Saturday, March 29, 2008

The Gorge Swing

So we are still in Livingstone right now - we had to stay an extra day...unfortunately what the Lilongwe doctor thought was a minor infection was in fact quite major, and Regan needed to have additional care in a clinic here, so we had to stay an extra day. She is doing well now and will be looked at again in Lilongwe.
Since we mostly saw the inside of the clinic on Thursday and Friday and Regan's energy levels were back up, we decided to do something more adventurous on Friday, so we went to Fifth Gorge, where I did the gorge swing and Regan and Jules did the flying fox.
The flying fox is basically a zip line that you do in a flying superman-like position - you have to run off the platform then soar over the canyon. Regan and Jules did it in style. The gorge swing is sort of like a bungi, but the cord doesn't stretch as much, and at the end you swing rather than bounce...still it does involve walking off a cliff...my knees went weak at one point and I thought I wouldn't be able to get myself to walk off, but in the end, I did it!!!
It was great fun, and now it is Sunday morning and we are off to the clinic for one last shot, then on to Lusaka, where we plan to watch a MOVIE...in a THEATER!!! (There is not a single theatre in all of Lilongwe).

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Bungi Jumping in Victoria Falls

Ok - So sorry mom and Judy, but we let Regan bungi jump - she tandem-jumped with our friend Claire and totally loved it....
Our trip started out a bit on the rocky side- friday night, I drove my friend to the airport and about 2 km away, we blew a tire. We spent Sat morning looking for a couple new tires, and found them....so we thought we were in good shape to start off later that day...so we did. 45 min in, we blew tire #2. Feling cursed, we headed back to Lilongwe...we found tires at a sketchy place, but at least everything was taken care of and we were able to staret the trip over again the next day. LONG day driving to Lusaka, but we made it, and were welcomed to a lodge with no power or water..still, the beds were there. Regan and I shopped for an hour the next morning and we had real coffee - they even had decaf!!! Then we headed to Vic Falls...we got lost on the way there but eventually found the right way, and anyways, it is gorgeous here and everyone loves it here. Great place to visit - still love Lilongwe as a home base though.
Our first day was spent visiting the falls (basically getting soaked in the spray), followed by a sunset cruise on the Zambezi - totally awesome. This morning we woke up and drove to the bridge, and the bungi jumping crew (read everyone but me) jumped off the bridge - I got sme awesome photos - can't wait to share.
Tomorrow, we are spending all day in this park where you can do a gorge swing, zip cords and other exciting activities, so I will let you know how it goes...

Love you!!!

Friday, March 21, 2008

Our first BBQ

At the outing for my friend Claire's birthday, we decided that it would be a good idea to celebrate St. Paddys somehow. Given that this year, it occurred on a Monday night, we decided that a Sunday BBQ would be most appropriate.
We borrowed a BBQ from our friend Melissa, since we haven't gotten around to getting one of our own yet, and as soon as we got back from cultural orientation we went out to stock up on meat. We bought 3 chickens, sausage, steak, a roast to cut into medallions, veggie burgers and all the fixings. Saturday night, as well as Sunday morning, we were busily preparing potatoes for potato salad, other veggies and marinating meat.
Basically, it was a lot of work, but fun also getting excited about hosting our first real party. We invited all of our close friends and had the BBQ going for hours - BBQs here are charcoal and very difficult to light, but once you get them going, they provide beautifully even heat and are great to cook on.
We also made home made lemonade with lemons from our lemon tree! In fact, after we made the lemonade, we realized there were still a lot of ripe lemons in our tree, so we filled a bucket with them - unfortunately, instead of taking lemons home, our guests used them instead for the lemon game, which consisted of throwing them up on the tin roof and trying to catch them when they rolled off....at least the lemons provided much entertainment!
We were able to actually find two six packs of Guinness in Lilongwe, which we thought was very suitable for the occasion, and Melissa brought some whisky, which was a treat enjoyed by all.
I meant to take photos of all the food - the potato salad I made was even decorated with egg slices, like my dad always does his - but in all the excitement and busy hosting duties, I totally forgot.
It was a great success - people came at two and I think the last guests left around midnight, so a great time was had by all, and it was very enjoyable for us to be hosting an event here.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Cultural Orientation

March 9 - 15 was our cultural orientation at Mua. Mua is a small village where a mission was founded over 100 years ago. Because of the mission, there is a good hospital and church, and in addition, a cultural centre and museum are also there.

We arrived on Sunday afternoon and had time to ooh and ahh over our rooms - with giant mosquito nets that go to the floor, so you don't have to tuck them in to your mattress...the luxury!

