(Bill) Mount Soche

One of the cool things that we’ve been able to do is climb Mount Soche, the tallest of three peaks surrounding Blantyre.  We stare at it from the windows in the back of the house and it’s really a pretty mountain.   Standing at 5,000 feet, it definitely seemed a worthy climb attempt. 

We asked Blessings to guide us (Liam, Micah and me) and he led us through the maze of homes comprising a township built up the slopes at Soche’s base.  We definitely drew a crowd!  Once we got to the trail, it was straight up.  We lost the trail and had to do our best negotiating our way to the summit.  We made it and Liam and Micah did really well.  Only a few complaints from Micah, but totally understandable. (=  The view was completely worth it.      

The view from the top.  Not too shabby!

The view of Mount Soche from our back yard.  The remaining thin row of trees along the ridge indicate the massive illegal logging that has taken place over the years.  Old timers say the mountain used to be covered with trees and it is technically a forest reserve.  But people are desperate for fuel and that is what is needed in the "now".  But then, of course, soil erosion and flooding are much more likely (see: the last few weeks).  Short-term solutions are frequently at odds with the long-term health of this country.

On a separate note:  The girls are happy!  The chickens have been producing anywhere between 6-8 eggs a day.  Even though we created 8 separate nesting boxes, they all tend to lay in the same box.  It has been fun to give eggs away to folks.

(Bill) Dreams of a bath

We are on day 10 without any running water.  Kind of crazy.  We're doing fine, but life requires a bit more planning and intentionality.  We rely on pool time the boys get at school for their basic bathing needs (better add some more chlorine!).  The boys and I go Lord-of-the-Flies-mode and pee in the yard trying to keep the chickens from chasing down the streams (sorry for that visual).  Elizabeth won't play along, however, and we all wonder how she can be so selfish.  (=  We've taken our laundry to two different friends homes--that is, until they've also run out of water (they're still our friends--we think).  Collected rain water was a good stop-gap, that is, until it stopped raining a few days ago.  We don't flush toilets until we simply can't stand it any longer.  Elizabeth and I compete for smallest quantity of water used in our bucket showers.  On top of the water issues, we still continue to have regular power shut-offs.  I will say again--through gritted teeth--that we are grateful.

This morning, I went out to a rural village to help begin rebuilding the house of an old woman who's house had collapsed.  Grateful perspective restored!  Walking to her plot, I could see various other houses now in piles of crumbly bricks.  The irony of no water at home juxtaposed with the damage wrought by so much rain and flooding last week is a bit strange.  I helped removed the collapsed bricks and could tell that these were made of mud that hadn't adequately been fired.  As I tossed some of the broken bricks into the "busted" pile, they would just explode on impact.  I was deflated to hear that the plan is to reuse any of the bricks that were still intact.

The death toll from last week is now 176 with 200,000 displaced.  I believe those numbers as I've now seen how most of these homes are constructed.  Fired bricks are rare and too expensive for most people to build with and so you stack mud bricks with mud paste for mortar.  Unfortunately, these houses will no doubt have to rebuilt the next time a big storm comes through.  It's hard not to get discouraged considering that fact and I begin to understand how most Malawians that I know have a very stoic ability to deal with whatever is hard in front of them.  There seems to be a lot of practice.    

(Bill) You have to laugh sometimes.....

In my quest to keep you current with some of the funny signage we see here, I include a few.  Usually, when we see funny signs, I either don't have my camera or can't slow down to snap a pic.  But for future posts, I'm really going to try hard and capture Elizabeth's favorite,  "Motorcycle Parts and Stationary" along with mine, "Decent Barber".  

 
What "Edelicious Fast Foods" says to me is, "We have food that's not only delicious, but edible.  And fast!"

OK, I confess my immaturity.  The boys and I chuckle a bit whenever we see the PUPU driving school cars about town.

Like the "Decent Barber" storefront, I appreciate the honesty of our power utilities's marketing slogan.  Right off, it's a confession:  "towards"--we're not there yet!  And not only are we shooting for power everyday, but when you get that everyday kind of power, we're really hoping that it will make more than just a flirtatious pass but actually stick around for more than say, 10 minutes?  Yes sir, as in ALL day!  But just remember, "toward".  Not there yet!!!!!!!  Yes, I'm a bit crazy.  

Blantyre is a bit of an adventure these days.  The rains have lessened considerably, and that's good! We're very thankful for that and it is a bit of a reprieve for the thousands of displaced folks from the storms earlier this week.

 But now, electricity is tremendously spotty (towards power, right?) as we've had outages everyday and most of the last two days.  The water is the big issue, though.  We haven't had running water in a week and now we feel somewhat more like true Malawians.  We've had friends talk about being out of water for weeks and even months (!) at a time, but the worst we've had so far has been three days.  Now, I feel, we're joining the ranks of the truly inconvenienced.  I won't say "suffering" because we still have a roof over our heads and we've figure out how to harvest our rain water (Liam says it has a bit a tangy finish).  As we drive about town, though, we see so many people carrying their buckets and tubs walking who knows how far to get water.  Despite the crazy-making conditions, still feeling grateful for all that we have.    

