Midland Meanders in South Africa

Very cool sculpture of Mandela

The sculpture is made of 50 laser cut steel poles.
When viewed at a certain angle it has the illusion
of a perfectly flat image.

Wash day at the top of the waterfall

Someone's very cute fence 

Malawi

Filling up...

LILONGWE
We have just returned home from Malawi.  Our assignment began in the town of Lilongwe where we arrived at the church to find a multitude of women coming and going from the church with heavy tubs of water on their heads.  The village where they normally fill their tubs had no water today so they were having to fill and carry them all the way back into the village. Many not only had the tub on their head but a baby wrapped on their back!!  Daily the women carry water to their homes; homes with no plumbing or electricity.  Most live on the equivalent of $1.50/day.

...and walking back to the village

COBRA! Someone told us that the lady next door to the church awakened from an afternoon nap to find a spitting cobra next to her bed!  Unfortunately the cobra was as startled as she was and struck her before making its escape.  The good news is that someone knew of our Elders next door from our church & they went over and gave her a blessing and she is doing well. Meanwhile a cobra is in the vicinity but that didn't stop the primary children from carrying their chairs outside on the grounds for class.

FEED AND EAT
We met with all four Branches in Lilongwe to do audits and provide financial training.  There will soon be 24 missionaries going out into the field from these four Lilongwe branches.  We got to hear from the mission president. (Leif Erickson)  He explained the importance of the sacrament and the beautiful symbolism of it. He  told us the story of the Lord telling Peter to feed His sheep.  (John 21) President Erickson asked “who are the Lords sheep?”  He then asked “If the Lord wanted Peter to feed His sheep, what should we do?” The answer, I thought, would be to do the same, feed the Lord's sheep.  But there is another answer and that is to “eat!”  If we are the Lord's sheep we should feast on the word of the Lord and we must listen and learn from our leaders.

I love the singing in this branch.  It was robust and everyone was singing in the key that was comfortable to them!  Ha ha…twas everyone on their own and the sound was kind of hilarious but just awesome and beautiful in it's own way!

Fortunate with her little sister, Favor

Clement

ROASTED MICE ON A STICK! Along the road we saw many young men holding long sticks or short sticks with something skewered on them.  I learned it was roasted mice!!!  When they burn the fields the mice run and then boys capture them, roast them over a fire and sell them on the street.  As we drove along the words from a cat cartoon I'd heard long ago kept coming into my head:  “Love to eat them mousies; mousies what I love to eat, bite they little heads off, nibble on they tiny feet.”  (Where in the world is that from!?)  On our last day we stopped to get a picture of the skewered mice and got swarmed by anxious vendors selling their wares.  I then noticed that it was not mice on a stick this time but it looked like little tiny roasted birds…or was it bats?  yummy :(

Mbewa (critters on a stick)

Taking sugar cane to the  market

Speaking of sticks, the homes in Malawi are made of straw and some of sticks and some of bricks.  Fortunately there are no big bad wolfs to blow the houses down.  Although rain storms often melt the unfired homemade mud bricks.

Selling papaya

 

Shire River.  (They pronounce it Sheerie)
Along the shores you find hippos,
crocodiles and elephants.

LIKOMA ISLAND

Next stop, Likoma.  We had no meetings so we took a couple days off.   We and four other passengers took a small Cessna plane over to Likoma Island off the coast of Mozambique.   A little boy in a cardboard hat was standing along the runway!!  I could tell he was excited to watch the plane land.  (I was thinking the pilot was pretty excited too.)  The boy ran over to the terminal building to see us Mazungas (means "white people" in Chichewa) as we deplaned and my earlier thoughts were confirmed as the pilot scolded the boy and told him to stay off the runway or he will die.

Boy on the runway

A man named Donut drove us along the sandy road to Kaya Mawa.

Geologists on their way to Mozambique

The four men who flew with us were geologists loaded with gear.  They took this boat across the water to Mozambique, scoping out the area for gold.

Kaya Mawa was a beautiful place with lots of Baobab trees and many lizards of different varieties.

An Islander going past in a dug out canoe!

This canoe has seen better days but looks so pretty on the sand.

And this canoe is now a planter :)

The Island of Likoma is in the fresh water of Lake Malawi.  The lake is large like the Great Lakes so it looks like an ocean.  It's fresh water  is swim-able with no crocodiles or snakes or hippos etc.  We snorkeled, kayaked, rode bikes & hiked.

A bird island right out our back door.

