The Way to Work

Not it’s not all about maximising profit, increasing efficiency and making a big name for yourself. It literally is the way to work.

Apologies to all those that logged on yesterday expecting to see the latest installment. My computer fell over and I had quite a bit of work to do. But it is here, it all it's glossy technicolour.

Starts off at around 7.10 with a swift jaunt across the car park to the red gates where John or Paul are guarding.

Then a right turn onto the roller coaster road. The cobblers may look rough but trust me they are way worse than that, although it does allow you to drive up the hill in the pouring rain.

Next we rise up someone else’s drive, that’s Debbie and Adina you can see in the far distance.

Enter the jungle trail, which used to be a pleasant incline, but the rains came and turned it into a maize maze and during a downpour something that wouldn’t look out of place in total wipeout.

(yep still haven't worked out how to turn them the right way up!)

Then we are up into Chilomoni proper. In the morning the streets are full of people going to work and collecting firewood and water. On the way back they a filled with children asking how you are and shouting azungu at you – which is a somewhat racist term meaning white person or ghost or non-entity.

Along these streets is a corner shop, market stalls and the local watering station. The local water board employ someone to stand next to this and charge people as they come to use it.

We then descend the hill and round the corner where Beehive nestles between two schools, which at home time is somewhat crowded.

And there you are. My walk to work. ( And I don't walk with my head tilted to the right!)

We have had quite an extravagant weekend. Pub on the way home from work on Friday. Then I when to the pub on my own to watch the rugby, had to turn the curling off. Taught a load more Malawians the rules. I reckon by the end of the 6 Nations I’ll have a full team.

Saturday we went for breakfast, apologies no photo (which is a shame as I will have to go again!) and then onto our friends house with our very expensive crate of Kronenburg and endured two rather tense sets of rugby games.

Sunday was a relaxed affair which we went out for a leaving meal to Veg Delight, an vegetarian Indian restaurant. We gave them our budget and they provided a delicious meal of, well, rice, naan, three separate starters and three separate mains. We then left to go and watch 12 Years a Slave. Wow, not for the faint hearted that's for sure. But a exceptional film. There was pretty much silence in the bar at the end of it.

Monday I was selfless in the act of driving Claire, who is sadly leaving us, round all the nice coffee shops for one last coffee and pudding, along with some present buying as well.

Here is a Apple Pear and Cinnamon pudding with custard and ice cream, with coffee and tea in the background. I tell you this volunteering in Africa is tough tough stuff! :-)
All in all not a bad week.

STATMAN

Average time taken walking to work – 15 minutes

Number of steps – 1064

Cost of Kronenburg – 30p a 300ml bottle

Cost of Indian meal – about a fiver

Number of sub contractors on site – 2

Progress made on site in one week – about two days!

Amount of coffee drunk on Monday – 6 cups (woo hoo!)

Score of Ryalls pudding out of ten – a solid 8
Score of 12 Years a Slave - 9/10

Please add post title here.......

I feel brave enough now to put up the before and after photos of Jack.

Jack was very sick when we collected her from our friend, who’s Guard owned the dog but did not look after it. This is how she looked in the footwell of the car as we drove her to the vets. We also had to give her rehydration fluid for a day, every 10 minutes, and twice we thought she had died. But she survived and now lives with our other friend and this is how she looked this weekend! The Malawians thought it was a little bit strange caring for a dog but hey ho we did and it didn’t die. So I am happy for that.

Moving on to other things, it has rained not stop for four days. And it was proper English rain, even my Malawian neighbour said it was like being back in Preston. When I say English rain I mean the old fashion type of rain. The one that is constant and drizzle. Not this new fangdangoled rain that floods half of South East UK.

Rugby was fun in the rain. Then I had a huge T-Bone steak. I will have to take a picture of it next time so you can appreciate the size of it.

Saturday was an extravagant day. Morning coffee and fry up, a proper one too with decent sausages. Forgot to take a picture so I will sadly have to have another one so you can see.

Despite there being no rugby we braced ourselves and went out anyway. Back to Doogles where I have become something of a regular and we are even getting smiles from the previously unsmiley Susan. Rum and ginger is my new favourite tipple.

Sunday was spent doing mostly nothing. Except maybe preparing for having to work Monday! The founder of the charity and the manager our out here visiting and so I had to show them all my wonderful work and progress on Monday before the board meeting today. They were suitable impressed – Ayethankyou!

It also means that I was in assembly yesterday morning which means I was on a concrete floor. Point of reference – it doesn’t matter which country you are in, iPhones don’t bounce. Boom, cracked screen.

But it does mean that I will be taking Thursday off. Don’t want to over do it you know. So that was us in a nutshell really. I am also learning a lot about civils work. Concrete and blindings and rebar and how it doesn’t really matter if it doesn’t look strong enough. Just add more concrete and cover it up and no-one will know! By the way for anyone reading this who works and lives in the Chilomoni area of Blantyre I am only joking – everything is structurally sound and built correctly. J

Tonight for tea is Chicken and chips. Just in case you wanted to know that. I intend to take photos of my walk to work as well – if I remember I will post it next week. You see the blog is even having trailers now for future postings. That’s how advanced it has become. I’m waffling now. Sorry. Also the trail needs to be in a big X-Factor style voice, but you can’t do that with the written word. How about…

NEXT WEEK ON THE BLOG – PHOTOS OF THE WAY TO WORK, IMAGES OF BREAKFAST AND TALES ABOUT THE RUGBY. TUNE IN TO READ ALL ABOUT IT!