 

(Bill) Way too much of a good thing

Folks have been emailing us about the news here that Malawi and Mozambique have been inundated with rain and flooding, killing scores of people and displacing upwards of 70,000.  We are fine.  Other than a leaky roof and soggy chickens, we are thankful for all that we have:  a car to get around in the crazy weather, plenty of dry clothes to change into, Gortex raingear, walls in our home that don’t disintegrate, etc. 

As usual, with natural disasters, the poor are the hardest hit.  The houses that are crumbling are poorly built with bricks that haven’t been fired.  They literally melt with so much rain.  Additionally, the poorest of the poor often build their houses in the most vulnerable areas where flooding might strike.  There is so much illegal cutting of trees for shelter and fuel that these rains have an increased magnitude of devastation from all the erosion.  Please pray with us for relief from the rains.

Ironically, we are in day three of no water in our house (throw in a few power outages as well).  We’ve been through this before, but it gets old.  The boys are surprisingly resilient and don’t even flinch when the lights go out.   But in light of the misery all around us, we still can’t help but feel grateful.    

(Bill) Liam: Baker Extraordinaire

Since Emmy (one of the Swedish residents) stayed with us last month, Liam has turned into a monster baker.  Together, Emmy and Liam made a few batches of cinnamon rolls, each successive batch getting better and better.  And for a while now, Liam has launched off on his own cranking out various types of bread.  He's getting so confident and so good now that he is starting to experiment, like a master jazz musician.  Some of his riffs have hit off notes (the peanut butter swirl bread with Italian seasoning--not so good).  But most of his improvisations have been hits (sweet bread with M &M's--but maybe not so many next time, etc.)  There's a positive feedback loop every time he creates something because people genuinely enjoy his creations.  And so, to my chagrin at gaining several unwanted carb pounds, he'll crank something else out next chance he gets.  We can't keep enough flour in the house!  There's certainly worse things he could be doing.  I just need to stay away from eating 5 cinnamon rolls a day and I'll be fine.

 Emmy helping Liam and Micah with their first batch of cinnamon rolls.

(Below) "Elizabeth, have you seen Liam?"  "Oh, he's just in the kitchen making another loaf of bread."

On a sad note, I had mentioned the oncoming rains yesterday.  Apparently, 70,000 people have been displaced in Malawi, 60 killed.  Brenda, our day guard, had her house destroyed by the incessant rain.  Please pray for those folks!  Fortunately, the rain has let up today, but more expected in the coming days.  

(Bill) Let there be rain!

Since arriving in Malawi, we’ve been hearing of the rainy season that usually arrives late October to November.   As we marched through the hot and dry season (August-Nov.) with 90+ degree heat, we began to take on the excitement and anticipation that most Malawians exude when talking about the rains.   Just as Advent readies for the coming birth of Jesus, all of Malawi seemed to be in a similar form of anticipation for the arrival of the much- needed water. 

As a family, we were becoming wistful for the moderate climate of Seattle with our consistent friends:  rain and gray.   I was wondering about the choice to bring so many pairs of pants, or even a rain jacket.  Everyone seemed to be taking up the role of prognosticator (like the 3 wise men, perhaps?) scanning the skies for signs and making predictions for the first drops.

Well, the rains arrived pretty late—not until mid December.  But when they came, they CAME!  The typical pattern has been for thunderclouds to begin building and then a 2-3 hour dumping commences.  This isn’t Seattle drizzle; this is a full-on, torrential downpour!  It is certainly exciting with all the accompanying lightning and percussive explosions of thunder.   Then, typically, the sun comes out again and dries the ground before the next dumping.  A perfect rhythm for turning the dry, brown lands emerald green. 

(Always a good rainy day activity:  The Settlers of Catan!  We welcome Emily and Laura, the latest Swedish residents to come through Blantyre.  They're awesome--and not just because they play board games with us!)

After the initial rains, we saw armies of folks take to the troughs of dirt that had been prepared in the months leading up.  Everywhere, people walked with hoes on shoulders and bags of seed in hand.  Both our day and night guards took to hoeing parts of our yard, mainly for the planting of maize.  Blessings got our garden planted as well. 

But now, we could use a bit more of that dry, hot weather.  We’ve had 3 days of epic rains.  Apparently, a storm from South Africa had made its way north and we have had no let-up.  Trees are falling down, roots grasping in the saturated ground.  I heard two families at the school comparing stories of collapsed retaining walls.

I feel so sorry for the absolutely soaked people walking the roads that resemble muddy riverbeds, hopping around the water obstacles or shoes off, just sloshing right through.  I hear our chickens outside and could it be those cute little clucking sounds are now gargles? (=  Definitely grateful to drive around in a car and have a roof (though leaking) over our heads!  This storm is supposed to last for much of this next week, with the worst of it yet to come.  Could get interesting around here!  

