Zomba Hiking - Forest Old and New

The last day in Zomba we decided to have a go at a hike even though it had poured the night before and looked threatening the whole way. We didn't make it as far as the famous lookouts (named for the Queen Mother of England and the Emperor of Ethiopia - both of whom visited the plateau over 60 years ago) but were just glad we didn't get dumped on. 

The area is famous for seeing huge loads of wood being carried for kilometers down the mountain. This particular group of women were not all carrying wood and the one load was quite a bit smaller than typical but it was at a moment where I could easily ask permission to take a photo since it wasn't too steep.

Unfortunately, there are lots of areas on the plateau which have been completely stripped of forest. Happily, what you probably can't see, is this whole hillside seemed like it had been prepped for seedlings and there was a large group of people there whom we assumed were going to be planting seedlings. There were many other hills with seedlings in various stages of growth (in addition to many hills with no trees left). 

 The photo above and below were taken quite close together. Below, John is standing in the old growth forest. And above is where that ends and you see the beginning of an area that was clear cut. We wondered how much of the plateau was covered in forest when the above mentioned dignitaries visited in the 50's and 60's.

Zomba - Sunbird Ku Chawe

One of the perks of being posted overseas is that John gets both local and US holidays. Taking advantage of our second long weekend we thought the next good place to visit during the rainy season was the mountain area in the south. Fortunately, as you can see from the photos here we had a pretty clear afternoon when we arrived to the beautiful Zomba plateau.

The baboons at the Sunbird Ku Chawe hotel really were a nuisance (they had to lock the doors to the dining room at breakfast time so that they didn't run in and steal food and there was no way to eat outside on the patio for breakfast). However, these two provided quite the entertainment on our first afternoon as they enjoyed the ketchup from the people who had an afternoon snack on the lawn. But the next day at dinner there were no bottles of ketchup to be found for the french fries and the waiter had to bring the little packets instead!

Food, Glorious Food

Sometimes people have asked me what we eat when we live in Africa and for us, the answer is pretty much the same thing that we eat in the US. But it does take a while to figure out exactly what that means in each new place. We have the added challenge here that John and I have both changed our eating habits since we last lived together two and a half years ago so it will be a while longer before we completely figure things out. Read on for some photo highlights of food in Malawi.

This was the lunch I ordered when we were at the Lake - curry chicken. I think the rice and beans combo is pretty common here - although Malawians prefer nsima - basically a stiff porridge made out of white corn meal (called sadza in Zimbabwe).  We had a lunch at John's boss's house last Friday and Rodwell, our housekeeper did local dishes - nsima, beans (prepared with vegetables) and pumpkin greens with groundnut (peanut) flour. It was fun to finally have someone make local food in my kitchen - that was a first in all of our years in the foreign service.

I bought a crown pumpkin and asked Rodwell to prepare it - it's delicious.  It was a big pumpkin so we had it quite a few times - like this and then roasted in cubes. 

A family favorite from the time that we lived in Costa Rica. I have a big freezer so I'm trying to freeze up some mango because I think you can only find it in season. Plain yogurt that is similar to what we can get in the US is very hard to find but I did find it in a shop yesterday that I'm hoping will normally have it in stock.

A beautiful lunch salad - again thanks to Rodwell. I love eating salad but neither John nor I love making them. Avocados are also in season (but carrots are hard to find right now).

Happy to be back to our favorite brand of South African juice. You can find this in the US (they even had it at the shop at Carnegie Mellon University where Abigail goes to school) but it we get all the varieties here - including this new one.

Yes, this is fresh salmon (not previously frozen). There is a store that occasionally imports salmon - the sign said that it was caught last Tuesday in Norway. You had to buy the whole fish but there were two couples who wanted to split a whole one three way and we were standing at the counter looking at the packages of smoked salmon (since there was no way we were going to buy a whole salmon) and they asked if we were interested in joining them. I hadn't really intended on buying some but I must say it was delicious!! The best salmon I've had in a while - sold right here in Malawi. 

First Excursion - Lake Malawi

For years we have heard our Malawian friends tell us the wonders of Lake Malawi. Since my very first weekend here happened to be Martin Luther King weekend we decided we ought to take advantage of that and head to "the Lake" even though we are in the thick of the rainy season. This is a good post for lots of photos:

Can you see the car in front of us? As we got close to our destination we saw a lot of them. I guess they are the out in the country version of the minibuses. The hatch was open for the passengers!

The grounds of the Livingstonia where we stayed.

The beach at our hotel. 

View from our room - we were out on the beach for a while and watched the rain roll across the lake. It took a long time but eventually reached the shore.

There were a number of brief pauses for the cows crossing the road. 

After breakfast at our hotel we wandered down the coast with a destination of the Red Zebra Lodge where we wanted to eat lunch. It was very picturesque and some of the bright blue sky returned.

So, the business at the lodge is exporting exotic fish. We had a tour of the tropical fish farm which was very interesting. The lake in general has been overfished so one of the things that the farm is working on is restocking the lake - not just removing fish. 

The spot for our lunch was in the garden right next to the lake. A perfect spot for lunch.

I'm not usually a big soda fan but I do enjoy a good ginger beer. This is Malawi's version of Stoney which we drank in Zimbabwe and Kenya (Arianna says its available in the US but I've never seen it).

A beautiful blue sky - there has not been a lot of that in the three weeks since I've arrived. We hope to go to another part of the lake when the rainy season is over. Next excursion is the mountains!

