Malawi, The Series Round 2

Last time on Malawi, The Series:
Maize fields, long walking, precious family, lots of love.

So to continue with my update on Malawi I choose to discuss the topics of bathing, eating, electricity, and mosquitoes.

If you have been following my blogs regularly, you know by now that I am not an avid bather. But when you are not in control of your life (being hosted by the most hospitable people on the planet), you change. Vailet made me a bath twice a day. This is not a porcelain tub lined with candles and rose petals, filled with bubbles, rubber duckies and other fun bath toys. This is a small basin of extremely hot water placed in a grass hut with a dirt floor and large rocks strategically placed around the floor. These rocks are meant for balancing. The hut had a blue mosquito net placed over the door for privacy ... on non-windy days. Baths are basically a lot of scooping water in hand and splashing. But honestly, these are my favourite types of baths. I'm planning to have a bath basin in my bathroom.

Overly hospitable people can at times be stressful, especially in terms of food. And not just the amount I am forced to eat, but also knowing that the most hospitable families are usually families that are too generous for their own economic capacity. I would get this incredible spread every meal (4 a day) and the kids would get a half piece of dry bread. Hard to swallow that. It was not physically possible to ingest all the food I had ingested.
Common breakfast: 3 giant buns with 1 inch spread of margarine, 2 bananas, 2 hard-boiled eggs, 2 cups of coffee. One time she made homemade deep-fried potato wedges and popcorn for breakfast. She filled my bowl with wedges and I ate very slowly, hoping the elapsed time would display the fill of my stomach. As soon as I finished, she tried to fill my bowl again. After explaining I'm full and her responding, "You have long journey", she filled my bowl. When she left, I put most of it back in the main bowl and continued to test my elapsed-time theory. When she returned and found my bowl nearly empty, she filled again. And then brought me a giant bowl of popcorn. There's no winning. Breakfast, lunch (which included 3 full plates of rice), tea at 5 pm (which included anther 3 giant buns with margarine and 2 cups of coffee), and supper. One time we had fried chicken for supper and in total I ate 6 pieces of chicken, along with the mountain of Nsima and veggies.

The house had no electricity. No one had electricity. When it got dark at 6 pm the candles would come out. Difficult to use the toilet (literally a small hole 8 inches in diameter) on a windy day with a candle. Step outside, candle instantly out, proceed to aim. One thing they did have that gave a tiny bit of light was a wire hanging around the house with mini flashlight bulbs hooked to a battery. It made it look really nice, actually.

Mosquitoes were the worst I had ever seen. The first night they were all in my net with me so I tried to sleep under the blankets but you know how that goes. It gets so hot and stuffy so you try to make a small breathing hole but know the mosquitoes can smell your lips so you continue to suffer. I'm honestly surprised I don't have malaria. If I was to get it anywhere, should've been there.

Next round of the series we'll explore the communities and schools I visited.