(origineel bericht op be-more.nl)
Campfires and goodbyes
Alright, one month of Malawi has past, and i must admit, i love it here. I am used to the quietness and feel such an inner calm (pff deep words for the second sentence of a blog…).
The past two weeks went by very fast, which is a good thing i think. Mark (a boy who was a volunteer with Be More for a few months and now came back for a project he organized himself) joined the Mawa gang. Although it was nice and cosy with us four, you do notice when there is an extra person, and it makes a difference, in a good way. We spent more time together in the evenings, and Erik, Mark and me normally closed the day with a few cigarettes (in Eriks case a cigar) outside, reflecting on the day and sharing thoughts. It´s nice to hear how they experience Malawi. Two evenings we ´even´ had a campfire night with marshmallows (!) and beer (the Malawian kuche kuche) which was awesome.
On the project everything went well, and we are still learning to show a lot of initiative and come up with our own ideas, so we often sit together speculating what we can do for the community and what is the best way to do it. Erik was very willing to visit the hospital once, to see in how far it is different from the ones home, and I really wanted to visit the prison, so we wrote letters to both and very quickly got an invitation from the hospital to come visit them (we are still waiting for the answer from the prison). So one wednesday morning we five hopped in a taxi heading to the Zomba Hospital where a nurse showed us around the different sections. I was suprised by how easy going they were with the situation of a few azungus coming to watch sick people lying in there beds, and just born babies lying in incubators with 4 instead of 1. But it was less confronting than i expected… the doctors and nurses seemed well educated and were all friendly and open about their challenges and difficulties in their jobs, and some were very proud to be working in this hospital and said that they are lucky to have a hospital like that in Zomba. Of course there was a shortage of staff, and some supplies of medecins, but they seemed to be dealing with it in a good way. Of course we do not know what happens behind the scenes, but in a first glance it seems a good hospital, so worth a visit 
Apart from that, we were busy last week to help building a house for 12 orphans that is sponsored by Anne and Hendrik. We were the brick carriers for three days, which involved a lot of sweat and dirty t-shirts, but it felt nice to be busy physically and really see a change we left there. As a energy boost we were given sweet potatoes, it worked very well, so a good recommendation.
Last thursday it was Anne´s and Hendrik´s last day at the project, after having been here for 5 months, so we had a ´bye bye meeting´ for them thursday afternoon. The members of Mawa all said a nice message and thanks to them and they got a real malawian outfit as a present (the part i look forward to of leaving). In the evening we baked pannenkoeken for our house mommy who normally cooks and cleans for us, and had dinner together with her. After that Mark (the scout) built a nice campfire for us and we spent a few hours sitting around there with kuche kuche, donuts, crisps and our neighbour who mostly just watched the fire and listened to our dutch conversations. We planned our sleepover for in the future at Erik´s house and talked about loads of other crap, was great
As i am writing this I am sitting in Mabuya Camp, Lilongwe (capital of Malawi) enjoying a cold water and a dunhill cigarette (cigarettes are extremly cheap here, so don´t blame me for not being a to quit) as i am listening to Grayson Capps and Van Morrison (dankjewel pap ;)). I´ve had a great weekend so far, the first time i spent the weekend some where else than Zomba, which is great. It is so strange to walk around here, everything looks so much more western and they have a spar supermarket here (!) which literaly made me jump from excitement as i walked around there… they had applecake, cheese, soft breadroles and croissants hmmm. It feels weird to be living to luxurious for these past days in comparement with the Zomba lifestyle, but on the other hand also feels so easy to get used to. In the evenings we went our for dinner in a french styled restaurant, and last night we danced in Zanzi Bar, a big club which reminded me of Ambiance.
One more month… and then I will be back in Germany again, crazy!
Tio Nana,