Nothing too exciting going on! I’ve gotten some wonderful emails and messages and phone calls in the last weeks, which have been great.

Life’s more than a little lonely at the moment actually. Banda is gone to Chilumba (about an hour and a half away by bus) to invigilate national exams. Invigilating is basically supervising, passing out exams, making sure there’s no cheating, keeping records, etc. He left on Sunday for the whole week and then came back for the weekend. The weekend was great – we did our usual shopping and cleaning but spent a lot more time just lounging and chatting. Stayed up until 2 am talking on and on. It was like the old days lol. He left again on Sunday for a few more days. I must admit that I miss him terribly. It’s strange staying in the house alone. Add that to the fact that I don’t have much interaction at work and I’m starting to worry that I’ll forget how to speak soon :) And since phone calls are so expensive here, we’re limited to a few minutes each night which really only just makes me miss his goofy self even more.

I’m holed up in the library still, desperately trying to finish the labeling. I’ve made so much headway in the last month that the end is in sight and it’s making me even more anxious to finish. Yesterday I spent a good 6 hours just labeling. I’m so ready to organize and paint and see it looking beautiful!!

Jim and Robyn came by the house last week with a surprise for me! They brought me 4 cans of tuna and some already made tuna noodle casserole! I was so excited that I hugged them. And let’s just say that Robyn is not a hugger lol. But I guess I had made some random comment at lunch the other month that I felt like the tuna was taunting me because I saw it on the shelf every week but couldn’t bring myself to buy it since it’s so much more expensive. Well they remembered and so they brought me some! Aren’t they just the sweetest?

In further exciting food news, I got a SPLENDID package from Mrs. Stilz and Lauren!! I love that they never tell me that they’ve sent it because then it’s always a great surprise :) It was chock full of exciting food stuff… soups, sauces, spam, tuna, nutella, peanut butter, candy. Oh it was amazing. I’m already perusing the internet, finding the most creative ways of using the ingredients. Spicing up our food life! I used the soup in (what I think was) a very creative way! Soup on its own is not a big enough meal for a Malawian so I served it over rice the first day and pasta the second day. It was wonderful! So many new spices to savor. Banda apparently loves tortilla soup :) Yewo chomene (thank you very much). Love you both.

Ms. Kim’s music students gave a concert at MIRACLE last week, so that was nice to see. And she used her speech that we wrote during one of our English lessons. I could definitely see the performer in her as she had memorized it word for word and yet still made it sound unrehearsed!

Had a lovely evening one night as I walked home from English lessons with Ms. Kim. I stopped by the Liwewe household because I wanted to buy some phone minutes so I could call Banda. The whole family was sitting outside making mandazi (fried bread), so I sat and chatted with them for a little while. They’re such a cute bunch! Eventually I continued on towards home since it was already dark. Decided to stop at the Chawinga’s house because Kat wanted the madame’s phone number. She comes walking out of the house TOTALLY PREGNANT!! I guess that tells you how long it’s been since I’ve seen her, since the last time she looked like usual. But now she’s huge. And utterly adorable. Cutest pregnant lady ever. She was so excited to see me and hear that Kat wanted to chat with her that I couldn’t help but smile.

The water hasn’t been coming for the last 5 days or so. I feel worst for the Chaminade boys who are boarding… they’re wandering around looking for water for drinking and washing their clothes. We are lucky enough that we have two huge basins that we fill, but those were in danger of running out. Water finally came at midnight one night so Banda was a champion, out there filling up buckets from the tap and bringing them in. Unfortunately the water is really dirty (sandy I think), so most of it is just there waiting to be used only in extreme emergencies. We’re surviving on one small bucket for our drinking water and washing veggies. Send out good thoughts that we’ll get CLEAN water soon!