I have just become another uncle, and Lois an aunt! Andrew and Nikola (brother & sister in-law) have just given birth to a little boy (a meneer of note in Andrew’s words). He was born at 10:19 today, and he weight 2.36kg.
This does of course mean that the little meneer will only have a birthday every four years, I guess that saves on a few presents! Oh, and his name is Sebastian.
Congratulations to Andrew and Nikola!
Hi there all you South African bloggers.
The folks down at the Open Surgery have created a Facebook site specifically for South African bloggers. It allows for use to share our blogs, discuss the blogging scene in SA, and to meet the people behind some of our writing.
Here is an interesting website – futureme.org. It allows for you to send yourself an email which is post-dated to sometime in the future. I can think of some interesting applications of this. Here are a few:
What would you like to be reminded about?
I have finally completed the initial version of my e-book, Putting the POWER back into PowerPoint.
This 34 page ebook will show you how to effectively use PowerPoint to enhance your presentation. Learn how to:
and of course, know what to take with you when giving a presentation. You can download the 34 page ebook here. Please tell all your friends and family to download the ebook.
I would love to get some feedback, so please let me know what you think!
I had the whole of Sunday free, so Andrew – the president of Lilongwe Toastmasters club – kindly took me to see Lake Malawi, since as I was told, "you haven’t been to Malawi until you have been to the lake!"
So Sunday morning saw us bright and early off to the lake. Although the drive was only about an hour or so, you really start to feel that you are in rural Africa. We passed several road-side villages, with countless goats wondering across the road, and all manner of produce being sold on the side of the road – from live chickens to tobacco and vegetables.
When we arrived at the lake, I literally had my breath taken away. It is like standing on the shore of an ocean. The lake is staggeringly huge. What is even more remarkable is that the photos that I took are across the width of the lake, and you still cannot see the far shore! I even found a sign warning about dangerous rip-tides, which gives you an idea of the scale. If you ever have the opportunity, it is well worth the visit.
I would have loved to spend a few days at the lake, it is very tranquil (and also very hot – it was too hot to walk barefoot on the sand). But alas, I had to get back to Lilongwe in time for my flight back home.
We did manage to stop off at a road-side tourist shop. While I am not usually one for buying "African" curios – since we are swamped with them in Cape Town – this place had some really lovely items. Many of the goods were hand-carved, and the artists were busy at their carving on the side of the road. The prices are ridiculous cheap, and it is quite fun bartering with the traders. They started at a ridiculously high price, and I started with a ridiculously low offer, and we met somewhere in the middle (unlike in Mauritius where they start at a ridiculously high price and stay there).
I got back to Lilongwe airport in good time, and this is a really strange airport. These are all the processes that you go through to depart:
So, I had to pass through seven people to board the aircraft – talk about creating employment! We left safely (and on time!), and I arrived back home exhausted, but very happy.
I had a fantastic weekend – Malawi is a country to visit for a few days.
Training went very well, it is quite interesting that even though they are so far away, they have the same concerns and issues that we have at our Toastmasters clubs.
After training, we had lunch at the Golf Club. I had fresh fish from the lake – I have no idea what type of fish, but apparently you can only get them in Lake Malawi. Lunch was washed down with a bottle of Kuche Kuche beer, which literally means "until sunrise", so you can drink it the whole night!
In the afternoon, I went shopping. Fist stop was the supermarket, where I bought a bottle of Malawi Gin, which I was told that I had to purchase, and of course a few bottles of Nali Chili sauce. This local chilli sauce (which claims to be the hottest in Africa) is piping hot, yet very tasty.
Then off to the food market. The quality of the fresh fruit and vegetables was great, but the market is what I can only describe as an African scene. You could buy freshly cooked mielies, which had been “braaied” on the open coals (corn is the staple food of Malawi, you can see it growing everywhere).
Everybody wanted my business (especially since I was then only white person in the market), but they were friendly about it, which is more that I can say for Mauritius. Everybody in the market had something to do – there was a person there whose job was simply to shell the peas!
I had dinner at local Italian restaurant, and then I finished off the day drinking MGT (Malawi Gin and Tonic) at the Reserve Bank club. Thank goodness that I ate at the Italian restaurant, because the special at the club was goat!
By the way, today is much cooler, with much lower humidity, it is rather pleasant. So, off to Lake Malawi tomorrow.
