Ekwindeni Primary School

Right then, sooo much has happened since my last post!
We were given our placements soon after I put my last post on, Me, lucy and sian are at Ekwindeni Primary School! (though the kids and teachers cant say sain so her name is now Sharon or Sharoni!! - basically whatever takes there fancy! Sian tried to teach them at first but has now given up and begruggingly excepted sharon!!) The other 4 girls are at St Michaels and then the 2boys and 2new girls are in Endongleni (probably spelt incredibly wrong but o well!)
Right so we slept our last night at Mzoozoozoo and went on to our schools in the afternoon after buying all our food from the market! so much fresh produce its unbeliable a whole row of people just selling bannanas!! not that I like them but Its all very intresting! They are also very fond of dried fish or chamba (meaning fish!)! It smells disgusting and how anyone doesnt get ill from it is unbelivable as the store holders just let flies land all over it!
We arrived at our schools early tuesday afternoon and were incrediably dissapointed, the headmaster had made other arrangements! so we were left sitting very aqwardly in his office for almost 2 hours with locals who kept talking tambuka! We then got taken to our new home!!! well I say home at this point it was a room with the base of the bed in it! no electricity and not much else! Least to say we were very very dissapointed! Melissa the team leader came at about 7 though and metephorically kicked arse! We were found beds and a lady (whos name we dont no so we call her mumma- meaning lady in tambuka!) cooked us a meal! We had rice, some greens and nsima (which is like smash if you add too much hot water!!!- most people would probably judge it inedible!) we also had to eat with our hands and mumma and her two nieces thought we were all hilarious! and told us we ate like 3 year olds!!! She then told us she would come get us in the morning and teach us how to wash!! We were petrified!! we thought she would want us to bathe naked with her!!! :S!! and she wouldnt tell us a time for some reason and said she would wake us up!! So after an restless night were some pesky shmuck of a mouse spent the whole night attempting to get through the door! (he chewed all the way through a curtain!) Mumma came to get us one by one! lucky she just told us! and we were spared her having to see our naked bumskis!! Malawians wash squating (they love squatiing!) and splash water over themselves! We then had breakfast round mammas house and headed to school! The children were sooo excited to see us which was lovely! and we had to greet them and then they repeated our names back! my name is Liz (spoke very high and quickly!) or Rizzieeeeeeeee!
We had our first lesson with standard 5! whos ages range from 9 to 13- though as they dont move up till they have passed the class! the older cooler kids at the back blatently lied about there ages! as they look about 20 some of them! the younger kids think its very funny and take the mick!! We had an awful lesson!! the kids were really excited! and there english isnt too good at all! Hopefully when we start teaching the older classes there english will be better!
The next day we taught them the DRSABC! which its the first thing you do when you find a casuality and this class went really well as did teaching the recovery position! The locals have been really friendly two women from marys meals (who provide porridge to the children) came and brought us water! and a teacher from the school invited us to her house! she is very western compared to the other teachers and we had a lovely time she showed us the river and her house and we met her children! she said to pop by any time! so might take my photographs round to hers when I see her next time as she was very interested in our way of life!
We now have a stove and mumma neice came to light it the other day! she set fire to plastic bags and then swung the stove backwards and forwards! (like if you put water in a bucket and swing it!) was fascinating! but there were kids around and scared the life out of me!! They were soooo close!
Id love to leave you with some pictures of the kids at our school playing with bubbles but the internets soo slow!! Got so much more to say but people are waiting!!!
will write again soon!