Heather and I had thought that we would try to settle to a pattern of writing a blog a week alternating between a Charlie blog for the schools and children and a more adult focused one. However with an attack of malaria having happened this week we thought that perhaps it is a good idea to put in an extra one to reassure anyone who may have been concerned. It also gives us a chance to add in one or two extra bits of colour which are starting to paint a picture of this complicated land.

Firstly may we say that we hope the Clyst Honiton International day this coming week is a wonderful and joyous celebration of our global village. Charlie's blog shows how children everywhere love playing in the same way and fun has no connection to money. It is also lovely to hear that the older students of Clyst Heath have been enjoying reading the blog, I hope our sense of humour does not put you off and over the weeks and months you are able to build up a picture of life in a Southern Country. I expect we will discover things together which are exciting, interesting, contrasting and many things that are remarkably similar. Thank you so much for taking an interest.

The day in the regional education office starts everyday at 8.00 with devotions. Everybody gathers in the reception area, an unprepossessing place where pigeon holes for all the schools line the walls. We sing unaccompanied, perhaps clap along and then the chaplain, who is also an education officer, if he has one prepared, reads a passage of the bible and we commit the day and the region to God in prayer. Then the senior person present provides the daily update of what is happening, offers thanks or words of encouragement, sometimes quite blunt words of encouragement.

We stand around packed in a fairly small space and it is typical that as devotions goes on what started as a small group can grow to three times its initial size. This Monday the news, even for rural Devon, was agrarian. Each person who had contributed to the regions expression of thanks to the Prime Minister who visited at the weekend was thanked and told that it would not be forgotten, on such things reputations were made. Of particular pride was the gift for the Prime Minister of 5 pigs. No other department had given any pigs and in the region the Prime Minister visited the previous weekend there had been no gifts of pigs at all. On such things careers are built, perhaps I need to rework my guidance of career development for newly qualified teachers or maybe I just missed a trick or two in my own career. If Trinity had wised up and slipped Michael a pig or two we would already be a parish.

We then turned to two visitors who had slipped into devotions well after the praying had finished. They were from Central Government and by any other name were auditors. They explained there was a national problem and they were moving between regions to investigate the belief that schools were claiming money they were not entitled to by submitting inaccurate records for the numbers of students and teachers. In some cases the schools may not even exist. This in some ways is a very open environment, they also announced that the next day they would go on local radio and tell everybody what they had found. This is the people's money and the people should know.

Whilst this longer than usual devotion was going on I was finding it hard to keep in a vertical position. To my relief we then broke into one of the most egalitarian practices I have experienced. Everybody warmly shakes hands with everybody else exchanging greetings and news. It matters not if you are the director or the cleaner no one is omitted. This is a daily ritual, there is no sense of the perfunctory about this, it is genuine and warm.

Heather, Patrick and I headed off to visit a primary school at the bottom of the town. The trouble with going to the bottom of Kundiawa is the climbing back passed the settlement market we have been advised not to go to. The day had heated up and I wasn't feeling right. By the time we got home supposedly for an afternoon of reading I was aching, hot and shivering. Resting on the bed did not help. Heather was worried and I remembered the advice to assume it is malaria. I said to Heather that I need to get to hospital but was in no state to walk the two miles there. The VSO network swung into action. Jeff's landlady knew somebody with a 4*4, Edward, the houseboy, who was marvellous helped me into the vehicle, came along and sorted things out at the hospital.

I was met by a young Polish doctor who had been in country for a week and an experienced nurse. They diagnosed malaria, it was a shot in the unmentionables and the specialist pills all for 15 kina about £5. Most of this passed me by but fortunately there were good people around to do the listening for me.

After two days the temperature returned consistently to normal. Somewhat belatedly Dr Mackerell, the VSO doctor rang up, just as I was receiving the results of a typhoid test back in the hospital. He had been unobtainable on the Indonesian border in the highlands. He listened to the story and said, "Yes, everything that had happened was right, I had malaria and was responding as I was supposed to. Dr Mackerell is a character straight out of novel set in an earlier time. A fellow of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine who enjoys a good smoke and drink with a full frontal attitude to life. A true frontiers man. It was a very reassuring phone call although to be fair both Lianna and Ben had been equally reassuring.

What are we thankful for? Naturally recovery from what could have been a nasty event. The prayers of those who care for us, we are repeatedly amazed by the number of people who wish us good will. We are very grateful for volunteers and locals who showed compassion to a stranger.

What do we pray for? Always safety and good relationships. But we also need to make good plans which meet people's needs and this process has now started. Heather, Jeff and Patrick had a helpful meeting with Headteachers whilst I lazed in bed and they have left a shopping list well beyond the capacity of us to meet but it is a good starting point. Heather is becoming involved in the phonics programme which Jeff started at the beginning of the year. We also need to find a church. There is Baptist Church which worships in English at the bottom of our road and that may be our starting point. In which case we will take the greetings of Bradninch and Trinity.