St Patrick' Day - Ruth C is in good spirits, particularly after hearing the rugby result in Paris!
But we have a busy day.....four schools in the morning, then a visit to the Scripture Union office in the afternoon.
The first school was the SOS High School, which was at an orphanage, and also catered for local children. Mollie, Ruth and Janet were in their element as this school catered for disabled children and they had worked as speech and language therapists or special needs teachers. We first visited three classes for primary children, two (one in English, the other in Chechewa) for children with learning difficulties, the other for deaf children. The latter were being taught to sign (American sign language). It was wonderful to see the real desire of all these children to learn, and the understanding between them as they supported one another to communicate in class. Our next class was a secondary English class with around 90 pupils in a large hall with a corrugated iron roof and sliding walls to let the air in. The class had two teachers - one of whom signed for the deaf pupils who were fully integrated into the class.
The second school was a private primary school.
After the second school we witnessed a citizen's arrest. The accused was being marched to the local police station by a group of 10-12 men, one of whom was carrying his shoes. There is one policeman for every 1200 citizen in Lilongwe, so these arrests are regular - it sometimes takes them around 30 minutes to respond to an incident. While we do not know the reason for this arrest it may have been for assault or robbery. Once handed over to the police there is an investigation and then the case is handed over to the Public Prosecutor.
The third school was a government run primary school with 2200 pupils.
More anon.....to be completed
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