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.