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Thursday, 7 September 2017

Malawi - Ups & Downs.

This morning was a bit of a low.


Finally - today I got some money from an ATM. Goodness knows why, but my card has been blocked all week & I can't change sterling in a bank without having an account, which I don't want. I was just about down to my last Kwatcha & I owe money. Then I was able to buy some airtime on my phone from Airtel. So now I can phone & text at last.

The last 24 hours have been one thing after another, but that's only to be expected. 

It's deeply frustrating to have so many, such long, power cuts & no water pressure for a shower, (I'm not sure when I last had one!). I lost almost a whole document I had written for the Training Manual I'm creating because of a power cut. (I thought the computer had been set up with autosave). There are cultural differences with the way people work here & this project has to be completed by the time I go in 8 working days. Too complicated to go into, but its all a bit much.

The food situation last night was dire. Our pasta was cooking on a barbecue because of the outage & the glass dish exploded. The food & glass pieces fell into the charcoal so we couldn't eat it. It was already late, but fortunately, for the first time we had a car at the lodge, so we went to a local hotel for a meal. We thought we would try goat - it was inedible, really tough. So we just ate the chips & coleslaw. A big group from Thames Water were there to do some water project - They obviously get their expenses paid in better accommodation!

Very late to bed. Didn't sleep well, kitchen girls start at 5.00 every day. 

I'm going to have a day out or possibly two at the weekend - either going to Kasungu National Park or to Lilongwe. It depends on driver availablilty. 

But I've got a Geko in my room I call George!

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