Day 8 - Monday

Another full morning in the school. Mr Chiromo and I give a formal introduction concerning the pen-pal scheme to Standards 7 and 8, stressing that these letters are for friendship and not to include statements asking for money (I have learned that this is where such schemes so often falter; we will be stressing the similar principles in Dunblane).

The school is now staffed with 7 teachers and head teacher to 1000+ pupils. One teacher is very sick and has not been able to work for several months. Today Mr Safari, the depute head teacher, has been called away on family business. I offer to take his class, Standard 4. They are taught in Chichewa, not in English, so I borrow an interpreter from Standard 8. We start by talking about our families, do some singing, use the English textbooks to read dialogues aloud and discuss, write a little about Dunblane. The only time I find the children’s behaviour difficult to control is when 20 or more have to try to share a piece of text. They are so eager to learn!

I pass around some pictures of historic Scotland, and there is considerable interest in a patch of grass by one of the castles. I have to explain what grass (our grass) is – another lesson. (When I showed similar pictures to the Women’s Guild, one elderly lady was clearly horrified that a castle had no immediate neighbours to create a sense of village).

Within this group I think I identify a handful of pupils with learning difficulties. I would love to be able to vary the teaching approach for them, as we would in Scotland. Perhaps there is potential to use older pupils for time-limited tutorial sessions. For discussion on another day or even another visit.

Meanwhile, Jonathan and Brigitte have been teaching or assisting in several classes. Jonathan is proving quite the Maths expert.

Monday Afternoon

Possibly the best gathering yet. We are meeting with the youth (defined in the meeting as 5-40, 40 being higher than the average life expectancy in Malawi!). We arrive at 2pm and are greeted by Mr Safari who has sorted his family issues and raced back to host us. We enter the church and the first to arrive are some wee ones. We sit and play with them. Slowly word goes around that we have come, and within 30 minutes 350+ folk have arrived: the Sunday School, youth choirs, women’s choir, the Christian band named Brothers in Christ (complete with African guitar and drums made from oil drums, giving the magical steel band sound to their music). Together we sing, listen to music, hear a poem, watch some wonderful drama from the Sunday School (Christopher, Mrs Navaya’s adopted nephew is something of a star here) and have the by-now-familiar questions and answers about youth work in Likhubula and Dunblane. I enjoy the whole session thoroughly.

Day 9 - Tuesday

This will be Brigitte and Jonathan’s last day in the school. They are invited to address the school assembly, which they do in true professional style.

To our surprise, later in the morning the staff throw a party for us. The pupils are given an extended break, while we drink Coke and Fanta, make and receive speeches, chat more freely and are presented with two ironwood bowls, made by the local carvers. They are wrapped in scarce paper, and we are invited to open them (“It might be a bomb”). We feel as if we are with old friends, and celebrate with a photo.

I explore whether the government, who supply the ration of textbooks, would permit us to buy some more textbooks for the school. The consensus seems to be yes. Given the fact that several schools in Dunblane are now interested in the partnership, I see that there could be scope to match a single school in Scotland with, for example, two specific year-groups in Nansato School, so that the school would coordinate gifts of textbooks, pen-pals for pupils, pen-pals for teachers etc for these specific stages. For further discussion in Stirling Council, with Dunblane Community Children’s Partnership and with our Steering Committee.

Tuesday afternoon/evening

The 2pm gathering in the church this afternoon is combining all the remaining groups – fellowship (evangelism), building and fundraising. It starts very late, and we know we are due up the hill for a 4 o’clock meeting also. Of course, it too starts very late, so with hindsight it is only we who feel any sense of urgency at all.

The report of the building committee lays out the scheme to build a new church. Phase 1 – foundations; phase 2 – walls; phase 3 – roof, and so forth. An area for the new building has been identified in the compound, and some bricks have already been fired by church members, currently scattered on the ground. It looks like being a long-term project. We are already aware that all over Malawi there are half finished church buildings, which never make it to phase 3 (roof).

The fellowship committee is very committed and very lively. We stumble into a dispute about whether a particular group of Christians in a congregation can be the only ones to claim to be ‘born again’. I realise when I give one answer and eight Bibles are whipped out in preparation for the reply that I am probably in deep trouble, but we manage to resolve the issue by agreeing that there can be a group within a congregation that has a particular calling to a detailed ministry. Relief.

The gathering in the Youth Centre is to be a formal farewell to us from the Steering Committee, church elders and key representatives. Being in the centre, which has electric light, we can continue past sunset. As we pass up the hill, we find the Brothers in Christ band parked outside our chalet with all their (heavy) instruments and fully garbed in co-ordinating outfits. Despite no sisters being in the band, I have promised to record their music. We leave Jonathan with them as the sound recordist. They sound marvellous in the open air.  

The women gather in the meeting area at the Youth Centre and we talk for some time while the men gather outside and, I presume, construct a programme. This separation is not unusual – in the church services men still sit on one side of the church and women on the other. (I almost landed in hot water earlier in the visit after we had been referring to the custom in UK of ladies first. This drew the question, ‘But did not God make man first?’ to which I retorted much too fast, ‘Yes, but then He thought again’. The women who were present loved the reply, but this statement might have signalled the end of a beautiful partnership. I learned to be a little slower when replying after that!).

