Mar. 19 post (below) is really Mar. 26 post!!

Hey, something weird just happened. I just put up a new post, but the site entered the date I originally started writing it, which was last week (Mar. 19)-- I guess this provides proof for all of my loyal readers that I really tried to post that day, but the connection was lost (I think it was a power-outage that time). In any case, just for clarity, I actually completed the post today, Mar. 26. Some of the items mentioned in the text happened since last week, so I now feel the need to clarify this. Still, no video though... AAARGH!! I'll be sure to alert everyone when I can get it to work... I'm sure it's simple. If you know how to compress a video, please feel free to let me know how in the 'comments' below, and you can even tell me how simple it is and how ridiculous I am for not knowing how to do it. Bring it on, I can take it! ;-)

The Roller Coaster of Life in Malawi continues...

***NOTE: I'm having trouble compressing the video promised in the early part of this posting, but I'm determined to figure this bit of (likely simple) technology out so that I can either upload the thing here or onto a website so that I can provide a link. In any case, it will be up, I promise, before I leave this country, so please keep checkin!!

First of all, I want to apologize profusely to the remaining 2 or so faithful readers for my two-plus week break without posting. As usual, the primary reason is lack of reliable internet here. Ironically, each time I'm about to start writing a new post, I either lose the connection or there is a power outage. Welcome to my life in Malawi! Always a new surprise around the corner.

Luckily, when the internet connection is working here at Domasi, however, it is quite good. I'm counting on that fact right now, as I finally upload my FIRST video onto this site! Finally, below is the video taken back in January that I wanted to share with all of you. I'm not going to tell you exactly what's going on here, as I want you to figure it out for yourself. Then, I want you to ask yourselves (especially those of you from outside of Malawi): What's WRONG with this picture? And then ask, what's RIGHT with this picture? And then, just send me some comments. I'm curious if your initial reaction to the sight depicted in this video is at all similar to mine when I stumbled upon it one afternoon. Once I get a few comments, I'll explain what's happening here a bit further (especially to the non-Malawians out there...).

(VIDEO HERE--when I can figure out how to bloody compress it, that is...)

On a sidenote, I'm very embarrassed to admit that uploading a video onto the blog is REALLY REALLY easy. I just had to click on a 'movie' icon for the new post... my excuse for not realizing this earlier is that I upload pictures outside of my posts using the 'layout' function, rather than uploading them directly into my posts. That's why all the photos appear at the left side. It's also what makes my blog particularly unique, interesting and fabulous, don't you think? ;-)

OK, post your comments NOW! I really wanna see your reactions to this! BTW, more video to come soon (providing this one works), so STAY TUNED!!

So, now that I've finished my fabulous video opening, It's time now to elaborate on the title of this post.

You may recall a posting some time ago which focused on highlights and lowlights of my life here. This one will be somewhat similar, as I will recall the ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ (actually, ‘downs’ and ‘ups’) of the roller-coaster ride I call my life in Malawi. Luckily this time, much like a real roller-coaster ride, for each ‘down,’ there is an immediate ‘up’, hopefully not followed by motion sickness... we shall see…

OK, so here we go. My last posting was March 6, so I’ll try to recall the major events since then...

ROLLIN DOWN I: Chancellor College continues on a stalemate. The last news I heard (about 2 weeks ago) was that the University Council (i.e. ‘government’) were taking 5 of the ‘ringleader’ lecturers to court for violating an injunction ordered against the lecturers’ strike back in Nov. ’07. This was the very court action which forced them to return to work in late Nov. Apparently, by holding the grades, they are currently violating that injunction order; thus, breaking the law. Jail time could result. However, I’ve not been able to find more news on this since two weeks ago. Students have also held a few protests of their own in the major cities here, including a ‘sit in’ outside the council offices, which seems to have had little effect so far.

CREEPIN BACK UP I: On the upside, the impasse at Chanco has allowed me to focus my energies on my teaching at Domasi College, as well as the Village to Village Reading room project (more on that later). I’ve come to realize that had I been teaching at both places this term, I would likely have been quite overwhelmed, considering the fact that I’ve got 95 students in my class at Domasi. This is a record number for me in my teaching career thus far. Let’s just say the marking (grading) alone keeps me off the streets most of the time.

