Wordless Wednesday - Secretary Clinton Visits Malawi

Malawi, the Good and the Bad

It's that time again. Bid lists are out. Much of the FS world is now busy researching, worrying, lobbying, and dreaming about the next post.  Researching posts is tricky and time consuming.  You are relying on relatively few resources to decide if Banjul or Guayaquil  is someplace you can live for the next three years.  Jill, who hosts the  FS BRU came up with the brilliant idea to have each of us write a blog post highlighting the best and worst of our current post to help out those of us bidding this time.  So here goes.

The Five Best Things About Malawi

1. The lake.  Lake Malawi is huge. It runs almost the length of the country.  There are lots of little places along the length to the lake where you can go for a get away.  By far my favorite get aways are Domwe and Mumbo Islands at the south end of the lake.  What's not to love about this?   It's paradise, right?

2. The yards.  Most houses here have a huge yard.  I love our yard.  It has a pond, a vegetable garden, a patio, 2 screened porches, and lots of room for the kids to run and play.  This is the first house with a yard we've had since joining the FS. I've really missed being able to sit outside on Sunday morning sharing a quiet cup of coffee with Dave.  Of course I don't have to mow the grass, I have gardeners for that, or I might like the yard a whole lot less come rainy season.  Man does that grass grow quick once the rain starts.  

3. New businesses.  Since we arrived two years ago a number of new businesses have opened expanding our options for shopping and eating out.  We now have a Spar (a sparsely stocked Spar, but it's another option for groceries) and a Game.  Still no Starbucks. Oh Well. We  do have Ama's Kohfi who's carmel latte keeps my Starbucks cravings at bay, and they make a mean mocha caramel cake.   Latitudes is a fancy new place perfect for a night out.  And if you are really in need of a mani/pedi or a massage, Tips and Toes is just the place. It's only been open two months but it usually seems to be busy.  I'll be heading there later this week when my kids head off to Green Camp.  

4.  Critters.  This is Colin's contribution to the list.  He loves wildlife and our back yard is full of critters for him to catch and terrorize. Hedgehogs, tortoises, lizards, frogs, it has it all. He has memorized the birding book and puts it good use identifying all the avian visitors to our back yard.  Thanks to the pond we get a lot of beautiful birds visiting us.  From the the tiny blue Waxbills to the occasional Heron they are very cool. 

                                       

5. Safari. Safari recharges my batteries and makes me fall in love with Africa all over again.  Going on safari was a childhood dream, one I really didn't think would ever come true, but since moving here it has, over and over again.  I never get tired of going on safari.  There are not a lot of options for viewing wildlife close to Lilongwe, but there are places close enough to enjoy over a long weekend.

                                             

6.  Community.  I know it was supposed to be 5 good things but I have to include the community here. Maybe it is a small post thing, but there is a real sense of community, and not just among the embassy folks.  It is very nice thing to be a part of. I am really looking forward to school starting in a week because it means that all my friends will be returning to post and I am looking forward to getting all caught up on what's been happening in everyone's life over the long school break.  

The Five Worst Things About Malawi

1. Grocery Shopping. This is a consumables post for a reason.  Grocery shopping takes hours.  You end up going to every single grocery store in town and still come home without some of the things on your list.  It has been much better the last few months, but last year there were long stretches of time where you couldn't buy butter, or sugar, or sodas, or beer.  Yes I said BEER.  It is getting bad when you can't get beer. Even when you can buy beer the choices are Carlsburg green label, Carlsburg Special, Carlsburg Stout, and Kuche Kuche.  I really wish I had know this when we were packing out in Germany I could have brought some Dunkels and Hefeweizen with me.  

2.  Traffic.  It isn't the same kind of traffic issues you have in someplace like Manila or Jakarta but driving here is awful.  People don't even slow down for red lights, pedestrians walk in the middle of the road to keep out of the dust or mud, bicycles are everywhere and they all seem to have wobbly tires so they weave and swerve in front of you without warning, and worst of all are the minibuses which are simply a health hazard.  The roads are full of potholes, and the edges are badly eroded sometimes having drop-offs of 8 or more inches where there should be a shoulder.  It is easy to flip a car if you are not paying attention to the edge of the road.  

3. Smoke.  My neighbors on all sides dispose of trash and yard debris by burning, this on top of their staff using wood to cook all of their meals.  The smell of smoke permeates my house at all times.  My throat was never this raw from the pollution in Jakarta. Leaving town doesn't help either.  Crop residues aren't composted or plowed back into the soil, instead they are raked into big heaps and burned.  Flying in during dry season you can spot dozens and dozens of smoke plumes when flying over.  

