Thursday, November 4, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Back in Malawi and life has resumed its wonderful Aahfrican rhythm.
Eddie’s fifth birthday today: we had been on Mumbo for the last two nights and in the rush to pack again after having just arrived at the lake the day before, I forgot to pop in his presents. Oh dear – but he was very forgiving and said he’d be happy to wait until we got back to the mainland. The island staff were so sweet about organising him a birthday cake this morning (quickly baked during the breakfast rush) which we then cut and consumed on the boat on the way back and shared with all the island staff who were coming off their week’s shift. What a lovely way to spend a birthday morning. We opened his three little presents that I’d brought with us (2 from us and one from Gogo and Rock) – 2 sets of Lego and a Batman watch - and he was thrilled with it all. He and Ben have at last discovered the joy of having so many local kids around who are equally keen to play endless football. So they are in the thick of a good match in our parking lot under the tamarind tree right now.
Mumbo was as blissful as always – it is an extraordinarily beautiful place: the miombo forest with its huge variety of trees and the turquoise water and huge granite outcrops never fail to make me feel unbelievably privileged and happy.
Am now sitting back in my old office off the kitchen with its view of the tree and kids playing and Thomas’s bar’s familiar repertoire of music blaring behind me. Have ordered another fancy cake for Eddie from Gaia’s kitchen down the road as they are masters of the big squishy iced cake which will strike joy in a kid’s heart. Buj and Javi are at school today so we can only have the birthday on the weekend – and will probably have to have a third cake then! (And another one when we get back to CT!) And what a pleasure to never cook or grocery shop - my unhousewifely heart is full!
Off to Monkey Bay this afternoon with Liinu – yehah!
Ben and Eddie are so happy and relaxed here – I hardly see them. I actually go and hunt them down these days - so different from a few years ago when I had to keep shooing them out of the office. Eddie seems to have done a fast forward growth spurt. I love their new independence.
All very enthused I know, forgive me. Will get back to my usual cynical self once the newness wears off (perhaps!)
Monday, February 2, 2009
Farewell
I am back home, but thought I had better write the final chapter before I forget (even though there is a lot more that I keep remembering and don't want to forget either - I do miss such a lot about Malawi even though I am so very happy to be home.) So I thought I would write about our farewell and departure from the happy shores of the lake.
The party got off to a very stilted start in true Malawian fashion: all the staff arrived and sat arranged around the dive deck in a long row. Everyone was very dignified and quiet as they drank their first beers and fantas. Then Bush and I each made a little speech saying thank you for the wonderful year we spent there, and Frankyln made a little speech saying thank you to us for the year and everyone clapped and we all looked at each other bashfully. Then we sat about drinking our next beer and then Mabvuto (Mr Trouble) tottered up the stairs with his drum - and I mean tottered - he nearly fell over three times and had to be helped along by laughing staff members. The atmosphere started to loosen up. Mabvuto was extremely loose already, having stopped off at the Chibuku (local beer) bar on his way for much fortification. He began to drum - very VERY haphazardly. No-one could keep up with him because his rhythm had been lost in the swill of beer. But many tried hard. A few began to dance. Liinu (fortified with four rums before her arrival) also began dancing, with Mr Sophia (a very dignified gentleman who is head of our mechanical workshop - but a keen dancer, from appearances that day.) She danced so wildly and enthusiastically, to thunderous applause, that she fell over and showed her nethers to the staff on the left. (She referred to them later, when telling the tale, by a fantastic Finnicism which sadly I forget as I was prostrate with laughter and trying to bob about a bit myself. She is Finnish and her english is very fantastic.)
Mabvuto kept pointing his gnarled finger at me and winking and chortling (in his glee) and drumming ever more erratically. By now the party was loose, baby!
But soon thereafter the limit of three beers (set by my furrowed browed husband in his anxiety about meeting all the financial obligations of the last month - wages, another staff party, bonuses and whatnot) was reached and we ground to a halt. Then there was a formal line of well wishers who all filed past us and wished us a safe journey. Oh, I do love our staff.
