ahh, finally! My long-awaited month of summer finally arrived... in the month of October! Yes, July was pretty #misĂŠrable for me; it was cold here (okay, not Canada cold) but I was definitely super #jelly seeing all my fam and friends who were enjoying the 30+ degree weather in Canada, going to the beach, etc. etc. But this month, it's my turn to have fun in the sun, and it's been great! Although I definitely miss fall (my fav season), and seeing all the pictures that my friends are posting on Facebook makes me more nostalgic, summer adventures around Malawi have been pretty sweet! A QUICK (if it's possible, but not really) recap of my month.
The beginning of October, I was away at Salima for a week on the beach for a WUSC Culture & Language Orientation! We stayed at Mpatsa Beach Lodge, which was located RIGHT on the beach. Literally, you walk out of the restaurant porch and youâre on the sand. It was pretty sweet, needless to say. Plus, Sam (another WUSC volunteer based in Blantyre, and my recent partner in crime here ;) , also aka Samatha, Chimwemwe, or MisĂŠrable - ha ha ha! #fakelaughs) and I ended up getting an awesome room in the Lodge that had a giant view looking RIGHT out on the beach:
Oh, and this is us on our way to Salima from Lilongwe, in the back of the WUSC vehicle with everyone's bags. There were too many of us to fit in two cars so...Â
[ps: EXCUSE all the overuse of #malawihashtags. Haha it's kind of just become our #malawiinsidejoke. Plus, it just makes ridiculous things seem funnier. And sometimes, that's totally needed when living in a Third World country.]
Anyways, I won't go into too much detail about the week, but I will say that it was super relaxing to have a week off work (felt a little bit like a slacker!), and to enjoy a whole week at the beach to learn about the history and culture of Malawi, as well as to have a 1-and-a-half day crash course on Chichewa (local language). I must say, I was looking forward most to the Language Orientation of the week as I had been (somewhat successfully... and rather unsuccessfully) been trying to learn Chichewa on my own #fail. So it was REALLY nice to have a teacher explain the grammatical structure and logic behind the language, and I have to say, it totally helped, although my not practicing/learning new words everyday has hindered my improvement on a daily basis/potential to be able to carry a basic conversation by now (still not totally there yet, and kind of sad/disappointing for an expat that's lived here for... 3+ months already!).
Nevertheless, apart from meeting the rest of the WUSC Lilongwe volunteers that I hadn't had the chance to meet before this trip, I made some new friends - the beach vendors! Hahaha, pretty much all the WUSC volunteers can testify to this. So at the beach, there are a handful of vendors who sell their local handiwork, including acrylic paintings, handmade accessories, wooden sculptures/objects, etc. And living in Blantyre, I have to say, I haven't been able to (still)Â find ANY of the local beaded jewellery that I've been trying to look for since I arrived ANYwhere in town! So, naturally, I was SUPER into looking at all their local handicraft and bought a LOT of stuff. Like, a lot. Hahaha, BUT it was all super cheap, and half of them are for friends and fam anyway... kinda ;). Whatever, either way, I definitely helped support their livelihoods that week, and BFF'ed them. Lol nbd.
(a pic of my BFF beach boy vendors)
(Sam snuck a picture of us shopping haha) #sneaky. But this pretty much captures every single day that week haha.
Overall, the week was fun and super relaxing. We were SO overly well-fed all week (literally being served food for what felt like every 2-3 hours in the day), and had me starting to get a little too comfortable with the beach life. SO before we left Salima, Sam and I (naturally) had a #cheesy beach photoshoot:
De-acessorizing myself with my newly purchased local jewellery before going in the water! haha
going into Lake Malawi for the first time!
#cheesy #beachphotoshoot #chimwemwe
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So that brings me to the next highlight of my month - Friday, October 11th: International Day of the Girl Child!Â
Oh, I guess before that, I should mention that October 10th was Sam's bday, but I'll just gloss over that 'cause it's not that important. ;) We went to Hostaria for dinner (an Italian restaurant in Blantyre) - the best! Honestly, it's my fav restaurant in Blantyre, at least so far. There aren't very many places where you can get good italian pasta, or just pasta in general. And if you're a pasta fanatic like me, then you'll understand the value of finding such a gem in a new city. Plus, it's very made for expats - with the service and everything - so it feels like a little piece of home in Malawi. Here's a picture of us getting drunk off white wine that night hahaha. #butactually
@ Hostaria #sonotchickenandchips
And then a pic of us at Doogles later that night (another expat's bar):
Above: Felicity (fellow WUSC Blantyre volunteer), Debbie (colleague of Anna from Scotland), Me, and Anna (WUSC Blantyre volunteer)
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Okay, so now that that's over with (ha ha, jk), the next morning I was at the Blantyre City Assembly hosting an event with GENET to commemorate the International Day of the Girl Child. The theme for this year was: "Innovating for Girls' Education."Â
We invited 23 schools from Blantyre district (both primary and secondary), to each bring 20 students (15 girls and 5 boys) and do a 5-minute presentation in relation to the theme. The presentations included: dramas, poems, songs, dances... and even acrobatic performances! (That was unexpected...) We had a turnout of probably about 500 people. The event went REALLY well, and (despite some internal hiccups, of course, because that's always inevitable,) many people said that it was our best event yet! I also got TOTALLY sunburnt that day, and was extremely exhausted by the end of the event. But that's kind of totally irrelevant. Here are some pics to highlight the event:
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Then, on October 15th, it was Mother's Day in Malawi (which is a national holiday here), so everyone had the day off work. This also happened to coincide around the time of Canadian Thanksgiving, SO Felicity, one of the other WUSC Blantyre volunteers and my friend, suggested having a big dinner together at her place. We ended up having: vegetable harvest soup (made by me), chicken (cooked by Felicity), buttersquash risotto (courtesy of Anna), steamed veggies, mashed sweet potatoes, bread, and of course, lots of wine (courtesy of everyone). And as for dessert, Sam made a no-bake, frozen peanut butter and oreo cookie crumb dessert! Hereâs a photo of all of us that night:
#chimwemwe (From left to right: Linn - Anna's colleague, Anna, Kay - Anna's colleague, Sam, Felicity, and I)
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And finally, that brings me to last weekend, where... I went mountain hiking! Haha ya, for those of you who know me, this is so not exactly an activity for me, but I did it anyway and totally survived! #misĂŠrable. It was actually a pretty good experience, and seeing all the waterfalls in the mountains (and swimming in one!) totally made it worth it in the end. #sorelegsfortwodays It was also really nice being in the mountains because a) I like mountains (probably because Ontario is so damn flat that I'm fascinated by anything other than a one-dimensional horizon, and also, I fell in love with the mountains when I travelled to northern India last year), and b) it's SO GREEN in the mountains !! (Malawi, like many other developing countries, I'm sure, has a lot of environmental degradation, so it was SO nice to see somewhere where there were bountiful (healthy) trees! (Refer to my safari pictures to even see how degraded the National Park is...) Anyways, some beautiful photos of nature to end this post:
As you are approaching Mount Mulanje, it is surrounded by tea gardens: #beautiful
made it to the top of the summit!
hidden waterfall in the mountains!
Day 2: heading back down! (From left to right: one of our porters, me, Sam, Jocelyn, and MK)
