(( ))
27 August 08 - 12:17
Things have been really busy in the past week and it has been non stop all the time. I have got lots of people offering to help me build my house which has been really great and everyone’s been so awesome. The shack team which has been named first time building contractors – we hope it don’t fall down. Aptly named by Crispin because he, chiqwonde and Aubrey have never laid a brick in there lives. . The team consists of
Me – project manager and bricklayer
Shay – assistant project manager and bricklayer
Breah – volunteer, he is a professional builder
Chiqwonde – the camps cleaner and gardener is helping out with the building for the past few weeks he’s slowly learning how to build a house
Aubrey – doesn’t trust himself with a trowel so he in charge of mixing mortar and fetching bricks
Crispin – occasional helps brick lay when he isn’t mixing mortar
The jack of all trades – this man I met last year when he was doing the electric for shays house, little did I know he did everything, he is a plumber, brick layer, electrician, roofer, teacher, and has worked in a hospital, me and him are planning a trip to south Africa soon.
Master – everyday phones me to tell me he is coming to help, I also met him last year he did the plastering on shays house and we get on really well. So far 2 weeks into the project I haven’t seen him yet haha he might show up when the house is finished for a cup of tea.
Friday 15th august
Today we had a really good long day of work and got a lot done we had 5 people bricking and 3 other mixing mortar and fetching things. In zomba I went into a hardware store to get some roofing nails and electric supplies and more cement, I was talking to this Indian guy in there and he asked me where I was from and I told him then he told me where he was from he used to live in England and some city called Leicester down the road from some school called judge meadow what a small world he moved out here last year and set up his hardware business I was just like woah and he gave me a discount on some stuff because I was from Leicester.
Saturday 16th august
Another hard long day of work door frame to the front of the house is in.
Shay has gone to Lilongwe for a meeting today and of course im trying to build my house and everyone decides that they have a problem, the pathfinders camping up the top kept asking me about things, meetings about payment, lack of things, I just wanted to build my house. However it was worth it in the evening as we joined the pathfinders for a campfire which went on for hours and a lot of positive thinking chanting which was quite fun actually and lots of dancing. Finally crawled into bed at 2,
Sunday 17th august
Just gotten into bed and asleep when there was a banging at the door it was now 3 ½ hours later, it was Crispin who had been out there ½ hour already trying to wake me up, come on Sam get out of bed he shouted. I’d forgotten we were meant to be hiking up the mountain to kuchewe inn today I groggily dragged myself out of bed muttering curses under my breath and went to cook lunch, Malawians don’t take sandwiches on a hike they cook up huge pots of nsima and rice put them in pots and take turn carrying the bags of food. Which are very heavy. It is now 6 o clock the time we were meant to be leaving we were ready none of the other scout had turned up yet. 7 and some of the scout wander up the path to the house im sitting there glowering at Crispin he keeps insisting there was every reason to get me out of bed. 7:30 and we start to move off at 8 o clock after a very very very steep climb I sit down on a rock and declare to myself that I definitely need to quit smoking and maybe take a run now and again. Though it gets easier as my body gets back to climbing. We reach the top about 1 and sit down and get out these huge pots of rice and nsima and eat lunch. Kuchewe inn looks amazing but its also really expensive so I doubt I’ll be staying there. We are now heading down the other side of the mountain towards zomba there are too routes to follow and they have a conversation in Chichewa about it and choose one, as were heading down I saw lots of baboons and Crispin wouldn’t let me take one home with me the males are huge. Then we hit the path they had decided to take the path is almost vertical good job it was dry because in the rainy season I can imagine it being a waterfall after much swearing, falling, and tripping on my backside numerous times I made it down in one piece the rest of the way down was very easy and we reach zomba and catch a mini bus back to songani and walk back to Makwawa I get there and just flop down on the bench exhausted while Crispin asks me if I want to do it again before dinner.
Tuesday 19th august
A B&Q would be really useful
We ran out of sand again, and we had taken all the sand from the previous location, so you can guess what that meant, sand hunting again didn’t take as long to find some this time though but it would be really useful if someone did build a B&Q in songani for me. This evening we were all in good spirits and stayed up late chatting and playing games in one of the mad games in the dark outside I ran and jumped of this huge rock and landed wrong and twisted my ankle ouch it really hurt.
Wednesday 20th august
A difficult patient
This morning Crispin bandages up my ankle for me as it still really hurts and has started to swell though it was really tickly when he was putting on the bandages and I kept wiggling my foot hurting it even more in the end Crispin grabbed my food and pinned it down ow your hurting me I said, I don’t care he said smiling. Shay decided I should be housebound today, ha-ha no chance of that. Today we were walking into zomba to get the pickup for the sand, now I had two choices I could walk into zomba get the money and pickup or I could give me pin number and bank card to shay and he would do it, errrrr duh,
Malawians ask each other for help with their bank cards at atm machines
A conversation at an atm goes like this “ can you help me with this” “sure give it here what’s your PIN number” god knows how much he would take out and what he would do with it
so I hobbled to songani which took an hour and got gannet and his pick up and went to get the sand we need to pay the guy and chiqwonde said he knew him and he was just over there pointing. Now why is it when a Malawian says it’s just over there what he is really trying to say about 1hr and a half’s walk in that direction wait for him to turn up for ages take a really slow walk back and then have the guy try and rip you off on the price because the man trying to buy the sand is white luckily the other Malawians knew what he was doing and weren’t going to stand for it.
