I hate saying goodbyes. I’m going to miss Livingstonia. It was a beautiful place to live and I had amazing mornings waking up to a beautiful view. The people here are wonderful too. I had a great cook who made me cakes and stew and empanadas. I had a really sweet toothless night watchman who always liked to chat. Then there were the Fabulous Four I worked with, just awesome people who work hard and are committed to the people. As they bade me farewell, they thanked me for being so free with them so that they could be free with me. They thought that they wouldn’t be able to work with me because I looked like a “little girl” but they realized how mature I was and learned from me.
Sometimes I got so tired of hearing about how our world was being run by politicians who’d divert all aid money to their accounts or how chiefs got corrupted by NGO “hand-outs”. And I got tired of people asking me for money and the clothes on my back all the time. There were a lot of “Give me’s”. It was really encouraging to see that there were actually people who cared about their work and weren’t just doing it for the money. Of course there were a lot of politics (and I had never dealt with so much of it before), but they didn’t let the politics get to them. They just saw it as a mountain to overcome with happy people waving at the other side. :) This was refreshing for me.
And now I’m off to Nkhata Bay for a few days. I was growing weary of staring at the lake everyday and not being able to touch it! After playing at the beach, I’ll head down to Lilongwe and meet up with some old friends. I’m hoping to see my training homestay family in Dedza, another teacher friend in Ntcheu, then some other friends in Blantyre, including one who’s running a street children nonprofit. Finally I’ll go back to my home in Chiradzulu and see all my wonderful friends again, especially the old agogo I so loved. I hope that she’s still alive and strong at 84. I am so excited!
