Best - Worst - Funniest - Learnt

In this next post I am going to attempt a very difficult task. Somehow I want to share with you some of the many fabulous events occurring during the 5 weeks that I spent with Loz in June & July. A task which is made so much more difficult by the fact that I could talk for hours and hours about all the fabulous things we did and the fabulous time that it was… so, to best capture our time together I would like to introduce you to the game. It’s a rather remarkable game. Simple. But fun.

If my memory serves me correctly, Loz and I created this game one day following a very boring church service on the northern lakeshore in the beautiful kande. It was within a few moments of entering the building that we realised we were in for a boring service!!! Terribly westernized, bland and a great deal of standing up and sitting down. we were in even more trouble when they offered to translate the service, which secretly made us cringe, knowing this would mean the service would be double the length. We had no escape. So endure it we did. I’m not ashamed at all to complain about this church, as regardless of what denomination it is, or what country I am in, when a church becomes more religious than real, more routine than alive, more talk than action, its boring and obsolete.. it doesn’t interest me. and frankly it doesn’t interest God. If there were tables to turn over, he would have turned them.

Probably the highlight was when a young child spilt a bottle of water all over the floor (which I actually thought was him peeing) the liquid was running in all directions, wetting everyone in the vicinity. Hysterical. It became awfully ridiculous when the women were bowing at the alter every time they came and went to try and clean it up.
Loz and I didn’t even have to look at each other to know that if we did, it would only result in hysterical laughter.

It was after this event that we decided all situations could be great in some way… and therefore this became a regular discussion point after something we experienced….. 1. The best things, 2. The worst things, 3. The funniest things and 4. Something we learnt. So that’s a long introduction to the game, but here it is…. I have broken the rules a little as normally you can only choose one thing for each catergory. But I have a lot of adventures to share! And if I helped invent the game, I figured I can break the rules if I want to.

The Best things...

• The winner by far was hanging out with Loz. It’s not often in life that you meet people who you click with rather instantly, and who you can not only share 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 5 weeks with someone you hardly know IN a foreign country, BUT that you can absolutely LOVE IT! Before coming to Malawi Loz and I had only a few conversations, we really didn’t know each other at all, and I guess technically, that could have been disastrous!! Thankfully the people who knew the both of us (thanks Matt & Kate especially!) could be trusted! Loz is one of the most generous, authentic, fun, loving, adventurous, fantastic people ever! Time spent with her was just awesome, whether it was chatting at work (loz is studying to be a speechie just like me!), playing with the kids together, strolling through markets, holding the torch light for each other, it was always memorable, fun and fantastic! THANKYOU Loz for being such a fantastic friend, support, encouragement and blessing to me! and thankyou for the life that you brought to me, the rehab centre, the community here, my friends and the lives of the kids who will never forget you!!!!
• Hearing news from Australia. All of you who say “oh nothing much is happening here” you are all in big trouble…you’re all fired as my friends (just kidding) I was stunned at some of the news that she shared. What seems like little news to you, THAT IS big news for me. I can’t even begin to explain how much you really miss out on over here, and how important that becomes when you are so far from home! so we had lots of laughs. Probably wouldn’t be the same with anyone other than Loz, as she has the most remarkable memory and observation of the more random and bizarre bits of news. For example, so far in 2007 Loz has found a sum total of $10.20 on the ground. Amazing really. My total still remains at $0, you’re winning Loz!
• In the month that loz was here, we really didn’t do a great deal of toursity stuff, instead we just lived life in Malawi, which I would argue is a far greater experience. For me, the best part was having someone to share that with. Someone to chat about my day, someone to debrief with, laugh with and experience things with. Loz also came to work with me to learn more about what speech pathology looks life in a developing country. We may have done more paper mache making than anything else, but I certainly loved having someone to chat with about work things, having a new perspective and a new face to talk stuff through with. Was awesome!
  
• Having said that, we also did do some travelling around Malawi as well… which was awesome!!! we went on two trips around Malawi. One to stay with Robyn in Kande and one weekend away to Cape Maclear with Dawn. The day we woke thinking it was just a normal day and a few hours later we were on a bus to the north of Malawi was rather fun! Spontaneous trips are always great!!
  
• Kande Village was amazing! It’s a long story about how we got there, but certainly a highlight for us! We met Robyn in Nandos the Sunday before, after months of me trying to meet her, and she invited us up to visit her village, which we both unanimously agreed was a must!! We went for a few days, and nearly stayed a week! We LOVED it! Robyn is another Aussie who is living and doing ministry & life in an amazing village called Mphatso. We loved her home, her community, and most of all we loved HER! Robyn was so amazingly welcoming and we had the most fantastic time with her. Highlights were playing netball with the girls (who didn’t follow the rules and whose rings were not actually big enough to fit the ball through!), playing take 2 with Hayley (visiting for a few months from Ocean Grove in volunteering as a teacher in a local school), meeting all the kids from the nursery schools, all of them being HIV negative after a big day of testing, the amazing view from our back door, cooking together, the beach, and our little cubbie house that kept us safe from the zoo of animals that all wanted to sleep alongside of us.
  
