August 4, 2009 - Another day in the field in Malawi

Darn, woke up with my first mosquito bite…odd, because the nets here are really good ones and I don’t remember being bitten earlier while in the lounge area. I’m taking anti-malarial pills so it should be okay, although I (of course) read all the accompanying prescription information and know that it’s not 100% effective.

Today, Steve, Joseph, John, and Allabi took us to visit some CPAR farm projects. To get there we drove for two hours on a very bumpy road off the highway. We had visited the same area on our last trip but at that time of year the road was wet and some areas of it washed out so I guess dry and bumpy is better!

I was feeling tired today and most of the stops were in pretty sunny areas so I stayed in the truck at all but the first one. But we left the back doors open so I could visit with people, mostly kids, there. It was fun. At a couple of the stops I pulled out the guitar and sang some songs for them, which they responded very positively to. But the real hit was the camera. At one of the stops, they went wild with excitement when I took their picture and completely out of control when I showed it to them on the preview screen. Poor Dwight had to come over and ask me to keep the noise down cause he was trying the conduct an interview. Oops.

(Above) My view of the kids from the back of the truck

Two hours back to the highway on the same bumpy road we came in on and we were back at our hotel around 5:15pm.

We had about an hour to get cleaned up and change, and then John picked us up for dinner with some of the folks from the office. We went for a nice Indian meal with Towera, William, Victor, Tchaka, John, and Joseph. It was fun, and so nice to get to know them better.

It’s 9:30pm now but feels much later. I don’t think I can stay up much longer. Tomorrow we are starting an hour later than we have been, so we can hopefully sleep in a little bit.