Trying to get back in the swing of things...

Well, I've been home from Africa since July 21st. We weren't entirely certain we were going to make it home at times! Oh, the stories...needless to say, we did make it home. It took me another week to get over the jet lag...seriously! I went to bed at 8:00pm the first Saturday I was home (Addison was up later then me that evening!). Since I've been home it's been go, go, go. We are in the last stages of getting our house ready to sell (in fact I'm in the basement right now, listening to the house cleaners give my house a good scrub down). We should have the house on the market by next week Thursday! Oh, I really hope it sells for a good price...we've put so much time, effort and money into making it look nice.




I wasn't able to post any pics in Africa so I thought I'd post some of them now.


This is the view we woke up to every day at Likhubula Lodge, at the foot of Mount Mulanji. It was awe-inspiring! I loved it.




This is our group on our very first day at the job site. Starting from the top left we have Dawn Birch, Kevin Kitching, Deb and Taylor Naaykens with Meag Luckay tucked in behind them, Sue Luckay, Vera, Karyn and Ken Fanstone and Shorai (our Habitat organizer). In the front row is me, Marleen Jonker, Barb Birch and Sue K (a really long, Ukranian type name). :)




These are the bricks we worked with while building Agogo (Grandma's) home in Juma Village. The bricks are homemade, they make them from mud, and then they stack them in huge piles leaving it open in the center, and then they build a fire in the center and that is how they fire the bricks. Some of them were really well made and others fell apart in your hands.





This is Babbie, Tadeo and Shorai...all of whom worked for Habitat. Shorai was the boss, she was always travelling between Blantyre and Llongwe; Tadeo was our host and was with us for the duration of the Habitat build and Babbie...I'm not entirely sure what his role was but he was there some days and not on others and he helped translate and with the building. They were all very sweet people...I think every one of us wanted to bring Tadeo home to live with us (I don't know if you can actually adopt 25 year olds but we were all willing to give it a try)!



I don't know if this is true for other countries in Africa but in Malawi (and what I saw of Zambia) people use their own two feet and bikes as their main modes of transportation. Bikes were everywhere and apparently people save up for them the way we save up for cars.


This was the view beside Agogo's soon-to-be home. Stunning! The poor tree was short several limbs by the time we left because they kept cutting off branches every time they needed to support something.



This is what Agogo's house looked like on the day we arrived. It was to be a three room home with a tin roof, real doors and glass windows...the ultimate in luxury when your other home is made from twigs.



This is how (mostly) women carried everything in Malawi. It was crazy to see two women walking down the highway, babies on their backs, buckets or trees or bundles on their heads, talking and laughing and usually eating sugar cane.


Anyway, this is just a small glimpse of the 5000 or so pics I took over the course of 21 days...thanks goodness for digital, right?!? I'll post some more another time.

Oh, and in Stampin' Up news...I had my first workshop, thank you Tracey for hosting it! It went very well, and I think I have two or three new people interested in joining card club - which rocks! For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, the new catalogue is full of delicious goodness! So much fun!