• Horse ride in the surf! We took an afternoon out to be tourists and we went on a fantastic horse ride, of which the highlight was undoubtably the last 10 minutes when we rode bare back in the water on a day where the waves were so big they crashed over us. It goes down in history for me & loz on this list of coolest things we have ever done in our lives! Amazing amazing. We had to keep pinching ourselves as to where we were, and what we were doing. unforgettable. Absolutely unforgettable.
  
• The singing, marching, and matching national wear and giant disco on sos international day! Amazing! have I overused that word to much?
  

• The night we sat with Dawn and John on a wooden balcony on the lakeshore of Cape Maclear after watching the most amazing sunset ever, having been exhausted from our snorkeling adventures in the clear waters of lake Malawi, only to sit by the night water with the lanterns of all the fisherman twinkling along the water horizon as a group of the most gorgeous kids sang for hours hysterical and beautiful songs with their home made instruments. Another of life’s unforgettable moments, where you can only breath in the beautiful night air and be so thankful for your life and for amazing people in it.
  
• Cooking and chatting with loz. Whether it was while we sat on the balcony making spaghetti or marshmallows on the fire, or we sat with candles chatting about all sorts of things, eating double decker cake, the famous salad, homemade pizzas, or watching the sunset at cape maclear, or the sunrise at kande, it was fabulous to have gone from not having anyone to chat with about such things as we did, to having someone amazing there all the time. Just fabulous!!
  
• Its hard to say which is my favourite thing of all… but this is way up there…. having Loz meet all of my friends here, play with the kids and falling in love with life here just as I have! The best day of all was when we went to visit Agogo and her girls and delivered their presents of new socks and shoes!
  

The Worst things…

• Saying goodbye to Loz. Sometimes the airport can be my most favourite place to be. But NEVER when I have to say goodbyes in Malawi. Unfortunately a reminder of how alone you can feel at times.
  
• Some mornings we really didn’t like getting up as early as we did!
  
• The Cooler weather. I realize I have no right to complain given how cold it was in Australia. But for me it was cold. And I prefer hot!
  
• Home Visit to Alinafe’s. It was such a shock to see how much she had declined again, and to realize how much it was breaking my heart and how often this is happening all across Malawi, with very little that can be done about it. feelings of helplessness and hurt and confussion and anger. I will be forever grateful for having Loz there at this time to be able to talk with someone about stuff that I have bottled up for way to long.
  
• Realising how much I miss everyone at home!
  
• Bus trip to kande – we thought we were going to die. Which unfortunately is not an uncommon occurance on public transport in Malawi. But this was rather an ordinary journey! We had a baby spewing on one side of us and a lady spewing in front of us. There wasn’t enough room to even wiggle. But we had lollies. And our final destination made the journey all worth it!
  
• Having to sit through a Nigerian movie – they are terrible!
  
• When we hated the world cos we were so thirsty on our walk along the beach
  
• Martin steeling our Maltesers
  
• Dinner with the boring people
  
• When I got ripped off at the petrol station and went back to confront the girl. That was scary. BUT it was the right thing to do. I won a little personal victory that day, I learnt how to fight corruption in even a small way, and had practice in facing one of my fears – confrontation!
  
  
  Funniest Things.....
• Loz and I were on the Decorations Committee for SOS international Day. we even got to travel around town looking for quotes on all important resources like crepe paper (or with the Malawian accent it became CRAP paper, which was hard not to giggle at despite my age and supposed maturity level) but the all important toilet paper and lime for painting trees is the most highly sought after decorating tool. It is very cool to paint the bottom 2 feet of trees with white paint. It doesn’t have to be painted well either, just slapped on in any old fashion. But I tell you fashion it IS NOT. Very ridiculous decoration. But funny all the same. We even woke before the sun on the day of the big event to finish off the decorating. We were given the all important task of stringing balloons inside some netting way up high…. It looked fabulous with our perfectly planned white and blue…. Expect all sorts of people kept ruining our decorations by adding random coloured ones. We weren’t happy. There were many laughs throughout the whole event!!
  
• One of the choirs at a church we visited pulled out kazoos at one point in their performance!
  
