Happy Birthday to Kim

June 28^th, 2013

It was Kim’s birthday yesterday!  First thing in the morning, Kim was greeted with a happy birthday breakfast—extra bread rolls and a flower on her plate.  I was fortunate, since Kim could not finish them all by herself, so I got to have a couple of extra ones!

 

After school, when we went back home for lunch, and Kim received her birthday present, which was a Malawian skirt.  You can see how beautiful it is in this picture.

 

At kids’ corner in the afternoon, we kind of ran out of ideas of games to play, so we resorted to playing hokey-pokey and other dances.  We even dusted off the old Macarena—“one maca, two maca, three Macarena”.  I guess that wasn’t so big over here…The girls like to play with the hair of the foreign volunteers, and they absolutely adore nail polish, or “poda”, as they call it. It turns out we forgot to bring the football, so the kids chased me around the football field. They are much faster than they look!  Either that, or I am out of shape.

 

For dinner, to commemorate Kim’s special day, we made wood-fired pizzas.  They were really delicious, even without cheese.  

 

Finally, the stars were so beautiful that we went for a stroll along the beach.  We saw a lot of shooting starts, and the milky way was so clear.  Sorry we don’t have any pictures, but our camera is not good enough to capture the wonder of the stars here in Malawi.

On a sadder note, nursery school was canceled, and many of the children did not come to the after school program due to a death in the village.  It seems a young woman dies in child labour.  Initially the baby survived, but in the afternoon it, too, passed away.  It really demonstrates how fragile life is, especially here without modern medicine.  It’s no wonder than so many of the women who are pregnant in Lifuwu don’t seem very happy to be.  I wish there was more that could be done.

Tomorrow we are going to wake up to see the sunrise, then we are going to climb Senga Mountain.  Then on Sunday we will be chartering a boat to Lizard Island for snorkeling and hiking.  They say the lizards there can grow to two metres in length, so stay tuned for the next entry!