Katies Malawi Adventure

This is the website of Lujeri Tea Estate: www.lujeritea.com

I must first apologize for not updating this sooner! Oh my gosh sooooo much has happened since I last wrote my blog! I am now in my 5th month here which sounds really scary! Time is flying so fast, I wish it would slow down because I’m still having the most amazing time!

We are now 4 weeks back into the second school term after Easter and I’m pleased to say that Standard 7 are really doing well and I can really see an improvement in both their English and Mathematics which is really rewarding to see. They are still as cheeky as ever and sometimes drive me completely up the wall but I still love them to bits! Mike is still up to his old tricks, the other week I taught my first 3 lessons of the day and wasn’t teaching again till last period. I returned to the class for my lesson to find my maths work on the board still which meant the kids had been running riot for 5 lessons. I was fuming and marched right over to him and told him what I thought. I think he got a bit of a shock because he’s been quite good since!

I will firstly go right back to February and talk about my birthday which I mentioned in my last blog. I had a really fantastic birthday, it was on a school day so we did no work in class that day! Clare had bought loads of balloons and blown them up for me to wake up to and I got some wonderful homemade cards and presents! Clare bought me a pillow and a tweety-pie pillowcase off the market because I’d been moaning about the one I had for ages! In class we played keep the balloon up in the air for a good hour...they just didn’t get bored of it! We played hangman on English which always gets them excited and in PE we played wheelbarrow races and egg and spoon races (except with onions instead of eggs..). Some of the girls in my class drew me pictures which was really sweet and made little cards. We were treated to dinner at Craig’s house after seeing him at head office that afternoon and I spoke to Mum and Dad and Thomas and Lucy for the first time since being here!

The weekend after my birthday was amazing! We managed to find ourselves a lift up to Cape Maclear on Lake Malawi and camped on the beach with 10 or so of the other volunteers in a 15 man tent. The lake really is beautiful, we spent our time swimming in the lake, sunbathing, snorkeling and exploring the islands nearby. Because it was a bank holiday, there were many of the ex-pats from Blantyre along with other groups of volunteers so it was a really good party. Dancing on the beach and skinny dipping at 3 in the morning were just a few of the mad things we got up to!

The mountain looks so stunning today, there isn’t a cloud in the sky…lets hope it stays like that because we are climbing the bloody thing this weekend. We are going to set off early early on Saturday morning and get back down on Sunday! We were part way up the mountain last weekend actually because it was Clares birthday on Sunday so we went to Mbeya Pools; a beautiful cascade of mountain pools which you can swim in, dive into from 4-metre high rocks and swim behind waterfalls, providing you don’t mind that it is bitterly cold! I think I actually went blue! We had a braai (bbq) afterwards at Craig and Sheynes and we ate so much meat, it was amazing! (All me and Clare eat is the same combination of vegetables made in a slightly different way every night!)

Oo while I am on the subject of cooking! Me and Clare finally had some firewood delivered last week, which the boys in my class kindly chopped up for us, so we are now cooking all our meals on this little efficient wood stove. We also have an outdoor oven and so can now attempt to make cake and bread the African way! Hooreyy!

Okay I will now go back to Easter and talk about my Easter holiday! We had two weeks off school and left early on Good Friday because me and Clare had decided to go to the lake for the Easter weekend…we found another free lift there you see off our friend Andy from Blantyre….get in. It was really sad leaving Maveya, though it was only for two weeks I was really sad to be leaving to go and do wonderful things that our friends in the village would not be able to even dream of doing!

After a bit of confusion on the day we finally got the lake just as it got dark with Holly as well who we picked up in Zomba. We were borrowing a tend off Andys friend TJ so unrolled the tend to set it up on the beach and found that there was no tent poles…great. It all turned out fine in the end because we ended up sharing a 10 man tent with some random travelers! We chilled out the max and did a lot of dancing and partying on the evenings and also managed to get our friend Andy to give us a lift from the lake to Lilongwe! Bless him, he’s a sweetheart, everyone looks after us! In Lilongwe we met up with all the other Gap volunteers from the north and the south and stayed for a night at Jaynees camp (one of our GAP representatives). It was so good to see everyone, we hadn’t seen many of them since we first arrived in Malawi so they all had stories to tell! It’s interesting hearing about other volunteers placements, I think that me and Clare have the most basic placement but I would have been disappointed if we had anything more than what we have!

