mini safari

Today was pretty cool. My coworker, Yolanda, and I set off for Nyala Park near the sugar estates south of Blantyre. The drive down was really the best part, since the road winds through village after village. I see a good deal more of the real Malawi from the road when between towns. Just like home, most live in the towns, but the village folk confirm the vision of Africa that most people have. Only, now you're really face to face with it...children skinny as a toothpick, barefoot mothers carrying children on their backs lugging water uphill for miles, and other lovely images that make you want to throttle every member of government in existance. We do what we can, stopping along the way to buy goods from them, but the problem is so chronic.

We did make it to the mini game park and had great fun making our way through the dirt roads. Thank you 4 wheel drive and Yolanda, driver extraordinaire!

Blantyre...at last

It's been a busy week, but I wanted to get a few pix up. Tuesday I was up and off to work. Arriving in Malawi can only be described as a warm homecoming - seeing people who are now long time friends and being greeted with big hugs and huge smiles.

I had a very nice lunch with Desiree before she left for Cape Town - it is her mothers 91st birthday!!!! She travels all the way from Holland to be with Desiree and the boys. That night I treated myself to a nice dinner and it's really been work ever since.

Pic of school group at the airport who had come to see the planes.

View from the road going from the clinic at Ndirande to the office This is the view from the clinic door. Ndirande is one of the poorest areas in Blantyre, though certainly not the worst off. In the foreground are some of our staff - mostly home health workers who visit the moms each week to check on the babies we have vaccinated with the rota vaccine.

I seriously couldn't make this up

Yeah, um, I think I angered the gods.

After much time packing and preparation and getting every last little detail organized, Park took me to the airport on Thursday, April 19th. My flight was at 4:45pm arriving at 4 in the afternoon in Johannesburg on Friday. I had a hotel reservation and would set out to Malawi Saturday morning. Mmmhmmm.

"Denied Boarding"

Apparently, my passport did not have two COMPLETELY clean pages available for entry into South Africa. Now, mind you that I do have 3 clean pages, but those are the wrong type of pages. As I have NOW learned, the last few pages are for amendments........get your microscope and you can see the difference between "visa" pages and "amendment" pages. So, I paid 650 bucks to get an expedited passport in 24 hours so that I could make the Saturday flight. So I pretty much spent all of Thurs and Fri to get all the flight re-bookings done, get the passport, etc. Oh, and all the airlines say it's my fault so they are "waived" the penalty fees THIS time. How kind.

So, anyway, damage done, I got my passport and gpt checked in for the Saturday flight. Delta said it was close to the flight for a seat assignment, but just to get one at the gate. FAMOUS LAST WORDS. I was allowed to get on the plane 5 minutes before departing since someone thankfully didn't show up. Shall I stop there? Nah. How bout I go on to tell about getting 3 hours into the flight before having to turn around and change planes? Ha! It actually was pretty flippin funny when I called Park at midnight from the airport to say hi........he and Sarah were oh so amused. As were all 300 of us waiting in this hallway where they put us between planes.

As if that wasn't enough, when we finally finihsed the 8 hour flight to Dakar (scheduled stop), which was actually 15 hours into this little adventure, the pilot landed us so hard (now I know how a water balloon feels) we had to sit in Dakar for 2 hours while they changed the tire! There's more that followed my 26 hour flight time - arriving in JNB at 1:30 in the morn (murder capital of the world), 2 hrs sleep before Malawi flight, 7 hour layover - but it would just start sounding pathetic to go on, and I've really hit the high points!

I'm here and I don't think I'm gonna risk trying to come back. Please forward my mail.

Countdown to the next Malawi trip

3 days............will be gone from April 19 to May 22. almost 5 weeks.

ashley is slightly losing her mind. park be-eth my rock.