Close of Service and a Family Visit!

A wonderful two weeks of travel away from our sites during the middle of March. This break was thanks to our Close of Service retreat which was a wrap up gift for the two years of service. Over half of our group of 17 (remaining) health volunteers will be leaving the country at the end of April. Noel and I are part of the seven that will remain till the completion of our 27 months of service. The retreat was on the beautiful shores of Lake Malawi at Nkotakota Pottery Lodge. The COS meeting signifies that we are nearing the completion of our placement here in Malawi, as we were briefed on paperwork to complete, etc, prior to our departure. It was also a nice time to share thoughts and experiences with our entire group, for maybe the last time as we will all be departing at different times through the end of July.

We had our second official visitors from the US the following week. Mid-week of the conference, our daughter Rachel arrived into Lilongwe, so Kaye left to meet her at the airport. Kumuzu College of Nursing, where Kaye works, was supportive in arranging a vehicle and driver to pick her up at the airport. Unfortunately, Rachel's flight was delayed a day so Kaye had to wait an extra day and missed the last day of the conference. Our son Peter, and his girlfriend Kristy, were scheduled to arrive the following Saturday, but their flight was moved up a day . So, one came in on Thursday and two on Friday. This is the first official vacation that we have taken during our time of service. We are allowed 24 days for the two years but the reality is that being away from site is very expensive and travel is difficult and now really rest inducing. The time with Peter, Rachel, and Kristy was great. The visit began with a trip to visit our home-stay village where we spent our first 6-weeks in Malawi. During the very short visit to the village, we enjoyed reacquainting our friendship with our host "father and mother", and the quaintness of the village in general. Not much had changed since we left, almost 2 years ago, except for the hut (the home of the husband and wife who hosted us) where we had lived was in terrible condition. The entire back wall of the hut was crumbling and supported by boards to keep it from caving in. The hut had a thatched roof and mud stucco-type walls and even the concrete porch was eroding away. It will need to be torn down which is a serious problem as now the couple is living in the one room that is about 25 feet from the house. It was fun to see the amayi (wife) using a large barrel to cook/brew local beer. This was enough beer to give a glass to all of Oak Ridge.

After this we headed back to the lakefront and stayed at a camping type place called Cool Runnings. A nice relaxing place run by a woman who was born in Malawi but is South African by nationality. This was followed by traveling to Mua Mission which is a cultural-type village started by the Catholic priests. They have a very complete Malawian Cultural museum which has a room for characterizing and displaying information on the major tribes (Chichewa, Ngoni, and Yao). The rooms are filled with explanations of cultural practices, masks of each area, etc. After this we headed to Liwonde Game reserve, stayed in the Safari Game Lodge, and felt very far from urban society. The next day a short safari ride in the park and then we were ferried out to a larger boat for an all afternoon and night ride along the Shire River which runs through the game reserve. This was so relaxing and offered the opportunity to see many elephants, hippos, and crocodiles. It was so beautiful, relaxing, and overall very pleasant. The cook on board used to be a chef (somewhere), so the food was excellent! Then it was more mini-bus rides as we headed back to Blantyre to show them our home and our lives in Malawi. It was a wonderful visit, a little too brief, but great to be able to share part of our lives with those we love.

We would love to have more of you come to share a little part of our lives.