The family came to Malawi, my sister for three weeks and my parents for two. It was perfect. Perfect timing, a perfect vacation, I was pretty bummed dropping them off at the airport yesterday. Lucky for them they were able to extend their trip courtesy of Ethiopian Airlines--maybe they can tell you about that later in their guest blogs. : )
The following is a brief summary of their adventures kuno ku Malawi.
1) My sister arrives! She and I are going to have a 'peace corps' experience, taking public transportation, and doing things the Peace Corps way. I discover it is much more fun to ride in the back of a truck with your sister.
2) We visit my house. Alix meets the neighbors, all of them. She has passed the neighbor test and the boys deem her cool enough for a dance party. Positives: We make a delicious taco dinner with guacamole and baked a chocolate cake for dessert (on coals). Negatives: We make a mouse trap that fails two nights in a row.
3) We travel north to visit a friend's house for Christmas. Alix gets the full transport experience as we stand on bags of maize with 120 of our closer friends for 5 hours to Khande.
4) Christmas as Russell's house with 13 other friends. Christmas was spent eating cinnamon rolls (also made on coals), swimming in the lake, and enjoying some really terrible Christmas music. Traditional? No. Memorable? Absolutely.
5) The day after Christmas we travel back to my site via a hitch that gets a flat tire and a mini bus whereby I am attacked by a sheep traveling under my seat.
6) We pick up our parents. And our car. Life is good.
7) The first night is spent at Senga Bay at a beautiful resort with a pool and air conditioning and room service. Clearly, I have never been here before, but I can get used to this life.
8) We travel to my site. We buy fish, my dad cooks. Christmas presents fall from my parent's suitcases (enough macaroni and cheese and hummus mix to last a long long time).
9) The school prepares a lunch for my family. Lunches in Malawi are always awkward events with lots of speeches and weird silences. My headteacher provides comic relief with his dramatic way with words as he says about my arrival: "when we found out we were receiving a women we were paralyzed with fear, but Elisa has proven herself to be a "woman-man." Gee, thanks.
10) The next day we go to Kanyangale to visit AYID's building. The group welcomes us with songs and dances. They give my parents the best hats in the whole world and name the library after us.
11) Two nights at my house proves to be enough. We spend the next morning working on the map project at school and then head to the Safari lodge in Nkhotakota for a great meal on the lake and a comfortable chalet.
12) On the way to Monkey Bay we stop at Mua Mission to visit the cultural center and learn about different kinds of umm...masks.
13) New Years Eve. Staying a 'rustic lodge' without electricity in Monkey Bay makes it difficult to stay awake through the new year.
14) We travel to Cape Maclear to try and beg for a place to sleep. One night at the 'rustic lodge' was enough. We happen upon a little lodge which is about an hour ferry boat ride away-and so begins our trip to paradise.
15) Mumbo Island. Paradise. Beautiful tents set up like tree forts fit a maximum of 14 people on the island. We spend the afternoon kayaking and swimming then take the boat out for a sundowner. Delicious food, beautiful scenery, happy 2011 to us.
16) Travel to Lilongwe. Safari the next day!
17) SAFARI in ZAMBIA! We saw tons of giraffe, zebras, elephants, birds, hippos, crocodiles, baboons, monkeys, and leopards (yes, plural and one about 10 feet away), and lions. The best part was driving in the crazy safari mobile flying through the bush tracking the leopard at night-we all had the most ridiculous smiles on our faces as we were flying off the seats. More delicious food, more cool people, bucket list items being checked off. sweet.
18) Back to Malawi. Time to go home. I couldn't have asked for a better vacation (I hope my family would say the same). I feel refreshed and rejuvenated and full of delicious food. Thank you family.
happy 2011 to you!
loads of love,
elisabeth
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