We think Malawi deserves this title! It is without the 'Big Five' but it is with lovely gentle people, beautiful weather verging on cold at night, lush green landscape, a huge lake with diving and snorkeling and the ever-present craft markets. However, this woodcraft market remains typically African in it's energy and potentially aggressive edge. We stayed for several hours watching these talented guys carve keyrings out of ebony for us. They were really accommodating in allowing the kids to haggle with them, and getting filmed at the same time.
It was so cute seeing Portia get the pot she wanted for herself and her Nana at the price she wanted, and converting the money on her fingers, from HK dollars to Malawian kwachas! Now that was a good alternative lesson. Eden was also very pleased with his purchase of a wicked bow and 6 arrows which he worked hard for!
We are stationed in Lilongwe, Malawi's small capital city – at a shaded camp site called Mabuya. We want to be moving up, but on the bright side it's been delicious to be in one place with hot showers and a proper roof over our head if it rains. We've been able to focus on academic work for 3 or 4 hours daily. From here up, supermarkets dissipate and I guess internet access becomes more spasmodic. We are taking a route up past Lake Tangikya and into Rwanda and then Uganda where we're meeting my mum at the end of February.
Our freezer was not working well. Unfortunately our new freezer that we got checked in at Cape Town, and paid for … got un-checked in at the stop-over in Johannesburg – and we are having difficulties in tracing it and obtaining it since them. SAA have been less than helpful, we're not very pleased. First world prices… But hey, we're in Africa…
Keep in touch! Chat soon, Rosanna
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