May 2013, safari, mountains and Malawi to Hong Kong and back

In May the dry season started to kick in with multiple water and power cuts, which makes life here additionally stressful. With only 9 months to go before we leave Malawi, we have been reflecting on the people and things we are looking forward to coming home to, along with all people and things about our life in Malawi we will miss. May has been a good month for enjoying everything that is good about living here, despite putting up with the escalating cost of living and endless shortages. We are also in the midst of another round of goodbyes as our several of our teacher, medic and NGO friends get ready to leave.

Theresa, who is head of department of medicine and married to my boss, is leaving after 8 years here and is on a mission to do lots of things before she leaves. In this spirit I joined her along with Karen and Tracey on a day trip to the elephant marsh – a bird-rich swamp south of Blantyre that is not a place to go with a toddler. We set off at dawn with amazing views of sunrise over the Chikwawa valley, and bumped over dirt roads for 3 hours before we drove through the edge of the swamp and arrived at the landing stage. We were the first visitors since November last year. The boats were rapidly bailed out and cleaned up, and we were punted through the reeds for 2 hours through a paradise of shallow lily filled water surrounded by reeds and fishermen and so many birds including a pelican, storks, kingfishers, wader birds and so many more. It was utterly peaceful and relaxing, our zen was only slightly undone by 3 hours back of bouncing on the dusty roads – 61km and 3.5 hours  from Blantyre on the clock.

dawn at the edge of the escarpment

The only 2 story mud built house in Chikwawa district

Catch of the day

 

Are we on the Cam? punting a dugout canoe

open billed stork

Lilies go on for miles

I was inspired by unusual day trips ideea and the following weekend went again out for the day with Karen, this time with Jen and 17 others to climb an ‘unclaimed peak’ between Zomba and Liwonde National park.  We set off a bit late and then had to wait for lots of the others to come, so we only started climbing at 11am – up a very steep beautiful path to the plateau at the foot of the mountain. The villages were very poor but stunningly situated on the plateau and we provided much excitement hiking along – at one point we fell behind the others taking pictures of Lake Chilwa, and had to use footprints in the dust to find our way. We got to the foot of the peak and, following our guides scrambled up through pristine rainforest, the path ceased to exist. We bashed our way through the forest following the guides but couldn’t find the peak and in the end flopped down under a big rock to eat and then make our way down. The views on the way down over the lake as the sun set were beautiful, and I made it back to Blantyre by half eight so tired I fell asleep in the bath!

fresh faced and ready to go

view from a shack on the plateau

 

en route to the jungle

path? what path?

 

wild grass in the evening light

Stunning views of Zomba plateau

Gav Joshi and I also had a lovely day out to Nyala park on safari and swimming in May – going on safari for the day is something we definitely won’t be able to do in London, and Joshi enjoyed driving and even getting stuck in the sand watching giraffes, we washed off all the sand and dust in the pool afterwards.

I'm driving mummy!

Giraffe in the sand

aeroplane game

 

Gav’s work here is gathering great interest in the kidney community and he won a scholarship to travel to Hong Kong for the world congress of nephrology via Joburg to see Granny Min who is 102 now. It would be hard to think of a more complete polar opposite to Malawi in distance, culture and time, and he loved his trip although had to spend his birthday revising for the last set of exams for his MSc – one in HK and one back in Blantyre this week.  After 5 years of studying for the MSc we will all be delighted when they are over.

Joshi has been having a lovely time in nursery and really enjoys the Malawian good-life at home – collecting eggs, picking tomatoes and generally helping Elias around the garden. While Gav was away we had a lovely afternoon at Sasa’s 3^rd birthday party in Thyolo – the best view from any house of any friend I know here. We went to a BBQ at his new friends Noah and Ruben’s house and saw Jo and her daughter Lola off to South Africa to have her second baby, along with playing with Laura’s new puppy Frankie – Joshi has never seen a puppy before and couldn’t get over the idea she was a toy sized dog. We did our first hike in the local Michiru mountain sanctuary and took Joshi and Pemphero to the Phoenix school fair, where they both had a lovely time. We have been saying goodbye to lots of our babygroup friends who are all leaving Malawi to go home for various reasons – we rapidly have to recruit new mums to join in and keep our Wednesday afternoons going.

Baby group Blantyre May 2013



Cool kids at the Phoenix school fair

 

Camping in the garden with Ben and Joe

trying to be a grown-up

Tractor at the Cashman's house

Joshi and Sam Cashman - due on nearly the same day, born 6 weeks apart

prepared for scooting in the sunshine

Can we come to work please?

Sasa's fabulous Thyolo birthday cake made by Georgie

Wearing the birthday hat 3 days after the party

Picking raspberries

Collecting eggs

 

Work continues to be very busy for both of us, the meningitis season is starting and my study is really picking up, which means lots more patients and lots more work to get on with – we are due to finish recruitment in October. It seems no time since we started the study in Jan 2012, and I am sure we will be on a plane home before we know it. Next up in a couple of weeks is a trip to Mozambique with Ros, we can’t wait to see her and eat some prawns on the beach – another thing we won’t be able to do in London.

We are really looking forward to catching up properly in August/Feb next year, along with running drinking water, no load shedding, mobile phone contracts, internet shopping, debit cards, reliable costs of living and Chinese food. Oh, and no mosquitoes/typhoid/malaria/schisto/tropical nasties - just plain old rhinovirus and flu.

Much love to all

Emma Gav and Joshi xx