’t think I’ve really said much about the people we work with, my last 2 newsletters were quite frankly very poor! But I’m writing this one and saving it before we go to the net café this afternoon….

Anywaaaay let me tell you about people…. There’s this guy called Aaron who works in the publishing department here, well I say works, he is very laid back and often plays much pinball instead of typing, but he’s very funny and plays in this band who practise here on a Thursday. He calls me his “fellow musician” and demands hugs (which I thought was culturally not-ok, but apparently its fine!) He teaches me bits of Chichewa here and there, including the slang. Loveness (yes that is her real name…) is also lovely as her name suggests, very chatty and wants to learn many things from us. Arnold… Arnold… Arnold… he has been the cause of much amusment for the team, not least because he looks like a black Elvis! He has the most bizarre mood swings, and comes out with the most random comments and then goes into a really high pitched laugh. We often end up in hysterics during very serious meetings…not good when we’re trying to appear professional!! John is a volunteer here… he’s funny but can be a little bit sleazy (24 and in need of a wife if you know what I’m saying….) He has some strange ideas about women not being allowed to go to university, and needing to be “tested” before they get married… Hmmmm. And finally Rodrick is our boss here, we call him Hot Rod, he’s just awesome (when we see him.. he’s so busy most of the time though!)

Ok so work stuff…. Well things are really taking off at the moment which is fantastic as we were wondering when it’d all start! I’m continuing my work writing a manual for how to plan and run and holiday club to teach the Malawians how to do it – they love them but don’t really have a clue how to go about it. Which is sad because the kids just end up doing nothing and causing trouble during school holidays… As a team we’ve made some pretty good links with various social action charities, SOS, World Vision the UN and world relief. It looks quite likely that me and Chris will be working a bit with World Relief possibly on a feeding program in the near future. Which will be awesome – I really want to get involved in some social development stuff – writing manuals and teaching is useful but I want to get my hands dirty!!

Next week myself and Helen will probably be taking some music and singing lessons in a local school with Julia – she’s an ex-pat who’s lived here for 9 years I think, shes great and makes awesome cookies! We’re adopting her as our mum! The biggest achievement so far has to be last weekend I think… we planned and ran a training weekend for 40 students – on how to plan and lead a holiday camp – some of us had some experience in being leaders, and some of us had only been on camps as kids, but somehow it all came together and ran very smoothly and professionally! We led workshops on writing and performing drama, music and good group games, as well as things like the finance aspect and how to plan the program… it wasn’t all hard work though – we were at a Villa by the lake again and it was hot and sunny and beautiful… and we had to swim in the lake again!! Much fun!!

Although we haven’t got stuck into our first project (Lifeskills lessons) yet, we’ve not had much proper time off – people are always organising things for us to do – usually without asking if we want to go! 2 weekends ago we were invited to a wedding – not that we knew either of the people getting married, just had a vague connection with the bride’s mother! We danced lots up on stage when we gave our gifts, and also had to throw money at the front as we danced – a custom I’m tempted to introduce at mine and Jon’s wedding! We were out all day from about 9am to 4 – weddings and receptions last a loooong time here, we were pretty tired and so decided to go out for a meal…to the Indian restaurant, there are Indians, Chinese, Korean and nandos restaurants here in Lilongwe, not that we go very often. It wasn’t quite like at home but still pretty awesome. Talking of curry… one of the ex-pat missionary dudes who we lived with at the start – David “junior” arrived back from his 2 week trip visiting fair trade co-ops last night, and to celebrate that (and the fact that we finally found chicken fillets instead of wings..) we had “Curry Night” 5 different curries, 1 beef, 1 chicken korma and 3 veggie ones and loooads of rice and even home made naan breads. Mmmm it was truly amazing!! Also having david back means we can continue our Chichewa lessons… I really do want to be almost fluent by the time I come home. Not sure how likely that is though.

We’re making plans to go on holiday a couple of times while we we’re here, we get quite a bit of time off which we’ll use up in big lumps. Probably going to go to Liwonde national park where apparently we can have a horse-back safari and get right into zebra herds… but our big holiday when we have to leave the country to renew our visas will be to Zambia, where we shall visit Victoria Falls! Yay!! We’ve got a working holiday planned as well, we’ll go up to a campsite in a place called Kande which needs a lot of renovation work – and we’ll be digging foundations for a new building up there. So working all morning and then free afternoons to swim in the lake and ride horses along the beach and kayak… I am soooo looking forward to that. Perfect combination of working hard and playing harder…

I’ve been writing this over a couple of days, so this morning Arnold has decided to tell us that we have 2 days to plan all of our lessons for going into the schools next week. Aaaargh! We spent a few days last week doing nothing and if he’d been organised enough we could’ve had it all done by now… but such is the Malawian way to do everything last minute – and yet still expect it to be perfect. Little bit frustrated by that but I’m sure we’ll get it done somehow (bang goes our day off tomorrow!!)

Getting post is seriously the highlight of our day at the office so if anyone feels like writing to me and doesn;’t have my address its

Rach Holloway
Transform Team
C/o S.U. Malawi
Area 14
PO Box 30255
Lilongwe 3
Malawi

Well that’s plenty for now… thanks for your emails, its really good to read them and I’m sorry for not sending personal replies, but reading them takes nearly an hour! I definitely appreciate them though! Will stick a few personal messages in here tho. Hope all of you are doing well at home and that uni and school and work aren’t stressing you out too much.

