Hello all
Sorry so long since the last letter (or is it? You might be well bored with these missives anyway, but they help me to get it all off my chest and also to remember the good things.)
My office is as neat as a pin - Dan stopped work here yesterday and I am on my own here. A bit apprehensive about it, but he was sometimes more of a hindrance anyway as he'd lost his zest for the job. But now Clive and Jurie and I are holding the base camp fort until Joseph the driver can become an extra office person and we can get a new manager in - probably only the end of August. So things are going to be a bit hectic here - glad we had our moment in the tea fields! (Which my dad corrected me about - they are not fields, but plantations, apparently. One must get one's agricultural terms correct!)
We are happily ensconced in our little reed house, which has grown since we stayed last year and is perfectly sized now for our family. Ben and Eddie sleep with their beds together under a huge net and are very happy with that brotherly togetherness. They still watch Tintin every evening and of course now that consumes me with guilt as I think I should be reading to them! So I have now begun an after-lunch reading session to assuage the guilt - I am so determined that they should grow up to be readers. I think Ben will as he had a lot of input in the early years (his first words every morning used to be "Light! Book!"), but Eddie has had such a different time and maybe I need to put more reading time in with him. Mutter, mutter, motherly musings are boring I am sure. Apologies.
I feel very old in Malawi. I am the only mzungu mother and most other mzungus are single and on the party circuit, as one is in one's twenties after all. With my grey locks, demanding offspring and inability to booze, I am a real pooper and outsider. Thank goodness for Pam, our island host, as she is a gal after my own heart - more sensible and not so eager for the mindless drinking binge as others - but she is on the island most of the time.
She and I (and Liinu who is back from Finland) had another great chitenje mission to Lilongwe on Tues and Wed. Those trips are hectic! Four hours in a dusty car and then Shoprite and the wholesale shops for acres of oil and loo roll and other such interesting stuff. Then overnight in a dodgy backpacker joint (thank god for earplugs!) In the morning, it's off to the Tanzanian ladies in the market maze (always struggle to find them in those alleyways jammed with tiny shops selling everything you could need in this country: maize sacks, string, bicycle parts, nail polish, bath sponges, cockroach poison - if one had to make a list of what you can buy there it would be hundreds of pages long!) Then more last minute shopping (the list gets phoned in) and then on to Dedza another two hours drive away to the vegetable market (which turned out to be only an early morning possibility - so no lettuce for the guests' salad!) and to order more plates from the famous pottery there. That is an amazing place - not very creative pottery, but a huge concern and gorgeous old brick buildings and a great restaurant which made us tea and cheesecake - an unheard of luxury here! We got back at 8pm that night - dusty, sticky and absolutely finished! (Have loved my iPod here - just plugged myself in and lay back - had to block my ears to hear anything on the really rutted bits of road, but could still hear the strains..)
Got fabulous chitenjes though - so worth it all, and you won't believe how exciting it is to wander around Shoprite after months of no shops but Monkey Bay (which I haven't managed to get to for a month and am suffering withdrawals from the lack.)
Must trundle off now to feed kids (fish gujons and chips tonight - I never what a gujon was until I got here and still would never be able to cook one myself!)
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