Back at Open Arms

Trip Start Sep 22, 2008

Trip End Nov 30, 2008

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Flag of Malawi Blantyre, Malawi
Saturday, November 15, 2008

I made it back to Open Arms safely and two days earlier than expected. Karen left Claire and I on Monday morning because she had things to take care of in Blantyre. We went to Muo Mission on Monday which is an African culture and history museum. At the museum, there was a little zoo and I got to pet 2 monkies. A baboon reached his hand out of the cage and grabbed my waist and was tickling me. He was so cute!! Then we hitched a ride with a group of Europeans that were on a tour of Malawi. They took us 2 hours to Liwonde where we spent the night in a horrible motel. Tuesday morning we took bicycle taxis for over an hour through rural villages to get to the boat that would transfer us across the river to the safari camp. The whole time through the villages, all of the kids were yelling "mzungu" (white person) and running to the dirt rd to greet us. We were like celebraties. It was pretty entertaining. The safari was great. I saw more animals than last time and we had elephants on our veranda at night. During our boat safari, we got right up close to a group of elephants bathing in the river. One of them was showing off for us and fell on his side and went under water. He came back up about 15 seconds later. The whole trip was fantastic, but we missed the babies so much and decided to go home on Wed instead of Friday. The kids were so excited when we got back and I had the greatest time playing with them before they went to sleep. Yesterday, we took Ephraim and Aggie to the pool and for ice cream. They had the time of their lives. They were laughing hysterically the whole time they were in the water. None of the kids have ever been in a pool before so they don't know what it is. They all call it a "big bafa". Bafa is a bath in chechewa. Last night, Claire and I went to Maky's with a bunch of people because Ben Micheal was playing there. He is a famous Malawian singer who plays there often. We had a really good time. Monday, we are going to another orphanage in Blantyre that has no funding and is extremely poor. We are going to be there from about 8am-2pm to see how it is run and to play with the kids. The children there are 2.5-7 years old and it is only a daytime orphanage. The children go back to the village at night where some of the villiagers take them in. They are desperately in need to donations in case anyone is interested...I will get the name and mailing address when we go and I'll post it on here next week. I can't believe I only have 2 weeks left. The time has gone so quickly and it's going to be so hard to leave. I can't wait to post my pictures on-line for you all to see though. I have tons of pictures of all different things this time...Not just children! I think that's all for now. I hope everyone is well!