Ok 3 page epic is over… not sure when I’ll get to send it so sorry if it’s a bit out of date! Take care all of you and I’ll see you soon!

Rach x

Update - 29th March

Hey everyone!!

Muli Bwanji?? (how are you?) Life is great here in wonderful Malawi!! The sun is shining again (as it does everyday…) and the team are feeling pretty good!

Thank you to everyone who sent me an email… I now have an absolute mountain to get through… so this week’s cash will be spent on internet bills!

Aargh ok what do I need to tell you…well last week was pretty frustrating work-wise – basically we did sod all!! The African way of life is very slow and chilled out, and it took us a good 3 days to even move into our house. So morale was pretty low, but thankfully we got into our house on Wednesday. Its fantastic – lovely views and huuuge! A few cockroaches here and there.. but I’m getting used to them. Just nice to have hot water and electricity (most of the time) power cuts are common but ah well!!

We took a trip to lake Malawi – a place called salima this weekend. It was amazing!!! The lake is more beatutful than you can imagine – not even photos come close – although I’ve got some great sunrise ones… of the lake on easter morning. Sitting by the lake chilling with my guitar is probably one of my fav experiences of my life ever!! Got bitten like crazy by mozzies… but it was worth it I think. Erm…. I swam in the lake. Mum if you’re reading this I’m really sorry! But I couldn;’t not swim in it – it was 30 degrees and sunny and the lake was soooo beautiful. Bilhazia isn’t that serious. Honest!! Hehe!

Ive joined the band at our work place – is such a laugh to sing with crazy Africans!! And we’re gonna be in a video on MTV (Malawi TV….not the real one obviously!!)

Sorry this is all so rushed… but I still haven;’t finished reading all your lovely emails!!

My chichewa is coming along well… and we’ve been shopping in the market quite a bit. Feeling very ‘local’ already… and its great. Although we get ripped off in the market because we’re white!!

We’ll be into the schools doing our AIDS lifeskills project within the next two weeks and we’re making contacts with orphanages and world vision to do some relief and extra work. Should be awesome!! Ooh and we’re gonna go to zambia on holiday and see Victoria falls at the end!!

Ok I have to go… sorry this is so short!

Take care all of you… sorry I can’t reply to personal emails… but I’ll try and write to you guys in the evenings…

See you soon!!

Rach xxxx

First news from Malawi

Malawi is amazing, I’m loving it sooo much, its been about 25 degrees and sunny everyday since being here, so much for the rainy season?!!

This first week has been a really gentle ease in to the project, so I’m expecting more hard work in the coming weeks, but the pace of life is sooo slow out here, laid back isn’t the word!! We start work at 8 and have an hour of ‘devotions’, and then we start work at 9, tea break at 10 and off for an hour and a half or so of lunch at 12ish…. Then back and work and training until about 4.30…. oh yes life is good!!

Our house has a night watchman, and we have security guards who come if we press the panic button… or sometimes they come randomly, like on Wednesday night when we were sitting outside playing guitar.. suddenly 8 overall-ed, helmeted men jump over the hedge and surround the house with batons…. We were bemused to say the least.

We’re living with two guys called David at the moment until our house is sorted, we live in quite a posh area of Lilongwe so the poverty isn’t quite as extreme as I saw everyday in Tanzania, but you don’t have to go far to see how poor people really are here… especially yesterday when we visited an orphanage, which has about 200 kids who have lost both parents to AIDS. It’s a scary reality.
But enough of the doom and gloom! Yesterday as a treat we wandered to one of the major hotels and used their swimming pool all afternoon for about a pound – get in! And this evening I may even be able to watch the wales v Ireland match in the restaurant where we’re having a welcome meal, Yay! If not I want emails about it – in fact it’d be lovely to have emails waiting for me next time I pop in here… so feel very free (as the Malawians say!!)

Its easter holidays next week so we won’t get into the schools until a but later on, but we’re getting to grips with the lessons and making links to get involved with relief work or going into hospitals and orphanages as our side projects…

Anyway that better be all for now… all of you take care and I’ll mail soon as I can…

Rach xx

Some Pics

Here's a few pics


Meeeeeee


Me working on a project in Tanzania in 2003


Me and my future husband Jon

First Post Testy Thing!

Hellooooo!

On the advice of my lovely fiancee I've set up this online diary thingy so you guys can keep track of what i'm doing while I'm away. No idea how often I'll be able to update it, but hopefully often enough so you can get some idea of how me and the team are getting on.

I'm so excited about going - seeing as we almost didn't make it, when our first project partner didn't want us anymore. Thankfully the partners in Lilongwe were more than happy to take us on, once they had transport for us sorted out, and we fly on saturday. Eeek! Can't wait!

I'm pretty much packed... but i'll probably do a final check of stuff today - i need something to do anyway. Probably packed way too much stuff, but hey i'd rather be prepared.

Anyways that will do for now... I have nothing especially exciting to say at the moment... all the cool stuff will come once i'm out there.

Take care

Rach (In peterborough!!)