Blantyre

I'm staying with a couple in Blantyre this weekend. It's basically a 5 star hotel. I have electricity in my room with no sausage beetles. There's a toilet right down the hall. There's a tap for hot water, I don't have to heat some when I want to take a bath... and they have DSL!!! I'm a little over excited about this, but it's been fun anyways. They gave me a tour of Blantyre this afternoon and they shared some frozen mangoes from mango season (which I always seem to miss). Blnatyre is more densely populated than Lilongwe. Lilongwe is the capital, but not that long ago, Zomba was the capital, so Lilongwe is in a growing phase. We visited a school that had tile over their tin roof. I don't know why more people don't do that, it's crazy loud on the tin when it rains. I don't know how much tile costs. I hear thatch is expensive, but there must be something reasonable besides tin. It's not the rainy season now, so this is not a current issue, but they should plan ahead. It did drizzle yesterday, which doesn't happen much in the dry season. Lucky us.

I finally bought a chitenga on Saturday - the cloth wraps the women use. I love them. My legs were a bit scratched up when I got here (Thanks to Old Rag off-roading), and the long wraps helped to hide a lot of that. I got an African Queen one. I figured Kristy would appreciate that. By the way, Guliwamkulu means big dance, so you know.

I have over 200 new e-mails that are unchecked since arriving here. Listen patient people, I'm working on it. Congratulations Jocelyne!

Tionana (See you later)