Christmas 2012: our first foray to Northern Malawi.

Mum arrived on the 16^th of December for a two and a half week holiday. Sadly Dad was not well enough to come too, and he stayed in London with Imo, Ros and Simon. It was the first time the family had been split like that over the festive season and was difficult for all of us, but we were delighted that Mum could come and have a holiday with us. We set off for our first trip north of Lilongwe with a long drive to Ntchisi forest lodge. We were originally due to have Christmas 2010 with Helena Nick Ruth and Steve but had cancelled due to my pregnancy with Joshi, so it was fab to finally see the lovely lodge. It is perched in the rainforest overlooking the lake with fabulous views and garden. We did some hiking although it rained too much to go into the rainforest itself and we ate ourselves silly on the fabulous food and recovered after such a long journey to get there driving in the dusk through thick fog following directions relying on landmarks we could not see properly.

Moo-cow on the long drive north



Attempting to hike in the rainforest



The lake in the sunshine from Ntchisi lodget garden



View from Ntchisi mountain



Rainclouds from Ntchisi mountain

Joshi with the python skin at Ntchisi

After three nights at Ntchisi we drove down the mountain into the heat of the Nkhotakota game reserve on the edge of the lake and spent two nights at a beautiful tented camp on the Bua river – our tents were actually in an island in the river and we ate in the evenings in a tree house table lit by candles and fireflies and the moon, it was beautiful. Sadly the reserve has mostly been poached so we admired the birds and lush vegetation plus the occasional crocodile and hiked to a huge waterfall where Joshi could play in the sand.

lunch at Bua River

river sand castles

sundowners by the river

'fertility tree at Bua river

Joshi chills out at our 'campsite'

Jungle hike to the waterfall

who needs pen and paper when you have a stick and some sand?

tree house dining under the stars lit by the lanterns, the moon and the fireflies

Next stop was our Christmas location, Mkudzi beach lodge which is my new favouriate place on the lake to stay (thanks Karen for the recommendation). We had a beach front rondavel on a small private bay with the most beautiful white sand and shallow schisto free water. Joshi adored it shouting the moment he got up ‘play in the puddle mummy!’. There were lots of other children to play with , easy going staff, and a lovely festive atmostphere. We ate Christmas dinner on the beach by moonlight and swam and slept and relaxed. On Boxing day Gav and I went to Kande horse stables for a ride – and ended up after cantering through the mountains riding swimming horses in the lake – fabulous and completely surreal, particularly as our horses were called Emma and Joshua! If anyone in Malawi is reading this you should check it out, it is amazing.

 

Christmas supper

Gav and Joshi on Mkudzi beach

Mountain ride

Beach ride

swimming with the horses

after the swim none of us want to come out of the water



After swim rub-down

 

Mango for breakfast lunch and supper

beachfront christmas lunch

play in the puddle mummy please......

sunrise at Makuzi

Dawn at Makuzi

Mazuki beach

Boxing day dinner by moonlight on the beach

 The day we left we visited the Bandawe mission, which was established over 100 years ago and is memorable for the fact all the missionaries died of malaria and are buried on the point overlooking the lake. The Church of Scotland did not know what was killing them but it was recognised that the ‘bad lake air’ was responsible so eventually the mission was moved inland and into the high mountains where miraculously fewer people died. It was tragic to see the graves and sparked a long discussion about the role of the missionaries and their legacy in Malawi, both good and bad.

Graves at Bandawe mission

We then wound our way slowly back south via the pottery at Nkhotakota where we found the tree under which David Livingston failed to end slavery (contrary to popular belief he did not end the trade in Malawi and was actually dependent on the slavers for his existence there). The trade was only ended 50 years later by the first commissioner for Nyasaland. We learnt a lot of Colonial history on the trip.

Ruins of the mosque at Nkhotakota

storms brewing over Mozambique

'Livingstone's' tree

One of the reasons the ferry is not running on the lake at the moment - the pier is in the lake.....

