"There are no cats in America and the streets are paved with cheese" - Fievel and Mouse friends

The first person I met when I arrived at my new home was Victor . He's great. He told me where to run in our neighborhood (area 43) as well as the visual differences between sugarcane (pictured below) and bamboo (not in picture, but growing in yard). Note: he didn't tell me all of that right when I arrived, but we've had subsequent conversations.

After meeting Victor I saw the house I'll be living in for the next 6 months...and almost peed my pants.

Granted, it doesn't have the b-ball court down the street that the old place in Columbia Heights hosted, but I figured it will do. If fact I think the yard makes up for its sporty shortcomings.


And guess what I found inside? How about some small, small roommates?

The woman in the front was just over for dinner, but the one in the middle is Jamila and next to her is Joe. Jamila is only here until July 7th--she's on a visit from headquarters. Joe did Peace Corp in Malawi a few years ago and is currently working on a survey. Sadly, he leaves in August. However, when Joe leaves I'm going to take his room. I mean, mine's cool, but I think it's mostly just because I live in it.

Oh, and I forgot to mention our other roommate. She has no name so I'm calling her O'ball (like the gorilla Coco's kitten--"Coco loves O'ball"). She's no Benjy, but she's cuter than the alien picture below.
So each of these pictures took roughly 6 hours to upload which forces me to end this posting now--I'm camping out on someone's couch...and I've been here for 3 hours! yikes.

But before I sign off, I should say that so far so good. I'm finding the work really interesting, and I feel fortunate that they're giving me a lot of challenging projects up front. I think this line of work could be a really good fit...but more on the job soon. And I can't wait to explore more of Lilongwe--I've gotten permission to get a bike which will really open up the city. Man, the hipsters will be so jealous because it looks like the only bikes are single speed. Right on.