Malawi Update

Wow!! I am sorry, I haven't posted is almost two months!!
The largest reason is because I leant my second computer out to one of the students, and my primary computer wouldn't connect to a browser until I restored my computer to an earlier format, so I finally got that done.

August was a great month.  In between teaching a third year Remote Sensing Course and a first year Remote Sensing course, I managed to get away a couple times, for some weekends away.  Some of our Malawi friends along with Nicole, Tracey and I went to Nkhata Bay to have a relaxing weekend at the beach.  Turned out the relaxation turned into quite the party, going to the local Yizo Yizo bar in town and eating delicious street meat from the road. It has been decided that Nkhata Bay has the best street meat that we have had so far.

The weekend of the 18th of August, we headed to Lilongwe to go and see some of the girls before they headed back to Canada at the end of August.  They took us to some of their favourite restaurants, and showed us their favourite club called Zanzi's!! We were dancing up a storm until well into the early hours of the morning.

On the sunday we ended up going to an all day festival at the Lilongwe Golf and Country Club to watch a number of different bands and artists play.  We were under the impression it was just an afternoon concert so we figured it won't go from 2pm-5pm, but we were there until at least 10:30pm!

Our ride back to Mzuzu was quite tedious, we weren't able to get any tickets on the AXA coach bus, so we had to take a local "coach" bus.  It turns a 5 and a half hour journey into an 8 and a half hour journey and our ipods were dead.

After that we actually spent a few weekends in Mzuzu, trying to save a little cash.  I'm trying not to spend to much these days, saving up for my backpacking trip that I'm going to be heading on once the exams are finished in October.  I'm going with my roommate Tracey, but we can't decide if we should go north or south. Decisions, decisions

Last week, I administered my midterms, it was definitely different being on the other side.  Normally I would be the one stressing out frantically writing, but instead I got to sit and read my book. It was quite lovely!!

Next up I have to finish my lectures and have my students present their research projects before the end of the semester.  It turns our that the next semester might not start until March, which means we have to find some other volunteer options around Malawi.  I'm going to try and find some GIS companies and get in there to help with projects

I'm currently working in the Water Resource Department as well as the Land Management Department, teaching one of the new employees the basics of ArcGIS, and I will be helping to create maps for their water quality project that is starting off.  The project is working with the Centre of Excellence here on the campus.

I've been trying to keep busy, but also having some fun here and there.  Good Times!

EmJ