We had an alarm set for 7.30am so we wouldn't miss breakfast at 8am, but my overactive dreams had better ideas. I woke the both of us up at 1am, sleep talking & rambling on about something strange that neither of us could remember in the morning. Hahaha whoopsy !
We both awoke later at 6.30am & lied in our tents reading, enjoying not needing to get out of bed. The day passed by rather quickly & consisted of us cleaning & organising our tents & packs. We put our sleeping bags & heavy jumpers in the sun to air out & rotated our washing.
We do enjoy some Malawi sun while relaxing in the hammocks & on the sandy shore, however we avoid the lake. There are some very intimidating signs about the large crocodiles in the lake.
We also sorted through our pharmaceuticals to donate to the local clinic that get's no private or government funding & can only offer very minimal treatment. We come up with a nearly full box of phenergan, a large unopened box of paracetamol, a brand new large box of Ibuprofen & a brand new ventolin inhaler. A lot of other people also donated drugs & made cash donations to the school & clinic.
We also sorted through our clothes & between us come up with 10 pairs of mostly brand new socks, a ripped flanolette shirt, a ski jacket with a ripped pocket, a pair of my old lorna Jane tights, a singlet, a beanie, a shirt & my blow up mattress that I've been carting around. We decided to try trade them for some more African souvenirs. We walked away very happy, as I'm sure the shop owners were & for our efforts we have 2 paintings, 1 engraved wooden bowl, 1 wooden giraffe statue, 1 engraved Africa with the big 5 and a handful of wire bracelets. The locals also had their eyes on Tom's duffel bag that we put the things into & we couldn't say no, so that was traded in as well. Like I said yesterday, they can tell we are suckers & take full advantage of us. We are trying to work on it.
Later when Tom went to collect the wooden Africa, he came back with no shirt on & had made some African Adidas fan very happy. He explained to Tom he has an Adidas hat, shorts & shoes, so the shirt would complete his outfit. In return Tom got this wooden carved figurine of a man with a giant pot belly, open mouth smile & a crude penis. Were not sure yet if it means anything.. hahaha Tom seems happy & I'm sure the Milawi Adidas fan is very smitten with his new matching outfit.
After all our bartering we did a 30 minute HIIT workout with Sari, Leah, Simone & our tour guide Jurumba. It was finally time for a cold beverage & nearly time for dinner. Joseph the cook has managed to acquire some vegetarian sausages, patties & sandwich 'meat'. Something that has caused complaints from other people when we get this at well as the usual salads/cooked vegetables. This of course sparks the usual vegetarian questions, most of which are curious & benign in nature. However there is always a few in a group of this size who will scoff, criticize & try a few bullshit facts to justify & condone their undeniable right to eat meat. When these 'facts' are easily debunked they will loudly exclaim how much they love meat & despite science, health, sustainability, morals & ethics will always eat it. Some people will go as far as trying to bring us down to their level by trying to question our ethics in another topic.....
The backlash because we got something special for dinner is phenomenal, despite the fact that our food is normally boring & we sacrifice eating something like meat, which is more tasty than plain vegetables every day.
The day flew by so quickly! We feel very accomplished & relaxed, but don't really feel like we did enough from our to do list or relaxed enough. It's just been so good to do our own thing, have some space & not be in the truck. The night finishes with 10 of us around the pool table playing more Kelly pool, laughing & drinking. By 9.30pm were all ready for bed!
- Alli
We both awoke later at 6.30am & lied in our tents reading, enjoying not needing to get out of bed. The day passed by rather quickly & consisted of us cleaning & organising our tents & packs. We put our sleeping bags & heavy jumpers in the sun to air out & rotated our washing.
We do enjoy some Malawi sun while relaxing in the hammocks & on the sandy shore, however we avoid the lake. There are some very intimidating signs about the large crocodiles in the lake.
We also sorted through our pharmaceuticals to donate to the local clinic that get's no private or government funding & can only offer very minimal treatment. We come up with a nearly full box of phenergan, a large unopened box of paracetamol, a brand new large box of Ibuprofen & a brand new ventolin inhaler. A lot of other people also donated drugs & made cash donations to the school & clinic.
We also sorted through our clothes & between us come up with 10 pairs of mostly brand new socks, a ripped flanolette shirt, a ski jacket with a ripped pocket, a pair of my old lorna Jane tights, a singlet, a beanie, a shirt & my blow up mattress that I've been carting around. We decided to try trade them for some more African souvenirs. We walked away very happy, as I'm sure the shop owners were & for our efforts we have 2 paintings, 1 engraved wooden bowl, 1 wooden giraffe statue, 1 engraved Africa with the big 5 and a handful of wire bracelets. The locals also had their eyes on Tom's duffel bag that we put the things into & we couldn't say no, so that was traded in as well. Like I said yesterday, they can tell we are suckers & take full advantage of us. We are trying to work on it.
Later when Tom went to collect the wooden Africa, he came back with no shirt on & had made some African Adidas fan very happy. He explained to Tom he has an Adidas hat, shorts & shoes, so the shirt would complete his outfit. In return Tom got this wooden carved figurine of a man with a giant pot belly, open mouth smile & a crude penis. Were not sure yet if it means anything.. hahaha Tom seems happy & I'm sure the Milawi Adidas fan is very smitten with his new matching outfit.
After all our bartering we did a 30 minute HIIT workout with Sari, Leah, Simone & our tour guide Jurumba. It was finally time for a cold beverage & nearly time for dinner. Joseph the cook has managed to acquire some vegetarian sausages, patties & sandwich 'meat'. Something that has caused complaints from other people when we get this at well as the usual salads/cooked vegetables. This of course sparks the usual vegetarian questions, most of which are curious & benign in nature. However there is always a few in a group of this size who will scoff, criticize & try a few bullshit facts to justify & condone their undeniable right to eat meat. When these 'facts' are easily debunked they will loudly exclaim how much they love meat & despite science, health, sustainability, morals & ethics will always eat it. Some people will go as far as trying to bring us down to their level by trying to question our ethics in another topic.....
The backlash because we got something special for dinner is phenomenal, despite the fact that our food is normally boring & we sacrifice eating something like meat, which is more tasty than plain vegetables every day.
The day flew by so quickly! We feel very accomplished & relaxed, but don't really feel like we did enough from our to do list or relaxed enough. It's just been so good to do our own thing, have some space & not be in the truck. The night finishes with 10 of us around the pool table playing more Kelly pool, laughing & drinking. By 9.30pm were all ready for bed!
- Alli
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