What happened to me?

Seriously. The length of time between this posting and the last is completely inexcusable. I can only imagine the readership I've lost because of this poor form. Not that you, Precious Reader, are looking for excuses, but let me at least note that I have been working pretty nonstop (even Saturdays, and, are you ready for this, Sundays). For those of you who knew me in my former life at a certain department of fuels, you probably don't even believe me, but I am not someone who's going to lie on my own blog. For real. Please believe, and forgive, me.

Okay, in addition to work (which I luuhhoovvve by the way), a lot has happened since I last posted. Let's start with the fact that I moved(!). The new place is, if you can imagine, even bigger. We forgot O'ball, but she found us.
In all of my non time I didn't take a great sequence of photos, but I have a random assortment so you can get a feel of my small mansion house. Let's start in the place where all the magic* happens--my bedroom. I have a few closets for the 3 outfits I brought:
*magic =sleeping
I thought I should clean up a bit before I took a picture of my room...but I didn't.
I have two new roommates I should tell you about. The first one you've seen many a time before - John Face! Here he is preparing for our language lessons (which we have in the living room).
And here's the second one - who John killed
True story. That thing was in my bathroom and I felt like I was suddenly on safari. I felt badly killing it so I gave John a yogurt container to trap it and then let it back into the wild. He took the container and then one of my shoes and, well you can imagine the rest. Obviously, there was a breakdown in communication which is a real shame for the once giant spider.

Anyway, back to the tour. The kitchen is quite large. We labeled all our food with Chichewa names in a desperate attempt to learn (which is proving to take a while).
Sorry, that's the best photo I have of the kitchen, but if you look closely, you'll also see the coffee (khafi) maker that came from Uhhhmerica.

One other new thing--in addition to working all of the time and the crib change is a small SUV sitting in the driveway. Owner = car model (pictured below).
On this note, see the title of my first blog entry.

Okay, I also have a lot of photos from a work trip and I promise a "what do I do besides travel and live in big houses and eat" posting soon. Overall though, things are going really well. Malawi is a beautiful country and the people I'm working with are inspiring (as is the work).

However, it's after 9pm now so I must sign off--get off Amy's couch and go home.

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.

Good thing hippos only eat marbles

Before I tell you about my weekend in Liwonde National Park, I'd like to take a moment to show you the biggest bug bit I've ever had:

Note the difference in size between my left (normal) hand and my right (freakishly large) hand. This notable change in appearance of my own two hands kept me occupied for most of the car trip--note that it takes 2.5 hours to get to Liwonde.

Okay, to the weekend: It was amazing. My roommate/workmate/former peace corp volunteer in Malawi/excel master (our trip was in a spreadsheet) Joe organized an awesome excursion down south to Liwonde National Park. Here's Joe in living color as we're leaving Lilongwe.

On our drive down, you'll never believe what I saw (and fortunately for you, took a picture of)--how about Mozambique.

And if you think that picture is poor in quality, you're in for a real treat throughout this blog posting...(something is wrong with my crappy camera and I would like a new one please).

So we arrived at Chinguni Lodge and it was amazing--it kind of felt like you were hanging out at some guys house or something. Here's John and Joe at dinner:

Right so the next day we woke up 5:30am for a morning walk/safari. I really enjoyed just being outside, you know, with the elephants and buck. If you are thinking the same thing I was thinking, yes, there are tons and tons of snakes. I did not see any but I knew they were all around.

Since my friends took much better pictures of the animals, I opted for two different approaches in safari:

1. The safariers become the safaried

2. And even more so...

Since I'm not that into Safari, the morning walk was my favorite because I could sort of run around, etc. During the afternoon we went out on a canoe ride WITH HIPPOS EVERYWHERE and I was feeling both SCARED and antsy. This picture doesn't show it because it was only hour one.

Oh, and do you like the hat? I was feeling very British Safari in the 1800s in that thing and couldn't quite break out of character, see:

But the reason I was so scared about the Hippos is check out how close they were: At one point I looked out and saw this which really made me wonder if I'd made the right choice coming out here: Yup, I'm down with my decision.

Here are the ladies from the weekend--that's Kate on the left and Marva on my right. As you can see the roads were a bit bumpy...

Right after we took that picture, check out what we ran into:

We left pretty early Sunday morning so we could stop along the way. John made lots of friends through his strong command of chichewa.

I made one purchase.

So all in all a great weekend. Oh, and the bug bite is much better.

Happy birthday to you, America

Right, so the first week I was here happened to coincide with America's birthday--and for those of you who don't know, that's July 4th (I can really only imagine the international attention this blog attracts). Anyway, I went to the Ambassador's house for what I thought was a little picnic. Here he is, Ambassador Alan Eastham, speaking (at what is clearly a bit more than a picnic):Note the sound system in the background--the national anthem played shortly after. Also the flower arrangements are red, white and blue (this was no accident).

I felt a little funny at this event. First of all, I was very much under dressed--most everyone was in suits or the traditional Malawian garb. I, however, opted for slightly different attire with a sweater that my friend Kathleen once observed "looks like my grandma knit." Here's what I looked like:

I think the best part of the entire event was what I took home:
If you can't tell, that's 2 American paper napkins (one festive, the other official), an American flag pencil (for all of my pencil needs), and a pin depicting the unity of Malawi and America.

Anyway, I was a little under dressed, but I think all in all I carried myself well. I can't wait for Labor day.