ROLLIN DOWN II: ESCOM!! The dreaded electric company saga continues. This time, I had to bring two gentlemen from Domasi College into the office to help me argue. Let’s just say my ‘Ugly Mzungu American’ line of questioning/ argument was getting me nowhere with these people. Though the 3 of us attempted to meet the ‘guy in charge’ on Friday, Mar. 14, of course we hit the office right at lunch hour, from which he never returned. So, we arranged a meeting for Mon., Mar. 17th… Erin Go Bragh!

CREEPIN BACK UP II: We indeed met on Mar. 17th, and there was a bit of power in our numbers. Just having two relatively calm Malawian men with me to back up my claim of the bogus MK5,800 charge on my bill, seemed to produce some sort of result with the man behind the desk. Let’s just say it’s now ‘under investigation,’ with me vehemently suggesting that ESCOM absorb the costs for irregular billing of its customers (ya, they claimed that my exhorbitant reading back in Sept. ’07 right after I arrived was the result of ‘underbilling’ a previous customer…). Now, he’s investigating who was underbilled, and how long ago, and then if we can locate this person the bill might get paid. Hmmm… I think we’re breakin them down slowly… this reasoning cannot hold up… but then again, this is the powerful power-producing- and hoarding electric company. I have a love/hate relationship with bein the underdog. I think we’re gonna win this one… We shall see… Hopefully the ‘luck o’ the Irish’ was with us…

ROLLIN DOWN III: My friend David discovered he will not be able to buy my car after all, due to the RIDICULOUSLY INFLATED duty tax! It’s MK500,000 (about $3500 USD). This is about ¾ of the price I paid for the car. Looks like I have to find another buyer, likely a foreigner who doesn’t have to pay duty.

CREEPIN BACK UP III: No upside yet, though I have talked with a couple of Mzungus who might be in the market soon. I’ve also got the car advertised in a newsletter in Lilongwe, set up by the Public Affairs people who are my contacts. No bites yet. Still creepin slowly…

ROLLIN DOWN IV: We had some trouble moving forward with the Village to Village Orphanage Reading Room project, due to the carpenter getting sick, and taking a much longer time to complete it than we’d planned. In addition, the painting phase was the opposite—a bit rushed for my taste, and I didn’t get to oversee as much of that phase as I’d hoped.

CREEPIN BACK UP IV: Upon starting the ‘book-stocking’ phase of the project, I’m having much better luck, as well as a lot of fun and renewed excitement for the project. Not only have I taken a couple of very successful trips into Blantyre to look at and order kids’ books—1st with Deliwe and her younger brother Movuto 2 weeks ago, then with Deliwe last week—but I’ve also solicited the help of a few friends back home via a spam e-mail asking for book donations. The most fruitful response came from my Godfather’s daughter-in-law Kimberly Gonder, who is a 7th-grade Geography teacher at Pine Ridge Middle School in Naples, FL. As luck would have it, her classes are currently studying a unit on Africa, so she managed to get her students to organize a school-wide book drive. My last e-mail from her put the book-count into the hundreds! Yahoo! Not only that, but several students at her school are getting involved in a pen-pal program with secondary school students in Mzuzu (in the northern region of Malawi) as the result of a request by one of my ‘distance-learner’ student teachers from last November. These two developments are the most exciting for me since I came to Malawi. I love the idea of getting kids back home involved with my project here, as well as communicating with Malawian kids. I’ve gotten all teary-eyed a few times while reading Kim’s e-mails! Thanks so much to Kim, her colleagues, and the students at Pine Ridge! You guys ROCK!!

ROLLIN DOWN V: I actually had an experience this past week which was a first for me. One of my students passed away due to liver failure. He was in his late 30s, and also a student at Domasi Demonstration Primary School. Needless to say, there is no upside to that one.

ROLLIN DOWN VI: I had to postpone a trip up north over the long Easter holiday weekend (they get Friday AND Monday off here, like the Brits) due to a change in the graduation schedule at DCE for the students who finished in Sept. ’07 (Ya, here they have to wait for exam results to come out months later before they hold the ceremony). It was originally set for Mar. 29, but was moved back to Mar. 22 due to the busy schedule of a certain VIP graduation speaker.

CREEPIN BACK UP VI: The graduation speaker at DCE was the President of Malawi, Bingu wa Mutharika. So, for the first time in my life I got to see a Head of State in person, in the flesh, speaking live. Too bad they seated us on the stage behind him, so I mostly saw the back of his head (which, of course, made me wonder if they’d ever do this in the U.S. due to the obvious security risks… no friskin upon entry, btw, just in case you were wonderin…)

ROLLIN DOWN VII: Internet service is still spotty and unreliable. When it works, it generally only works for awhile, and then goes out. If the internet doesn’t go out, the lights do. Which reminds me—we’ve had a few more blackouts in the last couple of weeks as well… ESCOM IS EVIL ESCOM IS EVIL ESCOM IS EVIL!!!!

