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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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