 



African toddler on the beach

New year was spend relaxing at Jane and Mac’s cottage on the lake doing very little after all the driving- apart from admiring the most fabulous rainbow over the lake and chasing away invading scorpions.

Lunch en route home was at our favourite Italian restaurant in the skies, casa Rossa where they make their own cheese and pasta and you eat on the terrace with fabulous views.

Mum helps Joshi in Zomba

All too soon it was time to take mum back to Chileka to fly home, rested and relaxed after hanging out with her wonderful grandson to go back to snowy London, regular power, and of course Dad.







November 2012 – early December 2012 – Anglicised festivities

November going into December in Blantyre feels very much end-of-term. The expat community gets together before everyone leaves for the UK/Europe for the school holidays to celebrate various British traditions in ex-pat style. The first of these for us was the St Andrew’s night ball, held in Blantyre sports club with the laudible charitable aim of raising money for the children’s ward at Queens where we both work. We all got dressed up, drank whiskey, ate haggis, danced a ceidlh and listened to the speeches – marked this year by the new British high commissioner talking. The first one of these we attended in 2010 it was Fergus Cochrane-Dyet, who then was kicked out by Bingu for calling him ‘autocratic’ in a Wiki-leaks cable, so last year there was no politic speak, but this year with a new president and happy donors, the HC is back. Sadly his speech was not very funny and too long. The evening was cheered up by our table generally cleaning up in the raffle, Gav won two prizes, including £30 of pork meat that we later donated to charity, dinner for two at Ryalls, the poshest hotel in town. Toni won two nights at a posh resort on the lake and Ian and Hazel won return flights to Cape Town.

Mike Moore getting the festivities going on our table during the speeches

 

The next weekend we went to Blantyre amateur dramatics panto ‘Cinderella’- which Joshi absolutely loved and saw lots of his friends, running around, trying to sing along and catching sweets thrown into the crowd by Buttons. I also went to the carol concert in St Paul’s church – a mostly azungu affair both audience and orchestra, and you could have been in any village hall in the UK apart from the 30 degree heat and ceiling fans. We even had mince pies afterwards and the singing was hit and miss but really enjoyable. One of the hard things about being an ex-pat is that your friends inevitably move on and as we enter our third year here there seemed along with the new friends we were hanging out with, lots of ghosts of our old friends sitting with us at each event.

Carols in the church hall

Cast of the panto

 

 

 

We were all sad to say goodbye to Laura who started with me in Liverpool back in 2009 and she has done amazingly well completing her stroke project and is home to write up her PhD now. We celebrated her leaving with tea at Huntingdon House on a glorious sunny afternoon. 

From the left Ellie with Cal, Laura, Peter and Emma - 2009 Liverpool starters

the pool at Lujeri tea estate - a lovely but crazy afternoon with Isobel and Steven and the kids

Ruby the dog moves in from Laura's house to ours

 

We both rushed around madly at work trying to get everything finished before we also left for our Christmas break, and Joshi started two mornings a week at nursery which he loves, and he forgave me for forgetting to pick him up one morning because I was too busy (so embarrassing).

 

Finally it was all done and we were more than ready to collapse in a heap and admire the beautiful country we live in and finally have a proper holiday..........

December to follow

Lots of love to all

Emma Gavin and Joshi

ps more pictures of Joshi from the month below

 

Joshi enjoys the first of the rains

hello gorgeous

 

 

Facepainting at Thyolo Christmas fair

 

new game of peekaboo

 

Too hot at baby group - Ruth and Lisa in our garden

 

yes I can drink like my daddy

 

 

watering the garden before it rains

Joshi checks out Pemphero's chicken - it was in the pot shortly after this picture

Joshi and Gav dig the garden

 

 

October 2012 it gets hotter and hotter………….

