culture shock

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Sorry to all about lack of entries, but the closest internet connection is 10 miles from where we're staying. I'm going to have to condense 2 weeks quite quickly as i'm in a bar with 3 of the other volunteers from our group waiting to use this laptop.
Life here is very different from swaziland because it's a very much poorer country. In swaziland you could escape to a western style shopping mall with coffee shop and internet cafe, but not here. We drove for 3 1/2 hrs from lilongwe in a dicrepit open top landrover to get to the lake, dropping down through the hills that form the western edge of the rift valley. The lodge we stay in has no hot water, the electricity goes off every other evening for half hour and the water for the shower comes straight out of the lake. It does have a beautiful view, being on the lake front. Behind the lodge is the village of namacoma, and 15min down the road is tuka tuka, a small, dusty collection of shacks where you can buy mobile phone credit, get a shave, and buy some groceries.
The work is hard. I'm spraying the inside of homes with insecticide while my co-worker, Alex, prepares the mozzy nets and does the paperwork. We leave at 6.30 in the morning, working for 4 hrs, so we can avoid the heat of the day. By 10 the sweat is pouring of me, as i have to wear boilersuit, gloves, goggles and mask. I'm hoping to start working on the new tree nursery in the afternoons.
Last weekend we went camping in liwonde game park. It runs along the side of the shire river and has elephants, antelope, incl huge black sable. We saw a cerval and white tailed mongoose on an early morning drive.
That'll have to be it as we're going out on a boat this afternoon. We came up to cape maclear by boat yesterday but, unbelievably, its been raining this morning.

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