Mzuzu, Malawi Nov. 5 with a Nov. 8, 2006 update
Today we returned from a few days at the lake. Unfortunately for Pat we were there as part of an off-site workshop that she and the rest of the Education Department was holding. We arrived Thursday evening and they worked all day Friday, Saturday, and a couple of hours on Sunday morning. Also unfortunately for Pat, she had been feeling poorly for a couple of days before our departure and upon a doctor’s office visit on Thursday afternoon, we learned that she had malaria. (Ouch, the ink wasn’t even dry on my last blog where I was crowing about how the medication Malarone had seemed to be successful in holding off the disease).
[ Nov. 8 update:The good news is that it seems that it was caught relatively early so the impact wasn’t too bad; especially since starting medication Thursday night. She has subsequently nearly recovered and after letting Ed substitute for her on Monday and Tuesday, is back teaching today.]
The weather has gotten very hot (90’s during the day), but near the lake there was a breeze during the day and we use our fan at night. The Sabani Lodge where we stayed is fair by Malawi standards and relatively rustic by our standards. But it sits on a beautiful white sand beach and the sandy bottom extends out to the depth as far as I could walk. By mid-day the sand was too hot to walk on but cooled off nicely by late afternoon, while the lake water remained warm near shore. The lodge had a bar for socializing and a dining area where meals were served. As most of these facilities, breakfast was cereal, eggs, toast, sausage, and bacon, Then for lunch and dinner the choices are always the same: fried chicken, fried chambo (a local fish), or beef tips with rice, chips (our French fries), or nsima (pulverized corn mush- the Malawi mainstay mentioned, but misspelled in my last blog). Near the lake we especially have to sleep under mosquito netting and except for one window, the room windows had no screens. I killed about 10 wasp in the room over our 3 nights stay. We always oil up with Deet every evening at sundown since our cottage was a walk from the lodge and as noted above the bar and dining area are all outdoors (under covered roof).
We do get cell phone reception there, but only about 2 spots outside the cabins work decently, so people are always standing in one of these 2 spots when they make calls. Mom called me and the call kept breaking up until I could walk out to the nearest hotspot (just like at home on Signal Mountain).
Well we never know when a new adventure may spring up, but we had one this morning. The road from the main highway to the lodge is very rough. However, as we arrived Thursday a road grader was leveling and widening the road, and continued to do so all weekend. Apparently this angered one of the nearby villagers, because he built a road block out of rocks and branches. When we left the inn this morning we came upon the road-block. We tried to talk to anyone around (we had one of the Malawian faculty with us), but they spoke a different language in this village than she knew. So we decided to go back to the lodge and discuss it with them or get someone who could speak the language. Well, the owner (who we know) was away, the manager was at church, and some of the employees were knocking heads with the villager this morning coming to work and were afraid to confront him again. So I had had enough- we were in a 4 wheel drive off rode capable vehicle, so I didn’t feel I needed to remove too much stuff before I could drive over it without scraping the vehicle bottom. So I turned around and sped up towards the road-block and found he had started another with just limbs. Well no problem for our vehicle, I just plowed right over them. I pulled up to the big road-block, got out acting very angry, and just started throwing rocks and limbs around (my back is a little sore tonight from this display of bravo). Everyone stood and watched in awe to see if the villager was going to let me get away with this (plus they haven’t seen too many white people so they’re not sure of this whole situation). (I will note at this time I had already separated my large denomination bills in one pocket and all the others in the other in case things turned south on me and I needed to quickly offer money to get myself out of a situation). Pat, who avidly reads the newspaper here that is a scandal sheet as much as a newspaper, is probably thinking this guy may come at me with an axe or something. So I’m throwing stuff around and accidentally knocked my own glasses off my face, but catch them and put them in my pocket. I finish my task and climb back into the vehicle, put it into 4-wheel drive low, and proudly just drive right over that baby.
