Christmas 1

A few Santa moments from Christmas #1 at the LaMonte family household!

Josh with his African truck
Brett clearly very excited about his Avatar game
Christian smiling about his game cube thingy that is far beyond my knowledge of "what the kids are doing these days."

gratuitous plane pix

they never turn out nearly as cool as the actual vista

malawi
zambia

zimbabwe

jomwa

my favorite artist and some of his works

home!

i need some ruby slippers to tap...

my last few days in malawi were crazy busy, but definitely fun. i had good dinners, good times with friends and colleagues and actually managed to squeeze some work into the mix. i left friday for johannesburg with 3 others. one new friend, Jim, invited me to his house to dinner. let me just say, he and his partner have the most awesome little abode in a very ecclectic and artsy part of the city - they made a fantastic dinner and we drank faboo south african wine into the night!

oh, and by the way, i just thought others should know that bleeping post-apartheid South Africa is more liberal and socially accepting than the US. here are some other pictures from around!
my closest colleagues Edward and Andrewour home health workers
everything is bigger in africajim & henrick's awesome pad

oddities

malawi is definitely one of the world's poorest nations, so there are many simple activities that must be carried out in rather difficult ways. there are the gravel makers sitting on the side of the side of the road pounding rocks with other rocks, the men riding bicycles carrying a load that we would put on a truck, and of course women carrying babies on their backs, bags in their hands and enormous loads on their heads. with as sad as some of realities are, some are also not without their element of humor...

the mouse trap
egg salesman
lumber transport
down a mountain

haggis?

it's been a few days since i've done any posting, but not because i haven't had anything to share. quite the opposite! we got our third study site kicked off on friday (photos to come), i went for a drive with my colleagues out to see the tea estates, and then attended a scottish celebration of St. Andrew! let me tell you, haggis is not your friend. i did my best to smile and say 'not bad', but whoa. man, does that stuff leave a taste with you! i should email Steve. fortunately, to make up for the mandatory tasting of haggis, each table was supplied with a bottle of fine Scottish whiskey. woohoo! the photos below are the best i could do to document the ever-challengingly fast pace of traditional scottish dancing and bagpipe playing.




by the way, here is what happens when you leave your camera on the table to go do some said traditional scottish dancing:

malawian turkey!

I am happy to report that I actually had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with a group of Americans. I went to the home of a couple who live here, and every year they invite only Americans to their house for some traditional turkey, mashed po, sweet po, stuffin, gravy and pumpkin pie! It was great! We sat around and yammered about how much it rocks to be able to have nannies and never do your own dishes. Ahhhh the life of an expat. Sorry no photos.

what does a squashed chamelion in the road look like you ask?
you just don't see that every day

bats bats bats and more bats

whoo! had dinner at a friend's house in an area where the bats congregate after leaving their cave. i tried to take some pictures and video in hopes that they would come out - there are just a couple of difficulties with trying to take photos of bats flying around your head at dusk.

bat video

win some lose some

wow. apparently “saving as draft” doesn't help you keep your text. so, let me see if i can remember what i wrote a few minutes ago. right. something about trying to take the good with the bad. good things that have happened this trip: got luggage back (does that count?), hiking in the mountains, seeing friends i've made during my trips, really good food. bad things: keep losing what I’m writing in this blog, no luggage for entire first week, laptop crashed completely and won't even turn on now after I had actually gotten a fair amount accomplished over the weekend (am in business center). How am I doing?

Anyway, I really did have a fantastic weekend. We’ll just pretend that today didn’t really happen. Yesterday, my colleague, Yolanda, and I drove out to Zomba Plateau to do some hiking. After a bit white-knuckle mountain driving, we made it to the top. Our guide, Whiskey (no lie), marched us up to the top at a pace my lungs could barely manage…uh, it’s the thin air, definitely not that I never work out. So the pictures of the adventure are below.

sigh

wanted to post something today, but am too bugged that blogspot has lost my text twice now.

had a good day.

here are some pictures of previous trips.

october

going to bed now.

october trip

days without luggage: 5

since i never posted anything about the trip in october, i thought i'd do a bit of catching up. also, since my camera cable is in my luggage, i can't exactly show you anything about this trip.

i came to malawi in may to set things up (just my portion - very large team effort here), then again in october to be here for the actual study start. so below are some photos from that trip. the first one is a photo of our first study participant! the mom was happy to let us take her picture (we gave her copies - it's the little things you take for granted, like a mother having a photo of herself with her child) and the baby didn't even mind the vaccine very much (oral vaccine with a bit of sweetener to make it taste better). also, to be fair, our second mom arrived at the same time, so below are actually the pictures of the co-first moms to sign up.

