Well I have the generator roaring in my ear so I might not get too far with this. Hell it's noisy!
Pam and I went to Lilongwe the day before yesterday on another epic shopping trip - it astounds me sometimes what we think is normal here! We left at 8:30 - drove 4 hours on those bad roads. Dropped guests at the airport, then did an enormous food shop at the wholesalers, then another at Shoprite (and only one cup of odd Indian spiced tea at a dodgy cafe for refreshment, where the teenage son kept grabbing his willy in its nylon tracky pants - quite oblivious of our jaws dropping in horror at the sight!) and then got dropped at our accommodation at 6pm. We stayed at the Wilderness Safaris lodge this time (I just could not do a backpacker again!) and what a joy it was. A huge ensuite room each, with its own lounge. And delicious dinner and a big bath and in bed with a book by 8! It's run by a gorgeous Malawian woman who just enfolds you in warmth and treats you like a long lost friend. The lodge was packed with a group of ghastly pommy businessmen on a junket - seeing farms they've invested in in Malawi. Yukky sorts who take off their wedding rings when they travel, I am sure, and then ogle and try for an easy fling. Pam and I were very snooty!
The next morning we were on our way by 8 - doing office photocopying and stationery shopping and then on to the chitenje market where we shopped our pattern-obsessed hearts out (the passion only grows!). By 2pm we still hadn't seen lunch or tea and had yet to do the vege market (an legend in its own lunchtime as one has to haggle and price and employ a squadron of eager young boys to carry bags and bags of papaya and banana and pineapples and brinjals and grenadilla and strawberries and anything and everything except broccoli which I crave. Veges and fruit here are fabulous - all organic and home-grown and everything that's now trendy and "green" in the western world, but is just the norm here. But the accountant tells me that Malawians prefer to buy their produce at Shoprite as they assume it's better - isn't that sad? (But not as sad as the Shoprite produce which looks as if it had reached its sell-by date in South Africa and was then trucked in a not-very-chilled-refrigerated van into the interior!)
Only after that horticultural adventure did we flag and insist on lunch and Davi our driver and co-shopper dropped us off at the Italian restaurant (where we ate the best gnocchi (my favourite thing in all the world, and there it was, top of the menu,) and tortellini and gelati and cappuccino I have ever tasted. I have to say that we were almost as overjoyed with the clean loos where we could scrub up a little - we were less than savoury at that stage.
We eventually only left town at 4pm and I drove us all the way home - down Dedza pass (an epic of the tightest hairpin bends) and along the still-incomplete Golomoti dirt road until the Cape Maclear road - when I flagged and Pam took over (we thought Davi needed a rest as he'd carried on shopping while we did lunch). A civet and two porcupines graced our nighttime journey and we got back here by 8pm and unpacked the minibus which was jammed to the windows with food and whatnot (you can't believe the volume of stuff the island gets through in these busy times.
The children were all angelically asleep, but Bush and Jurie were still ensconced with the accountant who is here doing an audit of last year's books. They looked as if they'd been through a longer haul than we had - all furrowed brows and bags under the eyes and hair on end. (The accountant is STILL here this afternoon looking as fresh as if he'd just begun his endless numerical evaluations - I think he is driving the bwanas mad with frustration, but they are staying admirably calm. I am impressed at their fortitude- this is the third full day of this and they are also paying the man for his obviously valuable time...)
Eddie and Javi have just charged in wearing a pair of very girly pink shoes each. Ed has no idea of his gender yet and I love seeing him so proudly stomping about in pink flowery mary-janes. Ben and Buj are fishing in the lake - they put some old nsima in a bottle and when the fish swims in, quickly upend it and trap their catch in a big blue bucket. Endless source of joy. Oh, wrong - now they are drawing sabre-tooth tigers.
Right - now it's the next day and thank God the power is back on and all is peaceful in the office. I must sort myself out and get back into work mode - just fiddled and flustered yesterday as the diesel fumes and thumping generator worked their way into my head!
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