Our last day at Open Arms has finally arrived. Although our day is very busy with packing for the next leg of our journey and saying our final goodbyes to the children and all the staff here, we thought we’d take the opportunity to keep all you guys back home updated of our travel plans. During our final week here, we have experienced the warmth and generosity that Malawians are renowned for. A nurse at Open Arms called Gladys, kindly invited us around to her house to have afternoon tea and cake. We sat and chatted about her long and interesting life, and also met her granddaughter who was lots of fun. We were then served an array of yummy cakes and tea to wash it down, so it felt like home away from home! Due to their being a rotation of three shifts at Open Arms, we have spent the week saying goodbye to all the mothers and gave them some sweets, as a very small gesture to say thank you for looking after us during our stay here. Whilst visiting a group of mothers on their night shift, as we were about to leave they sang a goodbye song to us, in beautiful harmony, which made me and even Kim very emotional. This just emphasised the kindness that is always expressed here and rarely shown in the same way back home.
Within the last week two new volunteers have arrived, Issy and Alyssia, both from the UK. This has given us the excuse to take them around the sites of Blantyre, as it was our last time to experience the things we enjoy about the area. Along with the two new arrivals over the last few weeks we have had a regular visitor in the back garden….. a chameleon! It has been fascinating to watch whilst it has been shedding its skin and moving from one tree to the other but it is now a permanent fixture, and so it is the pet to the volunteers house. Luckily the extremely large black and red spiders to the side of the house haven’t decided to migrate inside! This is how we’d like it to stay!
We are having a farewell meal tonight with our fellow volunteers and Neville (the director) and his partner Ennifer. Neville has made us feel so at home here, from inviting us around to watch all the 6 Nations rugby games at his home and allowing us to get really involved with all the different areas of Open Arms. He does an extremely selfless job, and it gives Kim and I something to really aspire to. 
So now we have come to the final leg of our journey where we will be travelling around Southern Africa for 4 months before coming back home to the UK on July 31st (pop it in to your diary). We wanted to give you an idea of where and when we are planning to go, as we may have limited internet access. From here we are travelling up to Lilongwe for the weekend, and have kindly been offered to stay at Julie’s house, where we stayed previously. We are then going back to Luwawa Forest to the school we are continuing to help build, to see its progress and to see all the children and the Head teacher George. From there our journey becomes far more interesting and adventurous as we are crossing Lake Malawi via the Illala ferry (which is known to be temperamental) to an island called Likomo and then over to Mozambique. We will travel up the coast of Mozambique and over the border to Tanzania. This is the more remote part of both Mozambique and Tanzania but luckily the roads have been improved recently. Once we arrive in Dar-es-Salaam we hope to go over to Zanzibar and from there get a train all the way south in to Zambia. Whilst in Zambia we are going to visit our friend Lara’s parents, who run a game lodge and also do community work, so it is great to have some connections. Of course we will visit the infamous Victoria Falls and then hope to briefly go through Botswana to the Okavango Delta. We then travel through our final country, Namibia and end in South Africa, to see Kim’s mum before our flight home.I feel exhausted just writing about it but I am sure it is going to be a fascinating and rewarding journey. We will keep in touch as much as we can and look forward to hearing all the news back home as well.
Lots of love,
Nat and Kim xxx
Our final weekend trip whilst in Blantyre was to Liwonde National Park, known to be one of the best parks in Malawi for birds and other wildlife. Although we spent less than 24 hours there, we managed to squeeze in as much wildlife watching as we could. Not long after arriving to the rustic lodge set in the south of the National Park, we headed off for a sunset game drive. Bumping, loudly along the paths in the old and dilapidated game viewing vehicle we were surrounded by black smoke coming out of the exhaust, we hoped this wouldn’t scare the animals or birds away. With a large river running through the centre of the park we could hear lots of hippos making their grunting, laughing sounds in the distance. Although the park doesn’t have any big cats, we were surrounded by lots of different antelopes, such as waterbuck, kudu and impala. We came across a family of warthog and soon after we saw a Hornbill flying overhead, which gave me the image from the Lion King Disney film, when Pumba and Timon are singing ‘Hakuna Matata….no worries’. Our driver stopped just as the sun was setting so that we could get out and have our gin and tonics whilst watching the stunning Africa skyline slowly dissolve from an infinite number of reds into the serene darkness of night. For our dinner all the people staying in the lodge ate at a long table in the dining area which made it very sociable and cosy. Due to the fact that the lodge has no electricity lanterns were placed throughout the hallways and lounge which added to the rustic atmosphere. Also staying at the lodge were a group of 3 Belgium girls who had been teaching at Likoma Island at the north of Lake Malawi and also 5 Belgium medical students who are working at Queens Hospital in Blantyre.
