7 quick takes...

1. morning! Hartmut has gone to work, Sophie is still sleeping and Doris is eating her porridge but it is still warm so she is trying to convince me that she needs to add more sugar because sugar in food helps it to cool down.. Creative try Doris, but I'm not buying it.
2. We had a nice Lilongwe weekend. Normally I find Lilongwe pretty stressful because we have to drive from shop to shop to get all our supplies but because we are almost leaving for Namibia we didn't need to do any shopping which was very nice. Instead we enjoyed good food, a sinterklaas party, a visit to the Lilongwe Wildlife centre, a church service and a Christmas party from Hartmut's work. It was fun and festive.
3. Sinterklaas was the theme of the week. First our own celebration at home on Thursday which was small but lovely and then the slightly bigger celebration from the consulate in Lilongwe. It will never be the same as a celebration in the Netherlands where all the kids know exactly what is going on and sing along all the songs because here, many of the kids don't even speak Dutch and it was the parents who needed to sing the songs as most kids don't know them. It was only a small group of maybe 20 kids but I think that every consulate gets a standard pepernoten-allocation because every child could eat them until they were sick and there were still left overs. It was fun to see how the girls responded to seeing the man who they have been talking about for almost a month in real life. Doris was super brave, answered all his questions and all that. Sophie, on the other hand, did not know what to do with herself and didn't even look at him. Oh well, they both had fun and it was also nice to play with some other Dutch kids and for us to meet other Dutch families.
4. Sophie has been superkeen to extend our little farm with a chicken and has been trying to catch the chicks that always walk around our house to convince me that she could keep it. I always said no until this week. For a few days a little chick was limping around our garden because his one leg doesn't seem to work. In our garden are not just our animals but also (wild) cats and rather big monitor lizards who would love to make a meal out of a limping chick. It also seemed like his family had already given up on him because he was always on his own.  And so it happened that we adopted this little chick who would definitely die otherwise. The girls are happy, the chick seems happy and the ducks don't seem to care too much.
5. Here in Malawi, like in most African countries, you never have to get out of your car to put fuel in your car because people do  it for you. And while they're at it, they will have a look under your bonnet to check the oil and water, very convenient. During the weekend we were at the petrol station to fill up and there was an exceptionally friendly guy who did his job with a big smile on his face. He topped up our oil and was super friendly while doing so. However, later turned out that he maybe should have focussed a little less on friendliness and a little more on his job. He must have forgotten to put the lid of the oil tank back because when we arrived home yesterday the bonnet was covered in oil. We then realised that the weird noise that we heard a few kilometers before our house must have been the falling out of the lid onto the road. Hartmut took a motorbike taxi to see if he could still find it on the road side but had no succes. Fortunately there is always, always a solution. A friend pointed him to the 'car breakers' a scrap yard where people dismantle old cars and it didn't take too long before he was home again with a fitting new (old) lid. 
6.  You remember that monkey that they caught in our garden a few months ago? It was done by the people from the Lilongwe Wildlife Centre. They rehabilitated him and released him back into the wild, far from people. We finally got a chance to visit the Centre and it was surprisingly nice. We got a tour and it was  cool to see and learn how and where they take care of the animals. The girls loved the big playground (probably the best playground in Lilongwe) and I am pretty sure that we will be back.
7. Sophie is still sleeping, Doris is still eating porridge (this girl can eat) but the sun is a little higher and the temperature a little warmer. I wanted to cook supper but we have no electricity so I will do all the other things that I need to do first. I hope it's a regular loadshedding because that means that the power will be back in about 3 hours. Have a great week!