Luckybeans

Entries and exits

I uploaded the last bunch of photos from my camera that had a few shots of Malawi on them:

 

Ana routing for England when they were still in the World Cup (I am a Spanish fan, so I seem to be the only happy family member when it comes to football).

 

Simon blowing out his birthday candles.

And most poignant of all, a picture of Asher playing with a dinosaur on the vinyl seats of the airport as we wait to leave Malawi.

 

Which reminded me of this picture of Asher playing with a dinosaur on the vinyl seats at the border crossing as we waited to enter Malawi.

 

Hello.

Dear friends, my apologies for my prolonged absence. Life has been difficult in Malawi for us these past few months, and with power outages and a complete lack of uploading capability, the blog fell to the wayside. Let me assure that we are all well, whole and happy.

 Over the past few months, we have been doing what we love doing as always-- art, play, animal friends, lake and forest.  Photographic evidence we are still alive!

We are in the midst of huge transitions right now. After long thought and much discussion, Simon and I have decided to move our family to the USA for a few years. With all of the children in school full time, I realised I was spending a lot of my time doing not very much of anything at all. And that is a true waste of time! Combined with the difficulty of where we have been living, we felt that this is now a good time for me to return to school and complete my degree (which Ai Ana so rudely interrupted). We will be settling into a small farming town in Oregon with a university that has a creative writing program, a charter school for the children, and family within easy range. 

 

As I am sure you can imagine, this is an enormous change for our family. My children are African through and through, and are both excited and terrified. But then, so am I. Simon will continue with the same company, and work partly from home and partly traveling. I don't think any of us quite believe this is real yet. The children and I are now staying with my mum, and it mostly feels like another summer holiday. If I let myself think about it, my heart breaks to be leaving Africa again. Deep down, though, we know this is the beginning of something completely different, and that this is the right place for us for this time in our lives. We don't know where this new road will lead us. But we are sure it will be an adventure.

    

Farm Fun

As you all know by now, we have a long-standing love affair with the primary school farm. With the children on break this week, what better to do than go for a visit with our animal friends? 

 The sheep are smelly and rather dumb, the bunnies are soft and tricky to catch. The tortoises are surprisingly engaging, with this baby having grown so big since last year. The horses are beautiful and somewhat skittish, the geese are cranky. But piglet and and donkey foal-- oh, they are marvellous. They follow you around with snuffles and leanings, and steal your heart. What does it say that our favourite animals are pigs and donkeys (and Leopard the chicken, of course)? I 'm not sure, but it is very true.

 And I have to confess, that one of my favourite parts about the farm is the buildings. Old brick, split fences, raw wood... So much beauty in a farmyard. Well, at least we think so.

Run away!

 (photo by Ana)

This past weekend, we made a speedy get away to the Lake. The power had been gone for almost twenty-four hours; it was all piling up and getting to be too much. So we turned tail and fled to sand and water.

 And? It was pure bliss. We stayed in a lodge right on the water, surrounded by trees and climbing rocks. We ate all our meals under an enormous fig tree, supervised by the resident dassie, monkeys and monitor lizards.  We fell in love with the dassie. He watched us intently from high on his perch, tipping his head and chirruping. Then he would settle in for his sun bath as we headed out to the beach. The monkeys stole my muffin, and the monitor lizard spent most of its time hiding, so they were somewhat less enchanting. But Mr. Dassie was a superstar. He has big white eyebrows, people. And he wiggles them at you.

 We climbed rocks, swam, dug in the sand, kayaked, slept in the shade, ate, repeated.  We found the perfect shaded beach with one of the most beautiful trees I have ever seen standing guard over us. It even had a resident fairy. 

 We explored the surrounding woods, and the children kept finding snails. "Beauty of snails", they reminded me, with their silver trails. We collected their luminous empty shells.

 There were even glimpses of the reclusive merfolk of the Lake.

I am sure we will return as soon as we can. It was so easy, and so fun for all of us. I packed nothing but swimming costumes, sunscreen and a few changes of clothes. Here there is no need for toys or diversions. They are all around us.

Birthday Fun

This past weekend, the children went to the Lemesi's home and celebrated a friend's birthday. There wasn't space for me in the car, but Simon took some photos for us.