CREEPIN BACK UP VII: I was on the internet for a record 3+ hours Monday evening, though I didn’t get a posting up, since the video uploading was taking too long… (that was a bit of a downslide—I’m actually writing this posting at home—again—it’s becoming a trend now.)… In any case, I’m taking it as an omen that the service will be better this week. We shall see…

CREEPIN BACK UP VIII: After several weeks of REALLY HOT weather since I arrived back in January, we finally had a MAJOR cool-down last week! Ah, I thought it'd NEVER come, but it did-- finally. It was funny how I was so energized in my classes, while many of my students were shivering under sweaters and down ski jackets... Ya, I'm not kiddin, and it was probably in the low 60s on the Fahrenheit scale (about 17 degrees Celsius). The students (as usual) thought I was nuts, wearing short sleeves, a skirt, and sandals (my usual daily attire here). They were also annoyed by my energized, giddy, happy attitude. Funny how perceptions of and reactions to weather/temperature are so subjective. Since last week, the weather has continued to be relatively cool, especially at night. YAAAHOOOOO!!!

ONE LAST CREEP UP: I bought a bike last week, and finally had a chance to ride it today!! Good times… I’d forgotten how much ridin’ improves my mood… ironically, I bike a lot in the U.S., where most people drive everywhere. However, now that I’m living in a country where many people ride bikes just to get around, I never get to ride one myself. Now, I’m hopin to ride around more often, while providing more ‘crazy mzungu’ stares/stories for the local Domasi people. After all, that’s part of my job here, isn’t it?

With that, ending on a 'high roll,' I’ll sign off for now. Tiwonana soon!! (Internet-God-and-ESCOM-Devil-willing, that is… ;-)

Internet (and Chanco) woes continued…

***NOTE*** I know I've promised pix of the latest trip to Liwonde Nat. park, but due to continued lack of internet, I'm unable to upload them at this time. Hopefully by Sunday, they should be there for all to view, along with a few taken since that trip 2 weeks ago ;-)***

AAAARRRGGGHHH! I know it’s been over a week since my last posting! I’m actually writing this one from home on a Microsoft Word document on Wed. evening, hoping that I’ll have a better chance of getting a posting up by week’s end if I just write it ahead of time, since when I do get internet (either at Domasi or at Chanco), it seems to be limited—on again, off again, so to speak. My friend Jeff who is an ex-colleague from my days teaching at Samsung Human Resources Center in South Korea a couple of years ago recently joked during an online chat that the internet here might consist of hollowed out coconuts attached to strings. I know, this is not a very politically-correct joke, but I’m thinking of trying that method soon. Jeff, I’m not sure whether you’re still reading this blog, but take this as a warning that you’ll be the first one I call when I get that system up ‘n runnin’—Take heed, my friend…I’ve got a neighbor from Japan who’s a Computer Engineer… I wonder what he knows about coconuts? Maybe he’s got some ideas. I’ll keep ya posted…

So, since my last posting, I do have a couple of updates, and then I’ll give a few details of our trip to Liwonde National Park a couple of weekends ago (as promised over a week ago). For that one, you’ll find that the pictures say much more than my rambling notes on this page, but I’ll try to do it all justice, as always…

I’m sure many of the loyal, faithful, ever-devoted Malawi ‘n Me blog readers are dying to hear the latest news of the rumored lecturer’s strike at Chanco. Well, unfortunately, it is no longer a rumor. It is real. They went on strike officially last week when the University Council (i.e. ‘the government’ which funds and essentially ‘runs’ the college to an extent) would not negotiate the 200 % pay hike. Nevertheless, the council was forced to unfreeze (‘thaw-out??’) the frozen bank accts. due to a court injunction filed by the union lawyers. According to the local papers, that release of accounts took place on Monday afternoon of last week. So, upon phoning my dept. head at Chanco late last week, I was told officially that the strike is on. I’ve been on campus twice this week (the 1st time was Monday, a public holiday), and the 2nd time was yesterday, trying to get online—but that time I was interrupted by a storm-induced power outage. Both times, the place was like a ghost-town, though on Monday it sounded like the first-years were having some sort of a party, complete with a DJ blaring out hip-hop and Malawian pop music. Thus, it appears they’re not too shaken up by the never-ending extended holiday.

