malawi: back to makuzi
more so than in east africa, people carry everything on their heads. its not unusual to see ladies dressed to the nines for work and their gucci handbag atop their heads for ultimate convenience.
we were happy to meet one of our favorite people - ed mapula. he served as a missionary in kenya years ago, and has since been reassigned to malawi. ed is a genius with languages and has a knack for speaking whichever language he learns (and there are several) with the fluency and nuances of a local speaker. but more importantly, we love him because he is such a kind and loving person. so it was a pleasure to spend an evening with him and as always enjoy a thought-provoking conversation. it was also nice to get to meet pablo and jen, who have been serving in congo and now in malawi, in person.
on our way out of lilongwe, at the spur of the moment we decided to stop at a small building that had a sign - 'art gallery.' we were treated to the unexpected pleasure of meeting this top class artist and seeing a lot of his artwork sprinkled around his gallery.
and then we happily made our way to what had become our favorite place in malawi - makuzi beach. what a delightful little paradisaic corner of the earth!
we pitched our tent, ate, drank and happily felt at home. its not hard to see why we love this idyllic spot so much. this particular night it was just us with the whole place to ourselves.
that night we had a beautiful clear sky to admire the milky way. so we went to bed expecting a nice peaceful rest. little did we know what would wake us up....
...a HUGE thunderstorm. and by huge i mean immense. furious. i tried to count how fast the lightning strikes were coming and it was tooo fast to count! the air was thick with electricity and i thought, surely any moment now we will be hit. looking out the tent window and i could see the lake and everything clear as day from the lightning. sandi and i had a hurried discussion about what was safer - the car? the showers? and eventually we decided to stay put, clutching each other in fear, trying not to wet our pants and saying many many prayers.
after about an hour, the lightning gradually moved away and the rain abated and then we were able to sleep. the next morning the sun, without even having the grace to look sheepish, was shining brightly in a clear blue sky. the owners assured us that they have never had a lightning strike because of the nearby cell phone tower drawing all the strikes (and apparently had been hit a couple of times during that particular storm). so, after a quick change of underwear, we headed out, still quite awed by the small glimpse of jehovah's power, and excited to see what else our trip would have in store for us.
