Back in Lilongwe

Doreen

After the fascinating visit to Zambia at the weekend, it's back to Lilongwe to press on with work on the Business Plan.

Doreen Chanje who has been working on the supply side of the document (she's an expert in food security and quality issues) returned for a review session.  She, Richard and I went out for lunch at the Sanctuary Lodge.  Doreen's section is just about completed now, so that's great.

Towards the end of the week, other members of the Business Plan team had to disappear off to a variety of parts of the world, so I'm more or less left in Lilongwe to get the draft into shape.  To help focus the mind, I've decided to go to the lake over the weekend for some peace and quiet, and settled on the Livingstonia Beach hotel, which I'd visited on my second day in Malawi.

Room at the Livingstonia Beach

Lawrence the driver took me over to Senga Bay, and I checked in to my very nice room, on 3 levels, with a door and patio situated right on the lake shore.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to fully enjoy the experience, partly because I was there to work (and spent the vast majority of my time on the computer), but also because being the middle of winter, it was just my luck that the weather took a turn for the worse - the wind got up and the lake got rough, to the extent that the noise of the waves breaking on the beach gave me something of a broken night's sleep.  I suspect that there aren't too many people reading this that feel too much sympathy, though.

View from my patio!

So I couldn't swim in the lake, and just kept my head down and worked.  But at least I managed to get the job done so I could send out the next draft Plan document on Monday.

Another day, another road trip

After breakfast, Lawrence picked me up and we set off en route to the Lake.  He was insistent that I needed to see it, and who am I to argue?  It was great just to drive through the countryside and see the different sights along the way.

Apologies if the pics are a bit blurred due to the motion of the car.

The roads are "interesting" from a driving viewpoint - the quality of the surface is good, but the obstacles along the way are something to behold - cattle, goats, people, ramshackle mini-buses, overladen lorries, and more all contributing to the experience always being an interesting one.  It's not like Sawbridgeworth, that's for sure.

Anyway, we eventually arrived at the Sunbird Livingstonia Hotel on the lake.  Wow.  The lake was so beautiful, with extraordinarily clear water, a nice sandy beach, and breathtaking views across the water towards Mozambique.

In the end it was all too much for me, so I had to sit down on the terrace by the pool and drink a cold beer!

We then headed back towards Lilongwe so I could catch my flight south to Blantyre.

Alas along the way, a young goat decided to commit heavy-duty suicide by leaping out in front of the car.  This apparently happens quite a lot, but unfortunately it damaged the car so that we had to complete the journey slowly - stopping at every opportunity to replenish the water in the radiator.  Never a dull moment.

In the end I caught the flight without any problems, and am now ensconced in my new home for the next 3 months having enjoyed  an excellent roast chicken dinner, courtesy of Abraham the cook. I also found out that I will be attending a meeting in the morning with a client about a project that I'll be taking over from Rick, who will be returning to the UK next week.  So it's hitting the ground running for me, but I suspect there aren't too many people feeling all that sorry for me right now.  So it's off to bed and ready to be up bright and breezy in the morning.

For those of you interested in where I'm staying, it's very nice, but I'll be doing a post on the house and area tomorrow, all being well.

Oh yes, and I'm so chuffed that Jan got Skype working at home, so we had a lovely chat this evening.

By the way, a full set of pictures from the day are available on Flickr - select "Show Info" to see what each image is depicting.