The next morning we set off early, Zoda came along to see us off, and to see Lilongwe for the first time, and of course the tears did flow as we drove out of that shady reed walled compound and out of that lovely little village and through the beautiful National Park, past the mielies which were knee-high now and freshly watered by a storm which raged on our last night, and along the newly tarred Golomoti road which has fever trees and rice paddies and sometimes even elephants along it, and through the hills on the way to the city which are all green and lush and covered with beautifully tended mielie fields all the way. Past the long stalls of bright red tomatoes and maroon onions and pink potatoes and orange mangoes and green avocados. Past full flowing rivers and flowering baobabs and magnificently beautiful trees of all shapes and sizes (I got so obsessed with trees this year that I have photos of my favourite ones now). Past villages having their market days, with racks and racks of gorgeously pattered chitenjes flapping and piles of colourful clothes and wandering ladies in their beautiful chitenjes which they wear over their clothes, with another slung over their backs holding their babies, and holding up umbrellas in even more rainbow floral patterns. Past crumbling mud-brick shops painted in the Malawi cell phone network's signature cerise pink and lime (love it!). It was a joyful feast for the eye and I shall so miss it all.
And that was that. A year over and I loved it.
And now we are back in civilisation and it is hectic. Am adjusting slowly. It will take time.
The party got off to a very stilted start in true Malawian fashion: all the staff arrived and sat arranged around the dive deck in a long row. Everyone was very dignified and quiet as they drank their first beers and fantas. Then Bush and I each made a little speech saying thank you for the wonderful year we spent there, and Frankyln made a little speech saying thank you to us for the year and everyone clapped and we all looked at each other bashfully. Then we sat about drinking our next beer and then Mabvuto (Mr Trouble) tottered up the stairs with his drum - and I mean tottered - he nearly fell over three times and had to be helped along by laughing staff members. The atmosphere started to loosen up. Mabvuto was extremely loose already, having stopped off at the Chibuku (local beer) bar on his way for much fortification. He began to drum - very VERY haphazardly. No-one could keep up with him because his rhythm had been lost in the swill of beer. But many tried hard. A few began to dance. Liinu (fortified with four rums before her arrival) also began dancing, with Mr Sophia (a very dignified gentleman who is head of our mechanical workshop - but a keen dancer, from appearances that day.) She danced so wildly and enthusiastically, to thunderous applause, that she fell over and showed her nethers to the staff on the left. (She referred to them later, when telling the tale, by a fantastic Finnicism which sadly I forget as I was prostrate with laughter and trying to bob about a bit myself. She is Finnish and her english is very fantastic.)
Mabvuto kept pointing his gnarled finger at me and winking and chortling (in his glee) and drumming ever more erratically. By now the party was loose, baby!
But soon thereafter the limit of three beers (set by my furrowed browed husband in his anxiety about meeting all the financial obligations of the last month - wages, another staff party, bonuses and whatnot) was reached and we ground to a halt. Then there was a formal line of well wishers who all filed past us and wished us a safe journey. Oh, I do love our staff.
The next morning we set off early, Zoda came along to see us off, and to see Lilongwe for the first time, and of course the tears did flow as we drove out of that shady reed walled compound and out of that lovely little village and through the beautiful National Park, past the mielies which were knee-high now and freshly watered by a storm which raged on our last night, and along the newly tarred Golomoti road which has fever trees and rice paddies and sometimes even elephants along it, and through the hills on the way to the city which are all green and lush and covered with beautifully tended mielie fields all the way. Past the long stalls of bright red tomatoes and maroon onions and pink potatoes and orange mangoes and green avocados. Past full flowing rivers and flowering baobabs and magnificently beautiful trees of all shapes and sizes (I got so obsessed with trees this year that I have photos of my favourite ones now). Past villages having their market days, with racks and racks of gorgeously pattered chitenjes flapping and piles of colourful clothes and wandering ladies in their beautiful chitenjes which they wear over their clothes, with another slung over their backs holding their babies, and holding up umbrellas in even more rainbow floral patterns. Past crumbling mud-brick shops painted in the Malawi cell phone network's signature cerise pink and lime (love it!). It was a joyful feast for the eye and I shall so miss it all.
And that was that. A year over and I loved it.
And now we are back in civilisation and it is hectic. Am adjusting slowly. It will take time.
Christmas in Aahfricah
Hello all
This is probably my last email from tropical climes as we have but a week left here. Seems very strange that almost a year has gone by and so much has happened, yet it seems very brief when one looks back on it all.
