When I was leaving the UK many people asked me if I watched 'An Idiot Abroad' - the answer is I have never seen it - but certainly felt I was living it earlier today on the PostBus.
My taxi failed to turn up - leaving me running to catch the Post Bus....anyhow I made it and joined the throngs outside it. My bag was passed over heads onto the bus as we waited to board - I have to confess to feeling a bit of an idiot as I stood there - the only white man in sight with a pair of Raybans on my head, a Fred Perry T-shirt and a laptop case. Other passengers had traditional dress, jerry cans, maize and their worldly pocessions. Anyway we boarded the bus in a scrum that Easy Jet would have been proud of and then more goods were loaded onto the bus - the aisle was waist deep in maize seed and post - and looking behind me i realised that any sudden braking would have left be submerged in an avalanche of post and maize. We departed and the driver it turned our was a relative of Michael.......Michael Schumaker.
Anyway as we started to approach Mkushi - my map reading skills helped me define we were there - I started to get nervous - I'm not sure if it was about the impending task - or the prospect of the assualt course to leave the bus with three bags!
Donata as promised was at the post office - dressed in her finest. We arrived at 11am - she had been there since 8am in case the bus was early - she told me that you don't leave a friend waiting. We caught the one taxi in town to the Harvest Inn - which is to be my residence for the next 25 days - the jury's out but there's no real alternative - the electricity and toilet work - I guess I am being fussing thinking that I would like a pillow - or a wardrobe. Anyway the Harvest Inn has a cocktail bar - and they were in there at 11am - maybe it is the equivalent of Wetherspoons in this town.
Donata is an amazing woman and in the next 2 hours humbled me totally - she told me her life story - one of a lot of loss like so many out here - but she is fighting to keep and grow this school which I have yet to see. She is 67 but is like a 30 year old. She has already set me my tasks! - but she cried and prayed to God when I gave her the lovespoon and also when she saw that I had a computer with me.
Her main goal is to secure 50million Kwacha to build and sustain the school's future - including staff salaries and the development of a residential wing - these disabled kids are walking 10 miles a day to school - 50 million Kwacha sounds a lot - in reality it's 7 thousand quid.
Donata left - she wants to make sure that the school is ready for my arrival tomorrow! I don't want to be treated like i'm on ceremony. I have explored the town - I guess in reality I was hoping that the other accomodation the Mkushi Motel would be a 5 star lodge and I could transfer - in reality it is 0.05 star! What can I say about Mkushi; it's really friendly, the shops have virtually nothing in them, the market does a vast range of tomatoes, mangoes and grubs; the smell from the butchers was almost too much to walk past - and I'd kill for a packet of crisps.
I have to go now - Donata is returning with the teachers at 4pm to go through my tasks - for those of you who are interested they are -
1. Create a fundraising plan
2. Reform their adminstrative processes
3. Create a self assessment report and quality development plan
4. Link them to other similar organisations around the world
An Idiot Abroad? - the Jury's out!
R
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