So, what happens now? It depends on who you talk to. I saw two lecturers from Chanco yesterday, both off-campus, and from different depts. (not my own). The first one I saw outside the bank in the afternoon. She told me, “I think it will be resolved soon. But, even if it is, it’s likely to be at least 3 weeks before classes will begin, since several bodies have to meet to discuss the grade results.” This is another aspect of the Malawi educational system I’m still trying to wrap my little American brain around. There are several meetings that happen after grades are assessed. The first one is at the department level. The next one is at the ‘faculty’ level, meaning Humanities faculty, Science faculty, etc. After that, there is some sort of inter-disciplinary meeting (not sure who goes to that one), and then there’s some sort of administrative meeting, and then a Faculty Senate meeting.

Now, all those Malawians out there, please take what I’m about to say with a ‘grain of salt’ because I come from a very different system. However, I must say I do not understand the point of all these meetings. Even the departmental one we had in Jan. seemed to me unnecessary, as it implies a need to ‘double-check’ grades to make sure they are ‘consistent and fair.’ However, I come from a place where grading/assessment is up to the discretion of the professor/lecturer who should be scholarly and professional enough to assess his/her own grades based on his/her course criteria and expectations. For me, it was a bit of a shock, and somewhat demeaning to have others look at my grades and make comments. We also did that with the exams, with everyone checking each other’s exams to make sure they were o.k., despite the fact that we did not teach the same courses (a process I start again tomorrow at Domasi.) Again, I’m not sure exactly why, except that there seems to be a perceived need to have some checks and balances on how lecturers assess their students. However, for me, the question still begs: If my colleagues have some issue with a grade or two on my roster, should I then change it simply because they say so? Is this ethical? What happens if the student finds out such a change was made, after he/she was assessed for the course, based on my criteria of what constitutes the score? It all seems very odd to me, and I just wanted to point that out. Again, take it with a grain. I’m an outsider, and still learning. Plus, I just bloody hate meetings, of any kind. So, any excuse to NOT have a meeting is heaven in my book, and any excuse to HAVE a meeting, and then another one, and another one, and another one… that’s just bloody hell. Big grain, big grain… For me, deep breaths, happy place, puppies ‘n kitties…

So, I guess they need to have this series of meetings about the grades, and then give some time for the upper-classmen (2nd, 3rd, and 4th years) to return to campus. Altogether, it takes a good 3 weeks to a month. We’re now at the end of the 1st week of March. This means at earliest, the campus will open again, teaching and all, during the final week of March, or, more likely, the first week of April. I’m not sure whether they celebrate April Fool’s day here, but I’ll keep my guard up if the announced start date is April 1. BTW, I’m set to leave the country on June 1, so I likely won’t be able to finish out the term regardless of what happens. BTW, the 2nd lecturer I ran into yesterday evening said she thought the term will never start. This week went by and no official word yet. I’ll keep you posted.

In other news, Deliwe and I took a nice hike up Zomba Mtn. on Saturday, and I finally got to see the famous “Queen’s View” and “Emperor’s View” of the Zomba Plateau. I’ll save my descriptions of that trip for the next posting, as well as the pix. Let’s just say it was a really nice day, and we had a great time, lots of exercise, topped off by fabulous food and too much coffee (on my part). I forgot they often serve a WHOLE pot of coffee here, and since I hardly drink the stuff anymore (only after-dinner treat at fancy restaurants), I literally could not sleep Saturday night. I was wide awake at 4 a.m., and really hungry for some reason, so Penga and I had some quality time in the kitchen at her usual wake-up time. Of course, I heard a few passers-by at some point as well… ya, I was truly on Malawi-time that morning. The freaky ‘caffeine high’ after-effects actually lasted most of the day, as my friend David can attest.

