Happy Thanksgiving to All

We spent Thanksgiving day at the Ambassadors home swimming, playing football and eating pig! The day before we went to staff members houses to cook the sweets and savory foods, we baked cookies (chocolate and hazelnut). The cookies went fast, of course it doesn’t help that we ate them as they came out of the oven! Below is the picture of one of the two pigs being chopped in order to be served. All that remained at the end of the day where the heads...


We had a new addition to our family farm for a week and a half... a baby vervet monkey! Two men brought him to us at our home in the village trying to sell him to us. Of course we said no we can not buy a monkey but we did get out the camera and played with it for a little over an hour... finally our neighbor helped us talk the two men into leaving him with us, after all what were they going to do with it. After they left we asked our neighbor if he thought we might be able to find its mother in the bush, he said no, these monkeys are rare to see in our area and they are one of the only wild animals left so they are hunted and eaten. So the mother may not even be alive.




The monkey is an infant and over the time we had him his teeth started to come in. We found the only baby bottle in our area, and fed him milk and mangos... he really loves fruit, but had a hard time eating it because he had no teeth at first. He also had terrible hand eye coordination, but makes sense as he is an infant. We called him Ugeni which means thing or um in Chichewa. I also called him monkey britches. Our cat took a liking to him and would nap with him for hours and even bath him.


It was so much fun to have a monkey around but he was so much responsibility so we call our APCD who told us to bring him into Lilongwe and we could find him a new home at the nature sanctuary. They take in abandoned or injured animals and nurse them back to health then if they can be released back into the wild they are. So Wednesday morning we met a man who worked with the nature sanctuary who took the babe. It was sad to see him go, we had grown to love the little guy, but it was also a relief to have him taken in by someone who will take very good care of him.



The mango season is upon us! It is literally raining mangos every time the wind blows! We have been collecting giving and eating... well until just last week when we realized I am very allergic to mangos. Bryan cut up a bowl worth of them and he ate half then I ate half and then my face swelled up... fat lips swollen eyes and random spots all over that look like poison ivy. Actually mango sap has similar characteristics to poison ivy! So no more mangos for me... which is very sad seeing as it is literally raining mangos!

Bryan is back!

Bryan is back in Malawi! I was so glad to have him home! The doctors here said he had to stay in town till Tuesday (Monday is a holiday so the office is closed). He is taking it easy.

Remember I said I would post pictures of Lilongwe well here they are:

These are photos from the Lilongwe market. The Malawian venders stack the veggies and will sell you a stack for 40 kwatcha or in the case of most fruits they sell per fruit.

fish... also in stacks and smell horrendous and the flys love them. They are caught in the lake, sun dried, transported to the villages then sold. I don't like to eat the foods that stare back at me.

This is a view from one side of the market and river to the other. People have built their own bridges and charge 5 kwatcha to cross their bridge, so there are about 10 bridges that even Indiana Jones would probablly worry about while crossing. The greatest part is if you just walked a little further down you could cross the river on the road, for free!

This shows you an Azungu (People who are not Malawian or rich) trap. There are random holes or gutters all over the cities here with no warnings or covers. The one above opens into a cavern about 10 feet deep with standing water at the bottom. The hole is large enough for a person who is not paying any attention to where they are walking to fall into...

This is a chippies stand. Precut potatoes are fried then sold to you in a small plastic bag. They are a good snack but sometimes they are kindof soggy.

This is the curio market in Lilongwe, well actually just a few stands in the market to give you an idea of what types of things they sell. Wood carvings, paintings, jewlry, and even things made of stone.

Until next time! Cheers!