It’s a great day for a white wedding

Today we had the honour of attending one part of a Malawian wedding and it was fun!!  Early this morning, the bride and groom held their ceremony in the church then went for lunch at Nancy’s restaurant.  From there, they headed up the hill to Likhubula House where they had some photos taken then down to an area just below our chalet. There was a lovely decorated marquee there and loads of chairs laid out. However, by  the time we arrived there must have been about 500 guests there!  A DJ played various tunes while the MC called different groups up to welcome the new couple.  While dancing in front of the couple, the dancers threw money at them!!!!  It was an incredible site. We were with some of our friends from the community so also got the opportunity to go up and dance in front of the bride and groom (we did a bit of a Highland Fling)  and throw our money.  Like in North America and the UK, the bride wore a lovely dress, there were flower girls etc, and a nice cake.  One difference was at the end of the event, they auctioned off bits of cake for more money!  I can’t wait to find out the total amount that the newly married couple received!

While at Mr. Kalipinde’s I also picked up a Malawian style outfit to wear to the wedding.  I had bought  a couple of metres of fabric and Mr. Kalipinde made me an amazing skirt and top!  I felt great at the wedding in national dress.  Jenni also wore an outfit she had bought in Africa on a previous trip and we both looked quite the part. 

Day Seven Saturday

We had such an interesting day today.  We had a bit of a lie in (woke at six but didn’t have to be anywhere until later) which was nice. We headed down the hill towards the men who do all the local carving. We had already arranged through Akimu that we would commission a carver to create the school badges for Head of Muir and Dunblane High School.  We had copies of the school badges and gave them to the artist.  When we picked them up this morning....they were amazing!  We were so pleased.  The carver, Wells, asked for 10, 000 MKW for both (about £20) but we insisted on that price for each of them.  A lot of work went into them  and we were delighted with the results.

We ventured farther down the hill towards the market and Mr. Kalipinde’s tailor shop.  Our Committees have been trying to start up a project where by locals are trained by Mr. Kalipinde to learn how to use the sewing machine.  From there it is hoped that they will then begin a sustainable business creating items to sell and putting the profits back in to buy more cloth etc.  We saw the ‘first term’ efforts, then the second term (a little better) and finally the third term school uniforms they have made. Excellent!!  Our partnership had purchased a Singer machine which was electric but in discussion, Mr. Kalipinde and his students were wondering whether or not a mechanical one might be better. We will need to take this back to our  committees to discuss.

We headed back up the hill to meet with our bursars. In total 11 of our bursars came and we hosted a lovely lunch to meet them and celebrate in their achievements.  What a lovely bunch of young people they were. We enjoyed chicken and rice with some vegetables and a couple of bottles of pop.  One boy, Gifte, made the most heart warming speech of thanks to us which he had written out in precise handwriting.  We have his copy which he signed and will share it with the Dunblane Committee when we return. 

Tennis anyone?

It is not the easiest thing to follow Wimbledon in Malawi but Jenni and I have done well this trip.  One evening this week (quarter finals),  we parked ourselves outside the office up at the Centre and attempted to find some kind of live feed on the internet. No luck on any of BBC or Wimbledon sites but Jenni hit the jackpot on The Guardian site!  We spent an hour up in the dark, getting eaten by mosquitoes and were delighted to find out that our Andy had won.

We then started in earnest to figure out what we were going to do if Andy continued to play well.  Jenni and our driver did a reccie and on Thursday discovered that the Mulanje Golf Course had a satellite (slightly bigger than a NASA one) and for a joining fee of £2, we could get access to the tennis!

Friday night saw us at the Golf Course watching the tennis. We got to see a lot of the Del Potro/ Jokovich game and the first set of Andy’s.  Unfortunately the Club closes at 8 so we had to resort to our ‘in the dark Wifi tactic’.  Shattered from a long and emotional day, we decided that we wouldn’t be able to follow on the slow Wifi so put in a request to Scotland for an update text when the game was over.  We woke at 6 this morning expecting a text, but as it happens, this one was stuck in Malawi text cyber space and only made it to my phone at 9:30. Nevertheless we were delighted.

Today’s plans including having our bursars help us make a sign to encourage Andy.  They helped us colour it in and we have some great photos of it.  We also took it to our wedding (see following post) and have some photos from there.  Jenni will send an article to the Observer later this week. 

We are looking forward to the final.  We have another booking at the Club for Sunday and will enjoy some more Chicken and Chips and perhaps a wee glass of wine while cheering Andy on.  Come on Andy!!!!!

Day Six- Feels like home....

After our meeting at Thuchila we headed down a very bumpy and uneven road to Nakoma village to see the Chiromo family. For both Jenni and I it felt like coming home and it was with great warmth and friendship that we greeted Hannah, Promise and their other daughter Desire.  We sat for the afternoon chatting and reminiscing about friends and family.  Hannah had made a lovely lunch for us of rice and boiled eggs which we tucked into easily.  Charles also took us over the church which has improved greatly since we both had seen it last. The outside has been plastered as has the inside. They also have a lovely door with glass panes in it.  Charles told us a funny story about how someone had stolen the door and whilst they were standing looking at the empty space, someone walked by and heard about it going missing.  This same woman was later on a bus towards Blantyre when she saw the said door being transported away. She immediately made contact with Charles and a whole posse took off in chase of the door, some by bike and others by bus.  Low and behold, a few miles up the road, the door was abandoned by the roadside and was reinstalled later into the church!

Whilst at Nakoma, we went to visit the village chief.  Chief Nakoma is an incredible woman who I really admire. When I was last in Malawi I met her and although we are unable to communicate with each other, there is an understanding there.  We greeted each other with huge warm hugs and sat and smiled with each other.  Jenni said she could see how my Mum and I might have been together.

For both of us, it was a real sense of family today.  Hannah, at the end of the visit suggested a song to sing, Bind us Together.  Jenni reminded us all that this was the first song she had taught to the Standard 1 class when she visited Nansato School in 2005.  Charles commented that indeed we were all bound together like family.