Thursday & Friday-

We are all out in Matema at Lake Malawi just near the border to Malawi. We left yesterday at 5am and drove for over 7 hours to get here. I have learned though that a 3-4 hour trip automatically means just about double the time. It was a crowded ride out for everyone because we had 23 people crammed into a Land cruiser and a full pickup- some of the boys rode in back of the truck with the canopy on.

The drive was really a pretty one and made the trip worth it. We went through quite a farming belt going over some of the mountains where there was maize, potatoes, bananas, and teas being grown everywhere you looked. The mountains were so green and I am sure they get more rain there too. We made a few stops of course for the cho but mainly for picking up charcoal to cook with, and fruit to have here at the lake. The last hour of the journey was out a dirt road that wasn’t very good but on top of that it was under construction so there were dirt piles everywhere! I have learned that everything is an adventure over here in Africa! We arrived here about 12:30 to the lake which is very nice. The waves roll in just like the ocean does; I guess the lake is something like 500 miles long or more. The little resort here is actually really nice and right on the beach which they keep well maintained. There are palm trees out here and we passed some chocolate trees on the way too. I must say that it is so much hotter here than where we have previously been and that is compounded by the humidity that makes it just a little bit uncomfortable-so we stay in the water a lot. The humidity is not the worst I have been in by far but it will cause you to feel damp all day.

Mat, Hannah, and Bella have had a lot of fun playing in the lake with the other kids. I have to make them get out of the water. Sunday we will all go snorkeling with one of the men that work here-he is taking us out to a good area to see all kinds of tropical fish by dugout canoe. That is the only type of boat that you see on the water is the dugouts that go out daily and the men fish from them. We have met several European people out here and have seen many of them that work at the local mission hospital.

We are really enjoying our time here and it is nice not to have to worry about sharks! Bedtime is rough because it is still so hot and humid it is hard to fall asleep, but at some point during the night it does cool off some. We have little geckos running around our rooms and the kids try to catch them. Steve found a scorpion in their room and he caught it in a plastic bag to show the kids. The girls have been finding shells in the lake and Mat is adding to his list of birds that he has seen.

They sell some crafts here so we have been bartering for some of the ones we like. My kids even go down there alone and barter with the men then they will come running and tell me what a good deal they made and ask for schillings.

I found some very nice little tables here that are all hand carved.

I hope everyone at home is doing well and probably all of you are in the middle of the holiday frenzy. I am so glad to be here and miss that part of it but we miss our family and friends a lot. We are glad that we came so long and have felt that the places we have been has given us a really good experience of how most of the country lives. God bless you all and we will be seeing you soon.

Weekend-

We have been having a very good time here at lake Malalwi (formerly known as lake Nyasa). The kids don’t want to be out of the water very long only for eating and using the bathroom. There has been quite a bit of good snorkeling going on here and we are seeing lots of tropical fish. We all loaded into Memere’s truck and drove down around the end of the lake through some villages and finally the road ran out. These little villages are different than anything we have seen in Tanzania so far. We were introduced to kasava here as well, but let me tell you the smell is a cure all to stop eating cheese! They harvest the kasava, pound it, soak it, let it ferment, then they lay it all out on bamboo mats in the sun to dry. The odor is just nauseating as we walked by on the beach. I can only describe it as a cross between a really strong blue cheese and a rotten cheese, it’s bad!

Several people from the last village made pottery and that was very interesting to see. The pottery was stacked up all over just at the top of the beach. Many women and men load up stacks on top of their heads and then they take off over the mountains to sell it. We are only about 20 miles from Lupalilo, where we were up in the mountains.

Jason noticed right away that these people were not speaking Swahili or Kinga, but he couldn’t pick up on anything they were saying. He is guessing they speak Congolese since many have fled here from the congo or his second guess would Malawi, but he thought he would recognize that. The kids that followed us all the way down the beach numbered about 30 or more. White folks really draw attention over here and they are very curious. Most of them stayed and sat in the shade and watched us snorkel but many of the boys jumped right in the water with us and played their water games. The kids here are very well behaved and more respectful than the other places we have been. They always like to have you show them the pictures you are taking and they think that is great. We saw many different types of tropical fish but I am not sure of any of their names. The colors were so bright and vivid and many of the fish just stayed right near you so you could watch them.

Everyone had a really good time and I had brought along some type of pringle chips that I had found at a more American duka, seaweed, and m&m’s so we all had some snacks on the way back and the kids really liked that. There eyes always light up when something like treats are pulled out and their hands come out very quickly too. It’s nice to be able to share treats with everyone and it makes us very happy to see the kids enjoying them. Several of us are sunburned pretty badly. Chris told Jon that he didn’t burn; the next day Chris looked like a cooked lobster, just boiled. I had to remind him that we are fairly close to the equator and the sun is very intense here. All of my kids are burned; I think Mat is the worst because I have to battle him to stay out of the water. The kids have found some long pieces of logs that they play on in the water and the boys wrestle around. The water is very shallow and stays that way for a long way out so the kids really enjoy the freedom to move about without getting into deep water.

My family went out to the sunset bistro last night for dinner; it is owned by the mission here and a German lady is head cook there. She made us vegetarian pizza that was so good, it tasted better than most stuff we get back home. There was a cabbage salad with many veggies, peas and carrots cooked together and she topped off our meal with a German Christmas cake (it had frosting). The cake reminded me of a chocolate spice cake that my grandma makes; she had put a yummy chocolate frosting on with sprinkles. My kids really liked that and we ate way too much-ended up taking the rest of the cake back to the group to finish it off.

