Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Sunday started bright and early with a last stop at Mugg and Bean, one of our favorite coffee shops in Malawi, and it's only in Blantyre, so we have to take advantage while we're there. The good news about this coffee shop is that they serve more than coffee; otherwise, I'd probably hate it… coffee is terrible. I've tried most of my adult life to like coffee, and I just don't; I always feel as if I'm missing out on being in the cool kids club. Thankfully I have other redeeming qualities; otherwise, I'm not sure that my husband or 85% of my friends would keep me around.
After getting coffee and filling up with fuel we headed up the road to Dedza. I love Dedza. It's seriously one of my favorite places to visit in Malawi. It's beautiful. It's also where Chifundo and Kettie Njewa live, so we were able to stop and spend a couple of hours with them. They're a sweet couple, but can only afford to come to services once a month; so it's always a treat to spend some time with them.
We made it back to Lilongwe just before sunset. It was mostly a busy week of getting work done. Lewis had meetings with the contractor for the church hall here in Lilongwe, we're hoping that we can settle our disputes and get the building completed before the Feast comes around; meetings continue this next week, so we will see.
On Wednesday Lewis and I drove to Mangochi (a town on the lake) and met with Gracious Mpilangwe, his wife Loney, and Daniel Ringo (a young man from the Blantyre congregation) to discuss plans for the youth camp we will be holding in August and to check out the location. Lake Malawi is just beautiful, and the camp site is very nice. We're looking forward to spending the time with the teens in Malawi for camp.
So, I've mentioned the craziness of Malawi roads in the past, but the road to Mangochi is a whole new level of crazy. As I've mentioned, most of the roads in Malawi are unpaved and Google maps has no problem sending you down some the more suspect dirt roads. Our trip to Mangochi was not exception. As we started out we had to decide if we would take the northern route and cut over to Salima and then drive south along the lake or if we would head south to Dedza and then cut east to get to Mangochi. The Salima route purported to take 30 minutes longer than the southern route; so we headed to Dedza. We were following the directions from our GPS until it suggested we turn left onto a very long (and somewhat mountainous) dirt road. Lewis decided we should try the next road; it was further south, but didn't seem to take us out of our way, and seemed a little bigger on the map. Thankfully, it was a paved road and we started driving. Everything was fine for 1-2 miles, and then it began, a less than gradual descent from the mountains on a narrow road with more switchbacks than I had seen in quite some time. Thankfully we made it down the mountain with no incident, but it was still nerve wracking squeezed on this narrow road sandwiched between the walls of the mountain and a fearful drop down the mountain. There was nowhere to go (except in the middle of the lane) if there did happen to be an accident or car trouble.
We had planned on taking the northern route back home, so as to avoid the craziness of the mountain highway before dark, but maps change quickly around here and the road we planned to take just never materialized so we took the same road back. Thankfully we made it over the mountain before dark.
Besides Brennan getting a pretty nasty case of food poisoning, it was a good week.
- comments