To Livingstonia Tomorrow

This will probably be my last update on the blog for a few weeks, although it’s hard to tell.

John and I were just saying a few days ago that it was almost impossible to believe that we had arrived in Malawi 3 days before. Amazing!! We are adapting mostly very well, but are very eager to get settled up in Livingstonia and as far as we know it will be tomorrow morning when we will go up. Up there we are thinking that the pace will slow down some as we will not have cars or internet or TV etc. I think that will be a welcome change.

We summarized our journey so far last night and since arrival in Malawi have 7 days ago, we have: driven ourselves 900 miles on the other side of the road through places that had little or no signage; visited 2 major cities one regional capital and a small village; relocated and slept in 5 different places; experienced 3 different types of climate/weather; searched for our bags with 3 different organizations and people; met with a potential job candidate for a position at the University of Livingstonia; both been sick for a time; operated in totally different culture(or 2 since the north and south of Malawi are different tribal groups) and with people who speak english as a second language(if they speak it at all.)

It’s no surprise that we are tired, which we both are at this point. It has also been an amazing experience.

Yesterday’s drive from the Nations Capital City, Lilongwe in the Southern Region to Mzuzu which is the northern region capital was just breathtaking in places. The country is so lush and green right now, and we went through plains, mountains, a plateau, a timber producing area and pine forest, terraced farms, and in the midst of all that beauty, crushing poverty and obviously backbreaking work. All that in 5 hours. I told John it reminds me of England in the sense that there is such a huge amount of variety of terrain and vegetation and weather in such a small area.

We are still crossing our fingers on the luggage thing, but got a few supplies here in Mzuzu that we know we will need until we find out if the luggage is ever going to make it. It was surprising how many things we could find at these odd little shops.