Flight to South Africa

(Written this morning. Have just safely arrived at the hotel and am off for a swim. Very hot and sunny! :))

After the spectacular flight in last night to Heathrow over central London with ‘God clouds’ lighting up the Thames we got another treat with spectacular electrical storms over Central Africa. I think the guy in the seat in front of me and I were the only two people who saw it as most people were asleep and with the blinds down. The whole sky was lit up at its peak, stunning and a little bit scary. There was also a fantastic blood red sunrise as well. I didn’t get more than a couple of hours sleep though. Too uncomfortable. They just tried to scam me in the chemists by charging me $28 for some mouthwash and insect repellent. Maybe my maths has let me down, but I don’t think it sounds right.

The weather is beautifully warm and sunny and it is lovely to see the swallows again. We’ve now got a 2-hour wait until the next flight up to Blantyre.

A-Z

Jason Thompson, our Electronic Systems Manager, has been a real star and has finally got the A-Z listing up and running. Now all we have to do is populate it with the complete 6279 articles that they have access to. OK, so that might not be possible before Friday! We are using the Cufts Open Source Serials Management System. There is supposed to be a knowledge base of journals to download, but so far we haven't been able to. I think I may have to go to the forums for help.

Now all we have to do is to try and replicate it in Malawi.

Falkland Estate

Falkland Estate - was up walking around Falkland yesterday and saw this sign saying that they are now selling Malawian Coffee. David had said last year that he had arranged it but cool to see.

Malawi windmill boy

This story is so moving, I loved the bit when he said he discovered the internet and was able to Google Windmills.

Going to have to read that book!

2009 Visit

Just three weeks to go, it has crept up so quickly and I am not ready yet, work-wise. :( There is so much more I wanted to get done before going out in preparation of installing the new A-Z.

Water

We got a half day before spending the afternoon finalising our reports for the concluding meetings tomorrow.

We ended up going down to the Rift Valley, I don't like to try and guess what the temperature was. Got back to discover there was no wifi, but much, much worse, no water. We are going out to dinner tonight with our Principal and the College Principal. Sigh! You really realise how much you take for granted at home.

Safari

On our first full day here, before we got laid into work on the Monday, we set off at 7.00am to visit the best park in Malawi. It was a long journey 2½ hours each way in the back of a van with sideways on seats reminiscent of travelling in a LandRover. We had been warned that the last half hour was going to be rough as it was off the road and we had to go up and down over dried up river beds. In the event, for me, it turned out to be the best part of the journey as we went through lots of little villages giving a real view of Malawian rural life and it was wonderful to be able to smile and make eye contact with the people and wave back to the children as we went through. Travelling through was a real eye-opener in terms of the basic living conditions that people face.

At the gates to the park there were some wee boys sitting in front of a house so I went up and asked to take their pics. They were an absolute delight, mucking around and giggling and wanting to see their pics in the viewfinder.

When we were told we were going on a river trip we thought we might see some crocodiles, as we had been told about them but none of us had any huge expectations of what it would be like. We were blown away.

Liwonde National Park is smallish at 211 square miles. Our day consisted of a morning sailing down the Shire River and an afternoon driving around the special fenced area of the reserve. We had lunch at the Mvuu Camp.

We chose the best time of year to visit with nearly all the water holes dried up, forcing the animals down to the river side. We saw, literally, hundreds of elephants in many different groups, some with all male, some with babies. The park has the highest concentration of hippos anywhere in the world and we got more and more blasé about sailing past yet another group. (In fact the group visiting the week before actually managed to sail over one rather disgruntled one!) There were zebra crocodiles, warthogs, buffalo and baboons and more types of antelope than I knew existed. Lots of stunning birds as well, eagles, kingfishers and amazing coloured things that I have no idea what they were in electric greens and blues and bright yellow. We got within a couple of metres from the elephants (even chasing one along the road!), crocodiles and elephants lots of times. It was just amazing. I've got some great photos, although I did end up taking over 1800 shots!

A fantastic day and well worth the discomfort of the long journey.

(Oh, and we have been working really hard promise! More of that soon.)