Friday evening there was a get-together at Anne's house. We were supposed to watch "The Kite Runner", but our DVD was from Denmark and didn't have English subtitles for the Arabic (only Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, and French I believe...we weren't all French speakers). So we ended up watching "Wild Hogs", all the while sipping on Fanta and eating some great cake made by Rhoda with some strawberries on the side.
Saturday was Ernest Pondeponde's wedding. Ernest founded Grace Orphan Care down in Ponda Bwino in lower Zomba. It was my first, and I believe only (on this trip) Malawian wedding. Some things were the same, and some were VERY different. Of course I can't comment on everything because we almost completely missed the ceremony for a couple reasons. One, Mike misunderstood our meeting time and we were delayed in leaving, and two, our planned time was too late because the wedding was actually on time. This is apparently a miracle in Malawi, according to those who have lived here a while.
From the reception, I left to meet Samantha and Miriam to head off to Liwonde via mini-bus. After a quick step into the market, I took my first bicycle taxi. Besides the fact that I was in a dress and probably showing way too much leg, it was quite enjoyable! I enthusiastically shook the hand of my driver, Mr. Ntondo, and thanked him for a pleasant ride. Then is was groundnut stew with pumpkin leaves and nsima for dinner, accompanied by a couple great episodes of House on the laptop...and bed at 8:30. I tell you, we're party animals! (At least I had an excuse, since I hadn't really slept since 4 am because of random disturbances).
Sunday morning, we all piled into the pick-up truck and headed off to Liwonde National Park to see some game. At first the fauna was quite sparse. We saw an impala here and there, and the odd warthog, which was all very exciting, but it wasn't until we passed the hotel on the reserve that things really came alive. We found a road that went down closer to the river, where I saw my first wild hippos. Tonnes of them! (Haha, get it?) We even saw some baby ones walking into the water, which was great because they mostly just pop their eyes and tops of their heads out of the water. We also saw a couple of crocodiles swimming among them. I got lots of pictures, though not of best quality, from the back of the pick-up.
But we did not turn back there. We were in search of elephants. We had seen a herd, but they were so small you could barely tell they were elephants. We wanted to see some up close. On one of our river-side roads, we spotted some in the distance. We could go no further, so we went back to the main road in search of a path that would take us closer to where they were. We found it! There were at least twelve of them - mothers with their babies. They started coming our way so we turned around and found another road to come around back to watch them walk off. It was awesome. Then we headed off to see what is reportedly one of the biggest Baobab trees in Africa, and as we were going along Sam nearly slammed on the breaks as an elephant over 4 metres talls stepped out on the road 100 feet in front of us. At that point, we decided following the elephant wasn't a risk we were willing to take (the elephants have killed people in this park in the past), so we turned around and headed home - thoroughly satisfied, and very excited at all we had seen. Or...at least I was!Then I hopped on a mini-bus back to Zomba, just in time to walk to volleyball, where I did NOT make a complete fool out of myself (I'm sure I don't have to explain this, but this is not a common occurrence with me and sports). When I got home, the family was home from Lilongwe, and we had a wonderful dinner of smoked Chambo (fish) with nsima, cabbage, and good conversation - all topped off by an enjoyable telephone call from Mom and Dad.
Ndithu (indeed), it was truly a "Weekendi bwino"!
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