The Little Things

Ever since Araceli and I were dating we always had a penchant for wine and cheese.  Not sure why but it was always something which we have enjoyed.

It is something we have enjoyed here a few times also, not many though as it is sometimes difficult to get or the price is too high.

 

Mason installing our new wall to separate shower and kitchen

 

 

Since we have gotten back here things have been quite busy.  We have been running around doing things, meeting with people and driving.  Sometimes we find it is easy to get lost in all of this.
We of course have set out some time for ourselves though.

Last week we headed out to a friends compound and stayed there for 2 days.  While there we got to know a lot about their agriculture program and ended up that their specialist there gave us a bunch of different plants to take back to Kasese and plant.

These were mostly drought resistant plants and plants which can do well in clay soil.
Some of them were vetiver, comfrey and aloe vera.  I will get in trouble though because the specialist gave me a bunch more but I forgot their names.

In deciding how to extend our garden we had a wonderful feature which ran through it.  It was a natural sump in the ground where the water from the entire land collected and ran through.  So we decided to use this as a design feature.

We ended up splitting up the vetiver and planting it along this sump.  Vetiver is great for soaking up water and slowing it down and preventing more erosion.  One of the problems we had though was the ground is all clay.  Just solid clay.

 

Our working garden.  The vetiver on the left

 

So there was lots of digging beforehand and removing the clay and then mixing is organic soil along with river sand to get the right drainage (there is still quite a bit of work to do on that though).

We developed the garden and brought in some stones from the mountain to help balance the plants.  We are still working on that though.

Another thing which Araceli and I have been talking about is re-using our greywater.  Now the problem is that a lot of our greywater has a high salt content so we cannot use it at all for agriculture.  Be we re-routed one of the drains from our sink to be specifically for non-salty greywater and diverted it to a horseshoe bed.

We planted some comfrey and miniature bamboo to act as filters before the greywater reaches the horseshoe which we are growing carrots, tomatoes and jalapenos in.  We will see how it works out, but are quite excited about it.

 

Timeyo and I installing the drainage for the greywater system

And although we are not experts in this, and there is a lot of trial and error things still seem to turn out okay.

Yesterday we spent driving around Lilongwe getting quotations for items and buying things for the project here.  As we were finishing up we had to buy some groceries also.  When we were nearing the end of our journey in the grocery store (Chipiku) we came across some wine which was not too expensive.

So we got it.

And it just so happens that we found a block of cheddar cheese which was expensive but we did not mind that much.

As we returned that evening which was around 6 we decided to do a variation on the cheese and wine and have grilled cheese and wine for dinner.

It was nice to enjoy amongst all of this that small thing which we always celebrated.

 

Where to Begin?

I was thinking of how to start this story as the webpage was opening (about 5 minutes) and I first I wanted to congratulate my friend Molly for getting married last week.

I seem to always be writing that it has been some time since the last time I wrote, and it truly has this time.

On June 1st was Araceli and my 1 year wedding anniversary.  We were contemplating for weeks what we should do for it.  Should we stay in Malawi?  Should we go out?  Well the quickest answer was to go out of Malawi.  But from Africa there are so many places to travel.

We ended up settling on traveling to Mauritius.  Which is a small island off the East coast of Africa.

 

Araceli and me in Mauritius

 

So we were gone for some time doing that and it was a blast being there.  I could probably write a whole book about our experiences there but there is no need for that here.  I will just leave it that we enjoyed ourselves immensely with the oceans and beaches, seafood and sugarcane.

When we returned to Malawi we had a lot of work set out for us.  We are still repairing the buildings which were damaged here and dealing with the unique aspects of Africa.

About 2 weeks ago we had put in an order for 60,000 bricks from a man who made them in the village.  He had no problem with this.

As our schedule was progressing here and we were running short of materials we went on the day we agreed with the man to buy the bricks and to our surprise...he had sold them all to someone else.


Now for a bit I was upset with the man because he had told us he would sell us the bricks.  After some time though I came to terms with it and I realized that if I was a guy, living in the middle of the bush, sometimes not knowing where I was getting food from and I had the opportunity to sell all of my bricks at once, I would do the same thing.

So I forgave him.

 

Some of the masons re-building the duplex

 

So we had a new objective at this point, FIND BRICKS.

That was the only thing on my mind.  So we spent some time driving around in the bush looking and we found a couple guys who were in the middle of making bricks and we made a deal with them.  One of them for 60,000 bricks and the other for 15,000 bricks.

Unfortunately the bricks made in the bush, or rather in all of Malawi, hold no standard to anything in the world.  I can take one and break it in half with my hands.

 

Making bricks in the village (that is a termite mound behind him where they are getting soil from)

In any case they are not the strongest brick in the world.

We welcomed a mission team last week, they came from Fort Worth, Texas and was headed by my friend and priest Father Flynn.

We were actually in transit and met them at the airport and greeted them, but then yesterday we were able to go out to Kalembe at hang out with them there.

Father Flynn is the one who brought me into Africa and got me started here so it was good to see him and spend time with them.

 

One of the many accidents along the road

 

We also visited another NGO last week, Child Legacy International and spent some nights with them there.  They have a lot of interesting things happening at their compound but one in particular is agriculture.  I spent some time talking with the specialist there and she ended up giving me a bunch of different types of plants for different purposes.  So now I have them sitting outside of the house waiting to plant them...hopefully tonight.

Life has been going as normal though, Araceli has been baking away in the kitchen and I cannot complain.

We have finally found a solution to the dust problem in our house....more cleaning.

It was not the one I was hoping for but it has to be done to keep the dirt and dust out of our house.  We usually sweep every morning and evening and then mop twice a week.  Maybe this is equivalent to cleaning in the US, not sure.

Timeyo and I had an interesting morning today.  We went to fix our generator (with tools borrowed from Child Legacy International which was very nice of them) but we had to makeshift some tools.  After about 1 1/2 hours we finally got the generator fixed.  The only problem was the cord you pull to start the engine had broken so we had to replace it, but in order to do that you have to take then whole blasted thing apart.

Trying to figure out the generator

But 1 1/2 hours later and hands covered in grease, we are finished and have a working generator again.

We are looking forward to next month as a mission team is coming here, it will be nice to have people here but it adds the pressure of getting things done here.