We're back in Kansas Toto!

The epic 63 hour journey is over and even Heathrow's T1 looks like a little bit of heaven!

No such thing as reverse culture shock for me! Obscene amounts of shopping, eating and bubble baths but it is fantastic to be back and seeing everyone again. Everything looks so smart (except Stirlingshire roads, which are actually about as potholed as those in Malawi). Trains are brilliant! Marks and Spencers is the muts nuts and I must have lost weight - dropping a dress size is a sign that I should be buying more dresses!

5 days, 7 fish dinners. 5 diff types of cheese, wine, haggis. yum yum yum yum yum (will go up a dress size before returning home!)

I do miss the warmth. My skin is already getting crap again. And we do miss the simplicity of our little hut, a bit. thinking of everyone back in Malawi but very very happy to have a sneaky wee month at home before getting a final blast of adventure.

Especially after popping back into the office. Lovely people, interesting work (and I'm glad to have a job to think about given the way things seem to have been in the past year). But wow, I'm going to enjoy the next 6 months before resuming my position behind a desk!

Yay
F x

Ps - the celebs in Heat have all changed....who (or what) on earth is Jedward?!

It's World Aids Day today & I'm going home

The journey has begun. Ahead three days of driving, snacking, flying, napping, and, most of all, waiting. I am not looking forward to it.

It will be brilliant to see everyone again. I can't help smiling when I think about fresh air, hot baths, crisp sheets and total silence; but there is a bit of me that is something close to sad to be leaving Malawi (albeit only for a while).

Today, for the first time, I feel almost guilty about how I live. Driving up here this morning the fields were full of people bent double, planting seeds, hoeing weeds and carrying fertiliser (where, I hope, all the money for fuel has gone). Whilst numbers are beginning to fall, 1 in 5 of them has HIV/AIDS. A lot of people are wearing red ribbons & most people will have lost someone they love to it.

The queues at the petrol stations are immense and unmoving. The country is grinding to a halt and I'm 'out of here'. Off, with more fuel than I could possibly need, to enjoy the very best of things with a large, loving, family.

Overall I'm grateful and I am ready to go. It's just going to be a bit of a mind bend being here with all its foreignness and edge and then home, with all its comfort and familiarity. A calls it 'reverse culture shock'. Let's see.

F x

Ps – For the record, I am: 1) somewhat VINDICATED over last week's panic petrol stockpiling, 2) a bit EMBARASSED about how many people I've roped into the 'getting Fiona to LLW airport' mission & 3) FUMING at A for booking me on completely rubbish flights whilst he skips merrily through Jo-berg and Amsterdam in smooth comfort.

PS

A especially likes this photo as he thinks he looks all statesman-like with me as his PA, following him around keeping him to schedule and making sure all the paper work is filled in.

Pretty accurate actually.

For now.

F x

Hot Christmas

Davina threw one of her Christmas bashes last week, especially early so that we could go. It was great fun but very odd walking from 30 degree heat into Christmas lights, baubles, a candle tree and and jolly Chrimbo tunes.

Brain couldn't compute. Especially when flying ants swarmed around the Christmas lights and a stray (big black) snake had to be pangaged by the guards. Was there a snake in the stable? Perhaps. Would the shepherds have rushed to see it? I think not. They would have, like me, lifted their feet off the ground and waited until it was definitely dead!

Anyway, another thing I'll never forget.

F x

PS – universal truth of eating and drinking too much at Chrimbo parties seems to hold true no matter how hot it is :-)
F x

Dad: Malawi & Monsoons

Dad & Sue's trip was totally action packed. I loved showing them around everything and think (hope) they had a great time. It was only a week so we've fallen down on the traditional 'guest blog spot' but if Dad wants to post something from windy old Swansea all he has to do is e-mail – I'll keep the spot open!

Anyway, we had a fab time. Bit of a mix up (on balance my fault) with bookings into Safari camp but we went to the lake and boiled instead. They saw first hand diesel shortages, water shortages (a woman actually climbed up our wall to ask for water....made me think twice about conditioning my hair in the shower, especially as she was still perched on the wall at the time....), paper making, mango buying, personal taylor services, the dust, the heat and the rains.

Wow the rains. They arrived yesterday. Utter Bliss. The heat was getting unbearable (mid to high 30s) but one huge crack and the water came. I've never never seen the like. The temp dropped, the thunder was right above and the water felt so fresh and cool. Cliché but it actually does smell sweet. If I hadn't had a meeting that afternoon I'd have gone all Andy McDowall and danced like a banshee in the downpour. Roads are now a total state but I'm delighted to be a 'normal' 27 degrees again!

2 weeks and I'll be heading home. Scottish rain will be so boring now (I'll have to make up for it with shopping!).

F x

Blantyre Status Update

Its been a while since I updated you on Blantyre goings on. So:

It is HOT! 35 C in the shade now. I've never stood still and actually had sweat dripping off me before.

There are water shortages. For me this only means that I can't use the washing machine & have to get Phiri to hand wash stuff, but for others this is a real problem.

Probably a combo of both of the above, but the general aroma of human body odour is getting really quite strong.

There is no diesel or paraffin and petrol is getting short. Whether this is because what little forex Malawi has is being spent on fertiliser or whether its because there was a big explosion at some dodgy fuel depot in Mozambique, I'm not sure. Either way, this could be a big problem.

Words fail me to describe how delicious mangos are. They are in the super food category with curry (there's food and then there's curry and mangos).

A's on a big business trip in the v north of Malawi – its so rural up there he had a cow walk into his meeting!

I went to a Guy Faulks night at Blantyre club. First time I've seen the Malawian, White and Asian communities at the same thing. Great fun explaining to shocked friends why we are burning some dude's effigy and fantastic fireworks (apparently courtesy of the Chinese, hope they didn't spend forex on them anyway!).

I was right and the gekos behind the water tank are breeding. Now lots of little tiny gekos everywhere – and the ants are so desperate for water they embark on kamikaze missions down the kitchen wall and into the kettle. Lots of boiled, drowned ants floating about.

I'm enjoying being here. I'm looking forward to coming home.

F x

Skyscrapers & Table Mountain