Another Long Weekend

So, here is a slightly delayed update on my weekend.
Why is it slightly delayed? Well, because someone
stole part of the phone line for my portion of Zomba
(again) so we've had no land lines at home or at the
office. This reminds me that I meant to let my family
know, I have obtained a mobile phone. It was free
(thank you Ann), but the battery is quite unreliable.
But in the event that there is an emergency and my
land line is down, you can try me at this number.

Landline: 011 265 1 525 774

Cell phone: 011 265 9 457 657

I considered the risk of posting this on the worldwide
web, but I figure if the telemarketers want to waste
their money tracking me down in Africa, then they can
go right ahead.

Anyhow, the past weekend was a nice break. Actually,
I feel like I've been on vacation for a while, since I
had a 4 day weekend for Easter, worked for three days,
and took another long weekend in order to entertain
some visitors. Leah (a fellow EI intern working in
Tanzania, who we traveled with at Christmas) came down
to visit along with her friend Jenny. It was a short
visit, but a good one as we were able to catch up on
how things have been going, share stories of the joys,
frustrations, challenges, fun times, and differences
of our African experiences. It is interesting to
contrast my view of living in a town in a very poor
African country with their life in the village of a
slightly more developed country. It was nice as well
to give them a break from village life, and to do a
few things I haven't done, or have done rarely here in
Malawi. On Friday, I took them to Blantyre (the
largest city in Malawi) where we had a nice lunch and
did some shopping (they haven't seen a supermarket in
quite a while) I also went to a store called Saver's
Choice (which I believe got its name because you have
to save for a few months in order to shop there.)
Basically, it is a store where you can get some
foreign foods that you can't find at too many other
places in Malawi. The catch is that the food is very
expensive, in many cases more than what I would pay in
Canada, and very inflated relative to the economy
here. I splurged on Teryaki sauce for stir frys, and
some microwave popcorn. I resisted the urge to pick
up some natchos and salsa which would have cost a
total of about $16 CDN for a small box of natchos and
a small jar of salsa. The girls found some good
chocolate treats for their journey back, though some
of them didn't survive the weekend.

Friday night, Mike came down to join us, and we all
went over to Paul and Helen's place for pizza. After
dinner, we spent a couple hours watching the Seinfeld
season 3 DVD which I was able to borrow from some
friends that are from the US and serving as pastors
here in Malawi. Then we watched Dogma, a fairly
mediocre Kevin Smith movie that has some pretty funny
lines and a few interesting moments.

On Saturday, we played some poker, had some pasta for
lunch, and headed up to the Zomba plateau, where we
explored a few of the views overlooking Zomba, and
found a few small waterfalls and some peaceful spots
that I had not seen before. I live quite close to the
plateau, but it is quite a few kms in the car to get
up there, so I have only been up a handful of times.
After some hiking, we stopped at Le Meridian (a very
fancy and expensive hotel nestled partway up the
mountain) to check out the view, have a drink, and
check out the souvenir shops that are nearby (as you
will soon see, wherever there are 'mzungus' ie
foreigners, there will be people looking to sell
something). Then we headed back home to cook up a
steak dinner with some roasted vegetables (one of the
luxuries the girls miss in the village is an abundance
of meat, so I thought I would treat them for a few
days) On Sunday, the girls were excited to go to my
church, as they mostly only have Swahili churches to
choose from in the village, and an English service was
a nice luxury. After lunch, we went down to a
swimming pool in town that is part of the primary
school. Apparently, the pool will be closing shortly
for the "winter" here. It has been getting pretty
cool in the evenings, but it's still plenty warm here
during the day. Not usually uncomfortable, but I
definitely felt the heat after a couple of sets of
tennis yesterday, and the pool was a nice refuge on
Sunday.

Anyhow, after another movie on Sunday night (Love
Actually), we dropped the girls off at the bus station
on Monday morning, and headed back to work. The visit
was short, but it was a nice break for all of us.
Now, it's back to work.