Village Peeps

Holy my moly, was I so excited when Joe asked if Colette and I would be interested in seeing his Peace Corp village and family. We decided to make a day of it and drove an hour or so south of Lilongwe.

We parked just outside of the village and walked in. I thought it important to take a photo of me as we set out.
Although not shining through in this photo, Joe's family was quite happy to see him.
They invited us into their home to talk and catch up. This was especially interesting for Colette and me who still have some work to do in terms of our command and comprehension of Chichewa.
As we were sitting there, more and more people crowded around the house. I took a picture through the small window as I nodded and smiled (not having any clue what was being talked about).
After a while, Joe's family invited us on a walk to check out a village forestry project. I thought, "Oh that will be nice to go for a little walk, see some trees". Right, this was no small walk and after about 10 minutes we had to forge a stream. Good thing I'm so steady on my feet.
Okay, that's a complete lie--I did a terrible job crossing this stream and fell in on the way back. Anyway, let's move on.

As we continued on what turned out to be an hour or so hike, Colette and I grew a bit concerned--where are these said trees?
This kid didn't seem concerned.
Anyway, we had to turn around a bit early to get back to Lilongwe. I took the below (albeit, cliche) photo of our send off party.
All in all it was a great little village visit and I'm looking forward to seeing some more rural areas through work.

Not to end on a sad note, but Joe headed back to the States last week. This leaves me a bit concerned as I stay alone in my mansion house. See, Joe and I had quite the security system--see guns below.
These things happen and rumors are I'll have a new roommate soon--check back, details coming. We out.

I heart food stuffs

While I take nsima and beans everyday at lunch (post on its way...), here's a little peek into what I cook and eat at my small mansion house. Let's start with this really delicious veggie and rice combo I made the other night.
Doesn't it look so good? And 100% vegetarian--right on.

Even though I make my own food so well (proof above), I really like to cook with other people. Most of the time, Joe (my roommate) and I cook together. We made apple pie last week, see.
And while we're on dessert, this is my favorite...
I make it from scratch and here's the recipe: one banana, nutella spread on top and almonds (place like you would for ants on a log). If the recipe and above photo isn't tempting enough, check out the pure joy it brings.
The other night we made my absolute favorite meal: veggie dumplings. We made the dough from scratch and then forced the dinner guests to make their own dumplings.
The whole process takes a while, but learning is what really matters. Aussie John made the worst ones because he's used to only working with knives and crocodiles. Not surprising, mine were 100% awesome. In the picture below you can probably tell who made which ones (hint: John's is that second one from the bottom).
I actually felt badly for making fun of Aussie John's freakish dumplings so I gave him the biggest dessert.
Oh and to leave on such a great note, I found tofu in Lilongwe! I've been eating a lot of beans and veggies, but craving some other options.
Three words: pure tofu joy.

Not a long way from Lilongwe...

So I've been wicked excited to find out that just outside of big city Lilongwe there's a lot of nice hiking. Even though I don't have a car, it's not hard to hitch a ride out on the weekends--this Saturday being no exception.

I went with a couple folk from a microfinance NGO that sort of combined the hike with a site visit. Those of us who were not part of the NGO waited outside of this gas station where speakers underneath the roof blared Michael Jackson's "The way you make me feel" (I really like that song, I mean profoundly so).

Across from the gas station was another one of their microfinance projects--a small small grocery. We got some food stuffs for the hike.

That's Claudia on the left--she lives here with her husband--and Debra who is visiting from the NGO's headquarters in the UK (small world, Debra is also Kate's roommate...Kate went back to the UK which is very, very sad).

Apparently, Ntchisi (where we went) is the last patch of rain forest left in Malawi (I haven't double checked that factoid). Anyway, it definitely did have that rain forest feel from the start.

That's Arthur in the front and Mike, Claudia's husband on the far right.

So we hiked through the rain forest (I was on constant snake patrol). We had to stay pretty much on the trail because apparently there are traps set to catch antelope (another unchecked factoid). The trees were amazing, however, and we did step off to take a closer look.

After about an hour of hiking we hit a clearing that overlooked the lake (although it was hard to see because there's so much smoke from people burning crops).

We had some lunch on a big rock.

My favorite part of lunch was the name of the crackers.

It was a really great hike and I can't wait to go back.

We rode home in the back of the pick-up where we made some small friends.

When I got home I was really dusty from the back of the pick-up and very tired from all that fun and excitement so I just ate some fruit and went to bed.