Tenth Letter from Africa, September 2008
Hi Everyone,
Today (Sept 17th) is the first anniversary of our arrival in Karonga. The year has been a huge learning curve with lots of joys and frustrations, but an enriching experience we wouldn’t have wanted to miss. In the past Africa was one of the last places in the world I would have wanted to live, but now it is the one place I want to be – it feels like home and that’s a good feeling.
So, what have we been up to? Chris has been as busy as ever with the food procurement programme which has now reached 8 tonnes of food weekly. He is now concentrating more on the accounting side and training two extra guys who will hopefully be able to take over all the purchasing in the new year. By then, the numbers to be fed at the mine should have dropped to around 250 - 300 men.
I have almost finished supervising the renovation of the unit (curtains finished this morning!) and it should be ready by Monday for its first occupants. They will be our good friends, Jim and Robyn Nottingham, who are arriving to begin work with Paladin as Community Heath Officers. We are excited at the prospect of working together with them, and in the meantime we’ve been e-mailing almost daily to answer their questions, make suggestions etc. Monday is looking pretty chaotic – plane arrives 10 am, lunch here for Jim and Robyn plus 5 VIP’s, then in the afternoon between showing all the visitors around town etc, I’m helping the head caterer from the mine to do a barbeque for us all next door at the office – 30+ people?
Tuesday afternoon we will all be going up to the minesite to celebrate 2,000,000 injury free work hours, with speeches, singing, dancing and then a big evening meal for everyone. After that, Jim and Robyn might get to see what ‘normal’ life is like here!
I’m now translating (from Indonesian) the 9th of 10 chapters of the Christian Family Living course. I have taught 6 classes to the staff at the Lusibilo Orphanage and the response has continued to be positive. A number have asked for a copy of what I’m teaching from - which is difficult as I’m working from a draft copy that I edit as I teach to be sure it is communicating effectively. The matron asked for a copy (and received it!) because she wants to translate the next lesson each week into the Chitumbuka language so those in the class who don’t have good English can still understand. I would love to see it published in Chitumbuka (Northern trade language) and Chichewa (Southern trade language) as Matron said those two languages would cover the whole of Malawi. But, first things first, I need to fine-tune the English version!
On Sunday the power was off for 17 hours and the water stayed off for two days. Chris had to quickly organise three generators to keep about a tonne of beef, chicken and fish chilled/frozen in all his freezers until the power was restored. The internet has also been down for the last two days, so if you don’t receive this today you will know why! But none of the meat went off, the water came back on, my vegies are growing, there are zillions of mangoes forming on trees all over Malawi - and life is good!!
Warm regards, Chris and Anne Mattinson (17th September 2008)
Hi Everyone,
Today (Sept 17th) is the first anniversary of our arrival in Karonga. The year has been a huge learning curve with lots of joys and frustrations, but an enriching experience we wouldn’t have wanted to miss. In the past Africa was one of the last places in the world I would have wanted to live, but now it is the one place I want to be – it feels like home and that’s a good feeling.
So, what have we been up to? Chris has been as busy as ever with the food procurement programme which has now reached 8 tonnes of food weekly. He is now concentrating more on the accounting side and training two extra guys who will hopefully be able to take over all the purchasing in the new year. By then, the numbers to be fed at the mine should have dropped to around 250 - 300 men.
I have almost finished supervising the renovation of the unit (curtains finished this morning!) and it should be ready by Monday for its first occupants. They will be our good friends, Jim and Robyn Nottingham, who are arriving to begin work with Paladin as Community Heath Officers. We are excited at the prospect of working together with them, and in the meantime we’ve been e-mailing almost daily to answer their questions, make suggestions etc. Monday is looking pretty chaotic – plane arrives 10 am, lunch here for Jim and Robyn plus 5 VIP’s, then in the afternoon between showing all the visitors around town etc, I’m helping the head caterer from the mine to do a barbeque for us all next door at the office – 30+ people?
Tuesday afternoon we will all be going up to the minesite to celebrate 2,000,000 injury free work hours, with speeches, singing, dancing and then a big evening meal for everyone. After that, Jim and Robyn might get to see what ‘normal’ life is like here!
I’m now translating (from Indonesian) the 9th of 10 chapters of the Christian Family Living course. I have taught 6 classes to the staff at the Lusibilo Orphanage and the response has continued to be positive. A number have asked for a copy of what I’m teaching from - which is difficult as I’m working from a draft copy that I edit as I teach to be sure it is communicating effectively. The matron asked for a copy (and received it!) because she wants to translate the next lesson each week into the Chitumbuka language so those in the class who don’t have good English can still understand. I would love to see it published in Chitumbuka (Northern trade language) and Chichewa (Southern trade language) as Matron said those two languages would cover the whole of Malawi. But, first things first, I need to fine-tune the English version!
On Sunday the power was off for 17 hours and the water stayed off for two days. Chris had to quickly organise three generators to keep about a tonne of beef, chicken and fish chilled/frozen in all his freezers until the power was restored. The internet has also been down for the last two days, so if you don’t receive this today you will know why! But none of the meat went off, the water came back on, my vegies are growing, there are zillions of mangoes forming on trees all over Malawi - and life is good!!
Warm regards, Chris and Anne Mattinson (17th September 2008)
Labels: News fm Africa
posted by Chris & Anne Mattinson @ 1:03 AM
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