Avatar Day

Today was another hard day painting and the blue paint appeared to give a bit of colour to the classrooms and to the boys.

Pasani by Alex and Connor

Today we started on blue glossing which was easy compared to PVA. With the blue gloss we had to paint the windows which was the most challenging and time consuming task. It was challenging to paint all the gaps as they some were high up. Our break soon came and we did not sing as during today there were less children to entertain and we were tired. After many hours working with the blue glossy paint we had a pack lunch which contained of 2 sandwiches an orange, egg and crisps. This would be a hard time as many children were looking through the windows, opening doors and knocking on them. But soon an older child came and ushered the younger children away. When we had completed our lunch we continued working on the windows which needed to be cleaned class by class. Overall we had a successful day and we were all happy. We did, however, all ended up coming home looking like a bunch of smurfs. Most of us tried to scrape it off but gave us as we know we will be getting more paint on us tomorrow.

Nansato by Iain and Neils

Today was a hard day’s slog preparing the first 5 classrooms for the nice gloss finish tomorrow. In the morning the walls were still patchy and grey, and we knew we had a lot of work to do make them a proper shade of white for the kids. Lots of PVA was thrown on the walls and on our clothes in an attempt to achieve this, but there were many issues with the thickness of the paint. It seems the Malawian builders are used to saving resources and make the best of thin paint, but as we lack any previous painting experience whatsoever we were not so effective at doing this! Mr Anderson was visibly crabbit and the most worrying moment of the day came when he had a slightly heated conversation with the head builder explaining the issue and the lack of time we had to make these classrooms photogenic. He did make the point that if we don’t make an impressively large visual difference in the state of the classrooms it would be impossible to drum up the same support for a future venture, and it was clear there was even more at stake than just the kids at Nansato and Pasani that we were helping this time around. However, the head builder took the message and gave us notably thicker paint to finish the day and by 3 o’clock Mr Anderson was notably chirpier. The walls seem very white and whilst a couple more splodges might be needed, the classrooms are ready for gloss! We also had the great pleasure of undercoating the windows with blue paint. The weather was pretty Scottish and the cold wind that blew through the new windows that gives great ventilation also blew the blue undercoat into our faces. Blue freckles became the new trend at Nansato especially with Louise who did well to keep on with the painting until about 2.00pm at which time the local group of observers come along after school. Louise had great fun playing loads of different games with them.

We also enjoyed a taste of home when we returned, as we went out to Mulanje Pepper restaurant for plenty of pizza. Thin, crispy and loaded with cheese, these pizzas were as good as any in a high street Italian restaurant, and satisfied the fast food craving that many of us had developed this far into our trip. They were also remarkably cheap, with the meal averaging out to less than £8 pounds a head.

Overall it was a very productive and fulfilling day, which will hopefully be a springboard for our completion of these classrooms that so need a refurbishment.