Christmas in the tropics was lovely after all, despite my grinching beforehand. The chitenje Christmas stockings filled with little wooden leopards and lions and tigers and some local flipflops and beetle shaped pretzels (of all things to find in the local shop!) went down a treat. As did the wooden guns (red), speedi boati and fighting chaps (now painted by Ben and looking like artifacts not toys). So the kids were happy. We made little gift packs for the local children too (in Gatineau gift bags left over from the haul I found under the stairs earlier this year. Still working my way through all the 2ml samples.). On Christmas day, the tradition here is to dress the children up in their smartest clothes (sadly usually nasty cheap scratchy nylon ensembles straight from China), arm them with a Fanta and send them out to roam the village in search of fun and sweeties. So I dressed my two up as well and after lunch we set off on a village stroll. It was nice to be out and about - gave a nice sense of festive occasion. We ended up at Gecko for pizzas and a local band, and Ben and Eddie attached themselves to a pole each and spun around and around for ages to the music. Then we loaded them onto Bush's bicycle and he pushed them home - through all the puddles at their request.
Since then the music has gone on all night, every night, until the 3rd January when the party season seems to officially be over. Thank heavens, as the muted roar of revelers and the clashing strains of seven different types of music catering to every type of tourist and local party animal was beginning to strain my earplugs and nerves! We went with Liinu to Domwe for a very quiet new year - all asleep by 10:30 after a huge meal of fillet and potatoes in creamy coconut sauce - phew.
My friend Bronwen has been here for a week and it has been so lovely to have her here - made me realise how much I have missed friends who know that my brand of nasty humour isn't necessarily a reflection of a twisted psyche and that my teetotalling nature is not necessarily a strange and unusual thing worthy of remark.
I am pulled in two about leaving. There is so much I would still like to do and get looking fabulous here, and yet I still feel my real life is in Kommetjie and I have to take it up again (and maybe do it a bit better after this time away.)
Ash and Mabvuto have just come to see me to tell me that they want to drum for us at our farewell party on Saturday. They are the gardeners and general keepers-clean of base camp and are a wonderful pair. Ash has a gravelly voice and his most used phrase is "No problem!' and Mabvuto, who looks like a gnome and whose name means trouble and who used to be just that in his youth apparently, is a flower arranger of note. They told me that I was a good woman and had been no trouble all year and had done a lot for them. I got all tearful.
I will probably be completely useless at the farewell. we are having goat stew and rice and beer....
And now that's all over and we leave tomorrow. Will be back in Kommetjie on the eve on the 13th.
I think I will weep copious tears tomorrow as this place has become a part of me now and is so remarkably full of good people. If you have never visited Malawi, do.
This is probably my last email from tropical climes as we have but a week left here. Seems very strange that almost a year has gone by and so much has happened, yet it seems very brief when one looks back on it all.
Christmas in the tropics was lovely after all, despite my grinching beforehand. The chitenje Christmas stockings filled with little wooden leopards and lions and tigers and some local flipflops and beetle shaped pretzels (of all things to find in the local shop!) went down a treat. As did the wooden guns (red), speedi boati and fighting chaps (now painted by Ben and looking like artifacts not toys). So the kids were happy. We made little gift packs for the local children too (in Gatineau gift bags left over from the haul I found under the stairs earlier this year. Still working my way through all the 2ml samples.). On Christmas day, the tradition here is to dress the children up in their smartest clothes (sadly usually nasty cheap scratchy nylon ensembles straight from China), arm them with a Fanta and send them out to roam the village in search of fun and sweeties. So I dressed my two up as well and after lunch we set off on a village stroll. It was nice to be out and about - gave a nice sense of festive occasion. We ended up at Gecko for pizzas and a local band, and Ben and Eddie attached themselves to a pole each and spun around and around for ages to the music. Then we loaded them onto Bush's bicycle and he pushed them home - through all the puddles at their request.
Since then the music has gone on all night, every night, until the 3rd January when the party season seems to officially be over. Thank heavens, as the muted roar of revelers and the clashing strains of seven different types of music catering to every type of tourist and local party animal was beginning to strain my earplugs and nerves! We went with Liinu to Domwe for a very quiet new year - all asleep by 10:30 after a huge meal of fillet and potatoes in creamy coconut sauce - phew.
