Life on the Great Eastern Road...: The Mad Month of March

It’s been ages since we last posted on the blog so thought it was time for an update. We’ve had a hectic but fun month, the rainy season is drawing to an end, work has had it’s ups and downs, but we’ve had some good time off as well! Oh and we also had the fun of applying for registrar jobs back home…. we’ll let you know how that goes..

We had a great visit from Hilary and Stephen (for those who don’t know.. Tom’s Mum and Dad!) earlier this month. We met them off the plane in Lilongwe, Malawi and then spent a very relaxing and fun few days by the beach at Cape Maclear, Lake Malawi. Our time was spent swimming, eating fish, kayaking, playing games etc. It is such a nice setting as it’s a resort within a fishing village, so you get a flavour of life there. A definite highlight is the ‘boy band - Westlife’; a band of Malawian boys of varying ages who for a small fee will entertain with their songs accompanied by music played on jerry can drums (see uploaded photo/video). We then headed back to St Francis where we spent a couple of days showing Hilary and Stephen the exotic sights of Katete. They liked the hospital and our little house and enjoyed the novelty of a BBQ in March. They also loved the church and singing, and meeting some of our friends and people we work with.

After another busy stretch of work we decided to escape again for the weekend. This time only as far as Chipata (our usual destination for shopping). We stayed at a little hillside lodge and had a wild night out with Nat and Will (ok ok it wasn’t that wild but it was never the less a night out complete with neon lit bar selling more than one type of drink… ). We had some time chilling by a pool and today walked up a hill with amazing views over Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique.

This may sound like we are on one long holiday, so we will post a few stories from the hospital very soon!

Hope everyone isn’t too snowed in and that spring comes soon! Happy Easter!