4th of July

The quintessential American holiday, where a bunch of drunk people get together, eat meat, and blow shit up. Unfortunately, for some reason, our new Peace Corps Country Director, the head honcho from Washington at our office, decided that the 4th was not going to be considered a holiday for Peace Corps Malawi. He didn’t give a reason, and it was a highly unpopular decision. Malawi’s Independence Day is July 6th, a Saturday, which the Country Director said WOULD be a holiday for volunteers. Well, duh, it’s a Saturday. We were VERY annoyed that he would put down our own country’s favorite holiday in favor of Malawi’s holiday, which no one in this country really cares about. It goes without saying that we were rather offended. But no worries, we all got together and celebrated anyway.

View of Phoka Valley

This year the 4th coincided with the end of the school year, so I decided to draw out the festivities. I went up north to Rumphi district and traveled into the Pokha Valley to stay with my buddy Trason for two nights. Trason is living a wonderful Peace Corps life - very isolated up in the mountains with only one neighbor. His house is airy and well lighted with lots of seating and space. It looks like one of those fashionable adobe houses you’d find in New Mexico and Arizona. He brews his own wine and landscaped his yards. It was very peaceful. My new friend in the new Health group, Leslie, came out on her bike to spend one of the nights with us, which got the festivities really started. It was a good time.


Trason's House




This is Trason.



Rob on our hike to Livingstonia



Trason lives about 25km from Livingstonia, an old colonial town on a cliff overlooking the lake. He lives on a road with very little traffic, less than one car a day, so Robert and I hiked it. We took three nights and had ourselves a right little vacation. We stayed a place called Lukwe, in a camp-luxurious chalet overlooking the valley (I’ve booked one for my parents when they come, it’s a must-see). The place is run by a guy named Auke (pronounced “Oak”), who has lived on the spot for 12 years and has the most beautiful gardens I’ve yet seen in Malawi. All the salads served at the place were straight out of his garden and all the dressings and most of the vegetables were made/grown by him too. He also served his own coffee and grilled us massive steaks ($10 steak meal, I think so!). We spent the day reading on a porch swing and napping. It was perfect! The best two nights we’ve had in Malawi yet. I’ve definitely aged about ten years since moving here...



View from Lukwe,
Maji Zuwa is on the right side of the bay



The morning of the 3rd, Auke drove us down to Maji Zuwa (Water and Sun), which is a new lodge right on the lake, run by a young guy from Dayton who was hosting the 4th festivities. About 35 American’s came and danced on the bar and drank and ate too much. The first night was my friend Renee’s birthday. The second night we blew up our beloved fireworks. We only had a few, and none of the showy ones, but we did them one by one to draw them out. However underwhelming, it was very exciting for us. The grand finale, which was really just the last firework we had left, was cheered with a round of “U.S.A! U.S.A!” One of the best fireworks shows I’ve ever seen. And I’m not gonna lie, I felt extra good about it when I heard that the San Diego fireworks show had a glitch and all $200,000 worth of fireworks went off at once and the show ended in a few seconds. Not that Malawi and the US are competing, we all knew who would win that one, but it’s nice to win once, if only by accident.