Malawi MisAdventures of Tess and Jim

Wishing YOU were here too!

Hey folks,

Once again, Jim and I have both been extremely busy with work over the last few weeks, so really haven't had time to email or to blog. For those whom we haven't heard from in a while, we really hope you are well, and email us to let us know how you are doing!

Between all our work, we did take a mini 4 day vacation to Kande Beach over the Easter weekend with about 12 friends. We had an awesome time, in a totally touristy beach side resort. The sports filled weekend was great, until a freak storm hit the Saturday night and continued full force for 11 hours straight. The locals were telling us that these strong and long rains were rare. By Sunday afternoon, Kande beach turned into Kande island, as the road leading to the inlet had washed away, a major bridge on the main road had collapsed, and sadly a few villagers had been washed away in the river as well. Jim, Alex and I tried to venture out for an adventurous walk to Church that Sunday morning, but we quickly realized the walk would turn out to be a 2 km swim / wade through black muddy water. Not surprisingly, I chickened out. Not surprisingly again, Monday morning we got super stuck on the road trying to return to Lilongwe. Luckily about 25 villagers (some of them drunk!) helped push us out of the mud, and our van made it safely the rest of the way back.






Charisse and John arrived here this past week for a wee visit! It's awesome to have them here, and so far we've been having a great time. Unfortunately I have been working this whole week, while Jim has been taking them around, but next week all of us will be travelling through the South of Malawi, then over to Zambia for a safari.
I'll spare the details for Charisse to write about, but so far they've experienced some of the Malawian culture and daily life including: being hassled at the market, visting a few villages and CPAR projects, watching monkeys reproduce in the nature sanctuary, waking up in the middle of the night to an attempted break in, visiting the beauuutiful lake, and the cheap cheap beer.

Wishing all of you were here too!!

Cheers,
;) tess



This is one of Charisse's pics from the market




Harvest time in Malawi!! We visited one of CPAR's farmers (who is obviously not going to go hungry this year)



Jim - showing off his camera to the kids



Our one bedroom shoe box sized apartment, with John sleeping in the kitchen (next to the roaches), and Charisse in the living room (with the rats in the ceiling).



Untitled in Village. Study 1. 2006. Photographer: C. Pantin.

posted by Tess and Jim O @ 11:46 AM