Electricity is in short supply...

Yesterday evening after coming back from the lake we went down to the  local Applebee's.  Okay, so maybe it isn't an Applebee's... we'll just call it a bar and grill because there is a guy cooking meat out front and it seems to be a neighborhood favorite.

The grilled meat is actually pretty good, I finally tried it and DIDN'T GET SICK!

Its right next door to the internet place and the little market.  (I would call that a liquor store but they sell a few groceries.)  These fine establishments are your only options if you want a carbonated beverage nearby... anyway, there was "live entertainment" consisting of a three man band.  The percussionist played a set of tiny drums with bottle caps, tin disks, and a bell, the lead guitarist played a cobbled wooden lap guitar with a plastic spoon for a pick and a liquor bottle over the frets.  The bass guy had a homemade bass that layed horizontal that he also used a liquor bottle on.     These guys could make some really fine tunes with their instruments!  For about 100 kwacha (less than 50 cents) they would play and their cohort would dance.  That of course provoked many in our group to dance, or attempt to dance.  Jimi jumped in and played the "drums" for a round and everyone had a great time.

While we were there we ran into another Mzungu (white person), her name was Sydney and she is from North Carolina.  Turns out she is staying just a few blocks away from us.  She walked home from "Applebee's" with us and had supper at the lodge with us and played a game of Catch Phrase with us.  I'm pretty sure she knows we're not normal but at least she knows we are fun.  :)  She has the blog address and knows she is welcome in our clan anytime!  When she had enough of the craziness, Grant and I walked her back to her house and the crew called it a night.

It got down to about 37 degrees last night but the mosquitoes were out for some reason... I think I might have malaria by now... I have about four bites, so my fingers are crossed.  Ha.

This morning everyone loaded up and headed out to the build site.  It is looking really good and the final finish layer of cement went inside today and on the porch and the exterior brick was pointed.  Several went over to the village and finished clearing the Invest land and stacked brick about eight tiers high.

Grant, Max, Cristi and I worked on shelves until the blade on the saw smoked too much.  The saw tends to get a little wild and dangerous when that happens so we attempted to find a simple circular saw blade in town.  Silly to think you could find a blade for a Dewalt circular saw in the capital city of a country... but it doesn't exist here.  That meant just sawing a little slower, but as I began to make the second cut after our street vendor hot dog lunch, they shut the power off.  Turns out by reading the local paper one can learn that they are doing six hour power outages everyday across the country.

That provoked me to lay on the grass in an attempt to get rid of my farmer (neck and arm) tan.  That was great until the ants found me.  (Everyone in Africa around here wears a shirt and women wear longer pants or dresses.  No fun for working when it is hot and makes for a really bad farmer tan on a white boy in Africa.)
The rest of the crew just rolled in from the build site and village have a hand saw so we'll hack around on the shelves for a while and pray for some electricity.  At least they shut it off during daylight hours today... last night it happened during supper, after dark so it was a candle light dinner, nothing personal but not the candle light dinner I would normally want to partake in.  I don't remember the last time I had one of those anyway!
Hopefully some electricity will show up so I can get to a computer and post some pictures.

I can already see it is going to get interesting this evening... Grant just carved a baseball bat with his dollar machetti and Jimi is riding Grant's bicycle in circles in the yard of the lodge.  How fun!

Man I love these people.  If my kid was here, I think I'd just stay in Africa.  (I miss you Brenden.)  Life here is just too simple.  People don't live minute to minute stressed out.  The local people are the nicest in the world and about every vehicle has some type of Jesus bumper sticker on it!  I'm pretty sure I could open a grocery store and make a pretty good life.  Most businesses are run by Indian (from India, not the type in Oklahoma) or some Asians.

One thing that does bother me, besides no hot water is all the trash.  It is seldom you see a trashcan on the street and the litter is horrible.  The entire countryside is strewn with trash... kinda sad.  There aren't many nasty smells as I had expected and noticed in third world countries but there is plenty of litter.  They could use some boy scouts and a few adopt-a-highways around here.

Oh, and about the police... they are friendly here, I recently had an encounter with them at a roadblock checkpoint!  The other day when we were on our shopping expedition for salted dead fish with eyes, paint, and bicycles, we ran across a roadblock and the police were conducting a checkpoint.

I stepped out of the van to talk to them, sizing up the biggest one I could find.  They just don't grow very big Malawians.)  As I talked to him and jokingly measured him with my hands, he said "Do you feel you can defeat me?"  To which Grant quickly replied that I could!  Wow... what a great wing man Grant is!  :)

Anyway... the supervisor thought my Highway Patrol badge was pretty cool so I took a picture of him with it, I got my picture with them and we went on our way.

Our Malawian Police homies... I'm glad they were nice!

"Do you feel you can defeat me?"

"Do you feel you can defeat me?"  That will go in the list of favorite Malawi quotes along with  John's Irish "get yer stuff, we'rre moovin'!"

Well... I'm gonna take a walk to try and find some electricity to post this.  If there is no electricity, I'll post it from my phone with no pics.