Thursday 15 September 2011

Malawi update - Louise and Stephen's Malawi holiday

Hello there

Life here has picked up speed dramatically throughout August. Gavin started work full time as a lecturer in medicine at Queen’s and his talents are unsurprisingly in a lot of demand, so he is very busy. Joshi is growing on a daily basis and now is 5 months and weighs 8.1 kg (or did last week – we are sure it is more now!) and is so adorable. He is nearly sitting and rolling, and has started eating sweet potato and mashed banana in addition to milk as he is hungry all the time and growing so fast.

The most exciting thing in August was the arrival of Stephen and Louise for their first (we hope of many) visits to Malawi. They had a wonderful time hanging out with Joshi who loved every minute of their visit, and they got used to the ups and downs of life here including the hunt for diesel, regular power cuts, sitting outside for every meal and eating fresh produce from the garden every day. For Stephen’s birthday we went to the Zomba plateau for the day where we had lunch and bought amazing fruit and veg. The plateau has its own microclimate so you can buy everything from passion fruit to rhubarb on a good day and is much higher than Blantyre so the air is cool and the views to the lake and mt Mulanje are stunning (unsurprisingly it was the British colonial capital so the architecture is also very interesting).

We went up to Lake Malawi for a weekend to stay at Norman Carr cottages which was wonderful, and included a boat trip seeing fish eagles fishing and snorkeling, and a lot of hanging out on the beach.

We also spent a weekend in Satemewa tea plantation staying at Huntingdon House (an old colonial house now a hotel, still owned by one of the oldest white Malawian families) which was also beautiful. We drove up Thyolo mountain to have a picnic with amazing views for the day, and enjoyed the high life in the house for a couple of days.

Currently our entire pea crop has been eaten by the local troupe of vervet monkeys and any ideas to keep them out of our veg patch would be most welcome esp as we have tomatoes and other yummy stuff coming!! I have started going to a local book club, and Joshi is loving hanging out with other kids at the mother and baby group. We had our first braai last weekend which was yummy, and hopefully the first of many.

There are more demonstrations planned for next week and we hope if they happen they will be peaceful this time. We are back to the lake again this weekend for the annual Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust conference where researchers from Liverpool and Malawi meet to discuss progress over the year and plan new research and it is at a very swanky resort so we are looking forward to it, and have managed to get a full tank to get us there. I am unfortunately going to do some work and presenting, while Gav hangs out with the other trailing spouses and kids at the beach/pool – much more fun….

After that Margaret and her friend Gill arrive and we are back to the lake again for the Lake of Stars festival and then to Zambia on safari – it’s a hard life!

Lots of love

Emma Gavin and Joshi J

Breakfast on the private veranda at Huntingdon House
Dreyers walking in the tea plantations
Playing on Thyolo mountain

View of Satemwa tea plantations
Stephen and Joshi in Thyolo mountain


sunset and sunrise on lake malawi
Fish eagles flying with fish






 This is what happens when Emma tries to imitate the wildlife photographer of the year pics........