  

(Bill) Go HAWKS!!! Go HENS!!!

Liam and I got up at 3:15am this morning to cheer on the Hawks to victory.  What a great game!!!  Russell is a amazing.  Kam was a beast.  All the way to the Super Bowl, baby.  This selfie captures Liam's and my best silent scream for the viewer's benefit as we were trying to keep things under control in a sleeping house. 

After Micah woke up, we were excited to check on the chickens to see how they weathered the first night.  We had some friends over for dinner the night before and they said we didn't need to wait for a week before free ranging the chickens (as they would surely know after one night where food and shelter could be found).  So, we opened the door and Liam positioned the ramp.  The chickens were slow to emerge and were cautious in exploring their new territory.  But after all eight eventually exited the coop, Micah opened up the nesting boxes and found 2 eggs which we scrambled up for breakfast.  Tasty!  

The chickens roamed around the yard much of the day, foraging around looking for bugs to snap up with their beaks.  We introduced our dog, Juke, to the chickens and he, predictably, didn't care.   So far, so good!  Even day one of cleaning poop out of the coop wasn't too bad.  Ask me in a week, though! 

(Bill) Coming home to roost

All of a sudden, Liam screamed, "Daddy, pull over!!  He's on the top of the seat... and he's looking at me!!!!"  We were driving home from the Charles Stewart chicken farm with 8 hens (22 week old "layers") in the back of Black Mamba.  The boys and I were excited--even giddy--like expectant parents as the hens were being delivered from the farm.  The helpers had rather unceremoniously tossed them in the back of the car and I must say with pride, they all looked pretty with their brown and white feathers.  But things felt suddenly stressful as a rogue hen saw fit to hop up on the back seat and stare malevolently at Liam.  We managed to get home practicing a few chicken stiff arms and with Black Mamba wafting of chicken poop.    

 Then, the really fun part.  Getting the chickens from the car to the coop!  I had been psyching myself up to be brave and model for the boys how to just get in there and grab them.  I was even practicing for the moment and steeling my courage in the days leading up by picking up frogs that hop around our house.  No yolking, I was anxious that I would fail in from of the boys and Black Mamba would have to become the chicken coop.  Never fear, once you get behind the unsuspecting chicken and firmly grab around the body, controlling the wings, they are like feathery putty with a beak.  After getting several hens into the coop, Liam wanted to give it a try and he did great!        

 On the way home, one of the chickens laid our first egg.  We gave it to Brenda, our day guard, so that  she could add it to her lunch.  Apparently, these hens can lay 300 eggs in a year.  With 8 hens, I think we'll have plenty of eggs coming our way!

 Micah, Liam and Elizabeth taking a peek at the nesting boxes where we can, hopefully, grab eggs each morning.  (=

Happy hens.  We're going to keep them in the coop for a week and then free range them in our yard during the day.  We've spied some creatures around the yard that look like mongoose, so the free range idea might be short lived.  But, we'll see!  A fun experiment has commenced.   So eggciting!  But who's going to be cleaning out the coop?  Micah?  

(Bill) An Eggcellent Project

With the boys off for an entire month for their Christmas break (!), we desperately needed a project to focus our time.  Thus, we began a modest venture to construct a chicken coop. 

We found a plan online, rounded up the only tools that we would need: a borrowed circular saw, tape measure and hammers.  It goes without saying that I would have LOVED to have use of my shop for the chop saw, table saw, speed square, level, drills, chisels, block plane, etc.   We then set out to round up the building materials. 

To buy lumber here, you don’t drive to the nearest Home Depot of Dunn Lumber.  No, you venture into the labyrinth of Ndirande market and I have to laugh now at how crazy this was.  Blessings accompanied us for our first trip for our framing lumber.  Of course, with Micah, Liam, and me, we were an instant spectacle and  were instantly surrounded by people hoping to help.

We were paraded through the various stalls to find the required pieces.  It was a whole other world with people repurposing and selling everything and anything you could imagine.  Liam was nervous and a bit overwhelmed, but remained brave.  Micah bounced around oblivious to the craziness and drew smiles and head pats.  I stuck my chest out a bit and tried to walk with as much confidence as I could muster.     

Some of the pieces had to be ripped down, so we took more of a tour to cross a stream over the sketchiest bridge to get to the mill.  At the mill, men were busy sending pieces through homemade table saws and when he ripped my piece in half, no tape measure used.  Close enough is close enough! 

The highlight was getting busy with the boys measuring, cutting, nailing.  We improvised a cereal box to be our speed square and get square cut lines.  There was not a single piece of lumber (seriously) that was straight or of uniform dimension, so we did our best and kept repeating the mantra:  It’s just a chicken coop!   

We ended up going to Ndirande market two other times and just TODAY, we mounted the door latch and we’re done.  We constructed the coop to accommodate 8 birds, so tomorrow morning we head out to get our 8 “layers”, hens that are 22 weeks old and ready to produce eggs.  We’ll tell you how that goes!