Hello from Malawi!

Having entered our second week of our journey here in
Africa, we’re happy to say that we’ve made major progress on the building of
the feeding centre. It’s amazing to see the difference – as of last week we
could barely see a structure standing and now the building is starting to take
shape. Hooray!

It’s been really great working alongside the builders and
the local community of Manyowe. We have really built a strong bond with many of
them, and continue to learn from them as the days go by.

Joffat (who is the head builder for Joshua) kindly invited
us to have dinner at his house on Saturday evening. This was a memorable
experience for many reasons. When we arrived, we were warmly welcomed by
Jofat’s friends and family, and sat for hours enjoying each others company in
his beautiful home. Jofat’s dog has one eye. Before dinner, we took a nice walk
to the base of Michiru (which we are planning on climbing next weekend). And,
after being served a delicious meal we were surprised with beautiful necklaces
from Jofat and a lovely speech from Jofat’s close friend. This really made our
night, and will definitely be considered as one of the main high’s of the trip
(especially feeding the kitten papaya from a bottle cap).

On Sunday, we had the opportunity to attend a local Baptist
church in Manyowe. All the people in the church were really happy to meet us
which was such a nice feeling. We were called up to the front of the church
when the service started, and were asked to introduce ourselves to the
congregation including saying where we come from (none of them had heard of
Yorkshire!). After our mini introductions, the entire church came up to us
personally and shook each one of our hands to welcome us! How nice is that?
Prior to Sunday, Agnes had been teaching us a song in Chichewa, called ‘Happy
in my Heart’. We sung this song in front of the church and they really
appreciated our efforts in learning a song in their language. Church was
noticeably different from what we were all use to back home. It was full of
singing and dancing and seemed more as a celebration than anything.

Weather has been interesting at best. We have experienced
sun, rain, and even snow (ha ha only joking about the snow).

This was the first week that we started to help out at the
current feeding centre in operation here in Manyowe. This was definitely an eye
opening experience, and many of us considered this to be both a high and a low.
I think for the first time, we got to really see how orphans live here in
Malawi – this was a perspective many of us had not yet been aware of. However,
this was a high as we were so touched by how happy the children were. Its clear
that the community here are really making the best out of an unfortunate
situation. This makes us hopeful that this situation will be a thing of the
past as the years go on.

We are looking forward to the next week on site and preparing
to climb Michiru. We are also enjoying having a pet chicken for a night which will be killed tomorrow for lunch….yum.