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Monday blog
Our last morning in Malawi. We ate our last breakfast at Home Up, packed and loaded everything onto the bus for the last time. Before we got to the airport, we checked out a local coffee roaster place called Bean There, and a woven straw & pottery place. Most of us got last minute souvenirs of coffee, clay pots and straw baskets. Then after going through security with no problems, we sat in the airport playing games, walking around, and checking out the duty free shops.
This trip has been such an eye opener for all of us. Being able to see some of God’s beautiful creation on the Safari, and the beautiful landscapes we drove through. Playing with the child care centre kids will definitely be missed. Just seeing their faces light up when we step out of the bus and hold their hands definitely touched our hearts. We are so thankful to everyone who made this trip a success. Hungry for Life staff and Southern Irrigation for making this trip possible in so many ways. A huge thanks to Jason Krul and Marc Jongerden for arriving a week earlier, planning and organizing the many projects before we arrived. Also a special thanks to Antonie, our fantastic bus driver, for showing up on time every day, roughing rocky roads with his brand new bus, and basically driving us all over the country without complaining. His dedication will be remembered. We wouldn’t have made it in Malawi with him.
I would also like to thank every team member for our many laughs, jokes, songs, some tears, and Wordscape levels. We made it through many hard hours and happy times these last few days.
I would also like to share a couple highlights or quirks of each team member on this trip. Albert’s Chinese accent while bartering with Malawians. They were a little intimidated by him, and gave a lower price almost every time. Dennis for his loud, excessive sneezing, burping and laughing. Autumn’smany marriage proposals from various men on the streets. Roy is pretty quiet, but sometimes says funny comments in conversations. Ten minutes later, Lindsey says “ wait, what really?” We all found out she’s pretty blonde. Clayton proudly has his feet on Feet Finder. He also got pretty cool flip-fops at the market to show them off. Caleb’s known for getting teased about being homeschooled. Homeschooled kids are supposed to know everything? Derek is the big bambo( man) with no hair. The kids thought that was pretty funny. Evelyn was a mama to all the little kids, and made sure we had Nutella with our toast every morning. Last but not least is our team leader Ruben, who is known for his jokes; both dad jokes and funny jokes! He also loved singing karaoke on the bus.
Now we have long flights ahead of us; 6+16 hours to Toronto with some layovers, and for some of us another 2-4 hour flight to Vancouver, Calgary, and Saskatoon. Ruben hopes to stay in Ethiopia for a few more days, just to get away from us! Hahaha! Thanks for reading all the blogs and we hope to see friends and families soon!
