7 quick takes...

28 October

7 quick takes...

Sophie and Doris with the beach clean up team.

Good morning! Can I first say that it is hot? Then that’s out of the way and I don’t need to talk about it anymore.. because it really is hot and it will be this hot till the rains come, probably early December. Every day we spend time on the beach to cool down because even the cold water from the tap isn’t actually cold anymore. Doris has a good trick for it though… We were walking and she was complaining that it was too hot. I could see that. Her cheeks were red and sweat was dripping down her face. Suddenly she started running as fast as she could and returned with a big smile. ‘I have a solution! If you run fast enough, you feel a bit of wind and it cools you down a little…’ Great Doris, I am glad it works for you. I am not convinced.
Hartmut is in China this week to visit factories and check if the parts that they made for the solar farm are indeed what they were supposed to make before they ship it all to Malawi. It’s a busy but also a very interesting trip. Because of it the girls and I are doing a China theme this week. Today we looked up China in our map book, learned how big it is and why, because of it, it has so many different landscapes and climates. We learned some greetings and tomorrow we will write our own names in Mandarin (thanks to my friend Caro!). We will learn about the Chinese celebrations (which I don’t know anything about yet) and make Chinese food. Did you know I really like homeschooling ;-)
The weekend was good, much better and more social than I thought it would be. Hartmut already left on Friday and when he is not around, it can get a little lonely for me here. I was somewhat dreading the weekend but it turned out that I did not need to. On Saturday the neighbours invited us for drinks and dinner, which was amazing and on Sunday, our friend Cara whom we got to know last year as she stayed as a volunteer at the lodge, came to visit. The girls (and I) love her and it was great fun to have her and her parents around for the afternoon.
37 sleeps until it’s Doris’ birthday. But it may as well be tomorrow if you ask Sophie. Since last week she has been busy with paper, ribbon and tape and when I go to her room I am not allowed to look behind the curtain because there she has hidden a big box with presents that she has made for Doris. She has raided (with permission) the sweets ,- and cookie cupboard and wrapped sweets, she has made drawings, bracelets, princesses and cake out of paper and she has lovingly wrapped up old toys. Sometimes she cannot help herself in her excitement and she takes out a present to give to Doris now, because 37 days is a very long time. Doris herself isn’t all that concerned about her birthday yet but our little miss party-planner makes up for her lack of excitement.
Talking about parties; Sophie’s plastic party last week was a huge success. About twenty kids from the neighbourhood came. There would have been many more but we told them that they could only come if they were invited. If we hadn’t done that, we would have had 100 kids at least, and making popcorn, and staying away from chaos with all of them is a bit hard. The kids came all dressed in their best clothes and listened very patiently to Sophie’s speech about plastic pollution ( I wish I had filmed that) and a story about trash in Lake Malawi. Then we cleaned up the beach and made a fish-shape out of some of the trash and we ended with popcorn. Sophie was very chuffed that she made some new friends and is already planning the next party about deforestation. The day before the party we had already helped with the clean-up of another part of the beach as the local school had organised a big clean up. It was great to be part of that too. I wish that I could say that the village looks a lot cleaner now but I am afraid that it is a never ending battle against the plastic…
‘Hurray, we have electricity! Oh wait, it’s gone again. Aaaand, it’s back!” That’s been the power-situation the past week. I know I have been complaining about it a lot but this past week was an all-time low. Malawi doesn’t have enough electricity for the entire country as it is, but last week the petrol drivers were striking and as a result, there was a huge petrol shortage in the country. It was hard to buy petrol at the pumps and no power could be generated. Most days we had about 4 hours of electricity and that was that. It seems to be better now, although there is no electricity as I am writing this and the puddle of water under my fridge is slowly growing.
Time to go. We all need to cool down before we melt away and by now the beach isn’t so hot anymore that our feet will burn while we try to get to the water. Have a great week!