I forgot to say in my last blog a very embarrasing experience I had to undergo on my first day at MIED. They had arranged morning tea with cakes for us, which was lovely. But there were about 30 people standing around staring at me, and I had to do the usual introduction thing, which was fine. But then Corry (the other VSO with me) and I had to each cut a cake holding hands with a member of staff, like a wedding cake! But what was even worse was that after that the staff member fed me some cake! I was really not expecting it, so ended up with cream all around my mouth and hundreds (maybe that is a little exageration) of people staring at me. And they took photos.

Random things I have noticed about Pakistan:
- people have salt in tea (I haven't tried it yet)
- there is tinsel on graves
- a cock does not crow only at dawn, but at regular intervals from 3.30 am to mid morning and possibly later (though this may not be specific to Pakistan)
- we can buy baked beans, nutella and cupasoup from the local shop!!
- education is considered very important - when we visited the neighbours we had to give a precise account of all the years we have spent in education before we gave our names!!
- people are incredibly generous - the neighbours went to an awful lot of trouble preparing tea for us, and then they didn't really eat anything and we had to eat loads! Twas v nice food

Regarding security, I feel safe in Mansehra, though we have not ventured out of the township by ourselves yet. The township is the area where all the NGOs are based. But MIED field staff were not able to go into the field last week or this week because of militant activity in the area north of Mansehra. I was wondering how on earth MIED finds out when militants are active, but they get updates from the local police. It does seem clear that militant activity is spreading through the North West Frontier Province - first in Waziristan, then Swat, then Battagram and Besham, which are just north of Mansehra. Also, they have withdrawn the VSO volunteers from Peshawar.

I have been having a lot of meetings with staff at MIED, which has been very interesting and I have a lot better idea of how they work and what their aims are. They have three main programmes - a School Improvement Prgramme (SIP), Early Childhood Care and Development Centres (ECCD), and a Child Rights Programme (CRP). SIP works in government schools improving the teaching, training teachers, encouraging student participation and improving the curriculum. There are many problems in government schools in this area - teachers do not turn up to work, children learn by rote, lack of schools for girls - the list goes on. MIED also provides ECCD centres for very young children - like a nursery school. They started this following the earthquake, and now run over a hundred in earthquake affected areas. The CRP takes as its basis the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, and works in schools in Mansehra training teachers and students about the rights that children have - for example the right of education. It has been a real privilege talking and meeting with very inspirational people at MIED - we met a girl yesterday who has worked from a tent in Balakot since the earthquake. She also helped respond to the floods in Balochistan earlier this year. I have been incredibly impressed with the Director as well. I was expecting a Pakistani NGO to be fairly hierarchical, but his office is open to all members of the organisation almost all time. The staff are all motivated and passionate about their work, and they work very hard. One guy, as well as working full time at MIED, runs a school with his family on the side!

I had a meeting with Abdul Jahan last week about my role, and feel happier about what is expected of me - mainly writing, proof reading and looking at the quality of the reports, which is great. They might also want me to do some TEFL!

I have finally found out my address, which is the office address:

Mountain Institute for Educational Development
226D Ghazikote Township
Mansehra
PAKISTAN

I think I might leave it at that for the moment. We are going to Chakwal in the Punjab tomorrow for a couple of days, so hopefully I will be able to visit some of the field work of MIED.

Thank you so much for all your emails - it is great hearing from you!