It is worth the wait for the gathering. Hard to realise that we have been in the community for only a little over a week. This feels like a true gathering of friends. More speeches. I reflect publicly on the fact that we have known about Likhubula now for over a year, but were having difficulty sending communications and working through intermediaries. This was the reason for deciding that we should visit in order to be able to meet face to face. Heads go up. There is still astonishment that we would go to these lengths.

An elder stands up and announces that he is not satisfied. I am delighted at the prospect that we might encounter dissent and debate! But he is disappointed that we would only come for two weeks; it should be at least four. We feel bold enough to point out that we might have been desperate to leave after only two weeks. Everyone knows we would be happy to stay longer now if only we could.

This church has gone to great lengths of its own. In a community already affected since December by the lack of rain and loss of crops, they have prepared gifts for us – personal gifts in the form of an African outfit each (the tailor was as good as his word) and a magnificent carving depicting UNITY for the church. These are presented to us with a dance and with chanting. There is great excitement and pleasure in giving these gifts, and I think they are gratified that we are similarly moved in receiving them.

The meal afterwards with Margaret is one of the first where we truly feel we can relax and unwind, but she is called away suddenly to take a sick woman to Mulanje Mission Hospital. Penalty of having one of the few vehicles in the area.

Day 10 - Wednesday

On this our last morning, Brigitte and Jonathan are preparing in the chalet for our departure. I head off alone for my last morning in the school.

The sun is up, the villagers hail me as I pass their houses, I see a man preparing the ground to make bricks from mud. Children run to catch up, I am observed by a monkey and I meet Mrs Mfunya, teacher of Standard 6, as she joins from the forestry road which leads to her home. We converse as we walk.

This is my farewell assembly, and I ask if I can hear the youngsters sing, I thank you Lord for the days of my life. It’s a song that rings in my ears even when I am away from the school, and speaks to me of the spirit of this remarkable community. Last night I was learning that Mbewe (where the school sits) is one of the last villages in the area without clean water, and the incidence of illness in the area, particularly dysentery and diarrhoea, is extremely high. We have made a link with a NGO called Hygiene Village Project, who would like to provide piped water to the village, provide staff and pupil toilets plus a borehole at Nansato School and construct a clinic / dispensary in the village. The plans are quite well advanced but there is still an issue re funding. We will be talking further with them when we return to UK.

The children do sing, and the Scripture Union choir sings too. I tell Mr Chiromo that my mother was involved with Scripture Union in the late 1940’s. He explains that Scripture Union arrived in Malawi in 1962 (we may have running water and offices that are larger than broom cupboards, but do we have as good a grasp of our own history?).

In the course of my farewell speech I tell the children that they have a very good head teacher and staff, and they break out in applause.

The School Board has been asked to arrive to meet with me at 8am. At 8am the chairman and I sit in the sun (at this height in winter the air is just warming up) and discuss various topics. By 9am we convene under the trees, 6 members or so of the School Board and the two chiefs from Mbewe village. They are honoured that Dunblane would be seeking a partnership with an area that includes their village. We make introductions, I am given several explanations, then the head teacher is called away. This allows me to ask more questions, including observing that I am aware that several teachers have to set off at 5.30 am each day to walk to school in time for the 7am start. Would it be a help if they had access to a bicycle? This sparks a lengthy discussion in Chichewa, and by the time Mr Chiromo rejoins us, the chiefs have become very lively, with much gesticulating and pointing. After about 15 minutes I am offered translation. They have been talking about the restrictions on the school, no teachers’ houses and little scope to extend the school grounds. The school loses teachers to the city as a result. The outcome of the discussion is that the chiefs have agreed to relocate cultivated land that is adjacent to the school to other sites within the village and have offered three sites to build three houses for teachers and their families. The head teacher and the School Board members are looking very happy.

We talk further, and by the end of the meeting the School Board has agreed to open a bank account, and we have explored further our offer to help with bicycles for teachers who are presently living at a distance. The reality that our partnership is for the community too has started to be realised, and it is suggested that when the next visitors come from Dunblane, there will be a public meeting for the community also.

Back in the broom cupboard we tidy up some necessary details and I decide to tell these friends – head teacher and depute head – something of Dunblane’s unique history. I include an account of the events of 13 th March 1996, and they listen with compassion and offer praise for a town which is emerging strong from the reality of its past.

Too soon I am back in the chalet packing hurriedly. As we load the truck for the return journey to Blantyre, members of the Steering Committee appear on the forest path to pray with us and wish us a safe journey. They establish that we are at the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end. Having been known as Dr-Jenni-Barr throughout the entire stay, I am addressed as Jenni (just this once) and it sounds good.  

Blantyre days...

A chance for some final visits – to the Synod Education Co-ordinators, Henry Henderson Institute Primary and Secondary Schools (visited also by the First Minister) and to Chigodi Women’s Training Centre for a meeting with some truly inspiring ladies. The rest, a time of gentle reflection before returning to UK. We fly out of Blantyre at 5pm on Sunday, but not before we have attended two church services, the second of which is a Synod farewell for Rev Dr Dan Merry, visiting from Pennsylvania. We are formally introduced (me in my African outfit) to the 38 congregations, 12 presbyteries and top Synod officials who are represented there, and I inform them all that our partnership with Likhubula CCAP, the school and the wider community is now well and truly established.