A day at the lake and making progress

A day at the lake and making slow and steady progress.

Overnight trip to Lake Malawi: We had a glorious trip to Cape Maclearon Lake Malawi. We drove up on Saturday thinking the trip would take two hours, but it ended up taking six. It was so bumpy (as most roads are here). We arrive just at sunset and it couldn’t have been more beautiful. We stayed at ThumbView Lodge right on the Lake. We had Pizza on Saturday night, but actually wished we had eaten Malawi food. Sunday was spent Kayaking and snorkeling (Anthony, Emma, Torrey, Jojo, Maggie and Thompson) and sitting by the pool reading (Liz). The kayakers saw an amazing assortment of blue and yellow fish. We ate lunch at an authentic Malawi restaurant and had Nsima and an assortment of chicken and fish.  The food was great even though it took an hour to get after ordering. Luckily Anthony had one of his games and we passed the time playing Hive. Unfortunately, we could only stay one night so we headed back (another six bumpy hours). I will never forget the beauty of that place.

Sunset on Lake Malawi

Lunch at Thomas’s

Monday back at it: We are making slow but steady progress on our projects. First thing in the morning we drove to our favorite machine shop. Paulo had made one part for us already and we were very excited (but later we were quite disappointed when we found the threads were not right). Paulo asked for us to print out the drawings so this added another detour for the day. Of course, we came across another helpful person to get the plans off our email and print them. This only took about an hour. Next, we ventured to the police station to find someone to test the bore hole water. It took a while to find the right person so in the meantime we watched some men play a “mancala type” game. We see people playing this all over Malawi. Its’ quite a challenge to figure out the rules, but all of us want to buy a board and play it. After a short stop to pick up two live chickens and vegetables we were on our way to Kumponda. We brought the official from the government to the bore hole to test it. We are hoping the water is as clean as the people in Kumponda seem to think it is. Our fingers are crossed.  The afternoon was spent working on the Maize Mill and playing with the children. I especially loved hanging out with the kids. They were fascinated with my long straight hair and my watch. Most children want to sit close and touch us, but there was one little boy probably less than two who was scared to death of me. I felt so bad because there isn’t anything to do to make him more comfortable and his big sister was pushing him towards me which made him scream. Big sisters are the same everywhere. Since we got to the community so late we didn’t have time for lunch so the chickens get to live another day.  I’m sorry we can’t include any picture of the children because we can’t get permission from their parent. I wish you could see how cute they are.

Getting help to print the parts drawings.

Our first part!

Mancala type game

Starting to build the Maize Mill

I am writing the blog post today as the others are busy working on Soldering, or SolidWorks, or drilling.

Liz and team