I've moved...

My new place
I've moved out of central Lilongwe to Area 25 (it's what I'd call a slightly unimaginative naming scheme). It's definitely a little bit of longer distance to work now, but it the move has its perks. Chief among the perks is the fact that I'm living with my co-worker Phyness Thembulembu. She and her family have been extremely kind in welcoming me into their home. Phyness is a very successful Malawian so the house is pretty luxurious. I'll probably move later in the year so that I can get a feel for the living experience of a more typical Malawian, but for now I'm just enjoying having such a great place and great people to live with.

My host family
My host family has 3 human members, 4 canine members, 1 feline member, and an honourary member called Bob. The head of the family is Phyness. As I mentioned Phyness works at CNFA, where she is Director of the Northern Region. Phyness has four children: Nicholas, Devison, Sylvia, and Mercy. Luckily for me, Devison and Sylvia live at home so I have a bit of company around my age (Devison is 31-like me, and Sylvia is 23). Devison is in accounting and works for World Vision in Lilongwe, and Sylvia has a diploma in marketing and is currently running her own business where she travels to Johannesburg and buys goods and then resells them in Lilongwe. Sylvia in particular has been really fantastic about looking after me and helping me learn about all things Malawian.

I've also made friends with the 4 dogs whose names are Zambani, Thunder, Storm, and Black. The dogs are mostly around for guard duty I think, but they manage to sneak the odd pet. They've gotten used to me now so I'm enjoying giving out a fair number of pets and back scratches. The cat's name is Tweetie (like the cartoon). I'm not so sure I've made friends with Tweetie yet. He's cute, but inclined to randomly swat at you as you walk by. Perhaps I'm just a dog person.

Lastly, but certainly not leastly is Bob. Bob works as a live-in cook and cleaner at the house. Bob doesn't speak any English, so any communication that I've had with him has been limited to what's been translated and my extremely limited Chichewa. However, I look forward to getting to know Bob much better in the near future.

Chichewa
Sylvia, Phyness, and Devison have been extremely helpful in assisting me on my new mission to learn Chichewa. Although a large number of people in Lilongwe are very proficient English speakers (including my co-workers, and my host family) most people speak little to no English (like Bob). Most of the time if I'm speaking to an agrodealer at work the conversation has to be translated for me. Right now my learning quest has led to the point where I can competently say 'hello', 'how are you', 'I'm fine', 'see you tomorrow', 'how much is it', 'have a good day', and 'good night'. However, I'm adding to my vocabulary every day. I'm sure I'll be fluent in the very near future!

Running
I seem to have found a new running partner in Devison. I mentioned that I was interested in running in the morning to the family and they suggested that Devison would be good company.... so far Devison seems willing. The only catch is that we try to leave the house for work at 6:45 am every morning, so this means that running has been scheduled for 5:10 am. The sunrise was beautiful this morning.... perhaps the experience will convert me into a morning person. I'll keep you updated.