(More from Lizzie — who is Owen’s “godsister” — on her travels in Africa)
Hi all,
Yesterday we took the eight hour bus ride back to Lilongewe. They fill the buses to the limit. Many passengers stand in the aisle the full eight hours.
The ride is bumpy and wanders through village after village along with the larger bomas and official bus depots. The radio plays local Malawian music, which is like Caribbean reggae and we all wave to the villages who run to the road to see us.
At the large stops young men and children run up to the windows with baskets of oranges, papayas and bananas. They hold boxes of fried dough (a treat for Malawians), bags of peanuts, and hard boiled eggs [click to continue…]
(Another update from our friend Lizzie in Africa. A bit of explanation, Lizzie is a trained art therapist, so she’s over there to work with children for a few weeks.)
Hi all,
We are now in Kande Beach (I know last time I spelled it Candy, silly American) Since I last wrote we have traveled from Rumphi through Mzuzu, the largest Boma in Malawi. It is bustling with people and shops. There are many autos (cars) and a large bus station.
Women still walk balancing their goods on their heads and there are dogs and chickens roaming the streets, but as Malawi goes it is very cosmopolitan. (Just a side note, there was a young girl balancing a bundle of 5 foot sugar cane stalk on here head with no hands and she was probably only 5 foot herself, I am in awe)
Our last day in Rumphi we decided to take the day off and go to a wildlife preserve. It was wonderful. The whole thing was on foot with a guide by the name of Patience. We roamed for three hours amongst African elephants, baboons, impala, and various snakes (I could have passed on that part.) The animals were so close [click to continue…]
Our dear friend Lizzie is spending some time in Malawi, helping a friend of hers who is working over there.
She’s been gone about two weeks, and we’ve been talking about her everyday and wondering what she is doing and how it is going. We got our first update report this morning and it sounds like everything is going great!!!
Here’s the message we got:
Hi all,
We have found some Internet, hooray! Lets see, it has been days since we have left the Lilongewe. We have spent a few days in Nkata Bay where we worked with the agogos, which means elderly. They were so sweet.
Before we arrived they cooked us lunch and the custom was for them to all sit and watch us eat. It was a bit strange, but they want to see us enjoy the food. Then when finished, we all made art together. It was wonderful! [click to continue…]
A quick selection of photos are here.
We had a wonderful time. Fiona rode absolutely every ride possible (she wasn’t tall enough for Rockin’ Rollercoaster!). We especially loved the Tower of Terror!
The princess breakfast was a big success…Fiona got to talk to five different princesses and Jack and Owen successfully managed to speak to none.
[click to continue…]
We’ll be in DisneyWorld for the next week, eating breakfast with princesses, riding roller coasters and generally having fun.
See you next Tuesday!!
[click to continue…]
Ok. Are you ready? I took about 2500 photos last week in Cancun and guess what? You get to see them all!!! HAHAHAH.
No, actually I did a quick run through and pulled about 200. Have fun looking at them!!!
Cancun photos are here.
Apparently, I never posted the photos of Fiona’s special vacation (just mom and dad, no stinky brothers) last summer to Dutch Wonderland. We had a great time…did all the rides, went to the movies, at out for dinner and slept in hotel.
The boys got to go to Alaska…Fiona went to Dutch Wonderland, but everyone seems pretty happy about it.
So, without further ado, the Dutch Wonderland photos are here.
I’m still catching up on getting photos posted from the summer. I *finally* went through the 1,000+ photos from our McKenna family vacation in Corolla, NC.
We rented a house with Kevin’s brothers and sister–I think we were 29 people all together–for a week. It was a fantastic house, plenty of room, swimming pool and hot tub and just steps to the beach (Thanks Fred & MJ for finding it!)
The big cousins played with the little cousins, the little cousins mostly behaved themselves and the grownups enjoyed visiting, snacking and drinking! Highlights of the week included pedicures for all the girls in honor of Fiona’s birthday, a birthday fishing trip for Jack, many sandcastles, miniature golf with all the cousins, a different “host” every night for dinner (we took turns cooking), and best of all, just being together for a week.
Here’s an album with some of the best photos:
We’re back … photo album (with captions) is here.
I’m slowly working through vacation photos from last week; we were in Missouri, first in Columbia, then in Sikeston and then at the lake in Wappappello. Jack and Owen drove from PA to MO with G’mom and DadDad.
Fiona and I were *supposed* to fly to Kansas City to meet Aunt Jo & Uncle Kevan, but after spending about 12 hours in the “Phillyadelphia” airport (as Fiona calls it) we weren’t able to get out, so we finally got a flight on Monday.
This first show is Fiona in the airport watch Dora on the iPod and then dancing. Jo & Kevan went to Hawaii and brought Fiona a grass skirt and “dancing bra” (her term, again) and a hula doll that really dances. Fiona put on quite a show. It was a bit more like Zulu tribal war dancing than hula, but she had fun. (click on the little grid to view the photos individually.)
(Sorry about the re-use of the music from one of the Europe slideshows, but I’m rushing and this was all set to go. I’ll try to hunt down some Hawaiian — or Zulu — music and re-load this later.)
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