Final days

As noted earlier, after a week away I had tons of email when I returned to work Friday. I had the whole day to get through it, so that was good. G took me out to lunch, which was nice of her.

Yesterday I went with Ben and the girls to Dedza Pottery. They’re bored with K out of town, and their plans for a school event were cancelled because the first lady’s funeral was yesterday. So we went down in the afternoon. Dedza is surrounded by wonderful granite mountains, making it vastly more scenic than Lilongwe. The pottery shop has lovely grounds, landscaped with grass, rosebushes and other plants and flowers. The restaurant there opens out onto a large patio with tiled tables featuring scenes from the beach. The food was tasty – I had moussaka and fresh lemonade. But we were too full for the famous cheesecake, sadly.

After lunch we hit the pottery shop, which was loaded with various pots and mugs and such in different styles. It wouldn’t be an easy place to pick up something specific – you can make orders for those – but it’s perfect for someone like me seeking to pick up an assortment of things. And it was crazy cheap. There was only one thing I got that may have been even remotely comparable to a US price and everything else was vastly cheaper. So I took care of gifts for a while and got rid of most of my kwacha. I was pleased too that I could avoid buying any wooden curios because there are already too few trees in Malawi due to overcutting, and the pottery shop has environmentally friendly practices according to their website. So I was pleased with Dedza and everything looks like it will fit securely in my bags.

Today I’m here at the Capital Hotel, uploading these posts before I take off, and getting another haircut so I will be super cute for my return. Tomorrow I’ll go to work briefly to get my box of papers and say goodbye to everyone. Then I go to the airport! I can’t believe this day has arrived!

Uh, it seems my car might be in impound. :( I sure hope I don't have to pay a million dollars to get it out.

Flying home will be more brutal than flying here was. I got to stop after each flight and shower and sleep on the way here, but this is just one plane after another. I also was fortunate not to have a seatmate on the long flight to Jo’burg, but I doubt I’ll be so lucky on the return. I still don’t know when exactly I will arrive in Baltimore; I’m scheduled for a late afternoon flight, but I’m hoping to get on one of the two earlier flights before that. I could be in as early as 12:30, which would be great. But it might be more like 4:30. Boo.