Change of Plans

As I read over my last post(and several fun comments - thanks!)I was struck by how much has changed in our life since I wrote just a few weeks ago. At that point we planned to stay in Malawi through July of 2009 with 2-3 month break to come to the States to have the baby. We were happy with the decision and all the logisitcs were coming together to have the baby etc. And then John got a call from the Infectious Disease Department at Scott and White that they were looking for another physcian starting as soon as possible. The sad part is that the available job was due to one of his mentors becoming seriously ill, the good part was that it ended up being a really good opportunity... So after prayer and discussion we are moving back to Temple!! Not at all the timing we anticipated but we are very excited. We are currently waiting to hear back from the travel agent but the plan is that we will all leave Malawi together on August 2nd. karis and i will go to Dallas and John will go on the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. After that he will attend a wedding in Missouri and then head back to Malawi until Aug 22nd. He then plans to start work at Scott and White on Sept 2! He has things to finish up in malawi till the end fo Aug but has to start work in time for the insurance to kick in for the baby the middle of October so no holidays for him!!
In the meantime, i will try to be more diligent in updates our last few weeks in Malawi as I feel like the only reason my posts might be remotely interesting is because of where we live... whether or not the stores in Temple are stocking sour cream is hardly worth mentioning:) And speaking of Malawi... the water board was going around on a loudspeaker earlier this evening announcing that people needed to pay their bills or they were going to disconnect us tomorrow! I guess that means I should go to the water board and attempt to decipher my bill and see who owes who...rest assured there will be more to this story!
And currently, vehicles with loud sirens have passed our house 3 times in the last 5 minutes. Interesting since in my 2 years here I have never seen a siren like this!! I am sure the guards will give us an update tomorrow! (i could go out for the scoop now but the door is already locked)

Oops!

I forgot i had added a post that I was going to the States - considering that, I should have also commented when I got home! I had a great trip and returned home on May 26. Karis and John had a great time together while I was gone although Karis was sick the first several days. She had actually been sick before I left and I thought she was improving. However, the day I left she seemed to feel bad again and had horrible diarrhea for another few days! This made things a bit more challenging for John! Unfortunately she also shared her germs with me and I got sick when i got to the U.S. - but thankfully not while I was en route!!

Several quick (and random) updates!

• Karis continues to make us laugh and terrify us at the same time. She now likes to change her DVDs by herself despite knowing she is not allowed! The scary part is that she does it successfully. Yesterday we went for a walk and saw chickens and heard a rooster. She asked what the sound was and I said it was a chicken. Her response was something along the lines of, "chickens say cluck, cluck". So i then had to clarify the voices of hens vs. roosters! She also likes to pick her own outfits and changes clothes about 50 times a day! In general, we are okay with this but at times it can take forever to choose an outfit to get out the door and that is maddening!!
• Our gas tank is on E and there was no fuel in town today! The current rumor is that prices are about to go up again - so either the stations are hording their fuel till the new price takes effect or they really don't have any. There are a few other rumors/theories but they imply a longer shortage so I am trying to ignore them!
• In other shopping news: we now have a semi-regular supply of sour cream at one of our stores!! I cannot describe the amount of excitement and joy this created amongst shoppers when it first appeared!! The strange thing is that sour cream was certainly not on my usual shopping list in the States. Why it is so exciting here I am not sure!
• I only have one more day of 7th grade science. It has been a great experience but I am glad it is almost over!
• This is our winter and it has been rather chilly in the evenings and mornings! I definitely appreciate a duvet and don't envy those of you in Texas this time of year!
• I had an ultrasound while in the U.S. and the baby is a boy!

Sara's trip to the U.S.

I will be heading to the U.S. solo on Friday. I have a meeting for the American Overseas Dietetic Association in Chicago May 22-24 but decided to go a bit early and take a side trip to Texas so I will be gone a total of 10 days. I am very excited to see family and friends and not have a small child on 30 hours of travel but also a little apprehensive to leave karis and John for that long! They will have a great time together, i am sure!! However, we would appreciate your prayers as John will have to balance work and full time parenting and we have a new nanny/housekeeper who will be home with karis in the afternoons. (she goes to nursery school in the mornings).

Cleaning out the Car

The other day I decided to clean out the car. Here were the contents:

• water wings
• 6 pairs of Karis's shoes -no 2 year old should even have 6 pairs!
• 11 water bottles
• 2 Bibles
• 3 books
• 4 pens
• Alcohol gel
• 2 egg cartons
• 2 diapers
• Karis's sunglasses

Out of control!! I am happy to report this is the most cluttered it has been but we clearly need to work on taking in junk on a daily basis!

Ongoing water board saga

Well, the latest on the water board! We did not receive a bill from December until the end of march, when we received the bill from december. a bill, incidently, we had paid on January 11. Now the interesting part and the part that is actually making me crazy at the moment is that on jan 11 I paid MK5775 which was the amount for the December usage, in February we paid MK 8000 (both of those payments were paid minus any form of bill but based on what the cashier said) and then last week (against my better judgement) I paid another MK13000. Now the cashier told me my usage for Feb had been about MK 1200 and then i got a bill for March and it was MK 1090 so how is it possible that I have paid MK21000 for about MK 2500 of usage?!!!

I am not sure what happened but the water board has clearly had some huge issue with their computer system they are having a hard time recovering from. When I was in the office last week attempting to figure the whole thing out there were several very angry people in line around me with similar issues. Unfortunately I had to leave before I even got to the counter but that was probably just as well considering the guys working were so frazzled it probably wasn't worth it.
last week i was trying to solve the problem. This week I have decided to ignore it! When I have energy and feel inspired I will attempt again! In the meantime, I ahve certainly more than paid my bill so my water should not get disconnected!

7th grade science

As I am procrastinating I decided the work I am avoiding is a good topic to cover in a post. I am teaching 7th grade science for the last 11 weeks (3rd term) of the school year at the Christian, American system school here in Lilongwe. I have 17 very well behaved kids in my class and thus far it has been quite fun. Fortuitously the previous teacher had skipped the chapter on the human body so we have been covering that for the last few weeks (they have an exam next week that I should be writing at this moment!) and now we are going to move on to some general health topics. This is where it may get interesting as the health curriculum that comes with their textbook is really scary so I am making up my own curriculum from now to the end of the semester... This is actually a great little job. They only have class M-W for about an hour each time. Monday and Weds class is from 8:20 to 9:10 and tuesday it is from 11:50 - 1:10.

Karis' trip to Maasailand

As you can see, Karis had a great time in the Maasia village (in Tanzania)! It was a neat day for all of us. We left about 6am and with multiples stops reached the village around 10-11. We had the kids wash their hands and then gave them each 2 pieces of bread and a banana and then held a medical clinic.

Yummy Snacks!
Singing songs and playing games.