Oct 25: Lawrence is officially married

Oct 25: Lawrence is officially married
This weekend was a very interesting one. I went to Zomba on Friday and did a presentation about our preschool program at a NGO called Creccom. It was a very good meeting, and I learned a lot about Malawi and about how the people see the future of their own development. Creccom is a community motivation organization. They work with Oxfam and Unicef and have a terrific executive director, at least they have a terrific Executive Director(ED) until the end of the year. After the first of the year the ED will be replaced, not because he is doing a poor job, but because for some reason this organization is set up where the ED can serve up to two terms of 4 years (kind of like the president of the US). Then they are replaced, regardless of the job they are doing and the direction the organization is in. After meeting one time with the ED that is currently ending his term, I just thought this NGO is losing a great man. After the meeting Masiye the head of partnership and I went back to Blantyre, had lunch and parted ways. I went to meet Lawrence who was scurrying around town getting things ready for his wedding on Saturday. I met him at his reception hall, which was the United Pentecostal Church. I spent a little while there watching the maid of honor teach the children in the wedding the entrance dance for the reception. Around 5 we left the reception church and went to the Chibwe catholic church for the rehearsal. I was a little shocked when the rehearsal began and the priest was going over how everything was going to go with Lawrence and Prisca and another couple. The other couple was getting married 2 hours before Lawrence and Prisca’s ceremony, but I just never thought that you would do a double rehearsal. It turned out to be a good idea, since about 20 minutes into the rehearsal a blackout hit that portion of the city and the rest of the rehearsal was done in the dark. The thing that I’ll remember most about that rehearsal was the sunset. You just don’t get to see sunsets like that in the US, except if you’re on a beach or in the mountains in Colorado. The sky was a orange-ish purple haze, with little streaks of yellow and blue fading off into the shadows of the sunset. It was beautiful, it was one of those little things that you forget how much you enjoy until you’re in the middle of it and you get that feeling of peace and the sense that no matter what happens right now everything is going to be ok. After the rehearsal was over I had dinner with Lawrence and his oldest son Limbani at a food court in Blantyre. He really likes this food court b/c it has “Mini-Soccer”. Mini-Soccer is a bastardized game of foosball. Mini-soccer is all about power and pure luck; it takes all the finesse out of foosball. It is played on about the same sized table, but there is a hill in every corner, it is enclosed in a plastic roof and the handles are spring-loaded at the end so when you pull it back and turn it, your player shoots the ball with force. I disliked the game from the second that I saw it. That night I stayed at a hotel with Prisca’s brother Tuco. The place was nice, but the mosquito netting was subpar to say the least. I woke up on Saturday and Sunday with mosquitoes inside the netting, needless to say the mosquitoes are a big fan of white meat. Now we all get to see what my malaria medication is made out of.