sometimes, it ain't easy

i have fooled myself into believing that living in malawi is easy, that i am 100% comfortable, 100% at ease. that perhaps, malawi is becoming home. but it takes about 15 minutes of running errands to send me all into a tizzy of confusion, frustration, annoyance. that is 15 minutes in a 4 hour adventure....

so today is 4th of july, which is great - i get the day off while the rest of malawi "works", so this provides a perfect opportunity to get things done that are impossible otherwise. and it is great the the 4th comes after the 3rd because on the 3rd i was stopped by the police who discovered that one of my stickers (my "certificate of fitness") on my car was expired. THAT is a story, but one that i will not blog about...

so i needed to renew that sticker, take a sewing machine in for repairs, stop by the post office, buy some chipatis. simple.

not simple, not ever. get to the road traffic authority, and nothing is labeled. but finally figure out where to go, pay my money and then find out that mr gondwe is not in and so i can either go to the really chaotic office or wait for an hour. so i try my luck at the chaotic one, and it REALLY is chaotic - people everywhere, pushy hawkers trying to sell windshield wipers, and not one single sign. so then i figure it out again where to go, only to find a line of 9 cars waiting to be inspected, and not a single person around to help. so i leave to the fabric store. and the traffic causes the 2km trip to take 20 minutes. maybe it would be more pleasant if there wasn't so much smog and exhaust. cough, cough. get there, and of course the simple repair could take as long as three days - who knows why. no really WHO knows why? so then back to the first road traffic office, because at this point an hour has passed and maybe mr. gondwe is back. and he is back. actually, he was both nice and competent AND didn't need any extra "persuasion" to help me get a certificate of fitness. post office and chapattis, fairly straight forward except for the hawkers, fighting for parking, the fact that the post office was out of the larger denom stamps, and so all of my letters required at least, i kid you not, 40 stamps. four hours later, i realized that i wasn't breathing...

after all of that, i did go to the ambassadors for a 4th cocktail lunch party. it is pretty great to live in a country so small that when you attend these, you meet the who's who of malawi. chatted with the deputy speaker of parliament, toasted with the head of the malawi broadcasting station....

and then, i FINALLY made it to the office, and am making the tiniest dent in all of the stuff that i need to do.

ali is here!!!!! actually, right now, Ali is in the village! and apparently doing really well. oh, so many stories with her visit already, and an update about a drum/dance workshop that i organized, but i am late for an appointment with a tailor (who probably won't even be there when i show up)! ciao!