9th December
They’ve found me out! They have found me and they have found
me out! No not the charity about the fact that I don’t know what I am doing and
am making it up as I going along. No I mean the other volunteers. One of them
has been snooping around the internet and has found this blog. It means I have
to be more circumspect about what I post! Ha.
In actual fact it does raise an interesting question as to
how honest this blog is. The truth is it is honest in what is put up here but
dishonest by omission. There are things I haven’t posted for various reasons,
some because it would be unprofessional. Some because it could be classed as
libel and I could find myself in a spot of bother and some because my parents
would worry.
Anyway on with the show. Well this week has been are
relatively quiet week, forced upon me due to the illness I mentioned last week.
Wednesday was mostly spent in bed trying to retain fluids but by Thursday I
managed a whole six chips at dinner. To be fair even Friday I was still pretty
tired but I received an unexpected visit from our HR manager. Just to see how I
was. She arrived with our PR representative, not sure if that is part of her
role, and a carton of guava juice. It was very nice too.
So Saturday I felt strong enough to face the world and we
ventured out to the local shops. It would appear that event Blantyre has a
chapter of the Salvation Army and they were playing for money at the local
Mall. There performance was....well....lets settle for enthusiastic.
Following that we decided to treat ourselves to some lunch
at one of the nice local hotels where the waiter decided it would be a good
idea to throw a bottle of coke over me. Nice.
Lunch was very nice, coffee,
followed by bbq chicken kebab with rice. And to really push the boat out we had
tea and an ‘English Tea Scone’. When said scone arrived it was pre cut with a
splodge of jam. When we enquired if there was any cream or butter the waiter
nodded. Luckily I was more cautious with the butter when it returned only using
the packaged stuff, Pam was more adventurous and spread the unknown knob on her
scone and was surprised to find that it was infact garlic butter. This is the
same hotel that has been known on more than one occasion to server ham and
cheese croissants on pain au chocolates!
So as in Europe it is the same in Africa and Sunday followed
Saturday. It started with a bang when the fire the guards set to burn stuff (
they burn everything over here. Bunch a pyromaniacs the lot of ‘em. All our
rubbish gets burnt in a pit in the ground.) but they hadn’t known about the
plastic water pipe underneath. I’d like to say I saved the day but really it
was one of the guards John, who with nothing more than a strip of rubber and a
crisp packet (empty) bound up the leaking section. I did find the stop cock that turned
off the supply that allowed him to perform the same trick on the second leak
which occurred moments later.
Disaster averted we went clothes shopping. Here is the
market that we ventured down and of course you are white and so must visit
every single shop. We do get harassed quite a lot out here and surprisingly
prices seem to multiply when we appear.
Most, if not all the clothes at this particularly market, are second hand and
I think come from charities across the world. Not sure on how they end up being
sold for profit over here but there you are. I found a very nice pair of shorts
that I liked but declined due to the fact the man wanted £10. He did try and
convince me that they were genuine Abercrombie and Fitch, but I did have to
point out that they were in fact genuine Abercrombe and Eitch.
One last issue that is slowly but steadily raising its head
is the weather. Not the rain, more the lack of rain. After the post with the
picture and all the water and the big downpour, well everyone planted their
seeds expecting the rains to come but no more have. There is the first
murmurings of drought and prices of food are already starting to rise. The sad
truth of it is that a lot of families out here rely on the country’s ability to
produce maize. That coupled with the cash gate scandal – the ‘alleged*’ government theft meaning that
a lot of foreign financial aid has stopped coming into the country it could be a
testing few months.
*this is to ensure I don’t get deported or jailed. What!? It
works for Have I Got News For You!
STATMAN
Amount of money the government allegedly* stole – 14 billion kwacha (24 million pounds)
Number of notes the Salvation army hit – ½ - not half a note
in the whole time we were there, half the notes they attempted.
Cost of our fancy pants lunch - £12
Height of the maize – 1 foot
Height the maize should be – 3 foot
Months since I was last clean shaven – er when did Graham
get married??
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