My friend Bronwen has been here for a week and it has been so lovely to have her here - made me realise how much I have missed friends who know that my brand of nasty humour isn't necessarily a reflection of a twisted psyche and that my teetotalling nature is not necessarily a strange and unusual thing worthy of remark.
I am pulled in two about leaving. There is so much I would still like to do and get looking fabulous here, and yet I still feel my real life is in Kommetjie and I have to take it up again (and maybe do it a bit better after this time away.)
Ash and Mabvuto have just come to see me to tell me that they want to drum for us at our farewell party on Saturday. They are the gardeners and general keepers-clean of base camp and are a wonderful pair. Ash has a gravelly voice and his most used phrase is "No problem!' and Mabvuto, who looks like a gnome and whose name means trouble and who used to be just that in his youth apparently, is a flower arranger of note. They told me that I was a good woman and had been no trouble all year and had done a lot for them. I got all tearful.
I will probably be completely useless at the farewell. we are having goat stew and rice and beer....
And now that's all over and we leave tomorrow. Will be back in Kommetjie on the eve on the 13th.
I think I will weep copious tears tomorrow as this place has become a part of me now and is so remarkably full of good people. If you have never visited Malawi, do.
bleakery
Hello all
I have been very quiet I know. Have been on Mumbo, for last visit probably, as it's all full now, and have been teaching the new lady my job, so no time to sit and blither (sadly, as that is my idea of pleasure and I long to do it in person over gorgeous coffees with gorgeous friends!)
It's bleak here - been cloudy for a week now and the waves on the lake are huge. Had to rescue two kayaks this morning. Guests who insisted they were experienced paddlers and really wanted to paddle the 10kms to Mumbo on the high seas. I am not sure what made us (even Clive) concur, but as they set off a vicious wind began to blow and within a few minutes the waves were enormous and we started to worry. Clive rushed off to get his binocs and we all gathered on the jetty to check on the situation and offer our gratuitous advice. The first two guests fell out of their kayak next to Thumbi (fortunately, as we could still see them) and the guides paddling with them stopped to help. At which point the other two guests decided to go it alone!!! the congenital idiots!! and headed off without their guide who was dragging a lady from the wild waters. So the boat then had to come back from its mission to Domwe to effect a rescue and we had to send Edo, the head guide, out on the dive boat to find the errant brothers who were out on their own with no guide or radio (did I mention my opinion of their mental faculties - if not: impaired!)
They found them having a cig on the rocks at the other end of the island, having realised they could not actually make it alone. They had to swim out to the boat, leaving their R15 000 kayak on the rocks. It remains there until tomorrow as the water is still to rough to fetch it.
When they got to Mumbo they told Pam they couldn't understand how we could have let them go!!! This after they had been warned twice about the dangers and had insisted they were well able to cope. Time for me to come back home and stop dealing with people on holiday who have left their brains behind - my tolerance for fools is not high!
Have to confess I have lost all interest in making a momentous tropical Christmas celebration here. There is noone I want to share it with really and everyone will be out drinking here there and everywhere, so I think we'll do it very quietly and just do what the kids want and drift about the village seeing others celebrate.
We will roast a gammon on Mumbo for the guests and our bamboo tree and chitenje bunting look festive enough out there.
(Will affix a pic - see how chubby I have become here - couldn't help it, two meals cooked for us every day and sitting at desk....oh dear. And sometimes I have Maggie Thatcher hair - it does that bloody curved fringe sweep thing all by itself, makes me want to run and hide, but naught to be done out here, so have to bear with it. Couldn't really give a bugger, actually, these days!)
Billy the tailor made fab chitenje Christmas stockings for Ben and Ed and Mr Chimombo and James have made small lions and leopards and goodies and baddies and (sorry about pc-ness here, but abandoned it in favour of popularity with my chaps), guns (painted red with blue spots so I feel less bad!) Add to that a couple of choccies and a few ice creams and they will be very happy children.
Ok, nearly supper time and must check on my offspring who have spend a miserable day in bed after being treated for Bilharzia last night - they obviously had it and got temperatures, but are now right as rain, but want dvds in bed anyway, and I thought it best given their frailty and the crappy weather.
