A Malawian birthday

We may have been a bit quiet on the blog over the past few days but its only because we've been doing lots of trainings! Our journey back up to Lilongwe on Tuesday was a lot better than we had expected thanks to Ruth's savvy bargaining skills in the bus station. We piled onto a local bus with all of our bags and resources and settled down for a long journey back up. The journey didn't take nearly as long as we expected and we were soon back in Lilongwe, as if we had never been away.

On Wednesday we started training the Malawian GOLD teams at the MAGGA headquarters and finished the training on Thursday. We started the training with only 4 participants but by the end of the two days we had trained about 20 people. It was nice to train some different topics and hopefully we have left the Malawi GOLD team in a position to start planning their own training sessions for guide units around Lilongwe and then further afield in Malawi.

We have spent a lot of time training the team on how to plan, deliver and evaluate their own training sessions on Teamwork, Communication, Advocacy and Leadership. Some of the girls are ready and enthusiastic to start trainings but we also hope we will be able to help them set up the Malawian GOLD project as a sustainable venture which the younger girls we were training in Blantyre will be able to join with when they are older.

Today has been a special day for Team Malawi as it is Louise's birthday! We had a treat at lunch as the girls appeared with a cake that had 'Happy Birthday Louise' written on it. We have started our evening with having our dinner in our dresses we had made in Blantyre. We are now going for a chilled out pamper evening after our busy days of training.

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

The last day in Blantyre

Our last day of training was a sad one because it meant we are leaving Blantyre, but it was still very successful. The weather changed on us this morning and we woke to a cold damp day. We were pleased to find pretty much the same girls as yesterday arrive so we could build on our trainings. The leaders told us they had been testing the girls on our trainings last night, so they all showed us the recovery position and told us what they could remember about advocacy. It was really nice to see that everyone has been taking our trainings seriously and have been practicing what they have been taught.

We started this morning with our violence against women training, discussing beauty around the world, stereotypes of men and women and qualities of good and bad relationships as well as the importance of a girl-only space in guiding. Everyone got really involved in the session and came up with a lot of good ideas.

In the afternoon we taught a few crafts - a very popular topic, and hopefully something they will be able to reproduce without us. We finished the day with some songs and a lot of photos with all of the girls.

It is sad to be leaving this group of girls in Blantyre, but it is nice to know that they have found our trainings useful and that they will continue to spread our messages with the people they meet.

We are now preparing for a long journey back up to Lilongwe tomorrow so it's an early night for Team Malawi!

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

Probably the most unexpected day yet!

What a day! We have managed to fit so much into today - the second day of training is complete. We had a slightly older group today, mostly the older girls from yesterday but a few new girls as well. We started the day with a few more leadership activities before starting our morning session on advocacy. The girls worked really hard and had a lot of ideas about what issues they should stand up for and how they can speak out.

Our afternoon session involved a lot of first aid activities which we think the girls found really useful. They are all now well trained in the recovery position, things to put in a first aid kit and the importance of washing hands properly amongst other things.

The surprise of the day was that our dresses were ready! We are all very pleased to have had traditional dresses made for us and are looking forward to wearing them.

We stayed at MAGGA in the evening to have a campfire with some of the girls. They shared some of their songs and dances with us and we shared a few of our songs as well. We particularly enjoyed the songs that we both knew, especially because we couldn't join in when they sang in Chichewa!

We are looking forward to tomorrow's training but are sad that it is our last proper day in Blantyre. I am sure further adventures are waiting to greet us when we arrive in Lilongwe.

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

Tarcondwa

Moni, muli bwanji? Tarcondwa! (for those of you who are less versed in the language of Chichewa, we have been taught to say 'Hello, how are you? We are happy!') We have had a very hot couple of days in Blantyre. On Friday we had some free time in the morning so we took the opportunity to visit St Michael's and All Angels Church - the second oldest building in Malawi, built in the late 1800's by scottish missionaries.

We were allowed to look into the new church which has been built on the site of the mission, to allow more people to attend the services. It was a very big, well looked after church building - a shame we couldn't stay for a service. We were also shown into the original church which surprised us by how English it felt from the inside. We met some of the ministers from the mission before being allowed to visit the H.H.I mission primary and secondary schools, which were also on the site of the mission.

It was the last day of term at the school so all of the students were waiting to collect their grades and reports. We spoke to a few of the students, who seemed quite happy with their results. We met a teacher called Alice, who told us about a few of the school buildings and let us wander inside some of them. The teachers of the team were particularly interested in the alphabets, times tables and weather painted on the wall.

Back in the main town of Blantyre, we trawled the fabric shops for Tchjenga fabric and managed to find tailors to make us some traditional dresses - we will keep you updated on this!

When we got back to our hostel, Gertrude, the regional commissioner for the south of Malawi came to meet us. She was very glad to see us and pleased to hear our plans for trainings this weekend.

