That's all folks!

our amazing accommodation at the lake for Thanksgiving



a long climb



a long down, zoom zoom!



first and largest river crossing of the day



looking back down one of the long (rough) climbs



the victim receiving some amateur physio - his cramp was so bad he could not walk, nor get back on his bike, for over an hour



changing a tyre, luckily the clouds were reducing the power of the sun a little on this occasion



3rd river crossing of the day



riding down a dry river bed



finally crossing the mighty Shire river, the end was in sight



Rach and I in our traditional clothes - my shirt was made from a chitenji by one of our guards who is also a tailor.



the two men, one is the groom, the other a 'fake' (who also seems to be what western weddings would call the 'best man')



exchanging chickens



L-R The groom, the bride's uncle (holding a cockerel), the groom's uncle (holding a chicken), the bride.



Goodbye AYISE meal




This will be the last post from Malawi! (unless something goes wrong with our travel plans on Thursday…fingers crossed!) The photos show our last couple of weekends:

- Thanksgiving at a private cottage on the lake 2 weekends ago
- Bike ride to Majete last Saturday
- Attending the engagement ceremony of one of our colleagues last Sunday
- Goodbye AYISE meal

Thanksgiving was very relaxing, for me at least – as somehow I had managed not to be assigned any cooking duties! Drove up to the lake through intense heat on Friday afternoon, and arrived to one of the hottest evenings I have ever experienced. It was literally impossible not to sweat all the time until…around 9pm the heavens opened and we danced in the downpour! Saturday we played a variety of ball games, swam in the lake, collected Rachel who had just got off the bus from leaving Claire in Lilongwe, chilled out and generally tried to live up to the modern spirit of thanksgiving. What a spread, great food, and so much of it! A great weekend, thoroughly relaxing (although I do suspect I got whiplash from a tackle during our attempts at Aussie Rules Football).

Our last week at work was filled with lots of tying up loose ends. For Rachel that meant visits to the women’s groups she had started, to the group for youth with disabilities, giving a speech on gender related violence for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on Thursday, and generally being a do-gooder! I was completing the website (now updated and ready to view here – www.ayisemw.org ), annual reports, the Environmental Policy, funding applications, and also meeting with an environmental funding organisation to scope out resources for a project which I also proposed. Quite a productive week, all in all!

On Friday we headed to a braai in Blantyre, which was a culinary delight – homemade hummus and beef filets…need I say more!? We then stayed over at L’s place, ready to get an early start the next morning for an epic 60km off-road bike ride down the escarpment to Majete.

The ride dropped 1500m and gained 750m, so it was not all zooming downhill, but there was a good amount of that. Unfortunately there were also a lot of punctures and one case of crippling cramp, so despite our relatively early start (although not as early as I would have liked) we were still riding through the heat of the day and arrived at the destination at 2pm (for the front group who had gone on ahead), and 3pm (for the back group including me, who had helped get the cramp victim back to a village where he could wait to be picked up later). I don’t think I have ever sweated quite so much, and I’ve sweated a lot here! Changing punctures in the full glare of the sun, 40 degree heat, miles from anywhere, with sweat dripping in my eyes and onto the tyres…good memories! No, seriously, I really enjoyed it, although it was somewhat epic. The cramp victim had a particularly bad day though, as once he had been picked up and brought to the lodge which was our final destination, he wanted to shower before getting in the pool…slipped and broke his wrist! Not a good day for him! In the spirit of the season we sang Christmas carols on the way back to Blantyre.

Rachel had declined the bike ride in favour of a Society of Malawi trip to see the only castle in Malawi. The place was built in 1912 and has served as a prison, a barracks and a police training camp – however it is now abandoned and crumbling, but looked lovely. Her trip finished at lunch time, so she had a relaxing afternoon back at L’s before we arrived back and headed out for a meal and a bit of a dance.

Sunday we, along with most of the volunteers went to the engagement party of one of our colleagues. It was a very interesting traditional ceremony, whereby the rough outline of events is as follows:
- Two men are brought out, covered in chitenji cloths, and the family of the bride must identify which one is the groom
- Dancing and throwing money (the Chichewa word for throwing money means ‘the gift which keeps on giving’)
- Two women are brought out, also covered, and the groom must identify which one is the bride (on the first occasion, neither were – I got a bit lost at this point)
- Dancing and throwing money
- The bride and groom, having been identified, stand in the middle and people dance around and give money:
- Different groups are invited to dance at different times, friends of the groom, friends of the bride, family from one village, family from another village, etc etc
- The groom puts a ring on the middle finger of the bride
- The family of the groom give the family of the bride a cockerel
- The family of the bride give the family of the groom a chicken
- Refreshment break – at this point we left to get home before dark.

That evening, AYISE threw us a going away dinner in the compound, which was lovely, but (typically) 2 and a half hours late starting! Luckily we are now aware of this, and had eaten a pre-dinner to keep our strength up.

Last night we did our last Hash, for which we were given generous amounts of beer. The run, luckily enough, was one of the best that we had been on – despite the fact it was completely unplanned and had to be set up last minute by 2 guys getting a 10 minute headstart on the pack. A great way to end our running careers! After, we went for a curry with an Irish friend of ours, who we will be sad to leave, but hopefully we’ll catch up again somewhere in the world.

Which brings us to today. We plan to have a braai at Bangwe this evening, but looking at the clouds out the window I suspect there may be torrential rain. Last Wednesday we had the largest downpour I have ever seen – it was heavy and lasted from about 2.30pm to around 8pm! Rivers flooded, burst their banks and fields were swamped. Lets hope we just get a heavy shower today!

Then tomorrow we must pack, before our flight early on Thursday morning.

In some ways it seems a shame to be leaving – we are starting to feel like we can be slightly productive here, and we are starting to make really good friendships. But I guess it’s best to leave on a high. We are both definitely in need of a holiday. In Malawi the amount of effort required for any piece of work seems to be roughly 5 times the effort that would be required in the UK, so although we have achieved fewer goals than we would have liked, it has taken more strength and emotions than we could have anticipated. To all our friends and family out there, and here in Malawi, we want to thank you for your continued support – without which we would have really struggled to complete our time here with anything resembling sanity.

Love to all, and we look forward to seeing you again soon.

PS – I will probably keep updating the blog with my travels around New Zealand and the U.S., but there will be no more posts from Malawi (all going well).