 There were puppies, a goat house, lots of children, chickens, and long red dirt roads to ride bicycles on. Looks pretty good to me.

The children are all back at school now. I always find school a challenge. They love it, but I just want to keep the home and teach them myself. Admittedly, I still do a lot of that anyway. So much of parenting is figuring out when to let go...

Local Criminal Elements

 Or not.

Zomba Trip

 Zomba is  beautiful. At one point I sood there almost aching, wishing I could somehow hold this moment, capture this sight and smell and gentle air on my skin. Why are moments of such beauty almost painful? I remember feeling the same way watching a sleeping babe.

 We explored trickling streams under dappled canopies, wading through chilly water among ferns and mosses, lichens and tiny fungi.

We climbed up into the almost alpine-like meadows, hopping from boulder to boulder amongst protea trees and delicate grass orchids.

 

 We even found the fabled Zomba gnome habitat. You enter through that door in the rocks. You have to run through at full tilt (if you stop before the precipitous drop at the ledge, you shrink down into their world amongst the lichen forests; if you keep running without tripping and fling yourself over the edge, you can fly with the hawks). That is trickier than it sounds because it is quite a small doorway. Be forewarned however. Prolonged exposure in the area can lead to growth of strange moss-like hair in very gnomish fashion. If you are in doubt as to whether you are in the correct location, you can always verify it by identifying the "Gargling Gorilla" rock.

 Yes, Zomba is a magical place. We found a small boy wandering about in his own dream world, looking for his fellow wild things (no he has not watched the movie, and his crown was from a hotel-provided Christmas cracker the night before). 

 Magical.

Mulanje Massif Day Four

The last day was the day of our descent. The minunu path is extremely steep, but beautiful. The whole way is through verdant, mossy forest, and much of it follows streams. I had to keep stopping to pet the moss or talk to the ferns, or admire a tree's particularly beautiful roots or buttresses. The air is so clean and pure and moist and fresh. I think I was meant to live someplace like this.

We reached the bottom in good time, exhausted but happy. My knees, remarkably, are still in one piece today. I don't know if or when we will go again, but this felt like such a gift.

Mulanje Massif Days 2&3

We woke up with the light before it broke over the peaks behind us. A magical dawn of fog and smoke on the land below us.

The children were very good at eating (lest you were wondering), and a funny hat was absolutely a requirement on this trip.

Ute and I drank tea and discussed politics endlessly. Wait, I'm lying. There is no way we discussed politics. The meaning of life, maybe. Politics, electricity and minibuses, No.

During the two middle days on Mulanje, we explored waterfalls and streams, and spent a lot of time roasting things and making small projects.

We wrote, carved boats, made wreaths and even carved our own spoons. The second hut we stayed in had no cutlery. Can you guess which one was mine? It worked very well, for the record. Although everything did taste very strongly of cedar.

On the third day, we also crossed over to the second, spoonless hut we stayed in called Minunu. it is tiny, and we barely all fit in. But although the kids and I slept outside on our second night, the wind was too strong for that on the last night. So sardines we were.

The views on the crossover weren't too bad, either.

Mulanje Massif Day One

On the first day, we started from Mulli Brothers Tea Estate. There wasn't any tea to be seen, but it was hot and dry. We made our way up from among the housing through the millet fields. Have I mentioned how lovely the grass is right now?

It takes between four and six hours to get to the top (including picnics), but that is not walking; it is serious climbing. We had to take many opportunities to stop and notice what we were passing. As we climbed, we saw the vegetation change with the elevation as well.

Any hiker will tell you how important it is to take care of your feet. We brought lots of plasters and socks. We used them all.

By mid-afternoon, we reached the plateau (at about 2000m). It is a beautiful, rolling grassland with valleys of wooded forest that follow the streams, and peaks rising from it. There is nothing so good as a bath in a freezing mountain stream. I think that is the real reason I hike to begin with.

We spent the first two nights in this hut, called Thuchila (too-chee-lah). Like all huts on Mulanje, it is built from Mulanje cedar and has a stone fireplace for heat and cooking. Thuchila is a large, three roomed one, and has had its doors and windows trimmed in blue. At over a hundred years old, it is one of the oldest on the mountain.

And yes, the sunset was rather spectacular.