Blogs from Central, Malawi, Africa - page 5

Hi Folks, Just getting my blog set up so I will be ready to go whenever I have internet access. I am really excited to be joining 14 other Habitat Leaders from around the USA on this excursion to Malawi. We are planing only 2 days of building with the remainder of our time spent learning about the OVG programs in Malawi and how we can partner with them. Stay tuned for more to follow. Michelle... read more

Friday morning we mostly bundled the bunches of thatch into bigger bundles ready to be thrown up to the roof. There's a huge pile that gradually gets smaller as we stack it onto pole frames. Some of the small bundles come untied and spread straw around, which is incredibly slippery. I make it a personal target to try and spot the bundles coming adrift and retie them to prevent wastage. We try difernt ways: some people like to work alone, collecting 4 large bunches and tying them into a half bow with 'line', which is a thin strip of rubber torn from a car tyre. Others work in pairs, collecting 6 small bunches each, combining them into a bundle between their legs and then tying them. Some collect into bundles to feed those who are better ... read more

Sunday 9am Eating breakfast at Mubaya Camp in the sun with 6 other Aidcampers. The journey from the UK on Friday at 8pm to Lilongwe at 11am Saturday can be sumnarised thus: Hours travelled 10 hours Films watched 2 (Veronica Mars - Yes, me too. Noah - Mel Gibson hero, Ray Winstone villain: war, water, Emma Watson's angst). Hours slept 3 Meals eaten 4 Hours spent hanging around airports 6. But it passed. Met the other six Aidcampers, and four more arrived on Sunday. A couple and two friends. We're a mixed bunch ranging from 25 to 72 years, some who have been on projects before, and some Aidcamp virgins. We're at Mubaya camp for the weekend in chalets and A-frame huts, before going to the project on Monday. We'll go to the supermarket first to ... read more

Geo: -13.9808, 33.7721Up and decided to do a little shopping before heading to Wildlife Camp. We wanted to find a "nightjar" for Laura so no walks with the elephants like last year! Zoe told us to go across the bridge and visit the stores there so find the little plastic buckets with lids so off we went.A maze of people coming and going on the bridge, people washing clothes and themselves in the river, lots of things for sale on the bridge as well. Found a store selling what we needed but they were closed and just unloading wares for the next day. They were willing to sell us the bucket because we could give exact change.Went to an electronics store and found most of what we needed to make ourselves an extension cord to run ... read more

Entering Zambia Once the immigration formalities were completed, it was clearly visible on entry into Zambia that it was more developed than Malawi. I came to the conclusion of this in a matter of minutes. As we passed through the Eastern Province of Zambia, which is the most deprived region of this country - we saw signs, good roads and decent sound infrastructure - all of the school children we saw had identical uniforms too. This certainly isn't the case in Malawi. On arrival into Chipata, the town boasted various supermarket chains and banks, plus many other amenities. For a small town, it was quite developed, perhaps not surprising though given it's isolation from the rest of Zambia. One other noticeable difference was the number of cars on the road, in Malawi you got used to ... read more