Car Rally

So the weekend after my last post...

On November 7th, our friends (we refer to them collectively as 'the pilots') had a goodbye braai, since they are leaving Malawi. Since they are an entire house of all boys, I must confess that we actually ate before going as a precautionary measure - what a mistake. Two of the pilots had their parents there and the food was fantastic. Jules and I made the mistake of going out after the braai (which ended at 2am) and went dancing at Synergy. My only comment is...it seemed like a good idea at the time.

At 11am on Saturday we were up and ready for Claire's car rally (organized for our friend Garry's birthday). The idea is that it is sort of a scavenger hunt, but in a car....and Lilongwe offers a lot of interesting challenges...

The highlights:

Regan had to sell bananas with a banana seller

We had to get a photo with each member holding a live chicken

Jules shaved his head for an extra 65 points!

The team in a mini-bus with one team member as the driver (well, she is 16 now!)

(and Jules is yelling 'town, town' and banging on the side of the bus)

The entire team had to switch clothing with each other - Heather and I switched, Terri is wearing Regan's outfit, Jules is wearing Terri's and Regan is wearing Jules's...

Anyways, the whole day was a total riot and in the end, team HAG-Q (the normal AGQ household augmented by Terri Hancock) won! Half the winnings were donated to charity, so we chose to give the money to MacDonald's family (MacDonald worked with WUSC Malawi and passed away in July at 29 leaving behind his wife and two small children).

Later in the evening we returned to Claire's for Garry's birthday party, but the AGQs were so wiped out by the hectic day (and the late night before) that we didn't last long.

Sunday featured lots of relaxation (and work for me) and recovery.

Whoa...

NOTE THIS WAS WRITTEN A FULL ON WEEK AGO AND NOT POSTED DUE TO TECHNICAL ISSUES...

Don't know how almost three weeks has gone by since I last blogged...have been in a work-obsessed fog....may be emerging some time soon depending on how this week goes.



Anyways, back to Oct 23 - Jules's pub night was a great success...we deep fried mars bars, cheese, zuchini, onions, tasty soya pieces and I think a few other things...most of our friends were able to make it and we had a great time.



Our car is still in a non-mobile state...apparently the gear box is totally wrecked and there are no automatic gear boxes in Malawi - we have sources looking in Mozambique and South Africa, but no luck so far! We now have to decide if we should replace the automatic gear box with a standard one but I am worried about it affecting the resale value - any comments on this one? We are mechanical idiots so no idea what we should do about it.



October 30 was a momentous occasion - Regan turned 16! We had a double celebration planned - dinner out on her actual birthday - it was really nice. On November 1, we hosted a party at our place with a DJ and tons of roasted meat (very Malawian). Most of Regan's friends from school were able to make it and the teens had the run of the house and front yard while we hid out in the back with some friends, doing occasional walk-throughs to ensure we provided some level of supervision. I think I can say that it was an unqualified success.



Last week from Monday to Wednesday I was working in Mzuzu doing follow up from my M&E workshop. I was scheduled to do the same thing in Lilongwe on Thursday and Friday, but only made it on Friday. On Thursday I attended my first funeral in Malawi - for my friend and co-worker Chris's dad. He was ill for some time and finally diagnosed with lung cancer. It was sad, but not unexpected. The funeral was in Chris's home village and was an interesting experience.

We were very late in arriving - we were supposed to take a mini-bus but somehow it left without us. Luckily we were able to catch a ride with the Health Secretary who had a meeting first...however we were quite late in leaving. In addition we got totally lost on the way, so arrived at 12:30 when the mass was supposed to start at 10. Being a popular family there were many many people there to pay their respects, so in fact, the mass didn't even start until 1:30 or so. We had some food, then listened to people make speeches and then headed to the church for mass. There were so many people we wouldn't fit in the church so we sat on the ground outside. The mass was all in chichewa, so no details about what was said...sorry! After mass, people accompany the body to the graveyard...my colleagues were in a hurry to get home at that point, so we just left after the mass.



This past weekend was relatively eventful but deserves its own blog...more later