adventures: part 1

Hello!

I finally have access to the world wide web woop woop! Here is a fun story from Malawi:

Two days ago we took a trip to Blantyre (the biggest city in Malawi) which is about 4 hours from Chigamba and our orphanage. We left early around 7 am and got to the city to do some shopping at shop rite (an american style grocery store) and to go to immigration to extend our visas. We also went shopping at the open-air market and got apples and oranges, avocados, and veggies which was nice because for the past 2 weeks I have eaten just white rice, beans, and one time a piece of chicken. It is hard to get fresh foods in our village because we are so far out in the country!

So we leave Blantyre just after dark (6 pm here because it's the winter time) and we are on our way home down the single paved road in Malawi which will take us back to Chigamba. Keep in mind that this "highway" is barely wide enough to fit two cars on it and has no light whatsoever. All of a sudden--boom, flat tire. We get out of the van (6 women, 1 child, and our cook John) and go to call triple A--oh wait that doesn't exist here. A few guys on their bicycles stop to help us change our tire (luckily we have a spare under the van) but our jack doesnt work. We experiment lifting the van ourselves by the back bumper--no luck. At some point, two policemen stop at our van to ask us what has happened and they literally look like they are from a clockwork orange. The policeman is holding his handcuffs out like he's about to use them on us and the woman cop has her baton out and ready to strike. We are afraid but they leave....

So eventually we get the spare tire on our van and guess what--it's flat and we can't drive on it. We all pile in the van anyways and creep down the road a couple hundred feet until we get to a small roadside stand with a light on it where we stop and more men crowd our van to help us fix the tire. At the point we are hungry so we get some fresh fried "chips" from the roadside stand and chow down while John and the Malawians work on our tire. We also encounter an old man eating mice--yes, mice with the fur, teeth, tail, arms, legs, everything intact--and we take his picture. We also notice that the roadside stand offers fried chicken heads as a snack--yum!

We go back to the van and the men are trying to patch our broken tire with plastic bags and sugarcane. I laugh because I am positive this will not work but....what else do we do? Eventually we walk across the street to a "boys club" which is the Malawian equivalent of a bar (except no women allowed). It is a hut with a small coal fire and nice, cold carlsberg beers (cold drinks are not common in rural Malawi). We drink beers with the Malawian guys at this hut for a few hours and listen to sean kingston and have a fantastic time!!!!! EVentually, John comes back over to us to let us know our tire is FIXED! They have patched it with a corn cob. No joke. a corn cob.

We leave and actually make it back to Chigamba, to my utter astonishment. The corn cob tire is still on the van today and doing well...

That's all for now! I have to get off the computer but everything here is REALLY GREAT and I'm having a good time.

xoxo
Marika