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7 quick takes...
- Good morning! It’s
a quiet Monday morning in the Jagau residence. The girls are playing, Hartmut
made us a smoothie for breakfast, I have cooked Chinese tomato soup with fresh
pineapple for lunch (a firm favourite here) and now Hartmut and I have both set
up our laptops at the kitchen table. Hartmut is working (and mumbling less than
kind things about the contractor who he has to work with), I have done my work
for the day already (my job is only an hour a day) and now I will start writing
a blog until the girls want my attention. Let’s see how far I get.
- Senga Bay (where
we live) is a village with many houses spread out over a big area. There are
only a few tarred roads but most places (like our house) can only be reached by
sand roads. We had heard about a crocodile farm that was worth a visit and google
maps confirmed that it wasn’t too far. However, the road that google maps
suggested didn’t lead to the destination that it said it would and after
several attempts on different roads we got stuck in a large group of people at
a homestead. The women were cooking and singing while doing so, kids were
running around and the men seemed to be busy organising things. We guessed that
it would be the preparations for either a funeral or a wedding. From the
outside it’s hard to see the difference between those two. We got out of the
car and one of the men rushed to us to help us. When he heard where we wanted
to go he suggested that we left the car there and walked the last bit. He would
bring us to where we needed to be. While we were walking he told us that it was
a wedding and he was the father of the bride. He said that he was very busy so
I thanked him for taking time out of the business to help us. He laughed: ‘It’s
my duty, when someone needs help, you need to give it. Even if you are busy.’
- The croc farm was
interesting. 12.000 crocodiles in all different sizes and ages that are raised for
their meat and their skin. It must be a good business model because the 10.000
chickens that they get to eat each week can’t be cheap! While we were walking
around one of the caretakers asked us if we wanted to see one up close and
jumped into the pen where 1250 baby crocks were chilling in the sun. When he
entered most of them jumped in the water and, to my shock, he stuck his hand in
the water (with hundreds of crocks in it) to pull one out. He tied the mouth
shut and gave it to us. The croc was surprisingly soft and calm in Hartmut’s
hands and we got to observe it from very close. I’m not sure how to feel about
all those crocs eating all those chickens to create more meat and leather but
it was a great school outing ;-)
- Another reason to
drive around this weekend was a small conference that Hartmut has to organise. He
is part of an expert group on an engineering topic so specific that I always
forget what it is exactly about (It has something to do with load on cables in
wind farms) but because we live here he can only be a corresponding member. He
jokingly suggested that the next meeting should be in Malawi and because the
chairman was keen it was quickly decided. So this weekend we drove around to
look for suitable conference venues. Although our village is small, there are
many options. It’s the closest place on the lake if you come from Lilongwe and Malawians
clearly like conferencing on the lake. I think we have found the most suitable
place. It looks beautiful and we will go there for diner sometime this week to
find out if the food is ok. (Never a given here.)
- This morning,
just past six. Doris quietly slips out of our bed and it’s only then that I even
notice that she was there because she is very good in just calmly being. She
goes downstairs. I hear noise in the kitchen and when I come downstairs much
later she has made herself toast, eaten it, cleaned it all up and gotten
dressed for the day. This girl is
something special and I love her!
- Now that we have
more regular electricity, and no guests to entertain like we had in the lodge,
we have more time for series and that’s great! The past weeks we have watched ‘Chernobyl’, a brilliant
mini-series with 5 episodes. It is pretty intense and there is no
happily-ever-after in this story but do yourself a favour and watch it!
- I am going to
give the girls some attention. Lately they have asked lots of questions about
how books are made so today we will do some ‘printing’ with potato stamps and
letter stamps and make a book out of our prints. Will be fun! Have a great
week.