It is still quite colonial in Malawi (it is an ex-British colony). Florence has a helper working in the house (a man non-the less), and do you think that he would let me make my own breakfast? All I wanted was some cheese on toast, and a cup of tea. No No, none of that! I had to sit down and relax while my breakfast was made for me, and don’t you even think of helping yourself! I am being well looked after. For dinner tonight, I believe that I am having some of the local fish that they catch in lake Malawi.
Malawi is quite free with time, it is currently 8:10am on Saturday, and registration for training is starts at 8:30, but Florence is not here. I think that she is still at Church, so, no use in panicking.
I am quite far south from Lake Malawi, so I was not expecting to see it, but I have discovered that it is only 1 hours drive north, so I will be using my free time tomorrow morning to get an early start and head off to the lake – I am quite excited about that. With all the gear I had to bring, I left my SLR camera at home, but at least I packed the point and shoot!
I think I hear Florence arriving now, so I will continue later.
I am staying that the Area Governors house – Florence, at her house in Lilongwe. They have quite an interesting house numbering system. Florence’s address is site 10/1234. That’s it! Every house is simply a site number, 10 or 12, and then a house number! I have no idea how they navigate the system, but I feel sorry for the poor postmen.
Even though I am in the city it is quite rural (well at least compared to Cape Town or Johannesburg). Florence has got a sheep, chickens, ducks, a guinea fowl (although he might have been passing through), and about 11 dogs. This is in addition to the various vege growing in her garden. I must admit to being quite startled to look out my bedroom window to be staring face to face at a sheep. This sheep looks exactly like a goat, but I am assured that it is in fact a sheep, just not a fluffy white sheep – you be the judge!
Malawi is not as warm as I was expecting – it is only about 27 deg, but the humidity is very high, so you feel hot, and you constantly have that sticky feeling. You also can’t sleep with the windows open because it is a Malaria area and you really want to avoid the mosquitoes.
I heard in the evening that Tony’s flight was cancelled, which meant that I was promoted from simply attending the training, giving a single speech and one training slot, to running the entire training session! Not quite what I had planned, but thank goodness I have all the training material on my laptop!
So, window closed, safely covered in anti-mosquito cream, I slept like a baby, I just collapsed and fell asleep.
Lilongwe Airport is the first airport that I have ever been to where the queue at passport control for residents is longer than the queue for visitors, so I got through relatively quickly, collected my bags and then when through customs - to be promptly stopped to have my bags checked.
Now, I have only had my bags checked by customs at an airport three times (including today), and all three times were in Africa. This time it was at the Lilongwe airport, and the other two times were in Namibia, and Swaziland. Every country in the world seems to trust me, except for my neighbours – oh well!
The local currency is the Kwacha which is exchanged at about 20 to one Rand. This did make my feel quite wealthy, exchanging R500, and receiving about 10000 Kwacha in return (in Zimbabwe it would be about 40 million Zim Dollars).
By the way, here is a suggestion. You have to pay USD 30 departure tax when you leave Malawi (and it HAS to be USD), and you can get it at the bank at the Malawi airport at a reasonable exchange rate. I did not know this, and I had to pay $12 commission to exchange R200 to get $30 at the forex counter at Johannesburg airport. It was a complete rip-off. So, rather get the dollars at your bank beforehand, or in Malawi itself.
In case you are wondering why I was in Malawi, I was there to assist with the training of the local Toastmasters club officers. Tony from Johannesburg was going to present the main session, and with me assisting.
So, Andrew who was collecting me from the airport was running a bit late, and while I was waiting for him, I realized one of the universal truths about airports around the world. The arrivals halls are always swarming with taxi drivers touting for your business. There was one driver in particular (with the friendly smile that you encounter all over Africa), that was determined to be my friend. He was quite concerned that my lift was not going to arrive, and he was going to save the day, and give me a ride into town. He kept telling me so; "no, your lift is not going to arrive – I have to help you". Eventually I was rescued by Andrew, who is the president of one of the local Toastmasters Clubs.
I am off to Malawi today to assist with Toastmasters Club Officer Training in Malawi on Saturday. It seems a bit crazy to spend about 11 hour travelling for about 5 hours of training, but I have never been there, so it should be quite fun.
What is even more crazy is that Lois is going to Swaziland for a similar purpose – it seems like we are both going "overseas" by ourselves – oh well!
I will let you know how it goes.
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