Heirs According to Promise

When Matthews said that his house was 1.5 kilometers away, he really meant 15 kilometers. So, we started our day with a brisk walk (Matthews kept urging us to "walk fastie-fastie", and even wanted to run at one point). The walk was actually surprisingly pleasant. We were accompanied by a group of women walking to the same village. They were all balancing laundry on their heads and, of course, my mom had to try. She was a pro. Matthews was very upset when we told him we had to turn around after half an hour. Of course, we knew the whole time that we weren't going to walk the entire way to his house, but Matthews was convinced that if we walked fastie-fastie we would make it in thirty minutes.

Our next adventure was to Lilongwe to visit Deus. Chase had his first ride on the infamous mini-buses. Our ride there was pretty calm. To say the least, it did not foreshadow our trip home. After running into Deus at the bank, our first stop was Shoprite. We decided that the chicken looked more like bones and less like poultry, and passed it up (just as a side note: the Malawians would have been perfectly happy eating the bone and all).

After picking up some bread and cheese, we headed to what we thought was our death... the Lilongwe market. The Lilongwe market is a never-ending stretch of shops all crammed together, where essentially the exactly the same things are sold at every shop (either vegetables, fruit, wrinkled clothes, or completely useless trinkets). Luckily, they were busy hassling other Azungus and we got to take some pictures. We entered the market via the bridge from The Great Panda Adventure. If you haven't seen The Great Panda Adventure, just imagine Indiana Jones meets Tarzan. The only difference is that we actually paid ten Kwatcha for our near-death experience.









Eventually, after a few mini-bus rides and a half hour walk, we made it to Deus's house. The entire village greeted us, screaming "Azungu!". We are convinced that the Malawians think that Azungu is their secret code word for white person. But, of course, we always know that they are talking about us. We had an amazing traditional Malawian meal (plus some blueberry cheesecake ice cream) on Deus's floor. Regina is by far the best cook in Malawi.




We tried to give Prince a teddy bear, but apparently it reminded him of "nyow". Nyow is a person who covers their body in graveyard dirt and straw and runs around spooking people. Prince ran away from the bear shrieking. One culture's comfort is another culture's nightmare.

After pictures and hugs, we left (followed, again, by the entire village). Three hours later, we found ourselves heading homeward on a mini bus. About thirty minutes into the ride, we stopped in a crowd of people. We were sure that only one or two of the people in the crowd would get into the bus (there were already six or seven of us in it). But, after twenty minutes of planning, they all got in, each with a gigantic bag of shoes. All together, we were twenty two adults, one squished baby, five human-sized bags, and the United States National Anthem reggae-style. We were just waiting for them to add a chicken.


After sitting on the back of a bike for about 6 kilometers, we were finally home. We got back just in time to take a nap before our seven o'clock dinner reservation at the hospital cafeteria. Four plates of chicken, rice, and cabbage- K700 ( $4.67). A day of fun-filled adventure- priceless.