Butterfly Lodge Nkhata Bay

... both pretty glad to see the back of Mangochi. I was pretty desperate to get settled in one place for a while too cos we kept moving to different accommodation with our masses of gear and were still humping around a big bag of medical supplies we'd brought for Monkey Bay which had become the bain of my life. As Kirsty mentioned we stayed at a place called Venice Beach which I'd arranged in advance with the guy who ran the place. It's a Malawian owned backpackers on ...

... would probably make me pretty upset. I was glad I didn't go, because those who went said that when they got there the pig was already tied to a stick squealing, and they stabbed it in the heart and let it bleed to death. So sad. His name is Pepper though, and we are going to have a lovely meal tonight thanks to Pepper!
We are in shifts today to turn the pig while it cooks, so I have to go at 12-1230 to do my share. We were planning on swimming to this ...

... called Africa House to watch the sunset, and then we went to the Stone Town fish market to get some grub. The fish market is super cool, even though I don't eat sea food (I got chicken instead). They had all this fresh fish skewers and the famous Zanzibar pizza (pancake, chocolate, and banana... .delicious!). We called it an early night considering we had to be awake at 530 to eat breakfast and catch the fairy back to the mainland ...

... terrible asthma attack...and then it turned
out that she had had an a miscarriage at home and needed to be cleaned out to ensure that all the afterbirth was out to prevent infection. Everything costs money in Kenya and so Doctor George asked her and her family in to discuss payment...but they couldn't pay....he sent the daughters out to go and see if they could borrow any money from somewhere while he performed the procedure....I was asked to help which basically meant I was needed to ...

... and not sharing. We jumped off a fairy into the water, we rode on the back of a flat bed truck, jumped off of cliffs and large rocks, snorkling in the almost tropical waters of lake Malawi and of course enjoyed every moment. I know these are so vauge but I will shar when I'm back. INTERNET IS TOO EXPENSIVE. we llooooooove Malawi. =)

... there and just cruised from one pod of hippos to the next, marvelling at these wonderfully cute chubby creatures! And when we had enough of looking at hippos, we could just turn our heads the other way and would find ourselves staring at some freakingly huge crocodiles, just waiting for us to take a dip. But the highlight for us was to be lucky enough to not only watch a large family of elephants drinking and feeding (and having a snooze) by the river but to hang around ...

... drives by and they jump and wave and shout, running after us. Why do they do this?! I can’t fail to see loveliness in the round little houses made of brick if they’re lucky and wood if they’re not that is topped with straw, their little yard made of hard packed dirt facing a neighbor’s and stamped trails leading off in all directions.

I’m fascinated by the women most of all. They are shy but proud, their shoulders ...

Long drive day today, so it's an early start - breakfast at 6am to leave for 7am. We all sing Happy Birthday to Evi when she arrives too, and the truck has been decorated with balloons. We get out of the campsite only for Russ to realise his wallet is missing so bit of drama there while Russ and Evi run back to the campsite to try and locate the wallet (which unfortunately they don't).
We stop again at Mzimba and Hilary, Lisa, Dan, Yohan and I sort out ...

... testers. Mmmm yummy! Some of the group decide to go horse riding and at the end of their session, they come back to the camp with the horses and the horses go into Lake Malawi for a swim. It's amazing that the horses don't seem scared at all to get in the water and seem quite happy to be playing around for a few moments before getting out.
Throughout the day, Kieren, Luca and the guys on the other Dragoman truck ...

... was at camp in
8th grade. It was fun, we were in a two person kayak, and had two guys
with us in a canoe with all of our stuff. We ate peanut butter
sandwiches for all of the meals while we were there.

It's hot
here, and I'm so tired that I'm not going to be able to write much.
Things are going well, except the ferry we were supposed to take down
Lake Malawi to Blantyre has broken down, I guess, and now we're going
to have to take an overnight bus to ...