Our 2nd week at Chigodi

On Monday morning it was back up the Zomba Road for the 30min drive to Chigodi. Chigodi is quite picturesque with palm trees, gum trees and bamboo all around well kept grassed areas and gardens. The gardeners do a great job keeping up with all the leaves. It’s lovely to wake up and see the sun shining over the property.

All days are good days at Chigodi, but we think it’s an especially good one when the cistern is running so we don’t have to bucket water. This week it didn’t happen quite so often, so are muscles are growing! We do recommend dipper baths though as they use so much less water. The problem would be getting someone kind enough to get up at 5am to heat the water. We have Martha and she’s just wonderful.

We started the week off with our girls crocheting a cross-shaped bookmark. Most of the girls can crochet and knit but they don’t always have available the materials to do so. They are loving this opportunity to do so much. We sat in the sunshine on the verandah of the hostel as we crocheted enjoying a chat. Some of the girls need what we say interpreted as they don’t always understand us. They also completed the child’s pinafore dresses.

Tuesday was an exciting day when we ventured to the outdoor kitchen to cook. All of us had such fun and enjoyed a delicious afternoon tea that day. We made sweet potato scones (mbatata), in an outdoor oven made from a 44gal drum. Also we cooked, over open fire, banana fritter drop scones that looked like doughnuts and some ufa scones (made with maize flour).

We were asked to do items around recycling so we started the girls off on crocheting plarn bags made from strips of plastic bags. They like the idea and soon ran out of bags so we have to get some more over the weekend for them. From recycled stretchy material we are making a knitted bag. They are calling them Bible Bags as they think they will be quiet to get your bible out of in Church. Another recycling lesson was on composting. Judy does a great job of this lesson and got out with their hoes digging up a piece of ground. These girls seemed more interested than previous years so hopefully they will take the ‘new’ idea back to their villages. To have them have a use for leaves and ash as well as their kitchen rubbish they thought was good, but unfortunately Judy was bitten by an angry ant during the lesson.

After all these recycling lessons we thought the girls would like to make something for themselves. We decided on an 8 gore skirt. Some of the fabric we thought would be great was a big see-through so we cut out 16 pieces and did them double. Judy and Diane were very sick of this fabric by the time we had cut out all the needed pattern pieces, but had to admit the skirts looked lovely when they tried them on. They are rightly proud of their efforts and a picture should appear, when they are all completed, in our next blog.

In our little abode we get our own breakfasts and our own tea, western style. We had quite a banquet the other night with tomato and egg in a sandwich maker with boiled egg on the side, followed by fresh pineapple. The sandwich maker was sent over in the container for our use.

Today we had the opportunity to visit the village of Ulumba. Chigodi look after 9 child-headed families in this village, clothing them and paying their school fees and providing food for them as they can manage. Judy and Diane previously visited Ulumba in 2010 and Diane decided she would do a bag of clothes etc for each child to send in the latest container. (Esabel, Catherine and Alfred were up at 5am to look for the last box of bags from all that was sent in the container.) It was a delight today to be able to give some of the bags out. Some children were sick or away. As it was a school day we had to attend the school to see them. The children remembered us and were thankful for their gifts. We were able to provide them with some essentials of maize flour, sugar, beans, salt, candles and matches and a solar light.

Devotions this week went well with Judy’s explanation of how to study the bible, Diane’s on Eph 5 – to live well’, singing some new choruses and hearing Chichewa ones. As with most groups there are the ones who will speak up and others that are quiet. We pray they are understanding what we are sharing with them.

Bring on next week!

Diane B.