
The journey to the school is about 50 minutes in the coach, dropping down 800m from the top of the plateau to the hustle of downtown Zomba. This morning one of the vehicles needed to fill up with diesel, and although it was known that there was a fuel shortage in Malawi at the moment, this had proved a problem when the bus required fuel a couple of days ago. Today was another matter entirely. Last night a large line of parked cars had formed either side of the Total garage in Zomba and this morning it was obvious why – they were expecting a petrol delivery which had a just arrived as the car drove past. It was impossible to join the queue and in the end some fuel was sourced from a local retailer near the school. It was all reminiscent of the UK ten years ago.

The walls all made steady progress today and by the time lunch was called most of them had reached the magic 1m and a few columns had also started to take shape. The promised delivery of steel re-enforcements failed to materialise so a party was despatched in the bus, armed with hacksaws to halve the rods, hopefully to return in time to pour concrete into the first half of the columns today.
Another small task that was completed today was the construction of a step to aid access to the doorways of the building. These are only required on one side of the building where the drop is greater than the other, and once the concrete has set overnight the wooden frame can be removed and used on the door further down that side of the building.

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