Monday 30 August part two: closing ceremony in villages, back to Blantyre

We arrived back from safari quite a bit later than originally planned (oh, Malawi time), but they held the goodbye ceremony for us. Racing sunlight, introductions were condensed to the group scale instead of the lengthy traditional individual style. The ceremony was great-- lots of singing and dancing, and someone was translating the entire time. My favorite was hearing a song I knew-- my church sings it as "Siyahamba ekukhanyene kwenkos'", but in English it's "We Are Marching in the Light of God". It was nice to have something so familiar.

We quickly presented the hundreds of pounds of donations that we had carried into the country-- the sun was already behind Zomba Plateau at this point and we were fast losing light. We were also presented with a few gifts:


a guinea fowl


the group was given a box of fruits and vegetables. I was given a tool that they use to sift flour, which I was awful at when I helped cooked in the village, but I was just absolutely in awe of this kind gift. Wherever I end up next in my life, you can bet this will be proudly displayed in my kitchen.


the sun setting behind Zomba Plateau

Night fell quickly and beautifully. We said our goodbyes. I sat in the back of Mwalabu's truck with a few other men and a pile of empty duffel bags. As we drove each of the men home (people who worked with VIP, helping with logistics and translating), the stars came out. It was a cool, beautiful night and I just stared at the sky, trying to soak in the incredibleness of it all.

That guinea fowl would become a ridiculous part of the evening. Somehow, once again, I was the only one keeping track of the bird in the slightest. As I rode in the back of the truck I knew it was on the floor in the truck. Then, we all heard a scream and Randa jumped out of the truck (while we were stopped at Mwalabu's house to drop off his children). She didn't know the fowl was at her feet, and then it moved! We ended up moving it up to the front seat with Bob, where it ended up riding for the rest of the trip that evening.

The team plus Mwalabu and Bonongwe went out to dinner after this. The place Liz had elected to go to turned out to be closed, so then we joked about getting pizza. One woman told King Bob to make it so!... and then we pulled into a place called Domino's! It was a little funny. The place did make pizzas but also served all sorts of other things. I had a vegetable curry.

At one point, Liz, Bonongwe and Mwalabu left to pick up the plans for the school at Matawali. It was really exciting to see the plans printed out, knowing the bricks were made and the people were ready. Things are truly moving forward in this place.


Liz and Bob looking at the school plans

After dinner, which took the restaurant about an hour to prepare (which was fine since three members of our party were out hunting down those school plans), we headed back to Blantyre. It was very hard to stay awake during the drive, but I fought the drowsiness in order to spend as much time talking with Mwalabu about plants as possible. We arrived back at the Machinjili's at close to 11PM, tired but fulfilled.