What are your chief impressions after this week in Likhubula?

First, the long walk to school, down the hill. The deep holes the ants make in the roads. The dust. The carvers and the stalls that you walk past every day.

Then the church. It’s very different from ours. Very plain, whitewashed walls. The windows stand out – they’re a concrete pattern but have no glass. At least you get a breeze through them. The building is so small, yet their congregation is the same size as ours . Actually, although they have to sit on concrete benches, they can do big meetings in their church that we couldn’t do in ours.

I’m amazed at the welcome we got. We seemed so important – I’ve never felt that important before. Back home you just blend in. Here, everyone sees us as different. Mind you, by the end of the visit we were familiar, beginning to blend in.

I’m going to remember the life there in the village. They seemed quite happy, actually, much happier than most people from UK would have been in their situation. They were good at making the best of things.

I had to adjust to Malawian time. Clocks are an hour out compared with Scotland, but so is everything else – for example, if they schedule a meeting for 2pm, everyone is there by 3. Weird.

They start school at 7am! It starts with children sweeping the dust and leaves. They hold assembly outside, and if they have to sit down, they sit on the ground. There’s a little ridge a bit like a chair, and they race to get to that bit!

The first class starts at 7.45-8.00. They don’t have a rigid schedule, but they don’t have many teachers for all the children, so that might be part of it. Mr Chiromo, the head teacher is very organised, but I don’t know if the rest of the school followed his lead.

The children got away with some things in the school that we wouldn’t be allowed to do – like standing on the desks. But they weren’t allowed things we can do every day – like girls wearing trousers.

There were over 1000 pupils, and just 7 teachers. The Scottish volunteers had just left (I think more are coming in September). The head teacher was sometimes called away for a meeting in another village. One day, the depute head teacher was called away to help his family in another village. One teacher was sick for a day or two while we were there. And I think there was meant to be another teacher too, but she has been sick for quite a while and we never saw her in the school. If a teacher had to teach more than one class, they wouldn’t fit into a classroom, so they would take them all outside. Or a class would be left on its own with monitors – pretty hard if there are 100 children in the room.

The classrooms. There was a Standard 1 classroom, but since there were more than 200 of them, they used to sit outside underneath two trees.

School bags: They were a lot like sugar bags, smaller than ours. The children had to keep them on them all day – nowhere to put them down – so they were strapped over their shoulder. Often they write on tiny scraps of paper from the exercise books, especially the little ones. In Standard 1 some of the Dad’s have made them an abacus with a stick and string and bits of dried grass or bottle tops and they sling this round their neck.

The age-range is huge. There were some 4 years old and some 20. But this is a Primary school!!! If someone starts school late – maybe they’re 12 and their parents have died – they still go into Standard 1 and they have to pass each year to move on a class. This means if they don’t grasp something, they keep re-doing it. I actually think that can be quite good. Sometimes we skip on at school in Scotland, even though we haven’t grasped something.

How do you think they make friends?

Well, they can mess about in class – so they make learning funny. They might give a funny answer that is partly right – the teachers seem happy to build on this.

Some of the pupils have some real talent. There’s a boy called John who’s 12 and in standard 5 or 6. He’s drawn some great pictures of me with snakes and footballs in them. He even drew pictures for other children to give to me. Everyone here knows me as Jonason – I think they find it easier to pronounce.

After the first game of football with the boys they seemed to realise I’m just a kid too, and they started treating me like that. I began to get a feel for what the kids do in their free time – mostly football, though sometimes these are just made with carrier bags bound together with elastic bands. They play in bare feet.

It’s weird that they carry babies round on their back. I guess, if it’s OK for the baby then that’s fine.

The electricity fails very often. That wasn’t a problem in school, because they don’t have any electricity there! They’ve been given a DVD player and a car battery to run it, but the teachers aren’t too sure about it yet.

There’s no water either. The school sends 2 girls (girls!) out at break-time to fetch water from the river. This is the same river that we saw two men washing their motorbike in, but I think the water for drinking comes from upstream.

No food in school. The classes finish between 11.45 and 12.30 depending on which stage they are. They call this knocking off.

Some children look as if they aren’t very well. They can have very flaking legs. There’s one girl I think is definitely not well and she’s quite small.

In the village people are very cheery.

We had meetings in the church most afternoons. They did drag on a bit – but I think it’s entertainment for the village. I noticed if a truck came by, the children would all go out to look. But they would come back. I think we were the next most interesting thing that day!

Their singing is great. We’re rubbish in comparison. We made recordings while we were there. It was all spontaneous and it was brilliant.

They have this band in the church. It has a superb sound and their instruments are really cool. They look handmade – I think from what is available. Oil drums for the drummer? I think the guitar has been carved in Malawi. They have a brilliant sense of rhythm. The people here are very musical.

What did you make of our visit?

I’m very glad we were there. I felt really, really welcomed. I’ve never been approached like that before. Usually people just say, “Oh, it’s you.”

Travelling on the roads. There was a lot of pressure to get home before night falls. In town, we were told not to stop at the lights at night because of car jacking.

The scenery is beautiful. Awe making. Even better than the stuff in the Scottish highlands and that’s saying something.

I think I got more out of this trip than even the First Minister did. He didn’t get visitors asking him to play football and to give him pictures of himself with snakes!

What about the food?

I like nsima! You eat it with your hands, but you have to splash it with gravy then eat it (Though it’s very plain on its own)

My absolute favourite drinks are here – strawberry Fanta and Sobo. Sobo stands for Southern Bottles Ltd. It’s a big company here with a lot of different drinks.

Have you bought anything to take home?

Yes – lots actually. We’ve got carvings and a basket for souvenirs and presents. But that’s nothing to the gifts that we’ve been given. Clothes, bowls and an amazing carving. People from the church took me to the tailor’s house to be measured, then gave me the finished outfit two days later – in a special ceremony. Memorable.

I’ll not forget this trip.

I’m glad I came. I hope its not the last time I come to Africa.