Adventures in Malawi

Mmm. There’s so much to tell I don’t really know where to start. I’ll just start somewhere and keep on typing, so forgive me if this post will be a mess.
While I am in Malawi for just a bit more then a week, I can tell you that this trip is already worth it. I fell in love with Africa, and her people. And there are still so many more hours here in Africa left to join. Even though it might be hard to communicate, I’m having friends here. There are more and more people I recognize, and because mzungus are still rare, it seems as if everybody knows us. I’m learning a bit of Chichewa and a lot of people know some English, but it’s still African English. And they’ll pretend to understand you while they don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Even about important things like our project or an appointment… And the cook for example, Magdalena, she only speaks Chichewa, we only know the basics like ‘how are you’. She keeps laughing her ass of, every time we’re trying. And then she starts a complete waterfall in Chichewa. Sometimes there’s somebody around to translate, mostly not. In that case, we just laugh. She tries to teach me new words, but they’re difficult to remember.
As decent Dutch citizens all three of us bought a bike on Wednesday. We are quite the attraction around here; just our skin is enough to make people of all ages laugh, shout, wave etc. A lot of people want to shake hands and try their best English. Riding our brand new, really noisy (what do you want with the roads over here) bikes, it even got worse.
Last weekend was pretty full. Six of the nine boys left to visit Lake Malawi. We spent Friday night watching movies on the laptop of one from the ICT-team. Saturday morning, we visited the Catholic Church here in Likuni, for what we thought to be one wedding. But there were 31 couples getting married. In the afternoon we visited a play which local people were performing. Of course we had to wait for one and a half hour before it all started. Welcome to Africa…
The six of us went out for supper at night, and after worth’s we visited two clubs. Even the dancing goes slower here. Have been to a church (Assemblies of God) in Lilongwe on Sunday, together with Joseph from ACEM. You’re welcome from 7 in the morning and we arrived a bit after nine. Wow. It was just like everything you expect from an African service. Very happy; dancing and clapping during the singing, a beautiful women’s choir, very hot and long, and a pastor who was yelling 95 percent of the time, serious! At the end he sweated so much, he looked as if somebody poured a bucket of water over his head… Finally done around 12 and starting again at 2 pm, till 4. I was the only mzungu all day long and I’m planning on going again next Sunday. Yesterday, Veerle, Leonie and I biked to the National Resources College, for our second meeting about our project. Which is going great so far; we met mister Perfect (no, not to marry, but for our project) on Thursday. We created a questionnaire, and tomorrow we’ll have to meet again with a second version. Maybe we’ll be able to meet the Malawian students who will help us, with accompanying us to a village and translate the questions we have for the farmers.
In the first days the electricity kept falling out, as was the water (we can drink the water from the tap here, no problem). But the last days no problems at all. We didn’t had any rain the last couple of days either, and it’s still at least 25 degrees in the shade. Count up at least ten in the sun. O, and the stars at night here… The sky was clear, and the stars, they twinkle.

Greetings from a completely happy person.