4.  Critters.  This one balances Colin's love of critters.  While theoretically I love that he is getting the chance to develop his love of nature there are critters in our yard I would prefer not to know about. Specifically spiders.  Big hairy spiders. I hate spiders.  HATE THEM! And we seem to have a colony of giant baboon spiders (tarantulas) in the back yard.  Colin has no problem scooping them up and carry them around. UGGH!  YUCK! 

Oh, and the cockroaches.  And ants.  There are ants every-flipping-where. They are horrible.  My snake phobia has reached all new heights.  It makes no difference that we haven't found even one dangerous snake in our yard, I am terrified than one day I will walk out and there will be a mamba waiting for me.  Just knowing mambas and cobras and boomslangs live around here is enough to make me crazy. 

5. Internet. The internet speed has really increased since we moved here two years ago.  It is still really expensive, but at least it is now fast enough to actually be able to watch a YouTube video.  The big problem is vandalism.  The lines are constantly cut, and sometimes stolen. It's not unusual for us to have no internet for days at a time due to someone stealing the copper or cutting the fiber.  This weekend alone there were at least 7 lines cuts that I know about.  It is very frustrating, especially as we head into this year of homeschooling when I am really going to need the internet. 

If anyone out there  is looking at bidding on Malawi PLEASE feel free to contact me.  It's not a bad posting, but it sure makes a difference in your happiness if you are prepared.  

Wordless Wednesday - Olympics

Homeschooling Day 1

Today we are supposed to start homeschooling. It is now 9 am. Only one of the boys has had breakfast.  No one's bed is made. the books are still in the cabinet. Two boys are fighting, one is crying, the other is smirking because he made his brother cry, and one boy is hiding in his bedroom as far from the other two as possible just in case some of the blame for the bad behavior should spill over one him.  Great start.

Today's plan was to start slow. List what everyone, including mom, hopes to study this year.  Look over all the new books.  Do a little math, a little writing, and work on a daily school schedule. I am having a few problems figuring out how to school 3 kids at 3 different grades all at once.  I expect we will work it out eventually. When I home schooled Alonzo year before last it took about two months to settle into a  schedule that worked.  Hopefully it will go faster this time.  

In addition to the academic basics of reading, writing, math, science, and history, I really want to teach life skills like simple cooking and the basics of sewing and most importantly MANNERS. What  skills, academic or otherwise, do you think are essential for kids to learn?

They finally quit fighting and are checking out their new math manipulatives. Things are looking up, fingers crossed. 

I set out all their books on a blanket for then to look at but they just grabbed the math stuff and took it to the table to play with.

And She's Gone

After a month long visit we took Dave's sister Teri to the airport this morning.  SOB!  It is time to get back to reality. I haven't blogged much at all for the last month because I have been having too much fun hanging out with the coolest sister-in-law ever.

I promise I will try to post some of the fun we have had, later though, not right now.  Now I am supposed to be getting ready to start homeschooling all three boys tomorrow.  GULP!  Obviously I am stalling by playing on the computer so here a few last pictures of her leaving Malawi before I get myself in gear.

Brother and sister

And the rest of the group

There she goes....

One last last wave and she's gone. 

Wordless Wednesday - Haircut

Wordless Wednesday - Paradise

Wordless Wednesday - I think I'll stay in the car.

Risen From the Ashes

I am not the only blogger in the Cyberbones family. Dave has had a photo blog for almost as long as I have had this blog.  Sadly he quit updating it somewhere along the line while we lived in Germany. This last week, out of the blue, he began updating again.  I am happy to announce the return of Pictures Taken By Me.  Except the pictures were taken by Dave not by me, which is actually true of most of the pictures on Cyberbones too.

This time he is trying something different.  Instead of featuring photography taken with his oversized digital SLR with it's mega zoom, most of the pictures will be taken on the go with his handphone.  No fancy camera equipment, no running the pictures through aperture to clean up the images.  Just point, click, and post.

Here is a picture he took the other night while reading to the kids before bedtime. This wooden rhino hangs over a huge beanbag in the office that is the perfect place to curl up and read, but with only the lamp on the rhino looks a little sinister. To see more of his view on our daily life here in Malawi just click here.

Wordless Wednesday - Kingfisher

Wordless Wednesday - Happy 12th Birthday Alonzo

Last Week of School

This is the boys last week of school here in Malawi.  No we are not leaving post this summer, I've made the decision to homeschool next year. There are a variety of reasons, none of which are really important in the context of this post.  What is important is that after this week time without kids is going to be a rare and precious commodity.

