Saturday was a work day. A short day, but we still were able to get in a few hours of hard labor. The plan for Saturday was to level the foundation. The walls had been built up to about head height and we now needed to fill the foundation with rocks. This is done on many buildings to prevent some kind of water rising up through the foundation. We had a truck dump a huge pile of rocks that were all sizes into the foundation. Some of the rocks were ver very big heavy and some were small and some were in the middle. Phil and I spent the first hour of work by ourselves. Seems the crew was on “Malawi time” 🙂 We were not worried though and just got straight to work. Again this was a hard task and very difficult on the back. We had to toss the rocks all over the foundation so that it was all full of the rocks and there were few spaces. It’s difficult to explain, hopefully once I have pictures it will make more sense. Lots of lifting and throwing. Once the crew arrived the task went a bit more quickly. By 11 o’clock we were done. “Bas!” As they say In Malawi. Since we finished early we decided to walk up the hill to the permaculture center so that Phil could see what the compost toilets would look like when they are done and also how exactly they work. It was neat to see how much the center has changed just in the past couple of years! A lot of good work going on there for sure.
We walked the path back to the village to find Isaac waiting for us. He was there to take us to the lake for the night. Since Phil has never spent much time with Isaac and had also never been to see lake Malawi he rode up front. Isaac is always full of information and I knew Phil would have questions. We all talked and enjoyed the drive. We made one stop at the Air Strip wood carvers market to order some carvings to bring home to some of our friends. We hurried off because we wanted to get to the lake in time to see the sunset. Sunsets over lake Malawi are beautiful and since Phil is a photographer I knew he could capture some great shots. After we watched the sun go down we went up to the lodge and sat outside enjoying some local music and having dinner. We had a great meal and then Phil and Isaac played a game of Bao. This is a board game Played with nuts or seeds (sometimes pieces of small fruit or whatever else you have on hand). I watched and just enjoyed the company.
This morning we all got up at our leisure and then met for coffee on the deck of one of the cabins over looking the lake. It was a little overcast, but we could tell once the clouds burned off it was going to be a beautiful day.
We walked around a bit watching Phil take pictures and then decided to go for a hike up the hillside. I had heard there was a neat view point if you walked up and since I haven’t done it before I thought it would be a nice was to spend the morning. It turned out to be better than expected! We climbed for a pout 30 min and the found ourselves T the very top of the cliff over looking the lake. At the very top there sat a huge boulder that had a ladder attached. We all climbed up and sat enjoying the incredible view. More pictures of course. We then wandered a bit just enjoying the surroundings. We had a few stops to make on the return drive home so we got on our way around noon.
That’s all for now. I want to post this and then call my favorite Dads in the world and wish them happy fathers day 🙂