It's early Saturday morning in Malawi and I can't sleep so am up doing this, and I can hear a gentle rain falling on the roof, a very pleasant and relaxing sound that I think I'll grow to really love during the rainy season here. Since our house in Livingstonia will have a tin roof, it'll be a little louder than this in a gentle rain, and it'll be interesting to hear it in the kind of rain we had last night. Even the Malawians said that it was unusually heavy and this old house made into a lodge, sprung a few leaks, including one right over my side of the bed. I threw my robe up over the mosquito canopy and that was enough to absorb and stop it, but it does give one pause for thought about the locals who live with thatched roofs.
The start of this adventure has proved to be a bit rocky, what with my headaches which mercifully seem to be gone now, and then John came down with a nasty cold that had him in bed all day yesterday, and has caused a change in our plans as we were going to drive to the southern region to see his friends the Funsani's this morning. We decided yesterday that wasn't a good idea, and will stay here another day and decide what to do tomorrow.
No sign of the missing trunks yet either, so that is a bit distressing, but I'm still hopeful that they'll show up today, if they don't make it today, we'll be passing back through Lilongwe on the 9th so they could still show up, but if they don't we'll be moving on to a serious plan B of some sort. So in a way, it is a good thing that we are having to delay our departure to see Justin and Esther, but they are understandably disappointed that we will have less time to visit them, and to go to see her sister in Mulanje. We are a little concerned about the trip to Mulanje too as the rains have been unusually hard in the Central region and we will have to travel at least 2 miles on a dirt road with our little rental car that may or may not be able to make it on dirt/mud for that distance. We've heard that the rains in the southern region have not been as heavy so we will have to punt on that I think.
I'm feeling pretty much overwhelmed today, but know that I have gotten very little sleep for the past few weeks, with preparations, my headaches, and now John's cold + some jet lag, sleep is pretty hard to come by, and that never helps. There is so much up in the air and undecided, and so much to be done, and our lives will continue to be unsettled for at least another week when we finally get up to Livingstonia and can unpack and "land" somewhere. I'm eager to get a decent night's sleep, in somewhere that we can call home for the next few months, and to stop living out of an overstuffed suitcase.
Enough of my whining, and on to the lighter side of the past 2 days. Last night after Tammy served our starter before dinner, which was Chambo - a delightful whitefish from Lake Malawi just an hour or so away - I thanked her for the great Chombe. She had a little bit of a funny look on her face, but said nothing, and after she walked away John corrected me that the fish is Chombo. I said I'd have to ask Tammy what I just called the fish when I called it Chombe, and John's Chechewa vocabulary from Peace Corps days came back - I think it might be close to the name of marijuana, he said. So when Tammy walked by a few minutes later he pulled her over and said - Tammy, what is Chechewa for marijuana and she said Chomba and looked at me and laughed. She held up her hands as though they had hand cuffs and said Oh yes this is great Chomba officer, and we all laughed and laughed together about that one for awhile.
I guess I need to work on my Chechewa, which John is remembering quite well from his Peace Corp days - but then we both need to work on Chitumbuka for the northern region which is what is spoken where we will be.
Hope to be adding some pictures soon when we leave the Lilongwe, as there is nothing to photograph here really. I'll try to take some on the way to Funsani's and Mulane which is supposed to be quite beautiful, and then see if I can up load them when we come back here on the 9th/10th. After that we don't know if the internet is working in the Northern Region again or not as it has aparently been out of commission for the past month or so.
Yes, we are indeed in Africa.
No comments:
Post a Comment