Bryan is doing alright

Bryan’s surgery went well, he is now recovering. He will be in South Africa through November 7 which is his last visit with the surgeon. Most likely they will send him back to Malawi the following day. He and I both are ready for him to be back. I feel like I am not upholding to my marriage vow… you know the part where you say “through sickness and in health” but I guess when saying the vow one does not say the fine print, “If the government separates you while in sickness it is ok to be apart” especially because we really want to be together in our village but it is sort of impossible to have knee surgery in the village… not to mention unsafe and far from sanitary. With Bryan in South Africa he can recover in a nice hotel room with good food (that I don’t have to cook) and in a non demanding atmosphere unlike our village.

It is very strange for me to be alone in Malawi. Most don’t think about this, especially other volunteer here because most volunteers come by themselves and live and work by themselves. Bryan and I however are not the same, we at one time in our lives wanted to join Peace Corps on our own but when we got hitched we did not even mention our desires to join until a year later when we found we both had the same desire. But it had changed from “I” want to join Peace Corps to “We” want to join Peace Corps. So we applied, joined, left the U.S., arrived in Malawi, went through training, and even got placed in a village… all together. Because of this and other reasons it is very hard for me to go back to our village without Bryan.

Lucky for me the office here needs my help. Our receptionist who previously did the newsletter has taken another job and so the newsletter has fallen to those who have never done one before so I have offered to help and they are glad so at least I have work to do here. Keeping busy is how I best handle being here by myself.

I have some cool pictures of random Lilongwe, Malawi. Hopefully I will be able to post some of those pictures soon. I think you will enjoy them.

Our new Gal

Here is our new girl Mwamboli (Mwam-bow-ly). She is such a sweet heart. You can see when we first got her how skinny she was. You could see her ribs even through all her fur. She is 9 – 11 months old and weighs 30 pounds. We do not have any papers on her or anything so when we visited the vet she just got updated on all her shots.



Now she is much happier and in only one week we have noticed a difference in her weight. We took here back to the village with us when we went back for Bryan to pack and I was surprised how the children loved her. Normally larger dogs scare Malawians, it was good to see they get along well.



Bryan is headed for South Africa for Medical purposes… He is having his knee checked out further with possible operation or something. Sorry I do not have a large medical vocabulary. Please keep him and myself (as I stay here) in your prayers.