Unfortunately we get down the road just a bit and the angry villager is walking opposite us towards his road-block. I just get past him and realize I don’t have my eyeglasses in my pocket- no where in pockets or vehicle. Now these are $175 designer frames and prescription, coated, light weight, etc. etc. $200+expensive lenses. So I tell the ladies, who were just sighing a breath of relief, that I have got to go back and find them. So I turn around and start back and arrive with no angry villager in sight (may have thought we were coming after him and disappeared). So I climb out and start searching for them. With time the village youngsters all work their way over. One young man was fairly good at English and I end up offering a reward and get them all helping me. Unfortunately we had no luck- they claimed no one picked them up. So I left word I was offering a reward and they could turn them into the Lodge and I’d get the reward to them- we left.
So I’m out a couple of hundred bucks for glasses, and I’m sure for US$3 I could have paid the guy to let us through. Such is another chapter in our Malawi adventure.
Tonight we sit here in the dark (Sunday night after our return from the lake) as we have been without power all day. Now we have no water since we only have a small elevated water tank on campus that is filled by an electric pump. So we’ll hope by morning we have electricity so we can make our coffee and water for our showers.
Nov. 8-
Pat has nearly returned to good health and I am doing well. The rains began yesterday with heavy pre-dawn rain (the first rain we have had except for one small shower since we arrived here in July) and a nice cool day today we have had heavier and longer rains so far a cool day. Quite a change from the sweltering heat of a few days ago. Now we were see an upsurge in mosquitoes.
We have also been warned by our gardener and housekeeper that we have a huge ant colony (looked around 15 ft by 15ft) in the rear of our yard. With the rains filling their nests in the ground they will be on the move soon. Our next door neighbor tells us she had an invasion a couple of night ago- thousands of ants came into the rear of her home. She used numerous cans of insect spray and literally scooped handfuls of them out of her bathtub. They attack in swarms and bite viciously. So last night we were spreading a barrier of paraffin around the rear of the house, since apparently they avoid soil with the paraffin in it- we will hope and see. I’ll be looking for some insecticides to spread as well today. They say they sometimes will disrupt an entire village in the country-side by their invasions.
Today we returned from a few days at the lake. Unfortunately for Pat we were there as part of an off-site workshop that she and the rest of the Education Department was holding. We arrived Thursday evening and they worked all day Friday, Saturday, and a couple of hours on Sunday morning. Also unfortunately for Pat, she had been feeling poorly for a couple of days before our departure and upon a doctor’s office visit on Thursday afternoon, we learned that she had malaria. (Ouch, the ink wasn’t even dry on my last blog where I was crowing about how the medication Malarone had seemed to be successful in holding off the disease).
[ Nov. 8 update:The good news is that it seems that it was caught relatively early so the impact wasn’t too bad; especially since starting medication Thursday night. She has subsequently nearly recovered and after letting Ed substitute for her on Monday and Tuesday, is back teaching today.]
The weather has gotten very hot (90’s during the day), but near the lake there was a breeze during the day and we use our fan at night. The Sabani Lodge where we stayed is fair by Malawi standards and relatively rustic by our standards. But it sits on a beautiful white sand beach and the sandy bottom extends out to the depth as far as I could walk. By mid-day the sand was too hot to walk on but cooled off nicely by late afternoon, while the lake water remained warm near shore. The lodge had a bar for socializing and a dining area where meals were served. As most of these facilities, breakfast was cereal, eggs, toast, sausage, and bacon, Then for lunch and dinner the choices are always the same: fried chicken, fried chambo (a local fish), or beef tips with rice, chips (our French fries), or nsima (pulverized corn mush- the Malawi mainstay mentioned, but misspelled in my last blog). Near the lake we especially have to sleep under mosquito netting and except for one window, the room windows had no screens. I killed about 10 wasp in the room over our 3 nights stay. We always oil up with Deet every evening at sundown since our cottage was a walk from the lodge and as noted above the bar and dining area are all outdoors (under covered roof).
