We are in Malawi!

Twenty-six hours after arriving at Dulles International in Washington, D.C. on New Year's Day (and having driven there the afternoon before and had our last (U.S.) supper of steak in the hotel), and after three stops (Rome; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and Lubumbashi, Congo) and one plane change, we arrived in Lilongwe, Malawi. They call Malawi the warm heart of Africa, and we were warmly and joyfully greeted – and vice versa – by our friends Paul and Darlene Heller after successfully clearing customs. Plus, all four of our big checked containers arrived! The T.S.A. had apparently been interested in one, the same one the Malawian customs agent looked in, but we got in duty free, especially after clarifying that the printer had cost fifty dollars, not pounds. What a relief and joy to be greeted by friends when everything is foreign! Then we found out we weren't going to have to make the 5-hour drive back to Mzuzu that night but instead would be staying over at the Baptist Conference Center. The guard let us in, we unpacked, took a walk, and then went to – get this – a Korean restaurant! Besides us, there were just four others plus a celebration of what appeared to be a farewell celebration for the Japanese equivalent of the Peace Corps. To end our long day that way was such a treat.

Sunday we spent most of the day driving north to Mzuzu on a road built with funds provided by the European Union. Huge billboards with the president's picture trumpet this accomplishment. I won't say any more about this now except that we saw a front page news story picturing Presbyterian clergy leading a march in protest of a new quota system limiting the number of students who can be admitted to high school from the north. (Students from the north were outperforming students from the south.)

When we got to Paul and Darlene's house, the power was out. Evidently this is not unusual. We take reliable electricity so for granted, it's hard for us to imagine how people have to take all this in stride. If you didn't, you'd go crazy. But it means you have you adjust. We took a walk to the open air market, and by the time we wanted to have dinner, the power came back on. And we slept pretty well under our mosquito nets.

Today we went to the nursery. We'll write more about that later, but here are a couple of pictures.