Moving Next Week… Maybe?

We are set to receive the keys for our new home on Sunday, so we are working with our moving company to send our container down from Malawi to be able to move in Monday or Tuesday next week. We are finalizing things on this end, but we got this message from the moving company:

“We are preparing the Customs Export Entry now and want to load this week but opposition has called for strikes again this week threatening to close the airport and borders. So we have to see how it goes and will keep you informed as we go along.”

Malawi is a bit unsettled these days, and our hearts – and apparently our plans – are still very much tied to our former home! Please pray with us that our container can clear the boarder in the next couple days without incident!

moving boxes

This is what we are waiting for… lots of boxes! 

While the Cat’s Away…

Very early this morning we sent our favorite guy off to conferences in South Africa.

He left for the airport before the girls woke up. But when they did, this conversation happened:

R: “It’s just us girls! What do girls eat for breakfast?”

A: “Pancakes! With chocolate hair! And raspberry eyes, and scrambled eggs mouth and a cherry nose!”

Oh boy! I hope we survive 5 days without Matt’s steadying influence! We modified the stated “girls menu” and came up with something that satisfied everyone:

After breakfast Matt let us know they were about to take off for the first leg of their trip, a short, 27-minute flight from Lilongwe to Blantyre. Our airport has little enough traffic that everyone knows exactly what flights we are flying overhead. Ethiopian Airlines flight 20 was the only flight leaving the Lilongwe airport at any time even remotely close to 8:20am, so we went outside to wave goodbye to dad!

See the contrail in the sky?!? There he goes! And so begin the Floreen girl adventures!

It’s Not Over

Yesterday morning I just about called it. Rainy season had to be over. It never rains this intensely in March; the last one had to have been the last one.

Oh, but that was not the case. I headed to the grocery store with Naomi about 3:30pm and found myself driving straight toward this:

Unphased, I held to my earlier conviction until we were in the store and I heard the rain start to hit the tin roof. It was a gentle sound at first, and made me wish they would play “I miss the rains down in Africa” on the speaker system. I only had 2 minutes for such thoughts before it began to rain harder. And then another 2 minutes later it was raining so hard that the noise in the large, tin-roofed grocery store was deafening. Naomi had to shout in my ear to be heard.

The torrential rain lasted for more than an hour! It was so bad that they closed the big metal/security sliding doors of the store. In the picture below, the exit is about where you see the sign for #4 checkout stand. The big metal doors were closed for more than 45 minutes while shoppers who had finished filled the exit area, just waiting for a chance to get out!

Once we had found everything we needed, we roamed the store restlessly. At one point the power went off for 3-4 minutes. 😳 Naomi was getting tired and a little frightened by the whole experience. But eventually I saw that people were starting to leave and the metal doors were partway open.

I began to check out, at a cash register far from the exit. All of a sudden a man with an armload of groceries bolted from the furthest cash register and ran toward the exit. By the time he reached the exit, he was walking normally and the ladies at that furthest cash register were yelling and waving their arms. But there was nothing they could do. The man had stolen the groceries and the rain had drown all their cries to stop the thief. Even two lanes away from them, I couldn’t hear their cries of “thief!” But I had seen it and like those ladies the realization of what had happened came too late.

Naomi and I made our way quickly to the car in the heavy rain, and by the time I had loaded the groceries in the back I was soaked. The heat and humidity steamed up the car, and it was a while before I could see through the fogged up windows! As we headed through town, evidence of the storm was all around us. Traffic was terribly slow, signs were ripped and destroyed, branches lay on the road, and water rushed through the culverts.

Everyone was picking up the pieces and getting back to normal life.

As I neared our house, there were fewer and fewer signs of the storm. Matt’s report when we got home: just a few sprinkles but lots of thunder.

And so, I’m not going to call it today. Or tomorrow. Maybe my weather forecasting confidence will have returned by next week. But for the moment, I can honestly say that I have no idea when the rainy season will end this year! We’ll just enjoy the lush green tropics for as long as we can!

End of the Season

We are in what may be the last series of rainy days for this season. It was not nearly as much rain as everyone had hoped for this year, but at least the maize is up in most parts of the country.

The intensity of these late storms has surprised us a bit. Usually it’s the earlier rains that put on a big show, but on Tuesday it poured!

Take a closer look at those white streaks….

Yep, we got hail!

We’ve seen hail a couple times in all the years we’ve lived here in Malawi, but it’s definitely rare. The girls hadn’t seen it before, so it was fun to share that first with them. And just in case you’re wondering, yes, we do live in the tropics… hail in the tropics – who knew?!

Normal Life

After a couple days of adventures, we were glad to get back to “normal” life by the end of the week. Here are a few glimpses of the last couple days, in no particular order… just us, living normal life!

Abigail has been very interested in art, so we took a couple hours to go to Round and Square during our shopping trip on Thursday. She had some great ideas to go with her water paints, and then Miss Sue, who is the server and hostess at Round and Square, brought Abi a couple kids’ art books to inspire her. So fun!!!

