June 21st & 22

June 21st & 22nd:
MONI!!! (hello)
After 24ish long hours of traveling, we made it! I am currently in Lilongwe, Malawi, Africa. Lilongwe is the capital of Malawi. We flew from Dulles at 9:55am to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia which took about 18 hours. Our flight got in later than expected and cut our layover from 50 minutes to about 20. Because of this we almost missed our flight! Luckily we are traveling in a group of 18 and the airline chose to hold the flight! From Ethiopia we flew into Lilongwe and arrived about 1:30pm. The airport was not as bad as I had guessed. Customs let us through without searching our bags because our group was so large—this was a huge relief because they charge very high taxes on anything new coming into the country (i.e. school supplies, girls panties, etc.) so we would have had hundreds of dollars of fees if we would have been searched. I also tried to take a picture of the plane we rode on and a security guard promptly yelled at me and made me show her that I had deleted it. I later found out that no pictures are allowed to be taken of anyone in uniform. At the airport we met our bus driver for the entire trip, Charles. Our group is filled with students from Virginia Tech, North Carolina A&T, and Radford University—such a great group. Everyone is filled with positive energy and is very excited.
From the airport we traveled about half an hour to our hotel, the “Budget Lodge”. Not the finest of places to say the least, but it will do. We are staying here 2 nights and our last night before catching our plane back to the states. From the lodge we traveled to the U.S. Embassy and met with our ambassador, Peter Bodde. He made us feel so welcome and safe, and he told us a lot of information about what he does and his goals for the country. From the embassy we went to a super market to get bottled water. We had to buy enough to last 2 ½ days. We then traveled back to our hotel, and to dinner which is right under the hotel… the Pizzaland. Funny, huh? I had to travel 24 hours to find pizza! (I didn’t order pizza, don’t worry!)
The next morning we woke up around 7am to go to a place called the Tidkondwe Freedom Gardens. (Tidkondwe means “be happy” which suits it perfectly) These gardens are a completely organic, self sustaining farm. SO INCREDIBLE. The irrigation system is like nothing you can imagine, and I wish you could all see it. A man named Dr. Chinkhuntha created this place on May 1st, 1982. When he first began it was nothing but swap land. He found a way to drain the swamp into holding pools and then use it to irrigate all the crops. This is all done with NO electricity or pumps. I have lots of pictures! Dr. Chinkhuntha has since passed away, and his son Daniel (along with his best friend Moses) are now running the gardens. He is such a great person and I hope to stay in touch for a long time (facebook friends! J ) He said “for life to be enjoyed, man must live in harmony with nature” and truly lives by these words. EVERYTHING there has a purpose and NOTHING goes to waste. At the gardens they grow many, many types of plants. Some include: maize, legumes, carrots, bananas, papaya, mangoes, oranges, Clementine, green beans, peppers, squash, strawberries, lemons, and these were only the plants I saw!!! Their insecticides are completely natural, and made by plants grown in the gardens. He showed us how they create them and it was so interesting… they use plants such as the India tree, black jack, aloe Vera, garlic, hedges and other plants to create a liquid which they brush onto the leaves of the plants about once a week. I could go on and on about this place because it is truly extraordinary, but I’ll stop here! J However, if I am fortunate to come back to Malawi ever again, I hope to work there!
I will post this at an internet café which charges usage per minute. The rate here is 5 Kwacha per minute. This equals out to be about 2 or 3 cents per minute—so inexpensive!! I am having so much fun here, at night time it is a little scary to me. Last night I woke up at about 3am and could not fall back asleep until 5am because of dogs barking. Our hotel here is not the safest, so I’ll be happy to travel onto Zomba in the morning.

More to come soon! I miss and love you all!
Beth