Go one. Admit it in your head you were impersonating that man weren't you…no just me? Okay.

STATMAN

Price of full English – 2000 kwacha (3 quid)

Amount of concrete poured – 12.5 m³ (grrrr)

Price of a rum and ginger – 75p

Number of games of ‘beans’ I won on Sunday – 2

Number of gold coins I had in first game – 30 (that’s a lot!)

Rating of Pam’s butternut squash on Sunday – 8/10

Chances of being able to repair an iphone out here - 0

Bad Day

Bad day.

I am writing this on the hoof as it were so there are likely to be a lot of grammar errors, spelling mistakes and threads that might not make sense. For that I apologise but I haven’t prepared one earlier.

Today has been a bad day. The politics of my department are raising their heads and making life difficult. Like all managers I am trying to manager people as well as processes, tied with a language and cultural barrier it has proved too much today and as a result the construction is suffering. Tied together with the rain and our progress is slow at best, static at worst. Throw in that the Director of the charity and the founder our turning up next week it does not bode well. My only saving grace is that hopefully they aren’t reading this blog!

This week saw a return to winning ways in the rugby for England. We upset the locals by turning off the football again, although to be fair the Liverpool Arsenal game was a foregone conclusion by the end.  After watching the two games a few of us decided to carry out in our local where at midnight we were watching the winter Olympics and seeing what random combinations of drinks would work.

It was also a case of arrivals and departures. The departure was of our friend, colleague and mechanic all rolled into one, Derek. He has left his native Malawi to live in good ol’ blighty which I am sure his wife is delighted about. If Facebook is anything to go by.

And with losing one Malawian we gained a Pole and an Irishman. What are the poles doing in Malawi I hear you asking, holding up the cables, the same as everywhere else! Sorry.

They are the new volunteers working out here and have livened the place up, especially as there is another country in the 6Nations represented.

Oh and here is a caterpillar I found.

Well I think that sums up this week relatively succinctly. Apologies for the rambling and moaning, but at least if not entertaining it’s real.

STATMAN

Average score in the Ski Jump – 108.32 ( couldn’t work out how they got to that figure)

Cost of three vodka and gingers. – two pounds

Plates of nachos I ate at the rugby – 2

Number of people I nearly killed today – 4

Episodes of Downton I have watched – 14 (nearly at the end of season 2 – much better than I expected).

Phone down...

We have a phone down (screamed in an American War Film style).

It is not as bad as it sounds. It still phones and still takes pictures but, and here is the crux, it won't connect to the computer. As it's an iPhone that means I can get the photos off or put any music on. Which is really annoying as due to the lack of photo's in last weeks blog I made sure I was snap happy. I will see what can be arranged but here is the text anyway with references to photos that are not present!

February 3^rd 2014

Hair today

As I sit here on my khonde on a Monday afternoon in the warmth and sunshine I cast my mind far away to all my friends in the UK and wonder what they are doing right now. Then I realise they are still in work on a no doubt cold and dreary Monday afternoon. In the words of Nelson from the Simpsons.....HAA HAA. I might go for a swim later J

My team of builders are flying ahead as well. The most exciting and current project at the moment is the Solar Panels that we are attempting to install. All 108 of them. They will sit on a car park canopy soaking up the African sun and generating enough juice to power 3/4 s of the education site we work at. But part of that instalment is the battery house. The batteries will be stored there – we’re accurate in our building names if not imaginative. Anyway this is the first really thing that I feel I have built since I have been out here that was all since I came. I know it is not large but then it took 9 days to build! That is because the magic mud bricks we use don’t require mortar. They’re like lego bricks – interlocking although not as bright.

We had a friend round for tea on Wednesday. It was a little bit like the Tiger Who Came For Tea, except it was a bat, and it didn’t drink all the water in the taps, and we didn’t go out and buy bat food afterwards. But apart from that is was completely the same. He must have come in under the door and then proceeded to do laps of the lounge during dinner. Damn thing was too fast to take a picture of it but if you look closely you can see the shadow on the wall. My Dad will be proud of the way I handled it. By opening the back door and holding up a material picture at the correct angle. Yep as he completed his circuited he ricocheted out the door. Boom. Those evenings watching Dad chase them with a badminton racquet finally paid off. (the bat is just above the top left corner of the poster and the shadow is on the wall)

One of the Blantyre Rugby franternaty was leaving this week so Thursday night was spent playing rugby and saying goodbye as all good rugby clubs know how to. The drink in the blender is a local drink invented by the club – known as Branta. Brandy and Fanta. It is an acquired taste I feel and I did my best but by the end of thusday or actually by Friday morning I was still not fully sold on it.

Saturday came and with more rugby. The start of the six nations and being in Malawi there is only one way to get to the pub. In the back of a truck. Lucky for me it’s my truck so I was in the front with the rest in the back. I think they felt quite Malawian and yes they got quite a few shouts and waves.

 The only problem with going in the back, apart from the pot holes, is the rain. This is especially important during rainy season. But again if you’re the driver it is not so much of a problem!! J

And Sunday was spent mostly keeping out of the way of Pam and her hairdressing party. She has had extensions and braids put in. Lisa you will love it. It also looks a damn sight better than when she last had it done when there was no additionally hair and all you could see was her scalp!

Number of Batteries in the house – 24

Weight of each battery – 250kg!

Days taken to build house – 9 (thought I would repeat it as it is so impressive)

People in the back of the truck  - 4

People working on Pam’s hair – 3

Number of extension packs – 5

Time taken – 6, yes six hours!

Kilometres the bug survived on the bonnet - 15