Fertiliser

I am sure you are all sick of my refrain' "It's sooo hot!!", but God, it's sooo hot!!
I thought October was as hot as it could get but today takes the cake. Melting, solid, thick heat.
It is so hot that I am spurred into taking a daily morning swim to the yellow boat and back every morning for some exercise and to move the flaccid frame after the long night snuggling up to the fan. I sometimes find Ben upside down in his bed because he has tried to move closer to his fan - not that it blows cool air, but at least it moves the stultifying night air around. I have avoided Mumbo hosting duties because there's no electricity out there and thus no fan. Can't be done! The poor guests - though none seem the worse for it.
Eddie has a heat rash around his neck, on his forehead and down his back - he very sensitive to it. Ben is fine - I think because he swims such a lot.
After I wrote that, it rained during the night and has done for the last two nights - a joy and thrill! Eddie got into a bit of a panic about the accompanying thunder and lightning and the roof leaked over his head, so he came to sleep with me and Bush had his bed (he did move it.) I have to say I loved having his little body snuggling up to me all night - I have always been so adamant that children should sleep in their own beds, and mine always have, but it really is a treat to have that tiny little chap snuffling away next to me on occasion. (But did once make the mistake of having them both share my bed on Mumbo one night - and it was pure hell. Didn't sleep a wink as they tossed and flung limbs about and kicked each other and me in the face and did 360 degree spins and fell out of the bed three times each!)
It is still scorching during the day, but I can see a glimmer of hope. I think the rainy season might be a delight. I will keep you informed (though I can't imagine a tropical weather report really fills anyone's heart with excitement - but it helps to share the enthusiasm!)
We have begun preparations for Christmas. The children collected seed pods on Mumbo ages ago and yesterday they began painting them. Then I had what I have to proudly say was a brainwave. Amos, one of the carvers, came to see me about buying some of his things because it is nearly planting season and he needs to buy fertiliser and it is so expensive this year (I will go into that later). He makes mobiles, so I ordered just the wooden flying birds from the mobile, minus the frame, and we have painted them for Christmas decorations. They are delightful, though I say it myself. And Hyco, another carver, made some lovely wooden stars and we bought some painted monkey apples in Lilongwe and the children are painting the rest at school this morning - now all we need to find is some sort of Christmas tree....
There is a fertiliser crisis in Malawi this year. Last year it cost K4000 a bag and this year it costs K10 000. Apparently it has to do with the price of oil. So that means that the average rural farmer cannot afford to buy it. But, as always in Africa, where people become resourceful because they have to, there is a plan. The government gives the poorest people fertiliser coupons to exchange for a bag of the stuff. A lot of these people live in areas where the soil is still rich mainly because there is only one planting season in the year and the land lies fallow for the rest of time, and of course this is because it only rains once a year here for three months. So they then sell their coupons to people from areas with poor soil - like Cape Maclear. We have given all our staff K5000 towards it, and they have had advances on their wages to get more. So now there is a frantic rushing around to find a village selling coupons. Planting will begin as soon as the rains do - soon now. All the fields are prepared - all hoed and cleared by hand and the season of fires is over at last so the hazy air is clearing. I really hope there were enough coupons to go around the whole country, otherwise there will be another famine. Scary - if your one crop fails, there is no hope of another. This is one of the poorest countries in the world and at times like this, you can see disaster looming.
Anyway, that is to worry about next year, I suppose, and perhaps if the oil price comes down, as it now has, next year will be a boom year.
Too hot to write anymore and have made myself anxious now!

tea and verandahs

Hello all
Just back last night from Lujeri tea estate underneath the towering Mulanje mountain. So very gorgeous, just as I had hoped: all those magnificent green slopes and huge trees and red earth roads and old stone walls propping up the plantations - aah! Lujeri also has a huge river running through it which has beautiful rock pools to swim in, so we spent a very happy morning wallowing there. And the house we stayed in was gorgeous too: all old pink walls and a wrap-around wide verandah with old couches on it for lazing on, and ceiling fans (wonky and a bit scary so we never slept with them on as I always think they are going to come spiraling down any minute to decapitate one!), and two lovely men who cooked and made beds and brought trays of tea at opportune moments. I know I sound like a shocking colonial, but golly it is nice to have a cook on holiday!
We bought a lot of lovely fresh fruit and veg at the Tyolo local market (lots of little old ladies under reed roofs with little piles of home-grown produce: strawberries, custard apples, pineapples (so sweet!), cauliflower, broccoli, marrows and now mangoes as far as the eye can see! We ate huge fruit salads after every meal and lots of veg meals. Most of the time we spent lolling about on the verandah reading books while Ben and Eddie were exemplary children playing made-up games with seedpods they found which they made into characters, replete with different voices and even accents! All day they played that game.
And we had such a treat: a thunderstorm of epic winds and lightning and thunder during our first day. Loved it! So then we were guilt-free about not doing anything with the day. The next morning Pam and I did a tour of the tea factory: when I told the manager that I drank about 12 cups a day, he was my biggest fan and addressed the rest of the explanations to me. We even did the tasting and spitting and examining of the hue and I loved every minute. In fact I spotted a place I would like to work in my next incarnation (when?): The Tea Research Foundation of Central Africa, Mimosa Station! Doesn't that sound ideal? It is a little one-story white building with a verandah on all four sides and rickety french doors and a tin roof all set under enormous shady trees with different coloured bougainvilleas cascading out of them. Not sure what I'd do there, but researching tea sounds within my capabilities!
The flame trees are flowering all over Malawi - beautiful spreading trees with not a leaf, just red or orange flower on every stalk. Will attach a pic. So are the baobabs - if you haven't seen a baobab flower, you have missed out. It is like a ballerina in a tutu/rose/frothy frilly soft white confection, a thing of joy!
There are rumblings and clouds forming every evening now, but the rains have not yet come. Can't wait, though I am sure I will not enjoy the dampness for long! But the heat really builds up now, and you can feel the pressure building up, waiting to be released by a nice big explosive thundery storm!
My computer is doing something strange now - deleting everything in front of the cursor if I try to type into a line I've already written - so no editing allowed! Can only go on from here.
So we are back in the saddle again and no more holidays for us! November is still quite quiet, but December is full and we have the whole of Mumbo booked for two days for a wedding. So that might require some extra work too. Think we'll get Cleartone's church choir to sing on Christmas day on Mumbo and our gnomish gardener, Mavuto (which means Trouble!) and his son, Nindi, to drum on New Year's for the edification and entertainment of the guests... Have to think of something nice to eat too. And what to do here and who with???
Being a bad mum again and have bathed and toothcleaned the darlings and popped them under the net to watch Buzz Lightyear again while I sit under mine to email.
Will affix pretty pics and then do some mothering.

