Muli bwanji!
We finished the maize mill!
Kidding. That was just practice for tomorrow's blog. We made
it to Malawi! I know what you are wondering. On the plane I watched Butch Cassidy
and the Sundance Kid and the Dark Knight Rises. We had the best kind of
uneventful flight; there was lost no luggage and all of us made it to this beautiful
country. Upon arrival Daniel was waiting for us and excited to start our in
country work together.
I think Blantyre is beautiful. It is a big town that is very
stretched out with short buildings. The city is built around peaks that
somewhat resemble Bishop’s peak. It is very clean and with lots of trees and
natural beauty for a city.
Today was materials shopping day. We went to stores like Bearing Centre, Gear Centre,
Bolts and Nuts Centre, Maize mill Parts repair and other cleverly named stores.
Small tasks like taking out money from an ATM, describing a part without the
internet at your finger tips or tracking down a store without google maps takes
much longer in Blantyre than our home. Good thing Malawi is the Warm Heart of
Africa with plenty of kind and patient Malawians around to help us confused Americans.
As the day progressed we started getting worried about finding all our parts
and getting the machinist to make our parts quickly enough. However, when we went
to Non-Ferrous Industries we found the most well spoken Portuguese Machinist
with the most calming voice who will carry us to an aMAIZing maize mill.
TTYL
Emma Stine and the Malawi-owies