Abi may be pursuing watercolors like her mom, but Naomi is trying a little photography, just like her dad! Not bad for a four year old!

Meanwhile, the last of the fields in town are being burned in preparation for planting. We’ve had 2 rains now, the last 2 weekends, and it looks like we will have more rain within the week. And yes, by “field,” I mean every available piece of land, including all verges and any land that someone else hasn’t already planted.

After a couple days of crazy, my sweet husband took us out to dinner. Not only that, he kept the whole family entertained the entire time! I love this guy! He started drawing a picture, and then we each in turn had 30 seconds to continue the picture and add to it.

We all loved it! It has so much of everyone’s personality in it, including “a baby sun and a daddy sun!” thanks to Naomi!

Our finished product:

Lastly: my tree. Each member of the family has their own tree in our yard. Mine is a flamboyant, and I love everything about it, especially this time of year as it has the most beautiful blooms!

Thanks for reading along and joining us in these normal but special moments of life!

Bike Taxi of the Day

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a stand-up bike taxi before today, but I was really impressed that this guy was texting on his phone while riding/standing on the bike! Although… considering the skill with which Malawians handle dugout canoes, I shouldn’t be surprised!

Settling the Dust

Every October there is a rain that is called the “chisime luksha” rain. It’s the out-of-the -blue storm that stops the dust and cools us off. I love this rain, and it happened to be today.

It was foggy this morning, which is a bit odd for this time of year, but a sure sign that the humidity has rolled in. Then it got hot fast. By 9:45am, our thermometer told us it was 31C (88F). By 1:30pm, the car thermometer said 37C (98F). Oye. Then just after 2pm, one of the windiest downpours I’ve ever seen hit Lilongwe.

The trees were whipped around, debris and leaves flew everywhere in the air! I wanted to open all the windows because the wind was COLD, but there was too much rain.

Matt went to work pretty quickly. The last of our solar stands had been painted in the morning, so needed to be moved out of the rain ASAP. And the cars had windows cracked. By the time he got back inside, he was drenched!

It rained off and on for about 3 hours, sometimes hard, but it generally calmed down to a nice moderate rain. As we enjoyed the natural air conditioning, I started cleaning up the puddles and wet furniture on our porch. I smiled to think that, Lord willing, a couple months from now I will be drying out furniture and squeegeeing our porch floor on an almost daily basis as we go into the real rainy season. Today was just a taste, and for us, a pleasant, cool taste.

For others it wasn’t so pleasant. We’ve heard reports of tree limbs falling on cars, of 6 injured at Maula Prison where iron sheets tore off the roof, and of lots of power lines down. Our power is still out, putting this blackout at 17 hours and counting… just kidding it came on as I typed that! And, off again. Oh dear. We all know the rains are good, and so important for Malawi, but they come with their own set of dangers and concerns.

For today though, we will enjoy the relief from the heat, the joy of water, and the hope of green and food. And the sunset… God painted a masterpiece tonight, even the little corner we could see from our yard!

Kids and Markets

I love raising kids in Africa. Life is laid back and out in the open. People laugh and talk to one another. There is color, nature, beauty, and adventure. It’s truly a great place to raise fun, imaginative, resourceful kids. There are a few things here, though, that I’ve had to think more carefully about than I would if I were raising my kids in the States. One of those things is the market. Abigail has been to the market before, but not for quite a while, and that only because she was in tow with the grandparents or with Mom and Dad running errands. It can be hard to take kids to the market: you have to bargain for everything, watch where you’re going, watch for pickpockets, and keep a close eye on the kids. I don’t have that many eyes! But Abigail is growing up, so today, for the first time as a big kid of 7, she came to help me shop at the Old Bus Depot Market.

Our goal was fabric in the chitinje market. We were looking for new curtains for the project room, a valance for the kitchen, shower curtains, and some fabric to make bags for the girls’ ballet things.

We got busy and found all kinds of things! Some of them we needed, and some… for fun! Most of the fabric here is $1/yard (MWK1500 for 2 meters), so sometimes I pick up fabrics I like but have no purpose in mind for them. Some will go back to the States with visiting professors, some will become skirts for me and the girls. It all works out. Don’t talk to my husband about this. He has very different ideas about fabric hoarding/loving. 😬😁 He’s probably right, so for the sake of my sewing shelves and the love of my husband, I only go to the chitinje market 2-3 times a year. Abigail, I would guess, takes after me when it comes to loving fabric. Me with a bent toward the style of the early 80s. I guess I was 7 years old in the early 80s, so we are right on track.

It was a successful trip to the market. Fabric-wise, we found something for every project we had in mind, and only 2 pieces of “ooo, that will be great for something!” Abigail chatted with the ladies, befriended a one-legged chicken under the tables, and had a great time experiencing more of Africa. It was fun to adventure with her, and we are looking forward to lots more adventures together!