I have been very quiet I know. Have been on Mumbo, for last visit probably, as it's all full now, and have been teaching the new lady my job, so no time to sit and blither (sadly, as that is my idea of pleasure and I long to do it in person over gorgeous coffees with gorgeous friends!)
It's bleak here - been cloudy for a week now and the waves on the lake are huge. Had to rescue two kayaks this morning. Guests who insisted they were experienced paddlers and really wanted to paddle the 10kms to Mumbo on the high seas. I am not sure what made us (even Clive) concur, but as they set off a vicious wind began to blow and within a few minutes the waves were enormous and we started to worry. Clive rushed off to get his binocs and we all gathered on the jetty to check on the situation and offer our gratuitous advice. The first two guests fell out of their kayak next to Thumbi (fortunately, as we could still see them) and the guides paddling with them stopped to help. At which point the other two guests decided to go it alone!!! the congenital idiots!! and headed off without their guide who was dragging a lady from the wild waters. So the boat then had to come back from its mission to Domwe to effect a rescue and we had to send Edo, the head guide, out on the dive boat to find the errant brothers who were out on their own with no guide or radio (did I mention my opinion of their mental faculties - if not: impaired!)
They found them having a cig on the rocks at the other end of the island, having realised they could not actually make it alone. They had to swim out to the boat, leaving their R15 000 kayak on the rocks. It remains there until tomorrow as the water is still to rough to fetch it.
When they got to Mumbo they told Pam they couldn't understand how we could have let them go!!! This after they had been warned twice about the dangers and had insisted they were well able to cope. Time for me to come back home and stop dealing with people on holiday who have left their brains behind - my tolerance for fools is not high!
Have to confess I have lost all interest in making a momentous tropical Christmas celebration here. There is noone I want to share it with really and everyone will be out drinking here there and everywhere, so I think we'll do it very quietly and just do what the kids want and drift about the village seeing others celebrate.
We will roast a gammon on Mumbo for the guests and our bamboo tree and chitenje bunting look festive enough out there.
(Will affix a pic - see how chubby I have become here - couldn't help it, two meals cooked for us every day and sitting at desk....oh dear. And sometimes I have Maggie Thatcher hair - it does that bloody curved fringe sweep thing all by itself, makes me want to run and hide, but naught to be done out here, so have to bear with it. Couldn't really give a bugger, actually, these days!)
Billy the tailor made fab chitenje Christmas stockings for Ben and Ed and Mr Chimombo and James have made small lions and leopards and goodies and baddies and (sorry about pc-ness here, but abandoned it in favour of popularity with my chaps), guns (painted red with blue spots so I feel less bad!) Add to that a couple of choccies and a few ice creams and they will be very happy children.
Ok, nearly supper time and must check on my offspring who have spend a miserable day in bed after being treated for Bilharzia last night - they obviously had it and got temperatures, but are now right as rain, but want dvds in bed anyway, and I thought it best given their frailty and the crappy weather.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Life and death
Returned from Mumbo yesterday with the immediate family - Bush, Ben and Eddie. We went to do a little hosting duty, but also to have some family time and it was a joy and delight. Bush and Ben did many "baventures" into the forest, and Eddie and I frootled about on the beach. The landscape did an about-turn in a mere week: it went from being dry and dusty and crackling, with a heat haze of dust hanging over everything, to a lime green lush canopy with incredible fire lilies among the rocks and roots, clear crisp air and gorgeous wild cloud formations in the sky. We can see all the way to the other side of the lake, to the green mountains there. All this from just four great thunder storms. I'll attach a pic so you can see I am not just indulging my descriptive flights of fancy (which, when I cast an eye over them, are hardly the stuff of great literature, but heartfelt, in their defense.)
Before we left there was a horrible sad day here when Lyoness's sister's third child died (the previous two also died) of some nameless disease, which the hospital always just calls malaria, but may be anything. For all of her children to have perished, it must be some genetic disease. The poor woman was distraught and the truck was sent to fetch her, and the elder women of the family who had sat vigil at the hospital with her, from Monkey Bay. The family got the call at about 4am and we were woken by a terrible wailing and keening. I was so scared it was one of the children we know so well from here, and as it was, he was one of Javi's little friends who spent some holidays here and they would speak on the phone sometimes. His name was Samuel - known as Samwelly.
