Headed back...

We are headed back to our site in a little bit. It has been a busy long weekend, so we are looking forward to settling into our routine again. It looks like the next few weeks will also be busy at site. Plus Brian's birthday coming up! We will be celebrating by going to a village wedding. Hopefully we'll get some good pics to put up. We'll be back in Lilongwe on the 12th for Camp Sky meetings and again at the end of the month for various reasons including welcoming the new education volunteers at the airport. It is hard to believe it has almost been a year since we came to Malawi.
As your summer comes to an end we are about to start our hot season. This time will be more intense than last year because we were in Dedza, a cooler climate, for the hottest part of the year.
We missed a few fun weddings this summer. Congratulations to Jen and Dan and also Brett and Christy! Wish we could have been there to celebrate. Also, had we been home this summer we would have definitely been out to visit The Simple Lodge in Salida, Colorado (probably the coolest backpacking hostel ever and anybody travelling that direction should check it out).

Donations Update

We have received some more wonderful things for our school and site projects that we should acknowledge. I hope I am not forgetting anyone:
Chad- colored pencils
Brad and Lonnie- tons of art supplies from Target Coon Rapids, again!
Filos- colored pencils, knitting needles
Jack and Bonnie- Knitting needles, yarn
Eric and Jessica- yarn, embroidery floss (picked out especially by Annika!)

Thank you so much for your support. You may have noticed we added a sidebar to indicate specific things we are looking for right now. Also, our group of education volunteers is putting on a summer school called CampSky. We are each selected our two most promising students to attend for two weeks. All of the students come from extremely under resourced schools and this is a once in a life time opportunity for them. If anybody is looking for a way to give monetarily, this would be a great cause. Also, you would be donating through a non-profit, Friends of Malawi and can use PayPal.
We will be accepting donations until October 1st.
Also check out the CampSky Blog if you haven't already.

I'll probably get in trouble for posting this but I couldn't help it.

Headmaster's Graduation

This weekend we attended our headmaster's graduation from Chancelor College in Zomba. We travelled with his wife, who is also a teacher at our school. He was receiving his Bachelor's Degree. Most teachers are very underqualified (secondary school certificates), so this was a really big deal and we wanted to support it. The ceremony itself was very similar to ours except they hit a big drum when each graduate walked up. The crowd was what was truely African. The families went completely nuts when their graduate was announced. Also, as orderly lines and punctuality are nearly nonexistant here, tons of extra people started pushing through the doors at the last minute. Some lady was practically sitting on Brian's lap until our headmaster's wife scolded her and we almost feared a riot from all the pushing. All in all, it was a really fun day and we are glad we joined. Plus we wore our Malawian clothes which seemed to be appreciated.

Joan's Restaurant

Little did we know that Joan (my stepmom) had opend a restaurant at the bus depot in Zomba!!! Had she told us we would have gone months ago! I wonder if turkey sloppy joes are served there?

Mud Oven

As soon as this mud oven dries we will be enjoying all kinds of baked goods! To use it we will build a fire underneath the bottome tin sheet. Then we will take charcoals from the fire and put them on the top tin sheet. The bread or cake will go between them and we have another small tin sheet we will lean on it for a door.
The ingrediants in our oven include locally made bricks, clay from termite mounds, ash and water.

GAD

We are attending a fundraiser for Gender And Development (GAD). It is a Peace Corps group devoted to empowering both sexes for the sake of development in countries that Peace Corps serves. It is an Iron Chef theme, so several Peace Corps groups are competing in the culinary arts. I have heard that audience participation involves men in zitenje (the waist-down wrap that Malawian women wear). Our Country Director has opened his house for the big event.

Mixed Media

Kristy added birds to the baobob tree and a swirly design to the hallway wall.

How to make peanut butter

First shell all your peanuts

Then chop the wood for your fire. Remember, these are from the garden so they are only dried, not cooked.

Roast them over the fire.

Put them into a huge mortar.

And pound the heck out of them for a long time...then peanut butter!!!

Domestic Help

Ladies, I am sure you are all jealous that my husband does the dishes...Plus he got a new hair cut (at his mother's request).

Our New Favorite Hobby