a little later in the day, we had a drama group perform the community awareness play for the chiefs of the area. these are skits that will help raise awareness about the study and hopefully reduce resistance. as a courtesy, we show the chiefs first to get their approval. there also ladies who come to perform traditional songs and dances. though i didn't get photos of the formal event, the ladies came back over to the clinic and did some more dancing for us - so cool!!!

a brief vent: the flight to DC was about 2 hours delayed. since we ended up arriving in DC 10 minutes before the connecting flight to Johannesburg left, eight new friends and i sprinted down the terminal hoping to catch our flight. so, even though the baggage guys had trucks at their disposal to make the same trek, they did not manage to make it.

so, i made it, and now I have some new duds and toothbrush. i have been told that my baggage should arrive tomorrow afternoon. this is great news since i will be recycling as of Thursday.

lazy sunday

wake up in the late afternoon -

So, Park is watching football, and I'm watching my crappy fantasy team lose yet another week. What better time to catch up on some much overdue blogging.

I went to Malawi last month, and was very slack about my blog. After many complaints and objections regarding my slack, I'm finally back. I leave again in about a week, so I'll try to be better this time. I'll do some posting this week to tell stories from the last trip and to motivate myself to stay wired this next time.

All of the pix are on my work computer, so I think I'll first start with the interesting observation that the DAY I arrived was the same day that Madonna arrived to adopt a child. After a bit of confusion as to which Madonna was adopting the child, the father and most of Malawi were thrilled for the boy. Read article "Madonna Puts Malawi on the Map" That of course didn't stop the US media from making a complete mockery of the process. In the end Madge and boy were happily united without me ever getting to see her.

more to come, but future blogs will actually cover things that actually involve me......

leo, back by popular demand

at least we're pretty sure he's not a "leona"

why i like working in malawi

has anyone seen my usual office?

so this fella is Bagrey...a total blast to have around the office.





the office area is actually shared with a rehab center - this has been nice for inspiration, but rather sad when they're having a funeral.


we also have picked out a nice lunch spot under the papaya tree!





we also have andrew and chibwana on the team (along with about 120 additional staff members)

Carter Philip (the 1st)

He's here!!! At last, the much anticipated arrival of our BEAUTIFUL nephew!! Papa is Park's brother Thomas and mama is Elizabeth. Carter arrived in the morning on May 23rd, at a reported 7bs. 1oz, 21 inches.

Congratulations! Park called me last night and I got all the details on the new and very ecstatic grandparents. Carter takes his first name from Thomas' dad (rumor has it that granddad was moved to tears), and I'm assuming his middle name is coming from Elizabeth's family.

All of our love to Carter and his very proud mom and dad!
Love,
ash

PS. Who won the pool? I had my money on the 30th, so it definitely wasn't me!

much to learn, young grasshopper

apparently, they have a season and I just happen to be lucky enough to have caught the peak.....the picture here does not even come close to showing their numbers. oh, and not to mention THEY ARE HUGE!!! the good news is that the weather is too cold for them now, so they are gone. woo hoo! i was able to sit in my room with the windows open and enjoy the breeze - 3rd floor is too high for the malaria mosquitos, and the bats are more focused on the bugs on the street lights now that the grasshoppers are gone :) wish you were here!!!!



another funny pic from the hotel:

leo the serval

christine wanted some animal pix, so here's the first few. my first weekend in blantyre, I stayed with Desiree and her husband Laurence. Desiree is the lead on the rotavirus project that I will happily tell you about in your preferred amount of detail. meet leo. he's a serval tiger cub, but the men who sold him said he was a leopard. by the way, people will come to your door here and try to sell kittens and puppies. normally you have to say no way, or they'll come everyday with some new animal. L & D thought this one was particularly interesting and not likely to be taken in by anyone else! they also have 5 owls, 2 german shepards, 3 cats and ~25 guinea fowl (pix below). oh, and not to mention twin sons who are two years old......they'll have their own post - cutest little guys you ever saw.

cheers,
ash

away away away away...

The travel went well....it was a hearty 17 hour flight to Jo'burg via Isle del Sol. Then an evening trip to the absurdly ornate casino by the airport (broke even).

Arrived in Malawi on Saturday.........pix above are 1) somewhere over mozambique I think and 2) Blantyre, Malawi.
cheers! ash