Hello to all! I can not believe how fast the time is flying by! May is almost upon us! So what’s been going on in our lives?

We had two new trainees come and visit us at our site and then we escorted them to their new sites to be… One is to live inside Liwonde National Park so for 4 days we got to hang out in the Park with them… we had no vehicle so we walked everywhere but we got to see so much! Here are some photos we took:

This is a baobob tree in the park that is of particular interest… you see there are 4 people in the picture, the one on the tree is looking down into an opening. The tree is called the lepers tree because supposedly people who had the disease where thrown into the tree and left for dead… so when you look into the hole you see human bones… I counted 5 or 6 skulls… It is actually kind of sad and scary at the same time.

Bryan hit another birthday anniversary!

Therefore a lot of wonderful boxes where shipped our way! (Check out the Care package update). One of the boxes was from Doc and Sondra who sent a box so big it literally took two people to carry! Of course it had been opened somewhere along the line to get here but the people who opened it must have had a hay day with all the shipping peanuts that where in the box because when we got it there where some but obviously some where missing (okay a lot!) I bet those people where confused with why someone would ship us a bunch of foam pieces! The box held many fun things… kites, games, food… food and more food and so much more! Doc just so you know we ate the whole box of frosted flakes in 2 days! Probably not the healthiest idea but it sure was good! Bryan recieved boxes from his family that made him teary eyed... Thank you so much Sis, Bro (Kelsey too) and Mom!

This picture was taken the night I finished the puzzle Doc and Sondra sent us… they sent all the pieces in a zip lock bag with no picture or anything so it took me two days to figure it out… and it isn’t even a strait edged puzzle! Bryan took the pic as I put the last piece in, he was very happy I had finished… he wanted his wife back.

Just last week we got invited to attend a local Guli Wonkulu dance (Big Dance). We have been in our village a year and had not seen any of the local dances but only heard them nightly… So here are some pictures we took of the masked dancers who (traditionally) truly turn into the creature and are no longer human.

Kapori

Olotine Amzungu a ku India (The visitor is from India)

Njeure (The Oldest People)

Simon

Jinga ili pa Dambo (Bicycle on hill)

Ndalama Asura ndi Amzungu (A black man can not make money)

Finally the home front, We taught a women’s group to make jam out of baobob fruit and another one of tomatoes, Bryan then used our new chalk board to teach the basics of it and the business aspect. Th next pic is me... doing laundry.

Have to include these two pics, the first is our neighbor girl Mordesta, the baby is her sister Caroline.