We all relax in different ways. The team here has uncovered a number of jigsaw puzzles that live in the house. So, for relaxation, or perhaps out of boredom, we started some puzzles.
Our first was a mystery puzzle in a plastic bag, made up of brightly ambiguous pieces in random shapes. It turned out to be a kitschy picture of colorful fish. And we had every piece. Surprise.
Next up is a 1000-piece Jackson Pollock nightmare.
Everyone else has given up, but I'm thrilled.
Bring it.
The sunset glinting off the windshields of my slumbering fleet just called out for a picture.
Malawi is beautiful.
We're crafting an elaborate plan to find a sustainable water source at the expat house on the hill. Not sustainable like produces little waste and is trendy 'green,' but sustainable like actually produces water all year.
Our next solution is to move our water meter and install a water tank at the lowest part of the property, approximately 100 vertical feet below the current tanks. That should increase our intake from the water board.
I was strategizing today with the water board official and the maintenance officer to best plan the new placement of the water meter.
We come up with a plan. We go back today at 3pm for a cost quotation...
Last Friday, eight of us piled into two taxis into Blantyre. Some of us were going for a girl's night out, with one boy in tow, and one was going for a long weekend with his girlfriend. What unsuspecting Mr. Long-Weekend didn't know that we were entering into a highly complicated and intricate dance to surprise him for his 40th birthday, that apparently none of us knew about.
Ten minutes into the car ride, he tells everyone it's his birthday. Acting faces, everyone.
"Oh really?"
A brief discussion, some jokes, and the conversation moves on. I am sweating.
50 text messages with our accomplice, the girlfriend, a traffic jam, ten changes of plan, a faked telephone argument, and a cigarette pitstop later, we walk into the bar we are going to take over to wait for Mr. Long-Weekend and Ms. Accomplice. We walk right into the bar, four of us ready to make this special, and find Mr. Long-Weekend drinking alone at the bar.
Crap, crap, crap.
I'm sweating, profusely.
We sneak out of the bar without being seen (did he see us? No. Oh come on, he had to have. No, I think we're good. No we should call it off. No we're good. Uhhh...)
We regroup at a bar around the corner.
More texts to Ms. Accomplice. Change of plans. We'll walk in and surprise him. The streamers and the trick candles go back in the bag.
Ok, ready?
I'm still sweating.
We walk in to the bar (he still doesn't see us, where is this guy's observation skills! We're not the most sneaky 7 people you've ever met and this is our SECOND time through those doors in half an hour...). I tap him on the shoulder once we've assembled in a choir behind him.
Surprise.
He had no idea!
Success. I stop sweating, and we have a great night over dinner and drinks.
Happy 40th Mr. Long-Weekend.
We're in the middle of the dry season and there is little water to be found. The little trickle of a creek across the path to work has been set for a month. Rain won't come until November.
We had a couple days of rain recently, which tamped down the diary haze in the air.
We can finally see Mulanje after two months of close horizons. The sunsets remain spectacular.