• One day we sat discussing chocolate that we missed from home. Despite me clearly winning the deprivation of chocolate award. Loz became so emotional about how much she missed her caramellos that she welled up with tears. that didn’t last long as we laughed like crazy. Even more amazing was the following day when a parcel arrived with caramellows inside. Really was nothing short of a miracle.
  
• We had a little game where we would guess what song each of us was thinking of, which Loz easily won the most random….. “Candle in the wind”… but hysterically it was only a few days later as we stood looking through a remote wooden craft stall in the middle of Malawi countryside that we heard on a dodgy little radio in the back of one of the shops…. Candle in the wind….. priceless. And very random.
  
• Visiting the “zoo” with titi and lameck. Its funny for so many reasons, firstly it’s a zoo with about three animals, but even more hysterical was titi diagnosing the monkey with fine motor issues and the hyena as autistic. Classic.
  
• The winner of all funny moments, where I laughed like I havn’t laughed in years was the day Loz and I met the spider! It all began one night in kande when Loz, without screaming, but calmly asking me if I would escort her to the toilet after a little encounter she’d had with a spider, took me to see the Biggest spider I have EVER seen in my whole entire life. I didn’t know they came in that size. His limbs were huge. His body even bigger. But we really had to go. Im not sure what was funnier, the fact that we stood for ages with torches in hand staring down the pit toilet inspecting him, or that we nearly wet ourselves while laughing so hard fighting over who would go first, or that loz was yelling out that she had stage fright, or that in my haste to pee I dropped 600 kwacha down the toilet that I had clevery (or not so) tucked in my underwear for safe keeping. Hysterical. Loz and I never went to the toilet without out each other as an escort again.

• The sos international day disco. It was crazy! I have never seen that many people all together in one place dancing like they did! Im certainly not the best of dancers, but had fun with Irene trying to teach me how to dance. Loz was pinched on the backside by a particularly flirtly young Malawian and we learnt about the true nature of men wearing pink hats… they must be avoided! Never more so did we realize that until the next morning when a knock came at my door way to early on a Saturday morning with a pink hated young man and “his uncle” A visit from a young man with his uncle in tow only means one thing around here, and I wasn’t in the mood. No one wakes me up that early on a Saturday morning expecting I’ll give my friends hand away in marriage on her behalf. So I got rid of him, then went back to wake up loz and tell her the news! So instead of planning loz’s wedding, we sat and had banana pancakes on the balcony and had a good chuckle at the mornings event.
  
• We woke early one morning while staying in kande to watch the sunrise. Now this was a big achievement for the two girls who don’t do mornings so well. We sat in the warm breeze eating our melted mars bars, a little annoyed at the sun hiding behind clouds ruining the moment! at one point we freaked out at the 3 pigs hiding off in the bushes to our right. We joked that they were secretly planning an attack upon us, only to discover about 10 minutes later that that was infact what they were doing. a few squeals and giggles and we scared them off. Very funny.
  
• Watching Loz unknowingly walk right next to the guy peeing on the beach at cape maclear.
  
• The day I sprayed coke all over myself, the floor and all the other people leaving the supermarket when I made a little mistake opening my coke using the door of our local takeaway the hungry lion. Oops.
  
• The list of funny moments is just way to long, and sometimes to hard to explain what really happened… so this is just for you loz (crying baby, patting the man on the head, groin, spiderman, crap paper, Michael, 8 fingers, matching balloons, toilet hands, mice, dreams, Nigerian movies, wedding date, zucchinis, malteser stealer, wedding movies, you like short sleeves don’t you? whose on the cross? Winston Churchill, American girls on horses, perspective photos)

Things I have learnt....

I learnt how to listen to words of songs
I perfected my gift of guessing the time
Learnt how to drink tea (and enjoy it)
Learnt they make rubber from trees
Love without words. Its amazing how much you can build a relationship with someone not knowing their language.
If you sit in one place for two long, all your limbs go numb
It seems that not liking orange lollies is universal!
If you are the only person who sets to high expectations of your self, and you are your biggest critic, that’s far better than if someone else is… much easier potential for change.
Love should be deliberate! It needs to be a choice!

Take joy in the simple things. keep things simple. Learn from the simple. Prioritise the simple.
Its not about what your are doing, its who you are being.
Waste no time. It goes to fast
Happiness and success is being where God wants you.
Share who you are with people - be vulnerable
Stay away from boys with pink hats
I want to love people without restraint. Why do we protect our hearts so much? We should love more like children do, and be loved more like children do.
Face confrontation. Face issues. Learn from it. don’t run from it.
Be vulnerable. Share who you are. Be real.
I don’t want to live mediocre. Not good enough!
I don’t want my faith to become religious.
See God in all things. let it become a habit
Lauren Cutler is the most fabulous friend anyone could have!!!!