We were actually in Blantyre with the mission president and his wife on Elder Prete's birthday so it was a little weird. It was all good though. Sister Patterson from Utah and Sister Kumalo from Zimbabwe made an awesome birthday cake and we had it for dessert after district meeting. (Each zone or group of missionaries in an area gets together once a week and they go over various bits of business and teach each other different missionary skills and that sort of thing and that is called district meeting. Here it happens on Tuesday night.) Also, our Lilongwe zone called him during their district meeting and sang happy birthday. He also got several wonderful calls and messages from home. THANKS ALL!
We decided that we would leave early the next morning and stop off in
Liwonde National Park on the way home to Lilongwe. We had spent Sister
Prete's birthday there so it was kind of fun to go there for Elder's
bday too.
The park is quite a ways off the highway on dirt roads and when we went before we had gone up the river on a boat. Here the signs are pretty hit and miss so it's a good thing people are so helpful even when they don't understand a word you are saying. We found the turnoff with the help of the directions of one good Samaritan but there was no sign. We kept going and going and going. Every time the road forked we would stop and ask someone. Most of the time they didn't speak English but with the help of pointing to the words on the map they would direct us left or right. Eventually we found a park gate and a teenage boy opened it for us and let us in. We have no idea if there was supposed to be somebody there charging money to get in but the first time it cost quite a bit. We just went merrily on our way on down the dirt roads. We were only a few minutes in before we saw a group of elephants crossing the road in front of us. We idled in right close and they just stayed and fed right by the road. We were able to watch them for a good twenty minutes. It was amazing. We were a little nervous that we were so close but only one of them even hardly looked at us.
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| We were so excited to find elephants all by ourselves. |
After they finally wandered off we set off again too. Down by the river we found all kinds of things...tons of crocs of all sizes sunning themselves, waterbucks, warthogs, a couple more elephants, monitor lizard, dozens of dung beetles, impala, lots of hippos, kudu, fish eagles, hammer cocks, egrets, baboons, ....
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| We found a whole group of hippos out of the water. |
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| Elephants are really hard on things. This baobab tree has been pretty much shredded. |
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| The impala are so delicate and graceful. |
We were only able to stay about three hours but we had a great time and the very best thing....we never saw another person or vehicle the whole time till we got back out of the park. Another great day!
On Monday, the day before Elder Prete's birthday we took a drive with the Shields and the Padoviches south of Blantyre through the tea plantations and to Mulanji Mountain. It was really cloudy (as it tends to be in rainy season) so the colors aren't great in the pictures but it is a really beautiful drive.
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| The Padovichs enjoying the photo op |
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| The tea bushes, miles and miles of them |
Here the workers are harvesting tea leaves. They clip, clip, clip into a tray attached to the clippers then toss the leaves in the big basket on their backs.
The mountain was too cloudy to get a picture but it is quite spectacular too so I cheated and borrowed one off the internet.
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