We finished the day sorting our training plans and preparing our resources for the first day of training.

On Saturday we had our first day of training! While we were waiting at the MAGGA resource centre for more girls to arrive, some of the staff were trying to teach us phrases in Chichewa. The girls were particularly amused at our pronunciation of the Malawian Guide promise:

Ndikulonjeza kudzipereka kugwira ntchito ya, Mulungu kutetza dziko langa ndi anthu enu, Ndikusunga lamulo la Guide.

We started the day with only 6 guides doing a lot of icebreakers and teamwork activities. A few hours later, a truck arrived with 30 more girls ranging in age from 6 to 16. The girls enjoyed playing a bit with our parachute, before doing some leadership and teamwork activities. We were given nsima for lunch which we had a go at cooking but we weren't nearly strong enough to stir it properly!

We finished the day with a few more leadership activities and the girls showed us some of their songs and dances. We haven't quite mastered their dance technique yet!

This evening we have been rearranging training plans for tomorrow. We should be training more guides tomorrow - we'll let you know how it goes!

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

Travelling South

Although we haven't started training yet, a lot has happened in the last couple of days. We enjoyed having some time to sleep on Wednesday morning to catch up after all of the travelling but we soon got to work on our training plans. We pitched up in the sunshine at the lodge to pull together our plans for training in Blantyre.

Not long into our planning discussions, two members of staff from MAGGA - Miriam and Dinara - joined us. It was great to hear how enthusiastic all of the MAGGA staff are for our trainings and we were really pleased to see how hard they have been working since the 2014 project. Miriam and Dinara left us so excited to begin training and we are hoping they will get as many people as possible to come along.

On Wednesday afternoon we took the opportunity to explore a bit more of Lilongwe before going to the bus station with the MAGGA drivers where they helped us sort our buses to Blantyre.

Ruth introduced us to a chinese restaurant in the evening along with her favourite dish - ants on a tree (no real ants were involved in the eating of this dish)!

We had to be up very early on Thursday morning as Victor, one of the drivers from MAGGA, came to pick us up from the lodge at 6am. While we were waiting for the bus, we did our own 'wake up and shake up' dance to some popular malawian music.

The coach that came to pick us up was luxury - a deluxe coach which travels a lot faster than the local buses, handed out food and drinks, as well as stopping halfway to let us stretch our legs! During the journey, Ruth met another traveller who used to live near her in the UK before moving to Malawi - what a small world!

The trip to Blantyre took us about 5 hours and gave us chance to see some more of the malawian countryside and markets. Blantyre is a much busier city than Lilongwe - something that surprised us considering that Lilongwe is the capital city.

After bringing all of our things to our hostel in Blantyre, we took the opportunity to explore some of the town and look at some of the places we might want to come back to later on.

We are just finishing some of our training plans now and will soon be getting ready for another busy day tomorrow before training starts.

GOLD love,
Alice and Team Malawi x

We're in Malawi!!

Hello to you all from Malawi!! We woke up in our travelodge at Heathrow on Monday morning raring to go and piling all of our many bags together. After a lot of heaving bags through the airport, we got to the gate to find that our first flight was a double decker plane!! We seemed to be a lot more excited than other passengers about this...

It was a LONG 10 hour flight to Johannesburg but we managed to pass the time making use of the on board screens, investigating the upstairs of the plane and doing our evening trash and treasure in the dark! Before we knew it, we were in South Africa, but not without watching the sun rise over the South African skyline from the plane.

A short while later we found ourselves on our second flight, to Lilongwe. Coming from a double decker plane, it seemed a much smaller flight to Malawi, but we had a safe trip and it wasn't long before we finally set foot on malawian soil. We were given a warm welcome by members of the MAGGA team who had come to meet us at the airport.

On our drive from the airport, we were able to witness the Malawian culture straight away and enjoyed views of the vast landscapes. Ruth in particular enjoyed seeing how Lilongwe has changed since her visit with the 2014 team last year. We also had our first experience of seeing mice on sticks up close, as some of the MAGGA team bought some, but don't worry, we didn't eat any! We were taken to the MAGGA headquarters to meet some more of the team, before heading to our hostel for the night.

We managed to see a bit more of Lilongwe on our trip to the supermarket, but the whole team are now well and truly ready to drop, after such a long journey with very little sleep. We can't wait to get started with our trainings this week - we'll let you know how it goes!

GOLD love,
Alice and Team Malawi x

The Final Countdown

The time is here! In a week's time, we will be in Malawi!! We have been very busy over the last few weeks with the final preparations for project. We have our training plans ready and are gathering our resources together.

Make sure you can stay up to date with our project while we are away - make sure you subscribe to our blog, follow us on twitter: @GOLDMalawi2015 and like us on facebook: www.facebook.com/GOLDMalawi2015

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x