Funerals take the form of silent gatherings of everyone who knows the family around the family house. This was just behind us. Most of our staff went and the street was packed with quiet groups of people sitting on all the verandahs and under the big baobab waiting for the boy's body to arrive back in a box, along with his grieving parents and family members. There was a palpable feeling of sadness all day. When the truck arrived, everyone began singing and wailing. Poor Javi was utterly distraught at seeing Samwelly in a box but insisted and screamed until she was allowed to. Then the women went off to wash and ready him to be buried and people sat and then preachers preached until the burial service. The whole rite of passage took three days.
The immediate family stayed with the bereft for the whole time. I think it must be very comforting to have all those people giving silent support (they also give money to help with burial costs).
One is much closer to death here.
But on a happier note, Janie comes to work with her mother Mabel every day now after I insisted (we are very forward thinking in terms of looking after our female staff! And so we should be because Fegness our biscuit chef also just had a baby and Irene, our other laundry lady, has her fourth child on January. So it will abound with babies around here next year.) Janie is a complete joy - tries to chat and smile and engage even at a mere 6 weeks old.
No more news really. Times are about to get busy, but are still quite quiet. Jurie and his children and Lyoness leave on Friday, so it will be very quiet and different around here in December, although both islands are full from the 15th til we shut on Jan 12. We leave on the 12th too and get back to CT on the 13th and the boys start school the next week - am a bit apprehensive about that week! Might require depths of organisational ability I simply never have had - tend to flounder in the shallows in that area.
You know what will be so nice about getting back? Not having a mozzie net - I am heartily sick of crouching to get in and out of my bed - and putting the kids into long sleeves every evening and spraying them and me with repellent and taking our homeopathic anti-malaria pills every morning and night. It will be such a relief not to have that niggling anxiety all the time.
Before we left there was a horrible sad day here when Lyoness's sister's third child died (the previous two also died) of some nameless disease, which the hospital always just calls malaria, but may be anything. For all of her children to have perished, it must be some genetic disease. The poor woman was distraught and the truck was sent to fetch her, and the elder women of the family who had sat vigil at the hospital with her, from Monkey Bay. The family got the call at about 4am and we were woken by a terrible wailing and keening. I was so scared it was one of the children we know so well from here, and as it was, he was one of Javi's little friends who spent some holidays here and they would speak on the phone sometimes. His name was Samuel - known as Samwelly.
Funerals take the form of silent gatherings of everyone who knows the family around the family house. This was just behind us. Most of our staff went and the street was packed with quiet groups of people sitting on all the verandahs and under the big baobab waiting for the boy's body to arrive back in a box, along with his grieving parents and family members. There was a palpable feeling of sadness all day. When the truck arrived, everyone began singing and wailing. Poor Javi was utterly distraught at seeing Samwelly in a box but insisted and screamed until she was allowed to. Then the women went off to wash and ready him to be buried and people sat and then preachers preached until the burial service. The whole rite of passage took three days.
The immediate family stayed with the bereft for the whole time. I think it must be very comforting to have all those people giving silent support (they also give money to help with burial costs).
One is much closer to death here.
But on a happier note, Janie comes to work with her mother Mabel every day now after I insisted (we are very forward thinking in terms of looking after our female staff! And so we should be because Fegness our biscuit chef also just had a baby and Irene, our other laundry lady, has her fourth child on January. So it will abound with babies around here next year.) Janie is a complete joy - tries to chat and smile and engage even at a mere 6 weeks old.
No more news really. Times are about to get busy, but are still quite quiet. Jurie and his children and Lyoness leave on Friday, so it will be very quiet and different around here in December, although both islands are full from the 15th til we shut on Jan 12. We leave on the 12th too and get back to CT on the 13th and the boys start school the next week - am a bit apprehensive about that week! Might require depths of organisational ability I simply never have had - tend to flounder in the shallows in that area.
You know what will be so nice about getting back? Not having a mozzie net - I am heartily sick of crouching to get in and out of my bed - and putting the kids into long sleeves every evening and spraying them and me with repellent and taking our homeopathic anti-malaria pills every morning and night. It will be such a relief not to have that niggling anxiety all the time.
Monday, November 24, 2008
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!
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