I have a list a mile long of things I am supposed to get done this week while I still have time to do things without interruptions.  I am supposed to be getting things organized for Dave's sister Teri's month long visit in July.  I need to finalize the curriculum decisions so we can everything ordered and be ready to start  schooling when Teri leaves.  I need to finish compiling the list for our final consumables order, we only have about a month left too get it ordered.  I need to order some clothes for the kids too, they have outgrown pretty much everything, the only thing that really fits is school uniforms.  After Friday I hope I never see those things again.  Who ever decided on white uniform shirts in the land of red dirt should be taken out back and made to scrub stained shirts until their fingers bleed.  UUUGGH!  I also need to weed the vegetable garden and get some seeds planted.  There is just so much I need to be doing.

What am I really doing this week?  Pretty much NOTHING.  I am sitting with my feet up and reading a guaranteed-happy-ending-trashy-romance book.  Or more accurately a stack of  romance books.  And I'm loving every minute of it. One of the cats we are babysitting for the summer has finally decided I am not some sort of demon out to eat her, and had curled up in my lap where she is softly purring as I scratch her ears.  Is there anything better than a feel-good book and a purring cat to make for a perfect morning?  David is picking me up to take me out to lunch in a little while.  The houses a mess and I'm not entirely sure what we are eating for dinner but it is shaping up to be a great day.  I have a feeling I won't be curled up quietly reading this time next week when all the kids are home making messes faster than I can clean them up.  I better enjoy the peace while it lasts.

Stuffed Peppers

In our family, and among our extended family and friends, I am known as the cook of the family. A reputation that comes mostly from being able to accurately follow written directions (i.e. recipe) and the total confidence if someone else can cook something there is absolutely no reason I can't as long as I have directions. Gnocchi? Sure. Pot Stickers? Why not? There are a few things I hate cooking. Lasagna for instance. All that work for something that usually tastes just as good, maybe better, if I buy it already made in the freezer section. Lasagna just isn't my thing, what can I say?

 David has a deep dark secret. He is at least as good a cook as I am, probably better since he rarely uses a recipe and it still comes out great. His specialty is stuffed peppers. They are to die for. Those of you in Malawi, next time we have a potluck anything feel free to gush to Dave that you have heard great things about his stuffed peppers, maybe he will make those. I think it is only fair after the number of pans of cinnamon rolls I have brought to various brunch type get-togethers.

 There's been a pack of peppers in the fridge just crying out to be stuffed for the last week. This weekend was one those weekends we never stopped moving, so no peppers were stuffed. Today I decided to get the recipe from Dave before the peppers went bad. David, who of course doesn't use a recipe, so he gave me the general idea of how to do it. I figured if he could do it, so could I. Yeah, famous last words. The peppers are stuffed but I am putting this on the record right now, I AM NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN. Holy cow what a lot of work. Make the sauce, brown the meat, cook the rice, char and peel the peppers, grate the cheese, then assemble everything. The only thing good I can say is at least I didn't have to make the cheese. I sincerely hope the peppers taste good, because I can make ricotta gnocchi, including making the ricotta cheese with less effort. Sadly, I really don't have a great feeling about it. I think it is going to be a lot like my lasagna: Meh, just OK. Sigh.

Wordless Wednesday - The Kids Made a Slingshot

Blocked

I don't know what's up, but this afternoon when I finally got caught up on everything and had a few minutes to sit and relax I tried to log onto Facebook to see what everyone is up and I got this message:  

Sorry, but www.facebook.com is blocked on this network.

After sending a short but succinct rant to my husband who is on charge of fixing stupidity like this I tried to log onto to Pinterest and got this message:

Sorry, but pinterest.com is blocked on this network.

After a second message to my husband (which may or may not have had a higher than normal ratio of four letter words) I decided to chill and just shoot bubbles for a few minutes until I calmed down.  What to guess what message I got? Yup you guessed it!

Sorry, but www.bubbleshooter.net is blocked on this network.

How about some jigsaw puzzle action?

Sorry, but www.jigzone.com is blocked on this network.

Sudoku?

Sorry, but www.websudoku.com is blocked on this network.

How about if I just Skype someone back home to whine about life in Malawi

Sorry, but www.bubbleshooter.net is blocked on this network.

And so my afternoon goes.  I'm not sure when Malawi relocated to China but suddenly I have all kinds of interesting internet restrictions that I didn't have this morning. SIGH! 

If you don't hear from me for a while it is because blogger has been blocked too, although I really hope this is just a temporary glitch. I have my fingers crossed that it is soon fixed.  Otherwise it is gonna be a LOOOONG final year of our posting to Malawi.