happy happy

oh my, i have sounded a tad disheartened lately, haven’t i?! (the reassuring e-mails telling me to ‘hang in there’ were a tip off! hehe) no, i’ve not come unhinged yet! ... this year. and, i should mention, i hated call-in shows just as much at home ;)

let me counterbalance my projected dis-ease with a list of recent positives; for all of our sakes:

Jesman served me chicken last week! (no, i’m not being facetious ... okay, maybe a bit)

he entered the kitchen one afternoon with a recently plucked bird:
“oh Jesman, is that for me?!”
laughing: “oh no ... you don’t eat chicken”
ummm: “oh yes i do ... i don’t eat beef or pork, but i eat birds”
still laughing politely (it’s his way): “oh oh oh, i thought you were a vegetarian?!”
little-smelly-fish: “no, no. i love chicken! i actually eat fish too, but i don’t like it very much”

and so i was served chicken for lunch. :)


i bought a cute little Nokia phone for my travels (hence my phone number here.) it’s GSM, so i’m going to get a new pay-as-you-go SIM card in the UK, another when i’m home in T. in August, and one in NZ. i loved that i could buy a cheap, simple, sturdy phone here without having to pay for a camera, MP3 player or colour screen, none of which i need.


when people burn leaves here (which is every day at this time of year) the smoke smells a bit like marijuana ... which is quite plentiful here anyway. speaking of sin, Malawi Gin is very inexpensive and quite satisfactory.


and speaking of sin once more, i’ve a funny little story:
when Gord and i first arrived at Malamulo, one of the first things asked us by one of the Seventh Day Adventist missionary doctors was: “did you bring prophylactics?” we just STARED at each other in bewilderment .... until she started naming off anti-malaria drugs! (any kind of ‘protection’ is a prophylactic to a doctor, apparently! ha)


i am cared for like a son by my friends Yvonne and Léo. she is a doctor (the one quoted above, in fact) and he’s the head of maintenance. they’re from Mexico and are very cute. they also have two dogs (‘dingo’ and ‘fortuna’) who i love, and a cat who loves me ... hehe


i have a nice view out of my front window just now: the red-brick foundations of my balcony, flowers blossoming in my garden (poinsettias, pink ones, and something that looks like a more-fully-developed baby’s breath), the sunset hitting the trees, and then the hazy valley off in the distance and the orange-to-blue late afternoon sky .... ah me


i have been reading like a ... well, like a thing that reads a lot, as you might have noticed from the ever-changing right panel of my blog. i’ve also used my plentiful time to incorporate yoga and the alexander technique into my daily routine (i’ve recorded set practices for myself in GarageBand, background music and all! 8) i try to exercise daily as well, but my no-protein diet doesn’t allow me to show it very well