It’s now 2013 and I am almost halfway through my gap year.
The weather at the moment is crazy – sometimes as hot as October but with
proper torrential rain to go with it. When I started writing this (which was
the 28th of January – I am an expert procrastinator), I was watching
a movie but couldn’t hear the audio due to the sound of the rain on the roof.
We have to shout over the din just to make ourselves heard. Then today, Louise
and I had to do a lot of walking through Blantyre and were absolutely dripping
– it was so horribly sunny. Would love some snow please.
So I have been back in Blantyre for about a month now. My fortnight
long holiday evolved into three weeks due to visa issues getting back into
Malawi. However, I am here now and glad to be back in my little house again.
It was really great to be able to spend Christmas with my
family and I’m so glad I did. It was much more difficult than I’d imagined to
switch from my minimal living conditions to the opulence of Dubai. I found it
difficult to deal with how much food and water went to waste while I knew how
much people were going without back home. It was a lot to get used to – a
little snapshot of the reverse culture shock we’ve been warned about for when
we return home.
As soon as I got back into Malawi, African life hit me like
a tonne of bricks. On the bus journey home, three guys were caught in the
possession of cannabis through a routine police check. Everyone loved the show
– a huge crowd gathered and lots of people were taking pictures and videos. The
drive back was really lovely otherwise as the start of the rainy season had
caused the scenery to change completely – everything has gone green and there
is maize growing on every available patch of land.
The rain has been so heavy recently that we are often house
bound by it. Last week it was the worst we had ever seen, so much so that we
couldn’t manage to walk to work. We walk alongside a river that very frequently
bursts its banks and trekking through the mud is like trying to cross a swamp. We
felt very Malawian – the locals are defeated by the rain, choosing to take refuge
under buildings and trees rather than walk in it.
Work at TST has been busy, as we have been doing Maths
exercises with the children who aren’t at school. It’s so great to see them
improving and they really seem to enjoy it. They come and demand ‘Masamu’ every
minute – even when we’re eating lunch! I’ve also been doing a lot of first aid
– mostly bandaging up toes and feet as many of the kids don’t have shoes. I am
still astounded by the bravery of these kids as I attempt to reattach toe nails
or bandage up a ridiculously deep cuts – very rarely do they utter a word of
complaint. They even help to cut the bandages to size with their uninjured
limbs. 
I met a Med student from London on the eventful bus ride
from Lilongwe to Blantyre who invited us round for cake last week. (The cake
was amazing, thank you Angela!) There was a strange tree in the back garden
with these massive blah blah fruits that Louise and I had never seen before. We
took one home to try – it smelt really bad but Angela assured us it tasted better
than it smelt. It is, without a doubt, the strangest thing I have ever eaten.
It weighed about 2 kg with a spiny skin and was filled with tens of grape sized seeds. The actual flesh was really tasty, but cutting it up felt like
carving a dead animal. Unfortunately, without a fridge, there was no way Louise
and I could go through 2 kg of fruit, so the ants claimed the rest of it before
we had to throw it out.
I am sorry this has
taken so long to go up – I’ve got lots planned for the rest of the year so I
promise more pictures and news.
TTFN
Notable Events
The other week, were on a routine minibus trip home when we
were stopped by the traffic police. This is quite a normal occurrence and
nothing usually comes of it. However, this time the driver was taken to the
side of the road and, we presume, questioned. The driver did look a bit
suspicious – he had one trouser leg rolled up and the other down, and made no
attempt to rectify the matter. Lou, our fellow travellers and I simply watched
as the policemen walked away with the driver without a backward glance. We followed
the lead of the others by disembarking and then walked back towards the station
to get another bus. It was one of those moments where we had absolutely no idea
what was going on.
Our house and the Nama Simba nursery buildings are
surrounded by a wall and we go in and out via the front gate. It has a padlock
that is never locked. However, one day last week we came home to find it locked
for the first time in 5 months, with our copy of the key inside the house. And
this is why we were forced to climb our own gate to get into our house.
To try to encourage volunteers to explore and get to know
where they are living, Project Trust recommended that we draw a map of the
local area and send it back to Coll. Louise and I decided to make ours out of
our rubbish as nothing goes to waste here. We used bottle tops, plastic bags
and receipts to recreate Baluti. We have also recycled various items around the
house to save money – we have a door stop made out of Fanta bottles, empty
peanut butter tubs holding our cutlery and a shower curtain that PT provided us
with cut up to make a washing line, to store our fruit away from the ants and
as a curtain for the bathroom window.
This month I also received a letter from Freya at home that had been missent to Malaysia! No wonder it took so long to come. Thank you Freya!
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