7 quick takes

10 January

7 quick takes

Good morning! The girls are drawing, Hartmut is at work, and I am writing a blog. It’s the first normal Monday after a few abnormal ones. We expected ‘abnormal’ and they were, but not in the way we expected them to be.
As December progressed, we were finally allowing ourselves to be excited about my parents’ upcoming visit. This pandemic robs people from the joy of looking forward to things, as rules can suddenly change, denying you the things you were excited about. But as the day of their planned arrival came closer, the rules stayed the same. And when they got their visas and negative covid tests in time, we felt like there was nothing in the way of having a great time together. But while my parents started their trip, Hartmut started to feel sick. We didn’t think much of it, it was the first day of his holidays, and he always gets sick after a period of hard work. But when he started to develop a fever, we got nervous. Time to do a test! A malaria test. Because that’s what you do in Malawi. It was negative. Next up was the covid test. Unfortunately, that did not give us the results we hoped for. Hartmut was positive, and I cried ugly tears.
We weren’t so nervous about having covid itself, but the timing could not have been worse. Two times earlier my parents had tried to come, but were forced to cancel because of closed borders. Now they were finally on their way and covid managed again to spoil it. The plan was to drive to Lilongwe to fetch them, stay a few days there to climatise and then embark on a nice trip around the country, everything was planned and booked. Instead, we had to send a taxi to fetch my parents from the airport and when they arrived at our house there were no happy hugs but greetings from a distance. Fortunately we lived at a lodge, so they could have a room there, close but far. After two days they left again to do the things I had planned to do together, because we all had started to develop symptoms. One after another, we got pretty sick. In our house, covid was definitely more than ‘a mild flu’.
While we were all sick, we also had to move. Our landlord got evicted because it turns out that, in Malawi, contracts are not always as strong as you would like to believe, and as a result, we had to look for a new place too. Fortunately we had packed and sorted most things before my parents came because moving while being sick is not something I would recommend. The new house is ok. It has some challenges (Like a super leaky roof while we are in the middle of rain season) but the house and the garden are huge and rich with birds. Birds inside the house (there is a chicken sitting on her eggs in the kitchen, and it’s not even our own chicken) and many more outside in the garden. We’ll make the most of it because we won’t live here for too long anyway.
But back to my parents, while we moved and got sick and better again, they explored Malawi. And in the meantime we looked at symptoms, talked with doctor friends, counted symptom free days and looked at the different policies from different countries to see when we could do things with my parents without infecting them. (A positive test for them would be a logistical nightmare). When Hartmut and the girls were better and no longer contagious, my parents came back and together they went for a few days to a beautiful island. I stayed behind to recover, watch too many documentaries and trying to be positive but failing and feeling sorry for myself.
Fortunately I got better too, just in time to join the others for our final destination where we hiked a mountain, played loads of games and celebrated my mom’s birthday. It may not have been the amazing trip together that we had planned, I am grateful for the days we got to be together and for the fact that my parents got to see Malawi and learn why we love it so much and why it has shaped us the way it has.
Time to get things done. It may be the 10^th of the month, it feels like the year only starts today. So time to clean up and unpack some things from the move, sort our laundry situation (there is no laundry machine and call me spoiled, but I do not feel like handwashing all our laundry), help the girls to learn loads and decide what we will eat today. Have a great day and week, stay dry, warm and covid-free.