Although we haven't started training yet, a lot has happened in the last couple of days. We enjoyed having some time to sleep on Wednesday morning to catch up after all of the travelling but we soon got to work on our training plans. We pitched up in the sunshine at the lodge to pull together our plans for training in Blantyre.
Not long into our planning discussions, two members of staff from MAGGA - Miriam and Dinara - joined us. It was great to hear how enthusiastic all of the MAGGA staff are for our trainings and we were really pleased to see how hard they have been working since the 2014 project. Miriam and Dinara left us so excited to begin training and we are hoping they will get as many people as possible to come along.
On Wednesday afternoon we took the opportunity to explore a bit more of Lilongwe before going to the bus station with the MAGGA drivers where they helped us sort our buses to Blantyre.
Ruth introduced us to a chinese restaurant in the evening along with her favourite dish - ants on a tree (no real ants were involved in the eating of this dish)!
We had to be up very early on Thursday morning as Victor, one of the drivers from MAGGA, came to pick us up from the lodge at 6am. While we were waiting for the bus, we did our own 'wake up and shake up' dance to some popular malawian music.
The coach that came to pick us up was luxury - a deluxe coach which travels a lot faster than the local buses, handed out food and drinks, as well as stopping halfway to let us stretch our legs! During the journey, Ruth met another traveller who used to live near her in the UK before moving to Malawi - what a small world!
The trip to Blantyre took us about 5 hours and gave us chance to see some more of the malawian countryside and markets. Blantyre is a much busier city than Lilongwe - something that surprised us considering that Lilongwe is the capital city.
After bringing all of our things to our hostel in Blantyre, we took the opportunity to explore some of the town and look at some of the places we might want to come back to later on.
We are just finishing some of our training plans now and will soon be getting ready for another busy day tomorrow before training starts.
GOLD love,
Alice and Team Malawi x
Viktor was our driver when we were there - glad he is still kicking about. Hope ur having fun x
ReplyDeleteSurely taking the luxury bus is cheating Ruth! ! Glad you guys are having fun! ! Tasha (Team Malawi 2014)
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