On the Monday we were picked up in big Kiboko Safari trucks. Most of us had booked onto an organized trip into Zambia which would take us into the South Luangwa national park and then all the way down to Victoria Falls over 9 days. There was a hell of a lot of traveling but it really was worth it. South Luangwa was amazing, we stayed in a beautiful camp right on the side of the Zambezi River where hippos and crocodiles lurked around freely! We went on 4 game drives over 2 days, 2 early morning drives and 2 night drives. The first day was spectacular, on the morning drive we saw elephants in the first ten minutes along with hippo, zebra, mpala, giraffe and many more. On the evening drive at around 5pm we were literally 2 meters away from a lioness and three cubs! On the second day we saw baby zebra and baby elephants and got chased by an angry mummy elephant which was a bit scary! The only animal we didn’t see that I really wanted to was a leopard.

After the safari we started the looooong journey down to Vic Falls. It took us two long days with a stop over in-between. We were camping in these really bulky army-issue-like tents from now on! Vic Falls really is spectacular, when you go to look at it you get utterly drenched from the spray off the waterfall but it was so exhilarating! Me and Elle were dancing on the bridge in front of the falls squealing!

After we’d been to see the falls up close we headed to the bridge which forms the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. This is the famous bridge that you have to do your Vic Falls bunji jump from! We had booked to do a “combo” of zip-wire, bunji and gorge swing in the early afternoon. I was really nervous but more excited than anything else, when I was waiting to do my bunji I was dancing to the music that was playing and skipping around while other people were practically in tears! The Vic Falls bunji is the 3rd biggest in the world, at 111m, but arguably the most beautiful. When it was time for my bunji I spent half of my time getting geared up telling them if they dare push me they’ve got another thing coming! I can’t remember what was going through my head but I crouched right back and basically flew of the edge like a bird. The photos are fantastic, I’ll put them up next time because I forgot to bring the disk. Its difficult to explain the sensation but it really was out of this world, you bounce around through rainbows with the Zambezi river crashing below. The gorge swing was equally brilliant, I did this as a tandem with Esme. With this one you basically just run off the edge and free fall for what seems like ages! It literally takes your breath away at first then you cant help screaming!

After most of our bunjiing was over, we were stood waiting on the bridge when a posh train came past and stopped. Out of it came loads of people dressed up in tuxedos and posh dresses. It turned out to be bloomin Miss South Africa and all her friends… so we drank champagne with them for a bit looking like complete scruff heads! Expect the unexpected in Africa is what I have come to realize must be done at all times!

So yes I had a really good Easter, it was quite difficult getting back into the school routine again as you can imagine and some of you will no all about! It was really funny one of the first days back at school when I was waiting for my children to come back from porridge or break or something, I wandered over to Zaccias and Chaston (two of the Malawian teachers). I realized straight away that they were looking me up and down and one of them said ‘Keti, you are fat!!!’, I was like…excuse me???, ‘You are getting fat Keti! Do you enjoy being fat?!’. I think I was stunned at this point and possibly came out with some kind of answer before staggering away and never eating again! Haha but no really, it’s funny how different our cultures are. To be called fat over here is a really big compliment, 1. because to be fat shows you have more money and therefore status, but also 2. because the Malawians simply find fatter people more attractive!!

Today is of course May 1st so we’ve got the day off school today. We recently found a shortcut here to head office so instead of it taking us an 85mins to walk here it takes us about 40! The only catch is that we actually have to wade knee-high through the river but its worth it!

Aw man theres still so much for me to talk about. Me and Clare have been to the village church for a service with Mathias..our Malawian daddy. We didn’t no what was going on but just stood up and knelt down when everyone else did! There was a womens and a childrens choir accompanied by drums which was fantastic to listen to with 8 or so young girls dancing at the front of the church. At the end of the service we were made by Mathias to get up in front of the congregation and greet them in Chichewa and he told them all about us as they all looked at us in wonder!

The same day that we went to church, Maveya was playing Ruo School (Kate and Jens School) at netball and football. The games are so good to go to because the opposing schools have their own chants and loads of people come out to support. When ever a goal is scored the teams crowd dances on the pitch singing a song then turns around and sticks their bum up at the other schools crowd! Its really funny. We drew, with 2 games to 2 games and walked back to Maveya (an hours walk) with all the kids who were singing and chanting and dancing!

Okayyyyy well I think I will stop here and give quick little updates every week or so from now on! Promise

Looking forward to seeing everyone again when I return in August! I’m taking an extra month after the end of my placement to travel up Malawi and then up through Tanzania via Zanzibar etc! I’m really looking forward to it but I’m dreading having to leave here more