On Sunday, I went to visit my friend David and his family (wife Zion and little daughter) in Blantyre. They of course fed me nicely, and we watched their wedding video and also looked at the wedding pictures. Since I haven’t yet had the opportunity to attend a wedding here, it was good to see how it all works. I did find out that if I do attend a wedding here, I need to bring a lot of small bills, as there is a custom of dancing while throwing money onto a platter for the couple. I think they played about 20 songs, and people kept coming up and throwing more money onto the platter! It was like Heaven! --Well, my materialistic idea of Heaven if you needed money there… I like this custom. I think I’d better get married soon and try it for myself. I wonder if people back home would go for that. Gotta get some richer friends, and then get married. Could take awhile-- I’ll keep you posted…

So, other than that, not too much to tell. I am having a major issue with my electric bill (which I’ve only paid part of), but I’ll save that story for another time. It’s a long one. Basically boils down to the fact that I inherited someone else’s bill (the woman who moved out of here a year ago—April 2007) since she never had a final meter reading taken and failed to close out her bill. Then, another woman lived there for 3 months, and never received a bill, though it appears they read her meter. In any case, after much investigation, visiting 2 offices in Zomba several times and one in Blantyre, speaking with a total of 5 different people at different times on the matter, as well as waiting for over a month for an itemized statement, I was finally told this was the reason that my bill was so high. Yesterday, I finally paid for the part I think I really owe. Not sure if they’ll cut me off anyway. May need to develop the coconut string thing very soon. I’ll keep you posted…

And finally, the news you’ve been waiting for! Our trip to Liwonde National Park 2 weekends ago! Well, as you know, we’ve been there before. I chronicled our journey to the park back in October ’07 in great detail, so this one will be a bit less lengthy (well, just a bit—you know me). The major difference with this trip is that we stayed inside the park, in a campsite called Chinguni Hills. I was really looking forward to this, as I haven’t ‘camped out’ in quite a while, and it’s one of my favorite things to do. We only did a one-night overnight (Sat.-Sun.) since Deliwe is in school on Friday afternoons. In the end, that was just fine, as one night was more than enough, at least for the weekend we had chosen, probably the busiest weekend the place has ever seen. More on that in a moment.

I felt a little jinxed, actually, because I’d chosen that particular weekend for our trip on purpose, as I knew the following weekend was a holiday weekend, so might be a bit busy for traveling. With this in mind, and my need to really ‘get away,’ I thought I’d laid out a great plan. Well, you know what they say about ‘the best laid plans of mice and men…” Ya. The place was packed. Not only packed, but packed with kids. No, not little rugrat kinda kids… the worst kind. Teenagers. But not just teenagers. Rich, spoiled brat British teenagers who thought they owned the bloody world, much less bloody Malawi, and the little Bloody Liwonde National Park… (Incidentally, have you noticed my fondness for the term ‘bloody’? the best curseword ever made, and ya, it’s British… I don’t hate all British things… love most of them, except for those bloody British blue-blood boring little brats)

Oh, but I could go on and on… and I have! Those kids took over the entire campsite… all the good ‘hangin out’ chairs with the great views of the river, the porch area outside the lodge, everything. We couldn’t escape them. It got even worse after dark, when they stayed up drinking ALL NIGHT, continued their loud ridiculous conversations until bloody 2 a.m. (if my calculations are correct), capped off by a bloody hysterical girl freaking out over a big spider or something (yes, I can relate, but luckily I was at home at the time...) Incidentally, I did find out later from one of the less annoying boys in the group (the boys in general were less annoying, actually) that all of them are ‘volunteers’ who just finished their secondary school (hence yes, about 17 years old) and are teaching in primary schools around Malawi for 3 months and then traveling around southern Africa for a month. I’m not sure how this could possibly work, as these kids admitted having no background or teacher-training. Teaching standards continue to be an issue in the Malawi public education system, which is something we are working on in our own education programs at Domasi College, which I’m proud to say are lauded as the best in the country. This type of ‘volunteer group’ is one symptom of the larger disease here; though I can’t be certain whether these kids are adding to the problem, my instinct tells me quite frankly, YES, bloody likely.

So, enough about them. That was the bad news. But, there was some good news, too. On Saturday evening, Deliwe and I decided to do our own ‘sunset drive’ around the park to see some wildlife. We had checked into doing a ‘sunset safari’ in one of the park jeeps, but that was quite expensive, and we figured the car would be just fine. However, we did run into a few rough patches on the road (filled with water, since we’re still in the rainy season), but the trusty Toyota made it through some nasty stuff as usual, despite my newly-acquired tendency to increasingly try my luck on insanely pot-holed, boulder-ridden Malawi dirt roads. In the end, we only spotted a few waterbuck, bushbuck, and impala, but found out later we’d passed up a group of elephants since we couldn’t see over the tall grass. Oh, so THAT’S why people pay 20 bucks a head to ride in the jeep. Hmmm….

