Hello again everyone! I hope you are all doing well!

Well, it’s officially been a week since arriving in Lilongwe and things are great! I am happy here! I am starting to get adjusted to living with another family and trying to find my role among the group’s dynamics. With three kids with seemingly never ending energy, it feels like herding cats! Dave and Elizabeth are wonderful parents though and I am learning a lot by watching them interact with the kids. Eamonn, the 10 year old red head and only boy, likes to read and likes to terrorize his younger sisters. Aine (pronounced Ania) is a joy in all respects except her unwillingness to eat anything we put in front of her. Her diet mainly consists of candy, salt and bread. Malawi, the adopted Ethiopian littlest girl, is definitely testing her boundaries with me and is not afraid to turn on the water works but otherwise is such a joy and is unbelieveably adorable. Dave is so good with them, having patience all the time and has the same wild imagination they do. Elizabeth’s patience is such a remarkable demonstration of her awesome parenting skills and is always willingn to read a book with them or get captured by the blanket traps rigged on the stairs this morning. I am learning a lot but it’s quite the learning curve. Hopefully things will get easier as time progresses, but it’s hard to feel like you’re doing a good job when I feel like I have to live up to the adoration that the kids have for their parents. I am not them, though, and the kids (and myself) have to learn that I don’t function exactly like they do. Again, I’m learning and have to remind myself to have patience with them and myself.

Daily activities start with getting woken up around 9 by the screeching of one of the beasts (who, of course, have been awake for a couple hours already) and coffee is immediately made. Afterwards games and activities commence and D&E usually have places to go to errands to run or they just play around the house with us. In the afternoon I usually get some time to myself when the kids are being self entertained by either books or electronic games where I read or journal or unpack a little bit more of my bags. Speaking of bags, the remaining 14 bags came early last week so nothing was lost! Hooray for Ethiopian airlines!

Elizabeth starts to make dinner around 4 or 5 in the afternoon because things take a bit longer to prepare here than they would in the US. We’ve bough a kettle though, so boiling water is no longer such a task. Also, we’ve got a lot of household items that work better with the appliances in our house so we’re adapting and things are becoming easier. We just recently got our oven to work so now we are experimenting with the symbols and what we think they mean. It’s quite the guessing game! Since we don’t have a garden yet, we’re having to buy a lot of our food and goods at the local supermarket but food here is SO expensive. For example, a box of Rice Krispies is the equivalent to about $12 USD and nuts are about $8 for a small package. Also, milk and cheese are outrageous. The bright side is that things like bread and sugar and salt are relatively inexpensive so if we are careful about what we buy, it sort of ends up evening itself out. No doubt that things were cheaper at home, though. Also, the fuel shortage is such a problem here. We got a car (a borrowed sedan by one of Dave’s collegues) but just to fill it was $130!!! When one runs out though, the lines to wait for fuel can be ungodly. We’ve heard horror stories of people waiting in line for up to 10 hours and still not getting any fuel. For varying reasons like people cutting in line, the tanks running out, stuff like that. So, needless to say, we walk everywhere we can but the town is remarkable spread out and it’s several miles to get anywhere outside our neighborhood.

We’re starting to meet families that live in the area. Dave and Elizabeth are working at separate clinics and hospitals, so we’re meeting families and other doctors from both. The kids are finding more and more kids to play with (we have a neighbor that has a 5 year old as well) and D&E are able to get to know other parents but I’m finding myself at this awkward place between groups that leaves me with no one to really relate with. I’m the nanny, so I am there for the kids, but when they are happy on their own with other children, I am free to be with the adults but then again, I have no children and am not the one to worry about where to go to buy groceries, or where the best schools are to send the kids, so I find it hard to relate to either group. Thankfully, D&E are kindly aware of how much I need people my own age, and so they’re trying their best to find social activities that I can join among the expats and Peace Corps volunteers that are heard to be around my age. The process is slow but I am hopeful. It would be nice to have a friend. Especially on the days that, when the kids are asleep and D&E need alone time, I find myself sitting alone in my room, twiddling my thumbs and waiting for me to get tired enough to go to sleep.

Sleep has been difficult for me but it’s getting better! I’m almost at the point where I can have a full night’s sleep and not wake up. Mosquito nets went up over our beds this week so I’m able to sleep without those pesky things buzzing in my ear so that was a relief. I’m hoping that with a little more time to get used to my surroundings that I will be able to sleep well again finally. We’ll see!!

I have run over my max time here at the internet cafe so I have to go now. One last thing to add, though, is that we might be getting internet at our house soon so hopefully I will be able to skype with whomever is interested in the next couple of weeks!! Also, when that is up and running, I’m hoping to upload pictures of the sunsets here – they have been absolutely beautiful and I’ve gotten a picture of each of them every night that we’ve been here. The sun sets and is long gone by 6 pm every night so the days end early!

Miss and love all of you!

Advertisement