Matthew Charlesworth's Blog: "Conversations from under a tree"

Moved to Charity

Matthew — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 21:04:41 +0000

Two earthquakes in January shook the world. The first was in Haiti, the second in Chile. There are Jesuits working in both Haiti (Some reports and pictures) and Chile and if you follow those links you may be interested to read some first-hand accounts of the disasters as well as see photographs of the aftermath [...]

A visit outside the school

Matthew — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:13:49 +0000

This morning the Headmaster offered to take me on a trip to visit Lake Kariba and to see the primary and senior schools along the way. It was an eye-opener. Perhaps some of the staff have gotten a little tired of my wanting to make things better (which I won’t tire of) when their experience [...]

Merry Christmas everyone

Matthew — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 00:00:49 +0000

Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2010 full of health and success!!

End-of-term

Matthew — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 14:03:37 +0000

I have completed my marking and whilst I don’t know how my classes fared overall – there was some marginal improvement from their mid-term tests to the final exams – which offers me some hope. I’ve found out that from next term my three Maths classes will be reduced to one and I’ll take over [...]

Richard's visit

Matthew — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:00:34 +0000

I have been settling into the routine of teaching and marking and becoming accustomed to the school and getting a firmer grip on some of my duties in the boarding house. One of the highlights of the month though was the visit of an old friend from Wits University who I knew through Debating. Richard [...]

Pulling out all the stops for Independence Day

Matthew — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 19:00:21 +0000

What I think I appreciated most from comparing this event to other similar types of events I'd seen in South Africa and England is the very relaxed formalism. There had been no real practice or preparation for these inputs - the boys were just told to get onto the stage...

Thank you Heythrop!

Matthew — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:43:04 +0000

Today I learnt that I had passed my Philosophy studies. These are the first part of the academic training required for me to be ordained. Happy Days. The thesis was entitled “Is Pleasure a genuine element of the Human Good? A New Natural Law Perspective comparing the authors John Finnis and Timothy Chappell.” (quick answer: [...]

Awards Day

Matthew — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 22:00:16 +0000

We celebrated Awards Day for the school today. It was a sort of public prize-giving with some speeches by the local Political supremo and the Alumni, but the day began with a football match between the prefects and the staff and then some play-offs between the various teams. I played in the Staff match (well, [...]

Visit to Lochinvar

Matthew — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 22:30:36 +0000

We visited Lochinvar National Game Park today with the boys. This involved us boarding the school “bus”. We loaded benches into the back of the truck and were able to fit even more than who you see alongside in. I sat in the back with the boys for the 3 hour drive to the Game [...]

A few words from me…

Matthew — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 07:43:19 +0000

Greetings from Zambia! I arrived safely and have been here for almost 4 weeks now. After leaving London I spent a week in Johannesburg with my family and with the Jesuits there before flying to Lusaka. I spent two days in Lusaka before travelling to Chikuni on Monday evening. Chikuni is the site of our [...]