After we returned from our little Toyota safari, car and bodies intact against all odds (though, ironically, I did bump into a stone wall while parking and knocked the back right hubcap off—no real damage done), we discovered that almost all of our teenage friends had gone on that sunset safari (we passed them on the road, actually, and I turned to Deliwe and said… we gotta hurry back before the bar closes and grab those chairs with the view!). Sure enough, the chairs were there, empty, with a bunch of the stuff people left behind (empty bottles, blankets, binoculars—gifts, perhaps?). Perhaps they were staking their claim, but we invaded anyway. The only bad news was that the bar seemed to be closed. AARGH! We’d seen the barman walking along the road. Hopefully, he was coming back. After waiting a few mins., we saw him at the campsite, working up an open fire for the braii dinner to come later. AH! Our luck seemed to be changing after all. Soon we had cold beers in our hands, and were enjoying the sunset in peace and quiet.

After a few minutes enjoying our beers and the sunset, a young, friendly Scottish couple came by, whom I remembered seeing during lunch (which was traumatic, filled with the snotty kids pushing their way around… long story, I’ll leave it at that). In any case, I remembered that these two were also very quiet, and seemingly as disturbed by the loud horde of whiney teenage girls trying to impress their male counterparts, or each other, or something… In any case, they were extremely friendly, interesting, and just the kind of people I was hoping to run into during this stay. Their names were Kirsty and Graem. She’s a doctor, and he works for the British foreign service as a consultant, currently working on policy in Iraq. Very interesting stuff, but of course he couldn’t share too much with a loud, opinionated American like me. Still, we had a great conversation which continued to dinner, and on into a little canoe safari the next day. In addition, while in line for the braii dinner later that evening, I managed to chat with another couple from the Netherlands, also not with the British horde (and equally unamused by their presence), who also turned out to be very interesting and friendly, and whom we talked with more the next day at breakfast and during the canoe safari as well. As it turned out, the Dutch group included 2 medical students working at a private hospital called St. Luke’s in Malosa, just 10 minutes’ drive north of Domasi. Unfortunately, that’s the place where Deliwe’s aunt passed away last November, so I know it well. I’ve been there a couple of times since, but luckily under better circumstances. In any case, that was quite the coincidence. One of the guys was leaving soon, and his girlfriend was traveling around Malawi with him before he leaves the country, but the other one will be here for another 6 weeks, so hopefully we can get together again soon. I actually gave them a ride back to Malosa after the canoe safari the following day.

So, the next morning, we got up early (despite loud teenagers all night), had breakfast, and headed out to our canoe safari. The pix at left really say it all. It was about 2 hours long, but we only saw a few hippos in the first few minutes after emerging from the tall grass. We had to remain calm, but Graem admitted to me later that he was very nervous about the hippos. I was, too, as they seemed rather close to the canoe, and I now know that they are the most dangerous animal in the park, and possibly in Africa. Of course, we’d just finished listening to the guide telling us about how people had been attacked by hippos in the park, in a canoe. When I asked whether the people were on one of these canoe safaris, the guide was silent. ‘Nuff said. I remember Graem saying something like, “But aren’t they herbivores?” to which the guide said, “Yes, but they can still kill.” (if I remember his words correctly). Yikes. I was actually happy that we didn’t see anymore after that.

Of course, the other main attraction during the canoe safaris is crocodiles. Luckily, we didn’t see any of them. Why are people going out in canoes to see animals that have been known to attack people in canoes? It’s a good question. Ya, when I was out there in the middle of the water, I felt like a complete idiot. When I realized nothing dangerous seemed to be in the water, I relaxed and enjoyed the scenery. Take note: I think that’ll be my last time riding in a canoe in Africa…. I’ll keep you posted.

So, in the end, we survived the journey, saw a few animals (but no Elephants this time!! WHHAAAAA!!), and made a few new friends. I even ran into Kirsty and Graem the following Monday while running errands in Zomba, and made arrangements to meet them up on Zomba mountain the following evening for a meal and some drinks at my favorite restaurant, Ku Chawe Inn. We had a really nice chat. Too bad they were only visiting, so left this past weekend. Perhaps we’ll meet up someday in the Highlands of Scotland. I’ve got roots (or maybe branches) there, or so I’m told… I’ll keep you posted.

That’s it for now. Tiwonana… someday soon, I hope, internet-willing!! I’ll work on that coconut-string-network thing and get back to ya!