7 quick takes...

1. The sky starts turning pink and orange about an hour before the first rays of sunshine appear. I know that because I see it almost every morning. We don't have curtains in our house and as a result we get treated with a magical light show every sun rise. Most of the time it means I can turn around once more and sleep a little longer but today the light show meant that I had to get up because we wanted to go to 'signal hill' to answer emails for the lodge, check on our whatsapp and catch up on the news to see if the world outside our internet-free bubble is still in one piece. But before we go we quickly do a malaria test. Doris had a slight fever in the night and threw up in the morning. You can never be too careful with malaria so rather one test too many than letting it go untreated. Fortunately the test was negative and Doris already seems a bit happier again.

2. I see them staring, pointing, whispering. I know what they are talking about, what their question will be. "Matwinzi?" It's the most common question that I have answered here. More than wanting to know my name or where I am from is the desire to find out if Sophie and Doris are twins. To me they do not look one bit alike and it is obvious that Sophie is taller but the people here do not seem to get that. We get surprised looks when we tell that they are 17 months apart and we even get reprimanded. "You 'mzungus' (whites) always come with your ngos to tell us that we must space our children, that we must wait at least 2 years before we even think about the next one but you don't even stick to it yourself." It's true, the practice of 'spacing children' is widely advocated for. More time between kids means less chance for problematic pregnancies, a fairer chance to make it to 2 years for the smallest baby because he or she stays the youngest for longer and less children all together. It's a good practise and we did not stick to it. But if I tell them that we hoped for a small age difference so that the children could be good friends, and add to that that I don't expect to get more children (at least biologically) the people look at me in disbelieve. I see them stare at my abdomen as if they want to discover a secret, undisclosed baby that I am hiding there. "But you only have girls, you need to give your husband a son. How can your husband not have a son..."

3. The rock has soaked up the heat of the day and warms up our bodies. The cool evening breeze strokes our cheeks. Darkness is pulling over the earth like a blanket and stars are appearing.  The moon is only reflecting the tiniest slice of its full size. Her hand searches for mine, with her free hand she points out Orion. I show her the Southern Cross.  When I turn my head and look at her face, the light is dim; just enough to reveal a small tear appearing in the corner of her eye. A happy tear, I think. Sophie has many happy tears. We stare at the Milky Way. Majestically towering over us, tiny people in a place that means nothing to the world. We listen to the thundering sound of the waterfall next to us, the soft noises of waves breaking on the shore, the final song of a bird before he goes to sleep. "Mam, this is so beautiful, I just want to cry". I squeeze her hand and think about the cheesy credit card commercial. Living here comes at a cost, but this moment is priceless.

4. Last weekend we took a boat to Usisya, stayed there for the night and then hiked back to our own lodge over two days. Hiking boots, baby-carrier backpacks, water, my camera and some snacks. Those items made the list to come along, most others did not because they were too big or too heavy. Even spare clothes seemed unnecessary (gross) and we slept in the clothes we were wearing to cut back on the weight. Carrying two toddlers on our backs was enough ballast.  It was a fantastic experience. We hiked through farmland, beaches, villages and mountains and got a great idea of the landscape that is surrounding our house. We spend the night in a village halfway, in the home of a village headman who kindly cleared out half of his house to make space for us, made us an amazing traditional meal and even cleaned the leaves of the beach in front of his house so that we could sit on fresh clean sand. Sophie learned to pound cassava flour (I wish internet was fast enough to post a picture here.) while half the village was watching, Doris sang every song she knows while sitting in my carrier back pack and we lost 5 kilos of liquid each because hiking in the Malawian sun makes you sweat so much that you can swim in it. You understand that we had great fun. So much so that we hope to do a similar, but longer hike a few weeks from now!

5. The girls keep surprising me with their adaptability. They approach all the new things in their lives with eager anticipation and are so open to learn. We knew that we would not come across 'normal' toilets during our hike and I was wondering how the girls would deal with that. The house where we were staying had a 'long drop', a little mud house with an old potato sack as a door and a deep hole in the mud where the occasional cockroach comes crawling out. You stand over the little hole, do what you need to do and that is that. Both girls used it as if they had always done so, no complains, or questions asked. They really are nice little travel companions.

6. The radish and beetroot are doing great, the zucchini is growing well and I saw the first green sprouts of coriander coming up too. The difficulty to get fresh herbs and vegetables made that 'starting a garden' quickly moved to the top of our priority list and our (ok, let's be fair, Hartmut's) hard work is starting to show fruit. He has been making some flowerbeds, is lovingly growing seedlings in egg trays and takes very good care of our veggie babies. My task in our gardening venture is to come up with recipes so that we can put everything that is growing to good use. A task that I thoroughly enjoy.

7. I hope that posting of this blog will go smoothly. It usually does not and tells me that it has failed to publish, but when it then finally publishes it publishes 5 times the same story. The same happens on social media, and I often look like a fool for posting 6 times the same comment. Believe me, it's the internet, not me. Posting pictures on this blog in nearly impossible so I have given up on that. Please check on instagram (@annekejagau) if you want to see some pictures. We are going to go down the hill again. It is labour day today and because it's a holiday, we only have a few staff members today. I am going to bake a cake (I have no working oven but I am becoming a steam cake expert) for them and look after our 4 guests so that they do not have to work so hard. Enjoy your day!