The Malawi Ceilidh

Tonight was the night of the Malawi Ceilidh - this was a celebration for our visitors from our twin school in Malawi. The head teacher and depute head stayed with us for 2 weeks, and I feel that they were a bit overwhelmed by everything.

It is a bit hard to understand what "hardships" we are going through, when they have class sizes of over 100 and no electricity. The children also have to walk up to about 4 miles each way to get to school each day.

The ceilidh did not start well.

I had all the sound equipment in my car, and went out about 6.30 to set out for the ceilidh, due to start at 7.30.

Lo and behold - flat tyre.

I was quite pleased to be able (eventually) to change said tyre - although I had to unpack most of the sound equipment in order to get at the spare.

To my horror, however, I realised on approaching Gairloch that it was 7.40.... when I arrive at the hall, everyone was on the steps looking out for me. Anyway, everyone was very understanding, and the ceilidh went (more or less ) fine from thereon in.

The evening included some sets from our own "C for Craic" - straight from their success at the Edinburgh Festival - and the night ended with an African dance - Magic, an Orcadian "Strip the Willow" - also Magic, and "Auld Lang Syne."

Did I say it was Magic?