Some Pictures

A few assorted snaps - my heart is moved with the knowledge that some of you have been ploughing through dry text with nary a photo in sight!

This is the mango tree which grows outside the CRWRC office in Lilongwe. The green mangoes aren't ripe yet, but every so often we'll find a ripe one on the ground, ready to eat. These ones tend to be quite small. Nancy showed me a useful trick she learned from some missionaries, for those of you travelling in tropical places. Before peeling and eating fruit, wash them in a mixture of water and bleach - heavy on the water, light on the bleach - just enough to flash-kill any little microorganisms. And don't leave them in there too long! As a rule, you should always peel fruits, and avoid fresh salads. Cooked foods are generally safe. I have been following these rules of engagement (ROE), and aside from that first week of stomach upsets, I have been eating like a trooper again. Well, a trooper who is living on canned foods and cookies. Although tonight I got braved, walked to the small market and looked around a bit.

Compared to North America, there is not a lot of food variety here - even compared to Lilongwe. All I wanted was a box of granola cereal. All I ended up with was a box of chocolate cookies and a box of mango cream cookies. The mango ones bear a resemblance, in both taste and texture, to hard tack, which I seem to recall was a food that the early Voyageurs in Upper Canada used to subsist on.

We drove through some beautiful scenery last week, on the trip from Lilongwe to Mozambique. This was taken near the border to Mozambique - look upon it and weep, all you unfortunate ice and snowbound souls!

More landscape, with a field in the foreground:

The next shots are from Lilongwe. I decided to walk to the shopping part of town, got lost, and ended up in a nearby shopping area called "Indian Town" because many of the vendors are East Indian. I wandered around for a while, getting sunburned on my shoulders, and taking some pictures. Even though it's called Indian Town, there was actually more evidence of Chinese vendors, so go figure. And here's the entrance to a large mosque which demarcates the beginning of Indian Town:

I'm pretty sure this guy is wondering what I'm doing - when I take pictures with the iPhone, I'm not sure it's obvious what I'm doing!

It strikes me as odd to see giant billboards advertising products the majority of Malawians can barely afford. That's a red Coca Cola sign in the middle:

Here's a better shot, along with some of the local signage: