The commencement . . . . of . . . . Malawi :)

Week commencing the 28^th Oct (Yes I know miles and miles behind!! But some of it isn’t my fault, some of it is, but SOME of it isn’t!!)

Brief update on us currently . . .

We have finished up in Kabwe.  We are currently now in Livingstone, having a final holiday before we return.  Trying to make the most of being across this part of the world.  We return to NZ on the 17^th Dec.  Our plans from there, only God knows.  We are praying about what direction he wants us to go in, he hasn’t made that clear yet. 

Back to the week commencing 28^th Oct . . .

Partially due to our disappointment of not getting to go up to Lake Tanganyika , we decided to head to Lake Malawi for a holiday J.  Tuesday afternoon we started our journey.  Because of this we went home partway during the day, only to discover road works on the road.  This was fairly normal, and normal to have no warning.  So I just lifted up the tape blocking the access to our road (and the house which was just across the road).  We had done this on many occasions before and even had the road works men do it for us.  But that day apparently was the wrong day to do it.  I had a man run down the road yelling at us.  Telling us we could be sued for the damage to the road (we literally had driven just across it, not even down it).  He was completely unreasonable, we suggested that if they wanted to restrict access to the house maybe they should actually give us warning, as we have a life and need to use the access.  Sigh.  Luckily for the other people that lived there, they saw just in time to take the cars out!   But like I said no warning!

Wednesday was a super long bus ride to Lilongwe, Malawi (12 hrs).  It left an hour and a half late. Sigh.  First toilet stop, 5 hours into the journey!  I think they like to give you bladder training here! We stayed the night at an ‘interesting’ lodge.  When you walked into the room, the bugs ran away from your feet.  The cold water pretty much ran out after Jono’s shower, which wasn’t long, maybe 5 mins.  The fan was broken (unfortunately when it was soo hot), no mosquito net, it was generally pretty worn out. Oh how I wish I’d taken a photo now!  This was a new low on the accommodation front.  I guess the price was reflective of that, costing a whole $15 for the both of us.  First thoughts of Malawi compared to Zambia:  It is incredibley cultivated.  Zambia has minimal cultivation.

Yes the boot is that full, and yes they will drive around like that, wait, maybe they'll try to stuff some more in

The sign on the door at the new low

Thursday was a hit of culture.  We hoped on a bus, it was pretty full.  We couldn’t sit together because there weren’t two seats together. Once we were on board I think there may have been two other spare seats.  But when they were filled that wasn’t enough no, we had to wait for about 17 people to fill the aisle as well.  And then there was the bus itself.  As seems typical in African buses they have 5 seats across.  The bus had seats that were worn/showing stuffing.  But that wasn’t the worst bit.  There was a window missing.  Some of the bottom parts of the seats weren’t properly attached.  And on a couple of seats, they had no backrests.  Africa is redefining my standards of things A LOT!  I would think nothing of a ten hour bus ride in New Zealand now, 4 seats across, toilet stops every 2 hours, no people in the aisle – LUXURY!!! Then there was the ‘drive through’ experience – which I really got into.  Every time the bus would stop, people would come outside the windows selling things, something that resembled island donuts (I loved these – mmm), water, fizzy drinks, lollipops, fruit, biscuits, hot chips – out would go the heads/arms of the people on the bus to make their purchases.  And the best part, most of it was super cheap.  15c for a donut, 50c for a bottle of water – fun times.  The most novel thing I happened to see at the bus stop before we left, a fridge being loaded onto the bus, that’s right a fridge!  We arrived at Monkey Bay unsure of how to get to Cape Maclear.  We got offered a ride, it was quite expensive, but we didn’t really think we had many other options. Our bus ride had cost for the both of us about $15 to go about 5 hours.  Our ‘taxi’ cost double that for a 30 min ride L We were in the cab of a 2 seater ute, which meant I didn’t have a seat.  That made for an uncomfortable ride!  We hadn’t booked accommodation, as we’d decided to just wing it.  We rocked up to a place, and they had room, so that was all good.

I'm not sure the picture really captures the essence of the bus, but I tried

I think there is a good place to leave things

Prayer thanks

-           - For safety while we’ve been travelling and white water rafting

-           - For awesome scenery and animals

-           - For holidays

Prayer requests

-           - For guidance about what to do next year

-          - For continued safety while we travel

Bethesda and OM requests

-          See previous post

-     - One item of prayer thanks - Samuel's burn was healed over before I left.  Yay.  Please continue to pray for his scar healing.  Thank you for your prayers they obviously helped!