lake malawi

just got back from a quick long weekend at lake malawi. how very madonna of me (no, i didn't see her and no, i didn't bring home a baby).

we spent 5 days driving up the coast of the lake, swimming around little beach towns. i forgot how long it had been since i really spent time at a lake- got all nostalgic about canoeing, camping and not showering. i happily got right back into the swing of not washing my hair. i think the guys i travelled with were thrilled.

malawi felt familiar. while i'm sure if i spent a bit of time in one spot i'd see how many differences there are between malawi, ghana and uganda, on the surface it felt like one of my homes. little kids were thrilled to see white people walk by and threw around the thumbs up like it was nobody's business. there were hundreds of vendors selling soap, coke, biscuits and small packets of gin. i followed a pretty strict diet of PB, fresh avocado and fish. i spent most of my time dreaming up more places to visit and thinking about how badly i wish i could scoot over to ghana just for a bit.

after a what seemed like ages of flipping through annual reports (and my time doing that was nothing compared to the months of it the others put up with) it was nice to get back to all of that. there is a bit more to get done before the project is officially finished but it is certainly in the home stretch. this probably stems from how superficial my work has been on the project, but it feels like this report is a stab in the dark. ill be interested to see/hear about the effects of it in the long run.

i'll be in jobuurg for the next week and then am making a move east to a small town called hlabisa. don't know much about it but i hear good things. limited internet access though... not that the blog will notice since i continue to be terrible at updating it.

quick update about ETFL... school in ghana runs year round in 3 terms (sept-dec, jan-apr, may-aug). term 2 is wrapping up next week and i'll bee shooting out a newsletter at the end of april to sum up what has gone on (email lindsay@eattofeedliberians.com if you're not already on the mailing list). i desperately need more people to sign up for the 1+1=7 campaign. its been painfully slow and i'm running out of ideas on how to get people to do it. visit www.eattofeedliberians.com/oneplusone.html to sign up. or email me if you'd rather do one yearly payment. its $60 yearly and without people doing this the third term is going to be a tough one to fund.

other news... the camp was hit with a whopper of a storm the other week and it has really butchered the roof of our pre-primary campus. we're working out repair details and there will be more news there shortly. i'll need hands to help with that as well.

okay! thats all for now. pictures of all the different things mentioned in the newsletter will be up on facebook shortly.