Isn't this cute!  When a boat is past it's prime it makes a perfect sofa!

or a bookcase :-)

We rode our bikes in the sandy road that was patch-worked with little barefoot tracks of children.

Notice the cassava root in his hand.  Children gnaw on this root.

Isn't her smile priceless!  With great laughter,
the children were chasing us on our bikes! 

At times we walked the bikes due to the sand being too deep but at last we made it to St. Peter's Cathedral.

  

Our guide took us all through the cathedral including up into the clock tower.  I thought of Quasimodo as we climbed ladders and squeezed into tight shafts up into the belfry.  We knocked on the bells with our fists to wake them from their slumber and then carefully made our way back down.

You must click on this picture and look at these children!

These children were just getting out of school.  They stopped to look at us as they cried out "Mazunga, mazunga!"  ("White people!")  They were so cute.  I blew them kisses and they just grinned & giggled and then sang a little chant in English that began "Thank you teacher, thank you teacher..." (I couldn't understand the rest of it.)

Fisherman - click to enlarge

 There were many fisherman next to where we stayed. We heard one of them singing out into the vastness, a fishing song.  Perhaps it brought them luck that day.

Preparing the nets

We loved our walk through town into the Katundu workshop.  This is a place where single moms and older orphans create crafts and textiles to sell including sea glass lamps and shades, woven rugs, shell enhanced pillowcases and other fun projects.  They ship their goods around the world.  Sadly we forgot our camera on that walk but here are a few borrowed photos of things we saw:

BLANTYRE
From Likoma we flew back to the mainland for our meetings in Blantyre.  The little Cessna was even smaller than before, just four passengers.  It was terribly bumpy and I got sick. :(  Felt yukky all day due to it.

Elder & Sister Reynolds invited us to stay with them.  They had tomatoes, huge papayas and avocados and many flowers growing.  I loved this sign in their yard:

Our meetings went well and we so enjoyed the Zingwangwa Branch where we attended church.

Kids playing in the water in the church kitchen

They had a couple baptisms after church

Ascending the steep stairs from the church

SHARING THE BIBLE
A brother told us that as he was walking to church someone asked him where he was going.  He replied "I'm going to the church that I go to."  The man on the street asked him what church.  The brother replied "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."  The man said "I hear you have your own bible."  The brother said "Yes, we use the King James version of the Bible."  The man showed him his bible and asked "What about this bible?"  The brother told him that his was a good bible too but we like to use the King James because we believe the bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly and the King James version is closest to the original.  The man on the street told the brother that he would like to learn more and gave him his phone number.  And that is one of many stories about the church growth in Malawi.

CONGREGATIONS WAITING FOR BAPTISM
These photos are of some "groups" up in a remote northern area of Malawi.  The church is not there yet and they are not members but they are meeting every week with Gospel Doctrine classes and even investigator classes for new comers! They have been meeting for quite some time now, waiting for the day that we can send missionaries to them and they can be baptized.  Elder and Sister Fisk (who gave us these photos) went up there this week and brought them 50 more Books of Mormon!  Many of the men are former ministers in other religions.

EATING BY CANDLE LIGHT
It was funny on our last night in Blantyre.  Half way through eating dinner (Sister Reynolds made a lovely chicken soup) the power went out and we were left to finish the evening by candle light.

Speaking of funny, there is a lady in the Blantyre Branch named Funny Mama.  Isn't that cute!  I can't remember her last name but that is really her name.  The funny thing about Funny is that I met her a month ago at the temple.  I got to help her in initiatory.

Malawi is the land of beautiful gentle people!  They are so mild mannered.  Elder Fisk told us he has never seen anyone fight.  They might raise a fist but then they pull back and never strike.

Airport security was hilarious.  Walking into the door entering the airport you place your bags on the little table and walk through the scanner.  It beeps with everyone and they don't even worry about it.  You just walk through, pick up your bags and go. Ha ha... it's like they just do that because they know that's what airports are supposed to do.

Elder & Sister Reynolds

We so enjoyed the people of Malawi.  We enjoyed it all except for the Mosquitoes!  Elder & Sister Reynolds have this cool electrocution device that looks like a tennis racket.  You hold the button down on the handle and wave it around like a magic wand and snap crackle pop fried sqitoes! Even though we electrocuted a bazillion we were still swarmed by them. The last night was especially bad and they kept us awake at night buzzing our ears and nibbling our flesh. We were under a rather poor mosquito net that allowed them in.   I came home with about 14 bites and Chris has a bunch on his hand.  Thankfully we are on malaria medicine.