PAAARRTAAY

Holyrood secondary school are on their way home. We waved them off at the airport today (sat) and went to their goodbye party last night – it was brilliant!

A gave a MM talk at the school a few years ago and since then he and their deputy, Tony Begley, have been good mates. Tony has done wonders getting the teachers and children of Holyrood and its feeder primary schools engaged in MM and they have raised a fortune! This year alone the sixth formers raised over $200,000 for their trip out here to spend two weeks building and renovating classrooms and a special needs centre. They've also forged a kind of link with Stella Maris, a specially funded boarding school for some of the brightest young girls of Malawi. Run by nuns, we had a top party there last night.

I've learnt that in Malawi protocol is everything, so before the hall full of people could eat, everyone had to be 'introduced' – the trustees, the education minister, the head nun, MM e/ees suppliers, contractors, us, the teachers, the drivers, the children. Stand up, wave, sit down, clap. 6 different speeches thanking everyone & two sets of prayers. Dodgy acoustics but Tony actually managing to pull off quoting Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela, no mean feat.

We MM people mucked in serving the drinks and the Stella Maris girls put on this play – quite surreal at times and lots of characters shouting 'shut up' at each other, but from what I can tell they were doing an excellent job of an African Macbeth.

The dancing was awesome (no doubt helped along by relief that the speeches were over). A's colleague Nelia (who would not get off the stage) could give Beyonce a run for money in the arse wiggling stakes and its amazing how well the Gay Gordons fit the, very catchy, Malawian 'Zwangla'.

Its always felt good being Scottish here, somehow more a part of the place than I suspect we would be elsewhere in Africa – probably something to do with Livingstone and all the 'trade, not slavery' work he did 150 years ago. There's also a sense of momentum building behind the renewed Scottish / Malawi relationship and, judging by last night, I think both countries could be on to a really, really, good thing.

F x