Blogs from Central, Malawi, Africa - page 3

After several long flights, arrived safely in Malawi. Will spend the night at Kuka Executive Lodge in Lilongwe. Gorgeous country. Saw some poinsettia bushes during walk to a local market. Feel spoiled by the delicious food. Tonight will mark the first time sleeping under a mosquito net. For the Malawi part of the trip, Sabrina and I share a room ... read more

Geo: -13.9808, 33.7721Finished up our packing and were ready to head out. Called Uber to take us to the airport and were able to get to the airport in under 30 minutes!!United has a new check in procedure there. You self check in, get your boarding passes and luggage tags and then you go to the check in counter where they weigh your luggage and then you are checked in and ready to go through security.Right before we went to sleep on Monday, Robert checked the news and Lufthansa airlines was having to cancel flights because of a ground employees strike. On Monday they had cancelled 900 flights but our flights from San Francisco to Frankfurt and Frankfurt to Johannesburg were still flying. Then to further complicate matters, there had been a security issue with the ... read more

Last week teaching Friday I came back from town squashed in the Landirani van with loads of shredded paper from the local secondary school. We got the briquette maker last week. I'm intending to make some briquettes with the Standard 7’s and get them to write it up. It all fits with the Sam's Village sustainability aspect. Apparently the kids may not be interested in the deforestation problem, but may be caught by the free fuel aspect. They can all have a free briquette, but after I'm gone someone else will have to carry on supervising the kids. We had à big spider in the chim (loo). Not just in the shack, but actually in the box. He ran down when I lifted the lid, but there's always the worry that he’ll run back up. It ... read more

On our way back from the airport on Saturday, there was an accident between a motorcyclist and a cyclist. We, (Shelby, Justin and I) were on bike taxis and we went back to make sure everyone was OK. The motorcyclist had cut his face and ear quite badly, the cyclist had a small cut on his leg. The bike had a buckled back wheel, the motorbike had some minor damage. Shelby took a photo of the motorcyclist’s face and sent it to the doctor at the local hospital, and we managed to persuade a passing car to take him to the hospital. He didn't want to go, he wanted to stay and argue about who was going to pay for the damage. The cyclist looked a bit chastened, but whether that was because he had caused ... read more

Onturday 17th October It's 6.30am and I wait at the side of the road for the woodman. I may have missed him, he goes by very early with a stack of wood on the back of his bike. We'll need wood very soon. We can make do with the little bits of offcuts from where the carpenters are making door and window frames,but we'll need some proper firewood to start the fire. Shelby is away from Monday, on a course for a week, and though I'm now pretty good at making a fire, I do need the right materials. The previous evening, Friday, Shelby and I went to the market at M'bang'ombe. We each bought a necklace. Mine is like a choker with tiny blue beads, and a few white and red beads. Shelby bought two ... read more