This post will definitely be on the shorter side, as I just spent a couple of hours uploading pix from my weekend safari with Deliwe, and then my computer started acting strangely, so I wasn't able to finish. I did get most of them up, though, but there are a couple more I'd like to add tomorrow, so stay tuned!
Today was relatively uneventful, except for two things: 1) I had the opportunity to take Deliwe and her family up to a small village to see her aunt who is very sick. She just had surgery for stomach cancer, and is very weak, so Deliwe, her mother, and her aunt wanted to go see her. I was glad to be able to help them out, as the journey would've been very long, had it not been for me. The village they needed to visit was a good 3 miles or so from the main road, and would've required quite a climb up a rough, dirt road. Instead, they got a nice (though a bit bumpy) ride in the my trusty Toyota. Wow, that car's been through a lot already, but it still keeps running smoothly(knock on wood-- just did... luckily my desk is made of wood).
I managed to get them up to the village before driving to my class in Zomba just before lunchtime, and then picked them up afterwards, not long before dusk, just barely beating the sunset. When I arrived to pick them up, I was impressed to see how many family members were there. All of the aunts and uncles on Deliwe's mother's side were there, taking time to visit their brother's wife (which is how Deliwe refers to her, leading me to believe there's a word for this in Chichewa... they don't just say 'aunt' as we do in English) in her time of need. I'm not sure whether they were all concerned that she may not make it, and just wanted to be sure to spend some time with her just in case, or whether they wanted to just cheer her up and try to make her feel better. Perhaps it was a bit of both. I was just glad I could do my small part to help bring the family together at this difficult time, and of course I offered to help with future transportation to the hospital if necessary.
Luckily, Deliwe's uncle has a good teaching job at a private primary school attached to a private hospital-- "CCB"-- I think it stands for 'Christian'-something -something, and was established by a Christian missionary group. Deliwe wasn't sure. Any of my Malawian readers out there want to help me out with that one? All comments welcome! In any case, the place was very nice, and she does have access to medical care there, but if something serious happens, she could need transportation to Zomba Hospital, which is where she had her surgery. According to Deliwe, the surgery was successful, so everyone's hoping for the best.
Whenever there's a 1), there must be a 2). In this case, it was a dreaded rat sighting. Yes, there's a RAT living in my house! I saw it scurry from my bedroom to the spare room, and yes, I screamed like a little girl! Deliwe came into the spare room, and we both looked for it. I figured it was hiding in the closet, and unfortunately I was right... I picked up my luggage that was stored in there, and there it was... big, fat, RAT! AAAHH! I hate them almost as much as cockroaches! I thought I heard something scurrying around in the ceiling a few times, and of course I remembered the droppings we found when I first moved into the house. Deliwe then told me she noticed that one of our potatoes had been moved from the shelf to the top of the woodburning stove in the kitchen. She was wondering how the potato got moved. Ya, this thing is big enough to transport a potato. Or, worse yet, maybe its friends helped it move the potato, and God knows what else. I won't be sleepin much tonight. Wish me luck with that, and Tiwonana mawa! (That is, if I don't become a giant rat victim-- stay tuned...)
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