Early the next morning we headed off with a guide on a canoe safari which we were first not sure about, as lots of crocodiles and hippos call the river home! Our guide assured us it would be fine as the crocs were not around because of the rains there were no riverbanks for them to sun themselves on. Both of us thought that we would feel safer actually being able to see the crocs instead of not knowing where they were. We were lucky to see quite a few families of hippos in the water pretty close which our guide said was ok to do as because they were not poached they didn’t feel threatened by humans. Needless to say if any of them did start to make their way towards the boat I think both of us would have started using our arms to start paddling. Along the riverbank we saw some amazing birds of all colours and sizes. As its very marshy there are lots of small frogs and snails which a lot of the herons and storks love eating. After getting back to the lodge after the canoe trip we had a nice hearty breakfast and then headed off back to Blantyre with the 8 Belgium people we had met at the lodge. As there were 10 of us all together we managed to get a minibus that could take us all which meant we didn’t have to stop every 5 minutes to pick up new passengers. It was a great trip although we both agreed maybe it would have been nice to spend an extra day just to relax and take in the lovely scenery.
When we first arrived at Open Arms we wanted to take the Harrogate House kids out for a treat and we came upon the idea of taking them to the local cinema in Blantyre (the only cinema in the whole of Malawi). After talking to Neville, the Director, and the head matron we decided that the kids may struggle to keep their attention for a whole film so what we decided to do was take them and some of the mothers out for pizza and ice-cream. So we all squeezed into one of the people carriers and went to the local mall where the kids got their first taste of pizza. Well who doesn’t like pizza…..so you can imagine the kids just hoovered it all up and then turned to us as if to say “so when do the next 10 pizzas arrive”. After the pizzas they each got a cup of ice-cream which they have had before an absolutely love. So all in all it was a very successful outing. Along with the outing we bought a DVD player with money kindly donated by Nat’s dad and installed it in the house and within no time the kids were laughing and pointing at Tom & Jerry getting up to their usual antics. It’s great because now they can watch educational DVD’s as well as some great animated films in the comfort of their own home.
As usual we have been busy with caring for the children and trying to keep them entertained. We have had a few new arrivals at Open Arms recently, first being four fury residents….the guinea pigs. These timid and at first scared creatures are pets to the older children at Harrogate house. We have been taking the children to the guinea pigs home regularly so that both the children and guinea pigs can get used to each other. Luckily due to Kim being a massive animal lover and very confident with animals he has been picking up our new fury friends and encouraging the children to care and look after them. Some of the children are confident while others squawk and squeal at the sight of them, as they are not used to such animals. We have yet to name them but hopefully by the time we leave they’ll each have their own name and be fully settled in to life at Open Arms.
Since we’ve been here, every week we’ve tried giving the Harrogate house children a treat and when it was Shrove Tuesday it gave us the perfect excuse to make pancakes for them (and was just as much a treat for us). We were surprised that both the children and mothers had never heard of Shrove Tuesday or pancakes so as well as being a treat it was also a learning experience for them. Some funny faces were pulled as the sourness from the lemon hit their taste buds, but didn’t stop them from gobbling it all up. As you can see from the photo, another treat was every child’s favourite…jelly! We attempted to make custard, but after that turning in to an orange, lumpy gloop we decided to go with sliced banana on the side (a far healthier option).
Once at Satemwa, we treated ourselves by staying in a place called Huntington House set in the grounds of the tea estate. It consists of five bedrooms lavishly decorated with a real colonial feel (and what a contrast from the day to day life of most Malawians). Once we had settled in we went for a tea tasting session, and as massive tea lovers we were looking forward to tasting the variety of teas grown on the estate. It was interesting to learn that white, green and black tea, all come from the same tea leaves and the arduous process taken to produce a good cuppa tea. After a nice stroll back from the tea tasting we retired to the front lawn for high tea and a spot of croquet (ra ra ra)!! And we’ve never tasted such an amazing chocolate, banana and nut cake before. The evening ended with more great food, all with a tea inspired theme. We were hoping to explore the estate by going quad biking on the Sunday morning but unfortunately it was raining so instead we had a long and lazy breakfast.
After experiencing ‘Colonial Africa’ I soon discovered what else Africa has to offer….tropical disease! Over the past week I had a perfect red ring developing on my face which was getting larger, only to find out it is ring worm! Not a parasite in my face which I naively thought it was, but a fungal infection I had more than likely caught from one of the children. Anyway it’s disappearing now and hopefully we won’t get to experience any other lovely diseases Africa has to offer.