Global Swapsies

So Mum and Jennie have gone home, holidays are over. It was pure, dead, BRILLIANT, to hang around with them for 10 days. I think they really enjoyed seeing it all and, strangely, things seem more normal and familiar now that they have been here. We had a total laugh, especially when someone saw Mum in one of the big Mary's Meals 4x4s and shouted 'Madonnna!' - she was well chuffed.

Disappointingly we didn't manage to hunt down any Chibuku, the local mead-like drink that Jennie became kinda' obsessed about. We did manage to get her nicely addicted to cheesy puffs (a cross between wotsits and monster munch) and think that A should start trying to get them exported to Scotland. We also hit upon the idea that Malawians, with their v v sweet tooths, would LOVE Irn Bru and Highland Toffee, so we should try and get some of that sold over here. However the master stroke would have to be if we got Malawian gin, which you can buy in 30ml sachets here (a genius idea), available alongside the salt, sauce & ketchup in Scottish chip shops and pakora bars. Excellent.

When dropping them at the airport I managed to stop blubbing in time to greet Enrico, a Swiss guy who is going to intern with Mary's Meals for three months. We've been showing him around a bit this weekend and whilst visiting the rocket stove stall at the national trade fair (they are the wood fired stove things that MM give to the schools to make the porridge) decided that the stoves would, in fact, be perfect for a massive fondue. So we might work on getting Enrico to try and sell them in Switzerland.

A's been working very hard recently and we both went to welcome the gang of 6th formers from Holyrood School in the south side of Glasgow who've just arrived to help build some classrooms at Mary's Meals schools (about 25 of them with Scotland / Malawi flags and posters hanging off their minibuses). We've known their teacher, Tony Begley, for a while. A brilliant guy. I've offered my services and only hope I can be of some use to them all at some point.

But unexpectedly last night we ended up at Malawi's (only?) casino. Unlike the (mostly Chinese and Indian) clientèle, I didn't have a clue and stood around trying to understand as our American friends explained how to play poker (and how what they were playing there wasn't really poker at all). Enrico (whose first degree is in Maths) tried to explain the probabilities on the roulette table to me, still over my head. I liked the spinny wheel thing tho and we couldn't leave without some kind of promise that we would visit the 'authentic' Chinese restaurant. I'm all for good things but I'm not sure about actually eating muts nuts (even if they are deliciously flavoured with ginger and soy).

It really was our first proper night out in ages and was made all the more so when Enrico found he'd been locked out of his guest house so in the middle of the night we had to wake our guards to let him in and fashion a bed with the sofa cushions and a spare mossie net suspended from the light fitting. We've had a lot of fun & A says this is like being back at international school – certainly been a week for 'cultural' exchanges.

Chicken, roast potatoes and peas for tea tonight tho, don't want to take it too far...
F x

Ps – When we were tracking the elephants on safari our guide, McCloud, said that the problem with elephants was that they were too 'movious' - ;-)