On Mission in Malawi: Friday, January 28, 2011

Today was a combination of disappointment and fun. This morning Kelsey, Abigail, I set out from the school on a mission to accomplish some errands. We had to go to the Immigration Center for Kelsey and Cure International for me for my knee. I do not know how I hurt my knee; it started hurting a week and a half ago. At first I thought it was sore because of all the walking we did; however, it hasn’t gone away. After some unexpected delays with the copier, we made it to Immigration with all the paperwork in hand or so we thought. It turned out she needed to turn in a “CV” with the other papers before her paperwork starts to be processed. Apparently, a “CV” is Malawian for resume and these gringos did not know that. Why couldn’t it just say “resume” on the checklist? Who knew? Anyway, after confusion, money given, and paper exchanged, we left. We were disappointed for Kelsey because not having that paper meant that her paperwork won’t start being processed today, like we hoped. Next on the agenda was Cure. Maribeth was told that I could just walk into the Cure hospital clinic and be seen. That was not the case! We traveled the distance, took the minibus, spent the money, and walked the extra half mile, all to discover that I had to make an appointment. And I won’t be seen until Wednesday morning. I was disappointed and exasperated. But, what can you do, I’m in a foreign country.

The afternoon got better. We had our missionary friend, Xiomi, over at the house to help us bake for the tea party tomorrow. Our plan was to make 3 different kinds of bread. However, there was a catch. We do not have an oven; all we have is a stove top. Have you ever baked bread on a stove top? We hadn’t. We had to look it up on YouTube! Our first attempt was banana bread. We did not have a proper bread pan so we improvised. It turned out decent; it looked ugly and needed sugar, but after adding sugar it was really good. Xiomi then suggested that we make donuts, she knew how, so we made banana and mango flavored donut holes! They tasted so good! We had a fun girl time in the kitchen talking about family, friends, boys; you know, stuff girls talk about when we get together! We had a fun time!