Wawa!

Hi everyone, sorry for the lack of updates - there are 21 people here and only one computer! We've been at the house in Monkey Bay since Tuesday, when we were picked up from Blantyre and driven 4 hours across Malawi - it was a really good trip as it took us through a few of the main towns, mountains, and lots of rural villages, so we got a real impression of what the country is like. Albeit, at 110mph, through thick clouds of smoke from fire in fields and on the roadside!

Before we left Blantyre we spent the morning having a walk around the town, which is quite small considering it is the 2nd city. The highlight was definitely being shown a shortcut back to Doogles which involved walking along a railway line, and not being robbed in the process! Everyone is really friendly here and will do you a favour just for a handshake and a chat.

We;ve spent 2 full days in Monkey Bay now and are pretty settled into the house, which is right on the beach/shore of the lake. There are 21 volunteers at the moment but that will grow to about 27 in a week or 2 - working on a variety of medical/teaching and orphanage projects, from a drop-in wound clinic to an after school wildlife club. We had an induction day yesterday and went to the orphanage for the first time today - teaching/playing in the morning and building a new building in the afternoon. As I say, everyone here is friendly and will approach you for a chat and our building work this afternoon soon became a team effort with 2 builders, 6 of us and about 25 children all carrying bricks for us! It's going to be great to get stuck in over the next few weeks and hopefully get the orphange building and toilet block finished before we leave.

We're off on safari tomorrow afternoon until Sunday, which has been organised by MVO, who run the projects and own the house we live in. I'm going to have to go now as I'm sitting in the dark and there are mice running around my chair so I think I'll let someone else have a go on the computer! I'm sure I have missed a lot out and not done things justice, but we'll be able to fill you all in on the details when we're home.

Lots of love
Andy and Amy

PS. Wawa is Chichewa for Hello.\
PPS. The chef here is called Computer!