28. June 2026

Shopping, Drama, Gin, Flora and Fauna

It's been lovely to have company this week, as J, the owner of the house where I am kindly being allowed to stay is here for a couple of weeks. As he has a car, I've been able to join him on trips to the nearest town, which is a novelty for me as the places that I can usually reach by foot are limited. So, a couple of trips to the supermarket (think the size of a small local Coop), the large outdoor market, which I find fascinating, and a mercy mission to the pharmacy one day to collect medicine for Madam C, who was under the weather, featured in my busy week. J mentioned that a mzungu walking down the main road carrying a huge, newly-purchased washing bucket was an unusual sight!

I really felt like I'd become part of the community here when someone called out my name in town - it turned out to be someone I know from the village. It was lovely to be greeted like a friend!

Drama at School

No, luckily, not that type of drama! Using drama to make some of the English language curriculum a little more memorable always seems to prove popular with the students, and this week Form 3 delivered a high energy performance when practising the use of more formal language when acting out a job interview. Some of them then took it turns to pretend to go home and deliver the news of their new job to their husband/wife/brother etc, using informal language. There was much laughter when one of the boys told his 'wife' what his new salary would be as the amount he quoted was half the amount that the 'employer' (Miss B Enterprises - ha ha) had offered him. Crafty!

Form 4 begin their MSCE exams tomorrow and there are only two weeks of curriculum teaching left before the Form 1 and Form 3 end-of-year exams begin, so time is speeding by. It's hard to believe that I've been here for almost three months already. Much as I'm looking forward to the next phase of my time over here, I know that leaving the school at the end of July will be an emotional time!

All Work and No Play...

Well, that would never do! Saturday evening saw another opportunity to relax with a few of the teachers and Madam C. There was music, dancing and plenty of gin.... enough said!

Today, J drove us a few km north of Nkhotakota, crossing the Bua River and passing by the edge of the Nkhotakota Wildlfe Reserve - certainly somewhere on my bucket list to visit before the end of October. We had a great lunch a newly-built African Parks restaurant before heading back south, calling in at the beautiful Fish Eagle Lodge on the way back. This is where the famous 'Lake of Stars' Festival is held every year in October. There is a ticket with my name on it for that one as I can't miss the opportunity to go to what sounds like a very immersive cultural experience!

But, I'm not thinking ahead to October - that would feel like wishing my time away here!

Photos of Flora and Fauna

My daily commute to school involves passing a wide range of animals and this week was no exception. Goats, chickens, monkeys, cows are all common sights for me now, but yesterday, when a chicken decided to come in and join my writing class, that was a first for me. She decided it wasn't for her, though. Perhaps as we were discussing writing about sensory details, such as taste, she thought it was a bit risky, so she legged it!

I've been practising with my new camera to try to capture (photographically, of course) some of the beautiful birds I see every day, with mixed success. I've managed to zoom in on a couple of beauties but need to work on my technique (and patience - they move a bit too quickly)!

The wide variety of trees fascinates me, too. As the leaves begin to fall, some of the seed pods are interesting.The garden here has a couple of African teak or blood-wood (due to their red sap) trees. The seed pods are huge - a bristly centre surrounded by a thin papery wing of about 5 inches across.

Blogging Off

So, another wonderful and memorable week and I'm looking forward to the next one. There are some visitors from a school in the UK coming to help out with a building project at the school, so more on that in my next blog!

In the meantime, you can follow me on Instagram on @malawi_enjoying_ourselves.

Thanks for reading.

Clare