Traveling - With an Instrument

The musicians amongst the readers can skip this one since you are well versed in the challenges of traveling with musical instruments. Much has been posted on social media in the past few years about the trials of flying with instruments which just adds to the stress. But, living without a cello for 6+ months was not an option that I was willing to consider. And so, I packed her up in my trusty Stevenson cello case (built to the specifications of my own cello) and headed to the airport with plans to do one of those plastic wrap numbers on it which we've never done in all of our years of traveling. Those trusty kiosks for wrapping always seemed ubiquitous but I guess they are not in high demand in Cincinnati so that was a no go. So, after paying a hefty oversize luggage fee (which sometimes they charge and sometimes they don't but when the agent got her measuring tape out I knew we were in trouble), we said goodbye with hopes and prayers for the best.

Sure enough, it arrived in the oversized luggage section safe and sound the next day in Johannesburg. Since it wasn't wrapped in plastic I was able to open it immediately to ensure it was safe. Fortunately, Joburg airport had plenty of free luggage carts which we certainly needed with our 3 large suitcases, 1 large cello and a roller bag.

The next day, with a few more thoughts of things that could go wrong depending on the agent we got at check in we arrived with plenty of time to get the plastic wrap and found our way to a South African Airways agent. We've had problems with SAA with violins/carry ons and when I was considering options for getting my cello home from Africa two and half years ago I read a few horror stories about trying to fly with a cello on SAA. But, thankfully our agent happily put another fragile sticker over the plastic wrap and had it set aside for an agent to take by hand without saying anything about it being oversized. She also didn't say anything about the fact that I did not yet have a visa for Malawi which they often question when you don't have a return ticket.

Wrapped cello after it arrived home

So, we breathed a sigh of relief and gave a little thankful prayer and I enjoyed the rest of of time in the Joburg airport. As a family, we have spent many hours there and it was nice to go back and visit my favorite shop there:

Out of Africa

There was a large crowd cheering as we arrived in Lilongwe - not for us of course but it was a warm welcome nonetheless:

Cheering for an anticipated guest at an orphan organization

And it all ended well with my cotton enclosed cello (CHCA people should see a few familiar shirts). The instructions for sending a cello in a travel case are to reduce the tension on the strings, wrap it in cotton and add extra soft items where they fit. I was glad I had a nice supply of school T-shirts to help me out.

Coming Home To a Place I've Never Been Before

The words of that John Denver song have rattled around in my head in my first 24 hours in Malawi. So much is so familiar - the style of our house, our lamps (foreign service homes all have the same furniture), my favorite grocery store (Food Lovers Market), the flora, the weather, etc. Having said that, life is full of new thoughts - wanting to share photos of the gecko with my 7th-9th grade students who have passed around my beaded gecko as we have our post concert debriefings, remembering my trip to Kenya with CHCA student (Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy - the school where I teach in the US), having new friends in the US to send WhatsApp messages to across the ocean.

And so, few photos from the day:

My first morning was spent mostly unpacking but then I headed out to the porch (called a veranda in Zimbabwe but khonde here). Around noon our house should have been quiet as our staff was eating lunch. I kept hearing a scraping noise and finally traced it over to this bucket in the corner of the porch where I found a gecko. Yesterday afternoon, when we had just arrived, another one scampered into the house which both times reminded me of my CHCA students (8th graders - maybe one was Pedro and the other Pablo?).

When we first arrived at the shopping center I was again reminded of Zimbabwe as I saw familiar stores. But as we entered the center, I had flashbacks to my 2017 CHCA Intersession trip to Kenya where we also visited the grocery stores at the malls (we almost never went to an indoor mall in Zimbabwe). I tried to unsuccessfully to crop this photo - can you see the large Christmas tree in the middle of the mall that is still proudly standing on January 18th? 

My last major flashback of the shopping trip was picking up this packet of tomatoes at Food Lovers Market - exactly like the ones I had bought in Zimbabwe and I found it super hard to believe that was two and a half years ago! 

Side notes - as I looked up the words to the John Denver song that was running around my head I was reminded of my many family members who connect to those Rocky Mountains. And playing with John Denver at the Star Lake Amphitheater with Jennifer Gerhard. Nice to know that as much as I move around memories of family and friends are always with me!

Goodbye Snow, Hello Green

What a lovely winter send off from Cincinnati! After a two year break from blogging, I am back at it as I head back to Africa. Malawi should be green, a.k.a. rainy when we land there. The trip from Cincinnati to Lilongwe is "the long way". First, we headed to Atlanta (where I am writing) and next we head to Johannesburg onto one of the longer flights on the planet which takes 15 to 16 hours. That flight arrives after the last daily departure for Lilongwe and so we stay overnight in a hotel in Johannesburg before catching a plane on the third day of our trip. 

Fortunately, thanks to the US government shut down,  John is flying with me. I’m pretty sure this is the first time in our foreign service life where it is just the two of us taking the trip. It will be different to live in Africa as empty nesters but exciting nonetheless. Hoping that many of my new friends in Cincinnati will enjoy following my sabbatical journey here on this blog. Welcome back to any faithful followers from our previous foreign service adventures. 

On another African note, our thoughts and prayers have been with our friends in Zimbabwe since we started to hear news from them on Saturday about potential unrest. It doesn't usually make big headlines in the US but if you search for it you can see what has been happening. For those of you inclined to pray, please add the people of Zimbabwe to your list. I had been making travel plans to go there to do some teacher training and concerts with friends while I live in Malawi and we are hoping to take our girls back there in May. 🇿🇼