Jan-Feb 2014, we finally leave Malawi

Almost exactly one year after we left Malawi for the UK I am sitting on the couch back in London, 39 weeks pregnant in the freezing ‘artic blast weather’, writing our last ever blog post- the longest delay in the writing to date. So much has happened since we got back, both Gav and I have been awarded our higher degrees, Gav has got his renal certificate of completion of specialist training and is ready to be a consultant, I completed my PhD and got a job as a lecturer at UCL, Joshi has settled into pre-school and grown into a confident, chatty, gorgeous child from the toddler he was when we left, and we have been incredibly lucky to get pregnant again and we are all excited about our upcoming arrival.

When we left Malawi, these things were all part of the plan, but we had no idea we would get so much done when we got back within 12 months. After we had recovered from our incredible road trip, we had five weeks to visit all our favourite haunts one last time, pack up and ship all our belongings and most importantly by far, spend as much time as possible with our wonderful friends  who we knew it would be a long time before we would be able to hang out again. Bip and Karen arranged a beautiful last lake weekend at Conforzi House with obligatory drinking, silly games and far too much food, as always the light and sunsets, birds and beauty of the lake meant we wished we could stay longer, sunset on the rock with cold beers was amazing. 

Conforzi house at sunset

We went to Majete for one last weekend to see the elephants, and had a whirlwind of leaving parties. We were especially touched by the leaving dinner with our work colleagues from the hospital, who had arranged gifts and speeches for us and our senior colleague who was also leaving. Their praise of the work that Gavin particularly had done was really heartfelt and  I know we both felt that all the ups and downs of working at Queen’s, and especially the amazing effort of Gav and his colleagues to get the dialysis unit up and running had been recognised and appreciated. With a few months of our return, he had arranged for Rhys, a colleague of his from the Royal Free to come out to help support the service, it is going from strength to strength now. One of Gav’s last jobs was after 2 years of negotiation, get the Minister for Health to sign a contract to ensure new dialysis machines and supplies would be available to the Queen’s unit, a massive achievement. 

We also had our own leaving party one weekend, we rigged up lights and power into the new party house our landlords had built in the garden for dancing, and got in all the food and drink, only for the power to go out for a few hours, and without a generator we all danced around badly amplified music from Kate’s laptop. But the sight of our friends dancing by candlelight to music they could hardly hear was awesome, and we did all have a proper boogie when the power finally came back on. Our lovely neighbour Hazel organised a dinner for us at her place a few nights later to say goodbye to lots of friends from the mountain club who had not been able to come to our party, and we were honoured by the presence of Malcolm Molyneux, an incredible man and one of the world’s foremost malaria researchers, whose amazing 70^th birthday party we went to a few days later. Thanks so much to everyone who made such an effort to see us off in such style over those last few weeks, we love and miss you all.

A few days before we left, our lovely guard dog Ruby sadly passed away, she had been ill since we returned from our road trip. As ever, our staff were fantastic in making all the arrangements for us, as negotiating the death of a large animal was a new one for us.

On the day we left, Aylwin and Hannah  came over, itching to be ready to move in, and we were so happy that Annie nanny and the guards were staying to look after them and the house. Little Annie, our housekeeper moved on to new employment, and Elias, our lovely lovely gardener left to start his mechanic’s apprenticeship, which we have funded over the last year and have heard that he is doing extremely well. Through Hannah and Alwyin we have kept in touch with the staff and they are all doing well. Gavin went back in November last year for a week and let Annie and Pemphero know exactly how much Joshi still misses them. We all miss our life in Blantyre, and hope to be back in that part of the world one day when our future plans are a bit clearer. For now, we are looking for a new house to fit our growing family in, and hoping that 2015, despite the dreadful flooding brings all our friends in Malawi peace and prosperity.

Joshi and Pemphero in the garden being flowers - who needs toys with friends like this?

Clara measures Joshi for his last outfit

Annie and Joshi