We do get cell phone reception there, but only about 2 spots outside the cabins work decently, so people are always standing in one of these 2 spots when they make calls. Mom called me and the call kept breaking up until I could walk out to the nearest hotspot (just like at home on Signal Mountain).
Well we never know when a new adventure may spring up, but we had one this morning. The road from the main highway to the lodge is very rough. However, as we arrived Thursday a road grader was leveling and widening the road, and continued to do so all weekend. Apparently this angered one of the nearby villagers, because he built a road block out of rocks and branches. When we left the inn this morning we came upon the road-block. We tried to talk to anyone around (we had one of the Malawian faculty with us), but they spoke a different language in this village than she knew. So we decided to go back to the lodge and discuss it with them or get someone who could speak the language. Well, the owner (who we know) was away, the manager was at church, and some of the employees were knocking heads with the villager this morning coming to work and were afraid to confront him again. So I had had enough- we were in a 4 wheel drive off rode capable vehicle, so I didn’t feel I needed to remove too much stuff before I could drive over it without scraping the vehicle bottom. So I turned around and sped up towards the road-block and found he had started another with just limbs. Well no problem for our vehicle, I just plowed right over them. I pulled up to the big road-block, got out acting very angry, and just started throwing rocks and limbs around (my back is a little sore tonight from this display of bravo). Everyone stood and watched in awe to see if the villager was going to let me get away with this (plus they haven’t seen too many white people so they’re not sure of this whole situation). (I will note at this time I had already separated my large denomination bills in one pocket and all the others in the other in case things turned south on me and I needed to quickly offer money to get myself out of a situation). Pat, who avidly reads the newspaper here that is a scandal sheet as much as a newspaper, is probably thinking this guy may come at me with an axe or something. So I’m throwing stuff around and accidentally knocked my own glasses off my face, but catch them and put them in my pocket. I finish my task and climb back into the vehicle, put it into 4-wheel drive low, and proudly just drive right over that baby.
Unfortunately we get down the road just a bit and the angry villager is walking opposite us towards his road-block. I just get past him and realize I don’t have my eyeglasses in my pocket- no where in pockets or vehicle. Now these are $175 designer frames and prescription, coated, light weight, etc. etc. $200+expensive lenses. So I tell the ladies, who were just sighing a breath of relief, that I have got to go back and find them. So I turn around and start back and arrive with no angry villager in sight (may have thought we were coming after him and disappeared). So I climb out and start searching for them. With time the village youngsters all work their way over. One young man was fairly good at English and I end up offering a reward and get them all helping me. Unfortunately we had no luck- they claimed no one picked them up. So I left word I was offering a reward and they could turn them into the Lodge and I’d get the reward to them- we left.
So I’m out a couple of hundred bucks for glasses, and I’m sure for US$3 I could have paid the guy to let us through. Such is another chapter in our Malawi adventure.
Tonight we sit here in the dark (Sunday night after our return from the lake) as we have been without power all day. Now we have no water since we only have a small elevated water tank on campus that is filled by an electric pump. So we’ll hope by morning we have electricity so we can make our coffee and water for our showers.
Nov. 8-
Pat has nearly returned to good health and I am doing well. The rains began yesterday with heavy pre-dawn rain (the first rain we have had except for one small shower since we arrived here in July) and a nice cool day today we have had heavier and longer rains so far a cool day. Quite a change from the sweltering heat of a few days ago. Now we were see an upsurge in mosquitoes.
We have also been warned by our gardener and housekeeper that we have a huge ant colony (looked around 15 ft by 15ft) in the rear of our yard. With the rains filling their nests in the ground they will be on the move soon. Our next door neighbor tells us she had an invasion a couple of night ago- thousands of ants came into the rear of her home. She used numerous cans of insect spray and literally scooped handfuls of them out of her bathtub. They attack in swarms and bite viciously. So last night we were spreading a barrier of paraffin around the rear of the house, since apparently they avoid soil with the paraffin in it- we will hope and see. I’ll be looking for some insecticides to spread as well today. They say they sometimes will disrupt an entire village in the country-side by their invasions.
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