Brick Picking, Brick Dropping, and Photo Popping.

Another day - another morning working in the garden. But this time I'm making it interesting by using music. It's horrible - my left ear bud blew, and now I can barely hear it. And those things cost dollars!!

The bathroom is slowly getting done. It should be finished by next weekend. Just needs a bit more bricks and a roof.

And here is the pipeline that Keiran and I were working on in the first days of my arrival. You can't see it now that it was filled in. It was about a foot and a half deep by forty  feet long.

8 AM everyday is prayer and updates. Here is the group all gathered.

After the usual five minutes prayer, I was sent back to the garden to work for the next hour and a half, before Evance would come to get me. We would be going to get eight hundred bricks for a house in the area.

 Here are a few photos of the garden.

This is a mango tree growing. It's probably less than a year old.

My job in the garden this morning: To shovel dirt into a pile for them.

You remember that cough I had. Darren has gotten it, and it sounds worse. He tells us that he was up in the night trying to breathe, and how it was excruciatingly painful. I told him that he should rest for the day, but he said no: "You don't rest around here when there is work to be done.  A leader never rests." I just left it at that and started shoveling. Lol.

After I finished that, I moved on to chiseling. I had a few cracks that needed to be done. I was only able to do one before I had to go out with Evance. Here is a shot that Darren took between the top of the wall and the roof.

After I chiseled, I had to sweep up my mess.

This is a good photo that Darren took. I don't know if you noticed, but I am behind him. That very white thing that blends in with the wall.

And now: TRACTOR TIME!

The Ford

We took off down the road. Evance driving and me in the trailer.

The ride was so painful. It was just so unbelievably hard on the back, legs, and butt. I would not do that again.

On the way, we picked up a ton of schoolboys. They had a day off of school, so I guess they decided to join us in stacking bricks.

We arrived at the brick stack. It was a few hundred feet from the Shire's shores. All that you see before the Shire are people's gardens.

And here is the stack. We would only be doing one load of bricks today. That is about nine hundred. One tractor trailer load's worth. If we did the whole load, it would have been over nine thousand.

I jumped right into the back and started helping all of these school boys load bricks. You had to load fast, or otherwise you might get a brick tossed at you. That's what happened to me in my first week here.  It took us over thirty minutes before the load was finished.

School's out!! 

Evance managed to get a photo of all of us on the back here heading back to the village.

And unloading them. As soon as we finished unloading them, I started feeling lightheaded, and that I was going to pass out. I didn't bring my water bottle with me this time, so I know that is what the reason was. I ran over to the nearby market and purchased a soda on credit - to be paid in a day or two - and then ran/walked a kilometer back to the house. I then drank a ton of water, sat down to cool myself, and then took a shower.

At two PM, I went over to the shop to help Tom out with anything needed to be down. I took this one on the way.

I paid Tom back his two hundred kwatcha for the pop that I bought. The rules to get the money: He had to make it look like it was a payment for something undercover. Lol. He had a good time laughing at this.

Another nature shot taken from the shop.

Robert, the youth-pastor, came by for a bit to chat with us. After awhile he had to leave on a dirt bike that he was borrowing to drop some people off at their house. He left me his iPod to take care of, so I had fun messing with it. Left him a bit of memories.

The cash register and I

K & I

Bug eyed

The 'Rock' Johnson Jr.

And this one can speak for itself

The photos might look bad, but that is because I had to take a photo of Robert's IPod to keep the photos. He couldn't really figure out email on there.

Dyeratu and Back

The start of week five already! Yes, I know that it started yesterday, but I mean of work. Lol. My morning work was to dig up the onions from this small garden. The ground here is like concrete, so you have to use a garden fork - not a hand shovel. The work was easy and didn't take too long. Around an hour.

Malawian dirt= Canadian concrete.

Here are all the onions that we collected. It might not look like much, but it is about thirty to forty onions. 

This is an anthill. I couldn't take a photo of it straight on, because the photo would be too dark, so I had to do a side shot. In a few days I will upload a better photo of a different anthill. It is about eight feet tall. These are the tallest sized ones I have seen around here.

I finished my work and headed back to the house. Here are two photos of the place. I thought you guys would like a better photo than the one that was in the beginning. This gives you another angle. 

