This is a structure made which tobacco is hung from to sun dry.
Amidst all of the work and being busy I have decided to take it easy today. Monday we spent going out and surveying bore holes. I think for about 10 hours and when I came back from that I was exhausted beyond belief. I know this for sure because I had a quite vivid dream which only happens when I am super tired.
But I did enjoy it none-the-less. One thing I enjoy doing is when we go out is to play with the children. While the Agrua is talking with the people there I run around with the kids or play a few games with them. I think that if I only focused on the bore holes I would feel incomplete and it makes me happy to put smiles on the kids faces.
So I found a french press yesterday in the storage cupboard and I tried it out this morning and it works fine. There are no coffee grinds in my coffee.
This was on the side of the road where the rains had eroded away the ground. If you look closely you can see shoe and feet marks as people have been using this as a water source
Although to say that 10 days can give you a full perspective of Africa is a lie. It has taken me much longer, up till about last week. And even then I am learning new things. The novelty of the place, culture and people has worn off. It is like what happens after you listen to your favorite song 1,000 times.
Living here through the toughest of seasons (I believe) has revealed a lot of facets of the culture. Both good and bad facets that there are, I am grateful to have experienced these. Although for the bad ones, when they were happening I was not too grateful then.
I learn that to experience something fully, you must subsume yourself into that.
What I am getting at from all of this is that my perspective from when I came last year to my perspective now has changed quite drastically.
We were walking around and came across these guys preparing tobacco to be smoked. They let us go inside one of the kilns. This is a picture on the inside of all the tobacco which is hung and was being smoked. It was hot in there.
We will be doing a medical mission. I think though that the roads are pretty horrible so I am not sure how many rural trips we will do. I know we will run the pharmacy here for a few days. I am anxious to do that because it will be another way in which we can help these people.
Just last week they had at least 5 funerals in one day. It is not the most pleasant life here at the moment. I pray for the suffering everyday.
I have received my Malawian drivers license (well temporary) and will pick up my plastic one next week in the city. This is going to expand my projects a bit and my ability to move, which I am looking forward too.
Fuel is still an interesting situation here. I will not go into too much of the nefarious business but usually the amount that you pay for, is not what you get.....and that is just the way it is.
But it is down to about 700 MWK per litre which is around $10.34 or something like that per gallon.
While Araceli is here it happens to be her birthday. But since she reads this blog as well I cannot divulge any of the plans for her birthday. But it will be a lot of fun.
Here is after Monday's bore holes, we stopped and had some food. This is Guinea Fowl and Nsima and there was a rock somewhere in there which I bit down on
As it turns out also, my visa expires 4 days before I leave and I cannot renew. I have to leave the country before those 4 days or become a temporary resident of Malawi. So I might be coming home sooner than I thought.
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