malaria and croup

Hello darlings
Well it's been a time of trial out here in the sweltering tropics! It went like this:
Eddie got malaria
Ben got malaria (while Eddie was still not well with his malaria)
Eddie got croup (while Ben was still not well with his malaria)
Ben got croup (while he was still not well with the malaria)
Ben got chest infection
Clive got sore throat
Trace got exhausted...
But it's all over now, except that Ben is still taking antibiotics and they both cough all night.
Ben had never been sick for more than a day before this and kept waking up from his coughing and screaming "I'm dying!" Very dramatic and heart-rending at first and very tiring on the 95th yell!
Thankfully I could take a day off yesterday on his last day in bed (had them alternating days on a mattress in my office, or I worked from our room.) He watched a medley of Gummi Bears (american gunk which they love!) and Eddie went back to school and they both felt fine in the afternoon so I banished them onto the verandah to play lego with Zoda and I retired to my bed with the Sex in the City extended movie (crap) and my beloved white fan and a packet of expired orange puffy cheese chips. Felt foul thereafter naturally - theory always better than practice! Both right as rain now and full of new games and fight moves after watching Kung Fu Panda...
Otherwise have been embroiled in a little local politics. After a large meeting of all parties involved in tourism pursuits here in the village (the National Parks, lodge owners, curio vendors and 'beach boys' (local term for fellows who speak in fake American accents, wear board shorts and t-shirts with the sleeves cut off and have dreads - who mainly take local boat tours around the place and sell weed)) it was reported back to me that the vendors had a problem with our shop on Mumbo. I got almost tearful, because I have been so careful to buy from a whole range of people to spread the cash around a bit. Anyway, I consulted our new managers (4 guys on the Malawian staff who have moved up a level: Edward, Franklin, Sutha and Joseph) to get advice and Joe went off to consult with Mr Chimombo (Eddie's friend who made his model of Nankappa and is vendor representative) and reported back that in fact that was incorrect, thank God!, and they just wanted to show some of their wares here at Base, and to have us encourage visitors to go out into the road to visit their stalls. Fair enough, so we all shook hands amicably and there was no further need for lumps in throat.
Otherwise life rolls on, sweatily. (Have discovered those deodorant crystal sticks though and can vouch for their efficacy, but sadly one cannot apply them over the entire mortal frame and especially not to the old visage, which beams shinily like a moon these days.)
It's odd, having grey hair has made me feel my age (or perhaps even older). I have no desire at all to party on down at the three local bars or to go out at all. Probably not a good thing and certainly a bone of contention with my ever-youthful and happy-to-party husband! I have been told the salt and pepper makes me look distinguished - and let's face it, no babe of twenty, or even, thirty is ever told that. Clearly I look my age too!
But there is no going back to the bottle or the henna goo - the effort and cost is not worth it I think.
I have accepted this stage in my life here as being very insular and simple. Work and kids and the hammock on the verandah - and the many happy interactions with both guests and staff are enough for me this year. And I have a great sense of accomplishment about what we've done so far too.
But I still haven't managed to start a tree-growing project. That is my obsession, as the deforestation of this country is scary. Have just bought 3 bags of tree seeds and now need to find a place to grow them into seedlings and then my plan is give every member of our staff 2 seedlings and a bag of manure (from our dry composter loos on the islands!) and hopefully everyone will have two big trees soon. Maybe we need to do it every year so that when one is chopped for firewood there is another to take its place. I am also not buying any ebony for our shop or for myself as ebony trees take 30 years to mature and there are almost none left. Our carver, James, says that in two years they will all be cut. So he and I have started to use Mtumbu, the 'fence post tree' for carvings and, though it is not as hard, it has a beautiful grain and is good for carvings.
Today in Cape Town in the Noordhoek Country Fair, where, 3 years ago, my stylish friend Belinda and I had our first second-hand clothes stall. I am so sad to be missing it. B is selling my Monkey Bay treasures for me, but I so wish I could be there too - we had such fun doing it and meeting all those women who went off happy with our finds.