There was a really good lightening show last night over the lake at about 3am. Strikes of lightening would strike straight down at the lake; it was so neat to see. The nights here are very hot and muggy so it is hard to sleep much until later morning when it finally cools down to about 74 degrees. Chris and I stayed out of the water today to let our burns heal up and we tried to limit the kids more as well. Its very relaxing here to just sit on the patio and watch the waves come in.

All day the waves broke hard like the ocean, it was hard to believe that it could be that rough on the lake. I guess there was probably a storm going on down lake causing the rough water. Of course the kids thought it was great that they encountered surfing conditions here at the lake and Mat wished he had a boogie board. The cooks here made us homemade rolls at our request so we all really thought that was a treat for dinner.

Today a man came by selling papaya, coconuts, pineapples, and chocolate fruits. My curiosity was peaked by the chocolate fruits so I bought two of them to try. The man broke one open and showed me how to eat it; it tastes like mango, passion fruit and apples all mixed together. It is definitely a sweet treat and there is not much to eat on it. You eat the little bit of flesh off of the seeds and spit the seeds out. They process chocolate out of the seeds.

The last few evenings we have been holding games of kick the can in the dark. We all have a good time playing with each other. Last night I wore a black t shirt and black pants so they really couldn’t see me at all. Tonight I was laying flat on the beach and I had someone practically jump on me and throw sand in my face in the process. It was Steve and he jumped when I said ouch from the sand hitting me. He said he didn’t know anyone was laying right there. I thought that was funny. Another time I was behind a neighbors cabin and ran into Jonah and we took off running because his dad was it and he was coming for us. We ran around the neighbor’s cabin and I hurt my foot on a rock and was grabbing my foot bent over when he informed me that the man was naked outside on his patio. Well, I was sure glad that I had hit my toe and didn’t have to witness that!

Chris and I walked down today and ordered two cakes for the group for dinner tomorrow. Tomorrow night is our last night here and we head back to Kibidula on Tuesday and stay one night there. My family will be leaving Wednesday morning for Dar Es Salaam on the bus and that is a minimum 8 hour journey back. We have really enjoyed our experience here in Tanzania and hope to come back to Africa again, it is so different from anything else we have done and the people are so friendly.

Monday-

The first day that it rained in the morning and stayed overcast most of the day. I got busy and tried to organize our stuff to be packed up for heading out of here tomorrow morning. Then we made the most of our last day here by playing volleyball, kick the can, dare base, and annie annie over. The kids sure liked learning how to play the last mentioned game. Some of the adults are now suffering from stubbed digits, sore and pulled muscles and just plain tiredness. How can those kids keep going all day long and we get worn out fast. Not much swimming went on today just a short dip here and there. The kids kept asking to play one game after another. Volleyball proved to be a challenge to some since several had never played the game before. So we taught them as we played and by the end of several matches many had picked it right up. I personally have a very tender right wrist after playing volleyball; I think I popped some small vessels there. Tonight as we ran around and played kick the can my legs felt a little sore from all the different moves you make playing volleyball, like digging down and falling in the sand trying to get a ball. This was a very memorable part of our trip and it really made for some good family time that we had been deprived of this trip. There has always been so much to do that time gets away from us everyday but the last few days have been good for the kids.

Today was Emily’s third birthday and she was very happy to receive candy and glow sticks from us as a little gift. Chris and I drove down and picked up the cakes from the German lady (Verayma) and brought them back for supper. Well we literally had cake for dinner which made everyone happy. After we sang happy birthday to Emily we all got to eat the cakes. It was a great way to end our day and our stay here at Matema beach.

Every night we get entertained by many insect sounds. There is the usual crickets chirping but here there are so many that I could never figure them out. They are very loud and then you add in the bats that start chirping as soon as you just fall asleep! It wakes me up every time because they are very loud. Last night there was a bat in our room which apparently had been caught in Hannah’s shatangi. We keep our door open at night for the breeze (we have bug nets here over the beds) and we keep the lights off and just use candles for a short while. So I was attacked by the bat in the dark and it hit the wall then swooshed past my right ear and swooped around and hit into my left shoulder, then it hit the wall just above the door and then out the door it went. Yuck! I would prefer not to have them that close to me and just see them flying around outside at night. We are all settled in for the night and it just started raining and Chris just had to dash out and drag in the clothing racks that had some of our clothes drying on it. We leave after breakfast in the morning for Kibidula and we might be able to make it in 6 hours if we don’t stop to buy things. We will get in there and have just enough time to get packed up for Dar and head to bed.

Tuesday-

We left Matema at 10am and arrived back at Kibidula at 5:30pm. We stopped and ate rice and beans for lunch and had a couple cho stops but other than that it was a long trip home. Going up and over the mountains takes a long time and you gain a lot of elevation. The cooler air was very welcome to everyone packed into the vehicles. There were 14 of us plus the baby on Antoinette’s lap in the land cruiser and the other 10 bodies rode in the truck. We have to pass through several police check points on the highway; most of the time they just wave us through but today 2 of them stopped us and asked Jason some questions then waved us on. Those check points are to watch for smuggling from other countries that border Tanzania.

I have been washing up a little bit of laundry and getting things organized for packing. Chris is heading up the kid bathing department which was sorely needed because the showers at the Lake didn’t work and we had to bath by pouring water bottles over us. So we are happy to have our cold shower back tonight. Anita made us very delicious dinner of broccoli and potato soup with homemade buns and cucumbers, tomatoes, and carrots with a cashew ranch sauce. It was so nice of her to feed all of us and it really hit the spot. Well I will try to post when I get to Dar tomorrow but I can’t guarantee that I will be able to.

We are still planning on our original flight time on Sunday which will give us the Monday arrival time that we’ve all planned on. I mention this because I have heard rumors that Ethiopian airlines is known for changing flight times so if and when that happens I will notify you.

Mat playing around at the lake.