John's computer

While in the States in October we bought a new computer and were given a wireless router so for about 2 weeks we were in technology heaven - we each had a computer with Internet access (and it was even running a bit faster) and Karis had her DVD player to watch her "moosh" We loved it but had a bad feeling it was "too good to be true..." Sure enough, "John's" computer decided to die. However, he was able to get on the Dell chat line and they decided it was the motherboard and he needed to send in his computer for repair... He was able to convince them to just mail him the motherboard Hurdle #1) we had to give a shipping address on the spot so gave my grandparent's. Someone needed to sign for the package and they are retired and usually home and very dependable... EXCEPT, unbeknownst to us they were on vacation. Thankfully, a neighbor must have signed for it. Hurdle #2) getting it here - one of John's colleagues made an unexpected trip to the US and was able to bring it back. These SHOULD have been the hurdles. However, who knew that there were 20 different screws to get the thing apart and that several of them would be virtually impossible to get out. Thankfully, the IT person, Thomas, at his work was able to help. He was so excited the first night to get it done and then had to give up on the screws. Next day he took it to work, Thomas got the screws out and John sat down the next night to fix the whole thing, got down another level and found anothr screw that would not come out so had to take it back to work again! Finally, the third night he was able to actually get everything apart and install the new motherboard and it wouldn't work!! So he took it back to Thomas for him to check it out and was rather dejected. Today Thomas had time to look at it and said, "John, it looks like you did a great job and everything is installed correctly you just forgot to put the processor back in!" The feeling of foolishness is far surpassed by the joy that the computer might actually work again! Thomas was supposed to be installing the processor tonight so keep your fingers crossed!

Someone Important Must Live on Our Road

1/12 We have decided that someone important must have moved onto our road somewhere because what was already a rather nice tarred, 2 lane road well able to handle the flow of traffic has been transformed into the nicest dirt road I have ever seen!! First, huge piles of dirt appeard every 20 feet or so and then they have spent over a week spreading and packing this dirt (and apparently pulling up the tar underneath) I suspect they will start tarring anyday which could get rather interesting since we only have one way off our compound and it is straight onto this road! We could not have left if we wanted to on Saturday afternoon and I suspect it will be unpassable again at some point in the near future. When we arrived a year and a half ago it was totally "bush" across the street with no development but in that time a school and several houses have been built and we can tell it is going to be developed more and more so it is reasonable to work on the road. THen this morning a friend said she heard this road was being widened to make it sort of a bypass around Lilongwe!! Aghh! since this would ahve a huge impact on the traffic I can only hope it is a false rumor... and praise the Lord we only rent this house and will be long gone before they actually finish such a bypass! (this road deadends about 2-3 miles from our house. to actually connect it as a bypass to the cities in the south they will have to build several miles of totally new road)
12/17 -I didn't post this the other day because I wanted to load a picture and the internet was too slow. Today I am getting an odd error message so I will just post minus the picture. The development on the road in the past week? Well, they spent 4 days grading and packign and smoothing till it was the best dirt road I have ever seen and then they dug it all up and started over because there was "a failure" somewhere. I think that means they made a mistake. One of Thomas's responsibilities for the week is to keep an eye on the progress and to let me know before they start tarring in front of our house so I can get the car off the compound instead of getting totally blocked on!

Snake Encounter!

Yesterday karis and i went swimming at our friends Beth and Jeremy's house. Beth is currently in the UK and Jeremy was at work but their two lovely daughters Claire (8) and Brianna (7) were home as well as a friend who is staying with the family, Kate. So we had a nice swim and then Karis and I went to the bathroom to change. I walked in, put Karis down, dropped my bag and closed the door all sort in one movement and then looked up to see a large green snake in the shower about 6-8 feet in front of us! It was a littler surreal, I grabbed Karis but she of course was already walking away from me - toward the snake (though I don't think she really saw it but was just stepping away after I put her down) so I had to grab for her twice then had to turn my back to open the door which of course stuck the first time!! Thankfully, the snake was more occupied with getting out of the shower by attempting to climb up the wall that I don't think it hardly saw us.
I get out of the bathroom, slam the door and yell for the girls to call the gardener! Thankfully, all people and all 4 dogs were in the kitchen area and out of the way. So Brianna runs to do that and Claire, who is fearless, is crouching by the door to see if she can see it (I wouldn't let her open it) The gardener dutifully comes in with a stick and a machete. We show him the bathroom door and then close the hall door and stand and wait! We closed the hall door so that if the snake got out of the bathroom it didn't come straight into the room with the kids and the dogs but I still felt a little guilty and I stood in safety and sent him off to kill the snake! We waited about 2 minutes while we hear whacking from the bathroom and then he comes out pushing a still writhing snake along the floor, leaving blood spots. ughh.


The girls and the gardener said it was a Green Mamba (very poisonous and aggressive) but I think that is a pretty standard answer for all green snakes so I am not sure. However, we couldn't find the snake book so we put it in a bucket and put it up high where the dogs couldn't reach it to await Jeremy's assessment.

Oh, I just got a text from him and he said it was 100% a green mamba and that it was about 1.5 meters.(this is why little girls have fathers - there was no way I was going to measure the thing and Claire was the one who put it in the bucket!)

On the one hand I making this a pretty dramatic story but on the other hand, this situation had potential to be really dangerous - My theory is that the snake got in throught the open bathroom window above the shower and it just wanted back out when it couldn't get back up the wall there is no telling where it would have gone! Claire and Brianna of course run all over their house and karis tends to run around too and any one of them could have encountered it and had it even been curled up in the shower versus trying to get out then someone could have stepped on it. Had one us gotten bitten it would have been a really, really big deal so I just praise God that it worked out the way it did! AND that the gardener was there! Kate and I discussed that had he not been there we really would have had to have been responsible adults and killed it ourselves!! And had that happend we would have done fine BUT praise God for the gardener!

Lilongwe Used Clothes Market

The used clothes business is quite the happening affair in Lilongwe. Clothes that originated from Goodwill, charities etc etc in the U.S. and Europe arrive in bales that are about 5ft by 5 ft and are bought by individuals. They then take it to their stall (a covered space with plastic on the floor) in the market and open up the bales. The shopper then sorts through the piles until they make a find. Other clothes are also washed, ironed and hung up for better presentation. There does seem to be some sort of method to the madness on how the bales are put together. IE some will be all men's shirts or kids clothes or whatever. Just like consignment shopping in the States you never know what you are going to get: some stuff is junk and other times you will find a name brand with the tag still on it! The whole city from expats to villagers shop here and the prices range from about 100 kwacha for a simple kids shirt to several hundred for a jacket. Sometimes it is depressing to look at an item that has a garage sale tag for 75cents and you are paying $2 for it. However, clearly most items are worth more than they are sold for at garage sales.
We have been shopping here the last 2 years for Christmas gifts for our staff and their families. This year they have a total of 12 kids so we needed quite a lot and it was hot! So hot that while I usually really enjoy these sorts of things i was desperate to leave before we were halfway through our list! We finally gave up before we got everything so I will have to make one more trip - on a cooler day! Once we got everything home and washed it all looks quite nice except for one pair of pants that is too worn in the knees. What actually prompted me to write about this is that last night as I was hanging up a very cute dress that is about 2 sizes too big for Karis I realized that it is in perfect condition AND reversible. Very cool. So I think we will be keeping that one for her and I will buy another one to give as a gift...
The downside to all of this is that apparently this type of thing has actually been really detrimental to the local textile industries in several African countries. Local textiles just cannot produce clothes as cheap as these can be sold... Yet another thing that seems like really good thing initially but once you learn more about the economics not so helpful after all...