7 quick takes...
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| Somebody really enjoyed Lilongwe! |
- Good morning! It’s one of those typical Monday mornings. After a year at the lodge where the rhythm of the days was mostly directed by the amount of guests and the amount of requests they had, it is actually great to have typical Monday mornings again. To me, Mondays are always my most productive days. The day where I have fresh energy, lots of ambition and a drive to get things done. It’s 7:30, I have already made munch and supper (Chinese tomato soup with pineapple for lunch and lasagne for the evening. Two firm favourite in our house), Hartmut has left for work and won’t come back until tomorrow evening and the girls are crafting up a storm. Now that food is out of the way, I have made myself a cup of tea, got a rusk and won’t get up until this blog is finished. Well, that’s at least the plan. And now that the girls are older and don’t need me as much, it might actually happen.
- The tomatoes are piled up so high that one would think that they would topple over. That hardly ever happens though, because the women who make the towers are skilled architects. Every morning they walk from their communal fields to the side of the road; a big tub of tomatoes balancing on their head. I have been told that it is almost 5 kilometres. Once they arrive they sort the tomatoes; green by green, red by red, and pile them in small and big baskets, arranged by size and price. The tomatoes are cheap and I always buy the biggest bucket with the highest tower. I have no choice really, even if I try to buy a smaller one they won’t let me because they see my mzungu skin and know that I can afford the biggest pile. They are right, but they probably don’t take into account that my family of four doesn’t finish that many tomatoes before they start getting bad. Or maybe they do, because they know that I have to give many away to avoid food wastage. Last week the tower was exceptionally high, it would cost me 3500 kwatcha (4 euro for at least 10 kilo) but I only had 4000 kwatcha and the lady did not have change. So instead of the 500 kwatcha I was supposed to get, she gave me 15 onions. Oh well, it’s Malawi where food is a much stronger currency than money.
- ‘If you want me to draw faster you should not put on this music because it makes me so calm that I just want to listen and not draw anymore.’ I have put on some Mozart and Doris is listening in awe, humming along to the music. Doris-dear, I don’t want you to draw faster if listening to music is really what you want. Doris is our little musician, she always sings, making up the words of her own songs as she goes and I hope that she will never lose the creativity and confidence to do so. At the lodge we didn’t have much music around us simply because it needed electricity and we didn’t have much of that. I love it how much the girls love music and being able to listen to it more is one of the amazing side effects of moving back to a place with electricity.
- The girls and I came back from Lilongwe last Wednesday and I definitely feel that I got to charge my ‘Western’ battery which was great. Quaint cafes with amazing food and lovely gift shops, an open air jazz concert, playgrounds and walking around without being called ‘Mzungu’ all the time was a real treat. People always told me that Lilongwe doesn’t have much going for it and because I did not know the place well, I had to believe them. However, after this visit I have changed my opinion a bit because there are definitely some gems that can make a stay there very pleasant.
- Lilongwe won’t be so pleasant this week and I am glad that I am in our own quiet village. The protests against the president and the electoral process haven’t stopped. The good news is that the border and airport shut down that the protesters planned for this week has been cancelled, but big protests have been announced in every big city in Malawi for Wednesday and possibly longer. Please pray with us that it will be peaceful and that the president will stop calling the protesters ‘unlawful thugs’ but instead listen to what they have to say.
- Eentje voor de Nederlanders. Het platform ‘mamaplaats’ heeft mij gevraagd om bij hen te bloggen over ons leven hier in Malawi. Er zijn op die site vooral heel veel verhalen over zwangerschap, bevallingen en het leven met baby’s. Hoewel de tijd in jaren nog niet zo lang geleden is ben ik nu echt in een ander hoofdstuk van mijn moederschap. Ik weet dus niet of de site wel heel goed bij me past maar ga toch de uitdaging aan omdat het me een leuke kans en motivatie geeft om Nederlandse verhalen te schrijven. Volg deze link (https://www.mamaplaats.nl/blog/we-zijn-allemaal-moeders) om de eerste blogs te lezen die ik daar schreef.
- Blog is done, tea is finished, time to get some work done. The girls are still playing nicely and since I strongly believe in child-led play and letting them play for as long as they find joy and learning in it, I will wait with school until they start to be in each other’s way. It gives me some time do get some of my social media work for Nkwichi done. This week will be a bit different. Friday the girls and I will take the ferry to go to Likoma Island; Malawi’s very own tropical beach Island, where we will stay for a long weekend to celebrate a little friend’s birthday. You don’t have to worry that Hartmut will miss us too much because on Saturday he will be flying to Cape Town for the week. He is there for work but will hopefully get some time to squeeze in some time with friends and time for my Cape Town shopping list (aka ALL the food.)
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| A beach in Senga Bay |
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| Lilongwe had much to offer... |
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| Tomato stall |