Back at the house, Gifti popped in to see if I wanted to bike to Dyeratu with him. After a minute, I decided I do it. It was ten kilometers there and ten kilometers back. Normally I would have agreed as I bike and run everywhere in Canada, but it was over forty degrees out there. So that made me think to not do it. But I was just like, "Well whatever. I'll do it. It only takes about thirty minutes to get to Dyeratu by bike, and that's not that long in the sun." 

So I jumped on my bike and started pedaling. For about a kilometer of the way there I did no handed biking just for fun. Everyone was pointing and smiling, so ya, it was fun. The heat built up really fast, and I had to pull over on the road one time to drink a bottle of water. I already had headache. 

Sitting there, I looked up and saw the sign of the village. That was really quite nice. Lol. We first went to the gas station to get gas, but they didn't let us have any, because they didn't want us to put the gasoline inside a two liter drinking bottle. Then we went around the market and looked at everything there. I didn't have much money left, so I couldn't really buy anything of worth. In Malawi money goes fast. And I need to save my money, because I will be going to Zomba, a city that is a few hours away, this weekend with the Emery's.

So we spent no more than thirty minutes there, and then we went and purchased ten dozen eggs. 

We loaded them onto Gifti's bike and started back for Hope Village. This isn't a huge load. It is very small compared to what I have seen Malawians carrying around on their bikes.

No handed for alot of the ten kilometers back! WHOO!! Yes, I am able to take photos while riding a bike. So how's taking a straight photo while riding no-handed? Lol.

Cool Shot

 I wasn't meaning to take this photo, but it turned out well, so I uploaded it.

After taking that photo of Gifti and the eggs, I wanted to catch up and get to the front of the pack to take a selfie with all the guys in it. The distance was about a kilometer to the front. Gifti was now about two hundred feet ahead of me. I biked really fast and after a few minutes, I was able to pass him. I had to bike to the front. The guys were over a half kilometer ahead. I biked really hard, but it was super hard to keep going faster than what they were going. 

After about fifteen minutes, I was able to get ahead of then. How about this shot. It took a bit more effort to manage to get a straight selfie of me and the guys in there while having to pay attention to the road. Oh and having to use one hand to drive. Lol. Bragging.

I got home about ten minutes after that photo was taken. So it took me a total of an hour and a half to go to Dyeratu and get back. At the house, I was so out of breath. I drank tons of water, sat down for a long while, and then took a cold shower.

Thus ends the interesting parts of the day.

A Day of Peace and Some Blogging

Sunday: A day of ease (and blogging...) Leila and I jumped on bikes and headed for Ganizany's church. We had to bike around two kilometers to get there.

Here is Ganizany's church. I think it is a bit bigger then Heston's church, but I'm not sure.

Leila told me that Ganizany's church was Western based, and they thought that in Western Churches the women sit on the ground. So here is the photo of the women on the ground and the men in the chairs.

Being western based, the music sounded a bit more western than Malawian, so that was good. Lol. I quite enjoyed it.

Luckily, half way through the three hour service, Leila decided to join the men by sitting in a chair. Don't worry - it was on the women's side of the room still.

At the end of the service, Ganizany prayed - well, everyone prayed Lol for a crippled man. Everyone was praying in the room. Everyone - no watchers. Ganizany and his translator helped the man stand up. Although he wasn't able to walk, he could move his legs when he was in his wheelchair. Before he hadn't been able to. It was a really neat experience. 

At two that afternoon, I went over to Gifti's to say hi and chat for a bit. Maybe get a bit of sugar cane. Keiran and I biked over there to find only Uncle Kelvin, so we sat down and chatted about work, crops, money, and sugar cane for awhile, before we went over to the Landlord's house for some sugar cane. To get this photo of all of us, I had to make Leila's bike stand up straight, and then I balanced it on the wheel. Then I turned on the timer, ran back to the bench, chatted, and SNAP! And it came out looking pretty straight surprisingly - with having balanced it on the bike wheel. It might not look like it, but the tree is naturally bent sideways. The things I do for you guys. (And we so appreciate it Austin. xx Mum)

I bought three small pieces of sugar cane for one hundred kwatcha. The guy wouldn't take the money, so I had to put it down his shirt before he would accept it. Lol. Don't worry, he laughed. K and I left shortly after that.

Bringing home the sugar cane! Lol.

At six, I had my dinner and then I Skyped my Mum. We talked for one hour, fifty-nine minutes, and fifty-five seconds. Not two hours, Leila. Lol. It was a good talk. We talked about everything from needing more money to Chameleons. It was pretty nice to get to talk to them. I told them that I was taking a photo to put up on my blog, and look: The little posers.

