Exploring, chico time, bike taxis and baking

After our first few days settling in at the hospital we had a chance to take some time off and explore Mulanje district. On Saturday we headed down through the tea fields towards the nearest town, Chitakale. What should of taken 45mins turned into an hour and a half trek! Thankfully, a teacher from one of the local primary schools took pity on the two slightly sweaty mazunga's and showed us the rest of the way. You can see from the photo I was pretty happy the walk was over! He was telling us he teachings over 160 children at one time! I also taught him how to say "haud yer wheesht".....though it might come in handy when he wants peace and quiet during his next lesson.

Chico time

Getting home from Chitakale was much quicker thanks to the bike taxis. Its basically a glorified backy, but the person receiving the backy (that sounds wrong, but you know what I mean) has a cushioned seat, footrests and a handle bars. I did feel sorry for my driver as he had not only my weight, but the weight of all my shopping! It was also slightly embarrassing when we were practically overtaken by people on foot when going up hill. But, we made it and I managed to squeeze in a photo (excuse the expression). And only took 15mins to get back to the hospital and cost MK200 which is around 40p.

No hands!

A view from the bike taxi

We got back to Mulanje Mission just in time to watch the second half of the local football. We had seen the team leave from  Chitakale earlier in the day, with all the players in their strips, sat in a big trailer with their logo, pulled by a tractor. We were supporting the red team, but unfortunately i wasn't following the game that closely and I have no idea of the score.

After out busy Saturday exploring around and about Mulanje Mission, we had a quiet day in the house getting ready for another week on the wards. This included washing all my clothes by hand and then having to iron them!!!! We need to iron our clothes here as when they are hanging to dry, some wee beastie lays eggs on them and the next time you wear them, they burrow in to your skin. Nice. So to kill them you need to iron them. Whilst in the domestic mood, we also tried our hand at bread making (thanks to my Gran's recipe) and the results weren't too shabby as you can see.

So that was our first weekend in Mulanje . A bit of exploring, a bit of getting lost and some domestic goddessness.