We had a nice dinner Sunday night - meat stew, veg stew and rice. Since discovering Claire and Cole also like boardgames as much as we do, we brought Settlers of Catan with us and ended up playing pretty much every night.

Monday morning was our first cultural lesson and we met one of the Fathers from the mission who would be our cultural trainer. The day started with traditional dancing and singing followed by lessons on the matrilinial culture that is prevalent here in Malawi. Since I am sure Jules will write a detailed blog about the three cultures we studied, their history and practices, I will be light on the details here.

The cultural training was really interesting, and a description of the complex relationships between men and women, children and elders was really interesting and also gave a lot of insight into some of my experiences with relationships amongst my work colleagues. I think the training will prove useful more than once during my year here. The delivery of the training was pretty funny - at the end of the day we discussed what it was like to have a chain smoking, swearing priest obsessed with sex giving us these lectures - yes, you read that correctly - he seemed to delight in giving us all the details!

While we were in Mua, we also experienced our first visit to a medical clinic. Regan wasn't feeling well, so we took her in for some tests. When we walked in, someone ran to fetch the specialist, and while that makes me feel good that we will be getting the best treatment if we ever need it, it also made me aware (not for the first time) of the amount of priveledge we are granted here due to the colour of our skin. While the experience made me uncomfortable, I can't say that I wasn't a bit grateful at the same time. Things to think about I guess...

After three and a half days of cultural training, we began three half day lessons in Chichewa (most widely spoken native language in Malawi). I had already enrolled in language lessons, so I had a bit of an edge, but the teacher was able to make it challenging for everyone, and it was fun as well. Regan is picking up a bit of the language but not as much as she had hoped - same with me - I had originally been determined to be fluent - now I am not so sure - the language is so complex, and people speak it so quickly, it is hard to pick up! But at least I can say some simple sentences, and get some ideas across, even if it is in a halting, hesitant manner.

The last two days of the orientation were held in Senga Bay - back to the lake, which we LOVE - so we got some water frisbee, sun and sand in...but we were much more careful this time about the length of time in the sun and the amount of sunscreen applied!!!

After using the maximum water time available, it was back on the bus and back to Lilongwe!

Life in Lilongwe

March 5 - 8
So after we returned from our trip to Liwonde and the beach, we returned to our lives here in Lilongwe. It was to be a very short week at work - only 3 days - followed be a week away from work for our cultural orientation (but that's another blog).
We are falling into a bit of a pattern here - I have found an aerobics class to attend on Tuesdays and Thursdays with my friends Melissa and Carmen (who was kindly providing transportation before we bought the car). For my friends at the athletic club, I should let you know that the class is definately effective, but not the luxury class we were used to in Canada! The instructor must have studied aerobics about 20 years ago when it was still good to pulse while stretching cold muscles, and he just loves to do this crazy side kicking thing that is simply NOT natural. All this delivered in a steamy little room with 2 pathetic fans and a concrete floor....but hey, its active and fun and in Lilongwe, so it rocks.
On Wednesday (my Canadian volleyball team will be happy to know) I finally made the effort to go to volleyball night at a little bar called the Shack - it's beach volleyball and I was able to find a team short on players that let me play a drop in game (drawback on volleyball is that it is organized with existing teams only, you can't just join, you have to find a team who will take you). So at least it was a start! I stayed after the game for a few drinks (the convenience of having the bar right there beside the court - jealous?) and went home. When I got home, I discovered we had guests and they were just leaving for the Shack...so...back I went - it was a fun night but I stayed out past midnight and was a little tired the next day at work!
Thursday was a hectic day at work as well - there was a lot of flooding in the southern part of Malawi in mid-January - people were displaced from their homes and crops were washed away. In response, CADECOM is working with CRS and Caritas Malawi to deliver a flood response program to provide food, seed and survival kits to the flood victims, so we were busily trying to finalize the proposal amidst all our other work.
We also started looking for a car, but it is very difficult to really get an idea of what is available, since there are no real car lots – some lots have 10 – 15 vehicles so there is not much selection, especially in the used car arena. There are some boards at a few supermarkets where people (especially ex-pats) post items for sale, and the paper. We wrote down everything from the boards and the paper and ended up looking at a few cars, but we weren’t really able to make any offers or decisions before the weekend, and we knew we would be away the following week, so no action took place on that front!
Friday was our friend Claire’s birthday, so we went out for a nice fancy dinner and then to a nice bar to hang out (Chameleons – not sure if I have mentioned before – tame place, OK for Regan to go to, nice atmosphere).
On Saturday I had to put in some time working on the proposal, knowing I would be away the next week, then we mostly took it easy and had a quiet night in.Sunday we got up and packed for our week of culture, which is a whole other blog…

Liwonde

Heather and Regan in Liwonde:

