Country: Malawi
City: Nkhata Bay – We are blessed to be located right on Lake Malawi
You can find Nkhata Bay on this map, in the northern portion on the Lake
I can’t believe this is where we get to spend our last month!
Not a bad view from my hammock
The sunrises here are my favorite
The dock where I spend a lot of my free time
Language: Tonga is the primary language spoken where we are, as well as English. Chichewa is also used a lot in this area.
Currency: Malawian Kwacha (Roughly 715 MK to $1)
Time difference: 8 hours ahead of EST
Weather: It is delightful! The highs have been around mid 70’s and the lows typically not dipping below 60.
Local meal eaten recently: We have the option of ordering our meals from the kitchen here, which are all made fresh by locals who currently only have one charcoal burner. So, it is very common to wait anywhere from 1-2 hours for your food to come out after ordering. The end result is always delicious though 🙂 They serve great food at a very reasonable price, and it has been such a treat to have it as an option, especially since the only alternative is to cook for ourselves over a fire, and the supermarket here is the worst I have seen on the Race. One of my favorite dishes here is called the Uganda rolex. It is an omelette with vegetables and spices inside of a chapati (which is an unleavened flatbread). I recently learned how to make Chapati, the Uganda rolex and their version of a spring roll at a cooking class that the chef here put on in his back yard. It was quite the experience! I can’t wait to make these dishes for Keith when I get back.
Living conditions: I feel like we are one with nature this month. Ha! We are tenting it outside this month, which is pretty sweet seeing as we are literally right on Lake Malawi, so I can watch the sun rise over the water from my tent. This happens often as we are all up before 6:00am each morning because of the natural light and sounds.
My tent is the one at the bottom left (grey and green)
There are only 3 toilets and 2 showers on the entire property, for all the volunteers and staff. This can get tricky as they seem to have anywhere from 25+ volunteers here at one time. We will also have a large school group of 30 joining us soon, so it should get interesting. The main shower, which uses cold lake water (I call it my polar bear shower), is a completely outdoor shower! It obviously has walls built around it for privacy, but it is still fairly open. The bathrooms are the same with one half of the walls fully open and looking out toward the lake. It is definitely cool looking out at the water and trees from the shower and bathrooms, but it definitely takes some getting used to.
The stairs leading up to the main toilet (the little hut at the top of the picture)
The main toilet, which is a compost one
The view from the toilet
Our “urinals”
The women’s “urinal”
My team ministries: My team is staying at/working with Butterfly Space this month, which is an amazing treat and awesome way to end the Race. It was even chosen as a top pick for accommodation in Nkhata Bay by Lonely Planet. Alice Leaper is the owner here, and our ministry contact person. She has created an awesome volunteer community here, where people from all over the world come and collaborate together. It often feels like you are part of a large and slightly dysfunctional family here, and I love it! This property houses volunteers, as well as travelers and backpackers trekking through, which lends itself to unique conversations and stories. Most of us all sit together at this large table for meals sharing some of those stories.
The media center at Butterfly
The gym, which surprisingly gets used all the time!
The main entrance…they LOVE stairs here
The main reception area, where we try (often unsuccessfully) to access wifi
The Alice has several different projects underway, and gives volunteers full freedom to create their own, as desired. For the first time on the Race, we were all given the option to essentially choose which projects we wish to be involved in, or feel gifted in; it is amazing the difference this makes when you have a choice. It gives you a different sense of investment.
Since I firmly believe that variety is the spice of life, I am currently working with all of the main programs in some capacity, on different days including the following: working with a women’s HIV support group, teaching primary school, manual labor at a nursery (completely overhauling the back-yard area by making a wall, shoveling LOTS of dirt and sand, redirecting rain water, creating steps, leveling dirt, etc.), loading and unloading literal tons of bricks, helping out with a permaculture program at another school and assisting with a prison Bible study nearby. I LOVE getting to be involved in all these different things this month! It has the added bonus of allowing me to work with mostly all of the volunteers here, which definitely lends to the feeling of community I’ve experienced. There is something very special about this place, and the people that come through. I hope to one day return to this place.
The HIV support group with their certificates for graduating the program
Interesting fact: Looking out onto the lake from our site, I can “see” both Mozambique and Tanzania, technically. There is apparently a good bit of oil sitting on the bottom of the lake, which is creating some disagreements between Malawi and Tanzania and confusion over how to proceed.
What surprised me: How widely prevalent alcoholism is here, particularly for the men. Liquor is sold everywhere and it is quite cheap. It is very common to see men completely drunk first thing in the morning, and it just progressively gets worst as the day goes on. Our property is open to all, so we have locals in and out constantly, which can lend to some interesting situations and conversations.
I was also surprised by how few Americans come to this area to volunteer. Outside of our team, every other volunteer is either from England, Ireland or Germany. It has been nice to have so many English speaking people around (who can relate more easily to our backgrounds) in addition to the locals for a change. I feel like it has provided a good balance that previous months were lacking.
Off day opportunities: There are a variety of fun things available to do here, with the proximity of the water: kayaking, paddle boarding, scuba diving, horseback riding, and on and on. However, with it being the final month, and spending more personal money on food this month, I am probably just going to choose one activity. The safari was my last big hoorah of the Race, and a great one it was 🙂 My team is going out this weekend for a boat tour which includes cliff jumping, volleyball, BBQ, snorkeling and more for Ashley’s birthday (she is one of our squad leaders and is with my team this month). I might go to a nearby tea farm as well, as it sounds like it is free.
