It has been a LONG time since I've posted and for that I apologize. They say a picture is worth a thousand words though which is good because I don't have nearly enough words to go over what's happened since my last post but I hope these photos and highlights will at least be a good start:
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| Joyce Banda, Malawi's New President |
Malawi has a new president: Joyce Banda, who took over as president after President Mutharika suffered cardiac arrest and died unexpectedly. President Banda is the only the second female lead in Africa and has assumed office with a lot of support.
HIV Test Kits Shortage: We haven't had test kits available for two months now and because such a large part of GRS Malawi's programming is based on testing this has had significant effects on what we're able to do. We've cancelled two VCT Soccer Events, but are hoping that the country will get more test kits in July.
Trip North to Luwawa:
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| Luwawa Forestry Reserve |
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| Me and Nader (a real life doctor) enjoying the board games |
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| That's right, a giant spider web nest thing of horror, and they were EVERYWEHRE |
I traveled up North to the Luwawa forestry reserve for a couple days for some good hiking and bird watcher watching (just like it sounds, one who watches bird watchers).
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| The sky just goes on and on... |
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| Luwawa crew obligatory jump photo. From L to R: Nader, Avni, Javeria, Mel, Me, Jon |
The trip was filled with beautiful, rolling green hills, never-ending views, birds, and of course board games. For those of you who worried I would never grow up that's right I spent a weekend of long hikes and board games.
South Luangwa National Park: I also made my way back into Zambia to South Luangwa national park for a safari. What I didn't realize was that the lodge we stayed in was pretty much part of the park as a giant elephant was standing outside our room when we arrived along with a snake inside the room.
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| On the right our room. On the left ELEPHANT. |
At night hippos climb up from the river which the lodge is right next to and graze on the grass right outside the cabins. On the game drives we got a great view of the wildlife as well as a thorough background on every animal from our tour guide.
Roadtrip with Laura and Rebecca down south:
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| Laura and Rebecca looking at the truck we were about to board...along with 40 other people. |
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| Bike taxi-ing through the tea estates at the base of Mulanje |
I took some time to travel south along with two GRS interns from Cape Town, Laura and Rebecca. We visited Mulanje, an enormous massif with the highest peak in Central Africa as well as a trip the Lake. Public transportation was a string of wins and losses as it always is here and we frequently found ourselves stuffed into the backs of mini-buses, boarded onto pickup trucks, and packed into giant truck caravans. Often times progress was slow (if nonexistent), and involved all sorts of absurdity from fist fights between drivers and conductors, live poultry, live livestock, stopping less than every minute, to nearly freezing in an open bed truck driving at night. Mulanje was stunning though offering some of the best views I've seen in my life for a much more affordable price than Kilimanjaro.
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| The views on Mulanje were second to none. |
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| Seriously, spectacular. |
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| And then we were above the clouds. |
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| As high as we got before the wind and clouds prevented us from climbing higher. |
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| So we settled for warmer weather at the Lake. From L to R: Rebecca, Me, Laura |
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| And enjoyed some pretty nice sunsets |
The lake was a nice follow up to Mulanje as we relaxed on the beaches of Cape Maclear.
Chabwino, until next time, tiwonana.
