Out of the silent hours

Sorry this has taken so long.

Since Elisa's episode, things have been settling down here in Malawi. Well, I'm getting used to the mayhem, anyway. Wik and Sue spent 2 further weeks handing over to Rory and Charlotte, and when the time ran our, Wik stayed another week to finish the job. Quite a rush. I mostly stayed clear. Rory and Charlotte are now fairly well esconced at FR, and I'm really enjoying having them around. They are a very amiable and selfless couple.

During Wik's last week, 2 of their church friends who are on placements in Tanzania and Zimbabwe respectively came to visit for 10 days. Max and Tom cut quite a swathe through Blantyre with their matching blond shocks of hair and nonchalant attitudes. Several epic games of Backpacker ensued, the most epic occurring during the overnight stay of the Africa Quest team, who were just beginning their 40 hour drive from Nsanje to Zambia.

Work has continued to be quiet and methodical since October began. I'm no longer taking on any more students before Christmas, so the pressure to fill every hour has dropped. Plans for the Christmas party and Christmas cantata are proceeding largely without me, although my jazz group are booked to play light backing music at the dinner.

My career as a radio star has just begun in a flash of glory. Glen runs a weekly program on Sunday mornings for Capital Radio here, and has been badgering me to do a show on music. I eventually gave in and planned an interview/talk show looking at the spirituality of music, with a focus on young people. Capital Radio were very friendly, and so Noel Maere, Robinson Kalengamaliro and myself discussed the Malawian music scene, gospel music (here that means Christian music, not Arethra Franklin), why we use music to praise God and whether the didjeridoo should be classified as a percussion instrument or a woodwind one (OK, one of those things we didn't discuss...spot which). We'd cunningly devised a series of music tracks to be interspersed through the talk, which we brought in on CD and flash disk and left with the sound engineer. Fine, he agreed, we were all set and our recording would be played the next day. Listening back, we were somewhat surprised to hear that none of the tracks we had planned, given the engineer, and even announced, were part of the program - they'd been switched with alternative music. The sound engineer had obviously misunderstood our requests but been too shy to ask. Cringe. I'm live on national radio announcing the wrong name of songs, purporting to be an authority on music.

Anyway, they've invited me back, so that's alright. Maybe I entertain them with my idiocy.

Davina Darmanin was the second to take me up on my offer of an expenses-paid holiday in Malawi. She arrived 12 days ago and left an hour ago. During her time she spent 4 days at Bangula orphanage where she was recruited to inject premature babies with antibiotics, visited the bottom of Mulanje mountain, fell in love with the Shire River, took a guided tour around Hope Village, put up with my driving and the driving of the Blantyre populace, came down with suspected jardia, and took a lot of photos.

My percussion class at Phoenix has come to a teary end for this term. Stds 5 and 6 performed their self-written pieces in assembly, and then we had a pool party to finish the term. They think they won't see me again til April, but I'm going to be back as Father Christmas next Friday.

And the music team have their day away at Fisherman's Rest next Saturday, the 8th. We have visiting speakers coming to speak on the practicalities of playing with a group of musicians, Kerry Halliwell covering 'Why Worship?' time for prayer, time to jam, time to swim, time to see antelope, and lots of good food.

I'm pulling toward Christmas and being back with family and friends now. I'm at home 24-30th Dec, mid-Wales for New Years, Cardiff most of January, and then back out here in early Feb. Will see many of you then,

Ian