Nonetheless life here is relaxing and easygoing. Malawians are a fairly calm people, and they take most things in stride. Their work days are short and their lunch breaks long. Quite simply things happen slowly here, which to a New Yorker means that nothing is ever easy. After a few weeks I'm still adjusting to this pace.
I've been living at a very very cool place in a small town called Liwonde. (Check it out here: http://majasiwildlifecamp.wozaonline.co.za) I met the owner Franc the last time I was in Malawi and he graciously offered to have me come and stay at his place in exchange for making the occasional dinner and helping out where I can. The very convenient part of cooking anything here is that you never have to do the dishes, because there is staff for that. Which in all honesty I find incredibly strange, I feel a bit like Annie when she first gets to Warbuck's mansion. That is until I had some cooking mishaps the other night and used about every dish in the kitchen, then I decided this whole no washing dishes thing is great!
Anyways when I'm not destroying the kitchen I've been working on starting a Liwonde Women's Club. The club is solely for women who don't have a job otherwise. As a group they will make various things - from jewelry to ornaments - primarily from recycled materials. Any profits that are made from selling things are split equally by all members. It's also a way for the women to learn skills from each other and socialize. So far my ladies (as they're affectionately called) have been meeting each day to experiment with what they can make. We even had another woman come in yesterday to give us a paper bead making lesson!
Besides working with my ladies I also had a crazy adventure back to Blantyre this week. Blantyre is about 2-3 hours away from Liwonde, but there are a great many things the lodge needs that you can get only in Blantyre. The trip really didn't start out well though because an hour into the drive, boom, flat tire. This is not the same car we had the last flat tire in by the way. No worries we got it patched up and then another half an hour later we stopped ... and the starter motor died. Which means that literally every time we park it has to be on a hill or somewhere that has a lot of room to push. Please feel free to picture me pushing a land rover ( which also happens to be painted to look like a zebra) all over various parking lots. Comical to say the least.
Surprisingly we made it to Blantyre! One of many errands was a stop at the Mozambique embassy for me to drop off my passport for a visa. Everything seemed to be going smoothly after the morning's difficulties... until we ran into a serious payment issue at the grocery store and missed picking up my passport at the embassy before 3 pm. (What office closes at 3 pm the American in me would like to know). So an overnight in Blantyre it is! Back to my old bed at Doogles, except this time I don't even have a toothbrush. The other problem is that we've got about $700 worth of groceries, 12 crates of drinks, a table saw, and who knows what else all in a car that doesn't lock. As I said, nothing is ever easy in Malawi.
Long story short everything worked out okay. Nobody stole the stuff, I got my visa, and I survived a night without my toothbrush. And we even made it back to Liwonde without any other part of the car breaking! Though I must say being stuck on the side of the road makes for very pretty pictures:
Look for more Malawi in the future, as I still have another two weeks here!
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