So our first safari experience in Africa was in Liwonde national park. Liwonde is just short of a four hour mini-bus ride from Lilongwe. We started off bright and early - well at least that was our intention - after talking all my young and lazy friends into a 7:30 start (with much begging and pleading), who do you think was the last to arrive at the mini-bus depot??? Yep, the Arntz-Gray-Quinns, and there was no Quinn influence on our lateness - it was all us. Anyways, after getting over the embarassment and hooking up with everyone, we headed out to find us a good mini-bus - we found a nice clean one, and since there were 8 of us and - thanks to the new minibus rules of only putting 3 to a row - we took up more than half the bus, meaning no stops on the way there. We enjoyed (well mostly) the vendors coming up to our windows selling things - I swear you can just say what you want and someone will run off to find it for you in order to make the sale - anyways, we bought a radio (mainly I couldn't resist the partyish song that was playing on it and had to pay an 100KW for the batteries so we could listen to the radio on the road trip. Then we bumped our way on to the road and were off...
When we got to Liwonde town we were able to find a mini-bus willing to act as a cab and take us up to the lodge we had booked - stopping first at the 'grocery store' (read 2 aisles of NOT MUCH) for supplies (read gin and tonic) on the way. We got to the lodge and were tempted by the $20/person self contained (with a bathroom) rooms, but opted to cheap out for the dorms ($10) instead. Besides, there were these really cool benches carved out in a semi-circle that looked perfect for hanging out in.

We decided only to do 2 activities, since we intend to visit the park again at least twice, so we went for the canoe safari and night drive and skipped the afternoon drive that our friends did. The first day was spent lazing around and recovering from the mini-bus ride...we tried to get people to activate by introducing a frisbee, but ended up throwing the frisbee from bench to bench instead, defeating the purpose.
The next morning, we started out on our canoe safari in true African style...the car broke down, so we had to switch to another car before starting off. Then we drove until the road ended in a puddle. The guides put the canoes in the puddles and we got in.


Cole, Claire, Andrea and Lindsay in the canoe with our guide:




Hippo in the water:















Then they poled the canoes through reeds so thick I honestly thought we weren't going to be able to get through...but we did, and pulled into a clearing where we were lucky enough to immediately find hippos! We could only really see their ears and noses, but it was great - and we did see them go down under the water and come up again as well. There was actually one point where we were quite close and I have to admit to having gotten a bit nervous, but they left us in peace and we made it back to the lodge for lunch.













After dinner, we started out on our night drive - it was surreal driving under the stars in an uncovered truck - best sky we had seen yet in Africa. As we drove, the guide swung a big spotlight back and forth looking for night time animals. We saw impala and waterbuck and a baby crocodile, but the highlight was definately the freaky looking hippos! Out of the water, their large ungainly bodies look completely alien - added to this it is pitch black and the hippo is illuminated by a huge spotlight. They didn't look impressed to see us and most ambled away fairly soon, but we saw tons of them and it was totally amazing.
When we left Liwonde the next morning, our friends went home and the Arntz-Grays headed to the beach. We had decided to try staying at Chipoka, where we had never been. It did occur to me to wonder why Chipoka is not in the Lonely Planet, but regardless, on we charged, visions of discovering a secret beach in our minds. We got off the mini-bus and took our first bike taxi to the Chipoka lakeview lodge. The lodge was depressing and only had single rooms available so there would be no way for us to share. We checked out the beach and after seeing the stand of reeds at one end and the village at the other (perfect bilharzia conditions) we decided to head to more familliar ground and went back to Senga Bay. The lake was brown from churned up sand, but beautifully warm and we enjoying swimming and getting a little sun.
In fact, we enjoyed a bit too much sun and regretted it for the next three days while we pampered our red skin....at least we recovered by the following weekend!

Monday, March 17, 2008

We're Alive...

Since my first triumphant posting from home with our fabulous (read the sarcasm here people) internet connection, it has not worked again. In addition, we were away from Lilongwe all last week for an amazing cultural orientation session so were not even able to access internet on the weekend. I am at the moment squeezing in 10 min of access at a business center while waiting to meet a woman who is selling us her car, so I won't be able to catch you up - and just in case I don't make it to the internet again, I will warn you in advance that you may be in for another dry spell as we are leaving Saturday for our first real vacation here (already??). Anyways, we are joining our friends Claire and Cole on a road trip to Zambia to view Vic falls....very exciting!!! And you read that right above, we are buying a car, thanks to a generous loan from Jules's parents - THANK YOU!!!
Anyways, I will write more detail later - sorry for the teaser, I hope to be on internet Thursday so I can post all the blogs I have written - more updates soon I really really hope!!!!
Hang in there...