Little Posers.

So, that evening ended on a peaceful note of turning off the skype, lol just kidding, and blogging.

Ngona Lodge.

Paul and Ester Rombart wanted to go the Ngona Lodge for swimming and lunch, so we decided to join them. On the way, I got some good photos. This is Paul and Ester's 4 year-old daughter. 

With having my Mum edit my blog posts, she gets to see things first. Funny her, she left this:

"What an Amazing Photo, Austin!  You might want to give her mum a digital copy through email."

Yup I will.

Dark of the Face.

Here are the older kids of Rombart's. That is; two out of three. Ezra and I forgot the other one's name. The Rombart's are Dutch, so there have been three different languages for the past week. Lol. Lots of work.

Cutees!

And I managed to get every one comfortably sat in the back of truck with enough leg space for each.

On our way to Ngona Lodge, we stopped to help another mzunga (white person) along the way that needed a car jack to higher his vehicle. I don't know for sure, but I think it could have been a flat wheel.

Notice the huge boom box in the back. :D

And here is Ngona Lodge. It is really neat. I wish I lived in Jamaica, and I had a house like this. It is truly amazing.

As soon as I got my lunch someone noticed a crocodile out in the water and in a couple minutes everyone knew. I had to zoom nearly full zoom to get this guy. I was pretty lucky to get that. I think it was more for you followers than me. ;)

A closer version.

I cropped these both as it was taken at a really long photo range, so that is why it is blurry.

K and I swam for awhile, and then decided to go venturing off. Here are a couple landscape shots.

You see that huge rock there. It is somewhere between 20 feet to 30 feet tall. Keiran and I really wanted to climb up it, but there were no gripped areas, so we wouldn't be able to climb.

We walked around the rock and found a crack about eight inches wide that went up the rock. The crack met with a tree that grew into the rock, and near the top there were some rocks to hold onto to get to the top. So Keiran and I decided to free climb it. A 16 year-old had followed us from the pool, and we invited him to climb with us. It was pretty hard and freaky as heck. If you fall back, you're either dead or seriously injured. I'm not kidding. The first part you had to find grips in the rock surface and brace your feet between the crack, then you had to grab the tree and use it to climb up.

I look like a grouch. Lol.

And the next part you had to use those rocks at the top to pull yourself up. The view was okay. Lol. The climb down was quite a bit harder than climbing up.

Here it is again from a farther distance.

Keiran and I then climbed on a rock formation in the centre of the Shire.

Dead end. Back around. Lol.

Nature at peace.

I'm that little bit of sunshine. Just if you can't see me.... ;)

I added these two photos below to show how the river is dropping. It has dropped about two feet in the last three weeks.

Before.

After.

And the water here also dropped. You can see the water lines.

As I was taking the photo above, I noticed this Malawian canoe. It is really quite heavy to lift.

Some action shots of Keiran jumping to the sand.

Ya, I know. It looks like he is bull riding this log.

Perfectly timed.

On our way down the trails, we passed a few women fishing. They better hope the crocodiles are far away.

Here's a picture of the trails that we were following. Quite different than you'd imagine, right?

And for all those people out there commenting that I should wear shoes out into the wilderness - here you are. A photo showing that this time there is nothing to worry about. Lol. Here's the proof.

People have also been saying how white I am. Well, here you are again. Lol. The Sun-Tanning Rock. 

The Sun-Tanning Rock (his mother would call it Crocodile Rock!)

We continued down the path until we saw this bridge. We then decided that we'd better head back to check in with the folks.

Some more nature shots:

By the time we got half-way back, we met up with Darren and Paul. They had gone looking for us, because we failed to tell them that we were leaving. Ooops. As a punishment, we were to make dinner for them: Spaghetti.

We got back, and K and I started making the dinner. Well, technically I did, because Keiran doesn't know how to make spaghetti. There was one rule though: We were not allowed to be told what to do, we had to make the food by ourselves. That wasn't bad at all. Kind of made things fun.

 I fried up the ground beef and onions, tossed in tomato sauce and tomato past, put some garlic and some chopped peppers, a bit of water, Italian Herbs, Basil, Salt and Pepper, and finally - two different hot-sauces. Cooked up the spaghetti noodles and TADA!! Leila said it was really spicy, but it was less than mild to me, so ya. Lol.

Spaghetti!

Cooking away.