Day 1 and 2

When we arrived to our house on Saturday, I was greatly surprised! The UNC Area 6 house is nothing that I had expected - it's a home away from home! Dr. Shores and her colleagues have worked very hard to provide such a lovely home for those working with UNC Project Malawi, and I couldn't be luckier.

After we got settled in, we took a trip to the local market to get something for dinner. We bought 2 chickens, fruits, and vegetables. We had a chicken, rice, and curry vegetables for dinner. The curry vegetables were good, but the chicken not so much... it was very chewy. We later learned, by Taye (1st year medical student from Ethiopia) how to pick a more tender chicken - by looking at the size of the spurs on it's legs! Smaller the spurs, the younger the chicken and thus more tender the meat. Now we know! The Malawians were probably laughing at us for picking such old chickens...

On Sunday I woke up to the wonderful sound of roosters! Nothing like a personal alarm clock that you can't shut off. That day we took a trip to the Lilongwe Sailing Club at Kamuzu Dam II. John and Melanie took the sailboat out, while I laid in the hammock and received a Chichewa speaking lesson from the Malawian working at the club, Deses. Luckily for me, those who have had secondary education or higher know how to speak English, so it makes it easy for me to communicate with most of the locals. So, I learned how to say a couple of greetings, and goodbye. The first thing that I have learned here in Malawi is that everyone is very nice! They are so friendly, and extremely grateful that we have come to visit! I have never felt more welcome than I do here.