Hello everyone

We got back from London just as it was starting to turn cold there bang into the hot season proper in Malawi and straight back to work. Joshi turned 18 months over the mother’s day bank holiday weekend, and we went back to the self catering cottage in our favourite tea plantation, Satemwa for a long weekend of relaxation and catching up on much needed sleep after our hectic whirlwind around the UK from where I published last month's update. We enjoyed high tea with the MacPherson’s at Huntingdon House and a lovely lunch with new friends Georgie and Micky with their two girls Saskia and Emilia with the best view from any friend’s house to date. We have been hanging out with old and new friends in Blantyre as everyone continues to arrive and leave in true expat lifestyle style. We have been here for 2 years now, how that has happened so quickly I am not quite sure.

Joshi fabric shopping and loving all the colours

Mr cool



New favourite hobby

 

We had Gav's friend from the Royal London Chris come to stay followed by a visit from another nephrologist Prof Neil Turner, it was lovely to have them both and thanks so much for all the support given to the dialysis unit.

Towards the end of the month I went to Uganda to teach for a week on the East African Diploma of Tropical Medicine and had a wonderful time visiting old haunts and making new friends, as well as enjoying up market living and fabulous food. KLA has changed so much since I was last there, the only thing the same is the infectious friendliness and enthusiasm of the Ugandans and the traffic. Sadly I didn’t have time to get back to Mbarara, but managed to see speak on the phone to some old friends. Next year………………………


Chilling at the Sheraton with new friends in Kamapla

Gav has just left for his teaching week there and I hope he will have as much fun as me.

My study has come to the end of phase 1, and we are starting to move into phase 2, which is very exciting. I can’t believe the study I spent years plotting and planning to do is already half way through. I took my team out for lunch to thank them for all their hard work, even they didn’t manage to eat all their food. Gav has also been celebrating a work milestone, the dialysis unit has been up and operational for a year now, which is an incredible achievement. To top this he has  persuaded the minister for health to sign a contract with a South African dialysis supplier to sort all the machines and equipment he needs, which is fantastic. He topped this by going on MBC (Malawian national broadcaster) with his senior nurse as the lead item on the news, shaking set not withstanding he did a brilliant job. Click on http://youtu.be/tm6GWW6O7To to watch the video.



Malawian lunch with my study team to celebrate end of Phase 1 - even they couldn't manage to finish their plates

The hospital is currently in dire straights with severe drug shortages, even TB drugs which are free and paid for by the global fund are out of stock, and insulin on world diabetes day is also out of stock. The poor patients are the ones that suffer and we feel totally helpless making diagnoses but not having access to any treatments. We also hear rumours that the fuel crisis is going to make a return, we are all hoping not before Christmas as we have trips planned.........

Desperate situation at the hospital makes the front page

Joshi has managed to grow an inch in a month, must be down to all the delicious fresh eggs he is eating. He is so chatty now, trying to learn to sing and continues to be relaxed sweet and adorable, he can say thank you in two languages and recognise the numbers 1-8 and has started to draw on everything in sight.



First day at nursery in the sandpit

Joshi loves the sort of start to the rains

November means mad azungu trying to recreate UK festivals here, so we had the fireworks at Thyolo sports club (which Joshi totally loved - "more mummy bang bang more!" and the St Andrew’s ball to come. We hosted the first deckchair cinema in Blantyre - a projector, Gav's guitar amplifier and a sheet strung between two trees. First showing was star wars which was a great success, hopefully the first of many.



Fireworks at Thyolo



Checking out preparations for the deckchair cinema

At work we have an international team of scientific advisors coming next week to appraise all our work, fortunately I am not presenting this year, and the team is being joined by David this year, who is Stephen’s cousin and so nice to see him. The rains still have not started properly and it is roastingly hot - 30 degrees most nights in Joshi's bedroom, and we are spending most of the weekends in friend's pools, thanks so much all!


How to cool down at babygroup - Lisa and Ruth

our new outdoor day bed - cost: £80, copied from one from John Lewis price £2700!

Much love and rain dances to all

Emma Gav and Joshi