Friday 22nd august
Falling off scaffolding and putting people in mortar buckets
The brick work is complete just the roof to go now, we were all happy that it was progressing so well that we spent half the day larking about on the building site someone started a mortar fight I think it might have been me? But anyway Aubrey had just hit me in the face with mortar I was running along the top of the scaffolding still with a dodgy ankle but not to bad and I felt the scaffolding slip next thing I know its falling over and im still trying to run along it Crispin jumps over the wall into the house on top of Aubrey and I end up collapsing with the scaffolding, not the first time ive fallen off but definitely the most painful one, one thing about Malawians is they don’t understand personally safety so scaffolding erected by Aubrey is very wobbly usually balanced up on bricks and collapses when you run along it.
Saturday 23rd august
Probably the biggest breakthrough ive had whilst working at Makwawa is the opportunity to advertise Makwawa in the best of Malawi tourism brochure, a 32 page color glossy brochure that is going to be distributed all round the world. This came about when I emailed the Malawian tourism board and explained our position and was enquiring about advertising for the campsite. They got back to me with the information about the brochure it was just pure luck I emailed them at that time. So I had a meeting with Steve about it and agreed we could afford a quarter page advert in the brochure , so I have been busy designing that as well as trying to keep up with the work on the campsite. The problem is when I want to discuss the designs with Steve I have to go to Lilongwe to do that.
Sunday 24th august
New addition to the family
Worked in the morning and then in the afternoon joined the scouts and me and Crispin taught them lashings and most don’t speak English or very little so it was hard to use sign language but I think that they understood it, they all tied them correctly so that accounts for something, in the evening the night watchmen caught a baby bush buck part of the antelope family, I don’t know what happened to the mother but the baby is only about 4 days old, so I have decided to adopt her even though she will eventually be meat. Tonight I learnt what its like to have a baby well no exactly but im guessing it was a similar experience seeing as my baby is nocturnal, I settled her down on a blanket to sleep after feeding her some milk and went to bed she was settled for a bout an hour and a half when she decided to have a walk around this would be fine but my floor is polished and quite slippery and she has weak legs, anyone who has seen bambi will know what a baby trying to walk on a slippery surface looks like, it looks exactly like when bambi is trying to walk on the ice is was hilarious the first time she made a hell of a lot of noise. I picked her up and put her back on her blanket for the rest of the night she kept attempting to walk on the floor and waking me up and squeaking loudly when she wanted feeding, by 3 in the morning she had figured a way of getting around my room she would lie on her belly legs flopped on the floor and then sort of swim across the floor like a water beetle, also still making a lot of noise she got caught in one of my belts in one of her swims around the room and made so much noise with the buckle. At 4 in the morning she finally settled on top of my motor head hoodie that was lying on the floor and went to sleep I was up again at 5.30 I had to go to the market
Monday 25th august
Went to the market earlier this morning to get some doors for the house, after we had purchased the doors I headed into zomba alone to pick some materials that we had forgotten, 6mm red and black wire For the house, roofing wire and other odds and sods. It was meant to be a quick trip in and then go and get some sand in time to start the morning work. However I forgot one vital thing, this is Africa. And things don’t run on English time it took forever to find the 6mm wire finally one shop said he knew somewhere and he’d send and boy down to get it he’ll be back in 5 mins, well 5 mins turned into an hour when he finally returned . finally getting my friend gannet and his pick we drove to songani where id had told Aubrey to meet us to go and get sand, he has come with me enough times to know that when we go and get sand we need one vital piece of equipment that is shovels did he bring them with him no. I asked him where they were and he said he wasn’t sure if I wanted them or not so we had to wait another hour until he returned with the shovels, it was now 2 by the time to return to Makwawa having left there at 6 this morning.
Tuesday 26th august
Sharing the showers with frogs and lizards
This morning whilst having a shower I felt something on my foot I was washing my hair at the time so couldn’t look down and see it was pure film type setting in the shower something’s in there with you but you cant see because there’s soap in your eyes, but my mind went back to a conversation with shay a few weeks ago when he was saying we need to get a grill to put over the pipe so things don’t crawl up in the showers, it was a frog swimming about around my feet I was lucky it could have easily have been a snake or something similar. The timber for the roof was constructed today although sadly I had little to do with it because I was finishing of the adverts and website for steves approval and I wont be there when they fit the roof which is my favorite part and also because im good at it.
wow u been a very busy bee!! Keep up the great work your doing, any pic’s of …so far we have done this kinda thing?
Debs
Debbie () - 28 08 08 - 14:06
