Fingers and thumbs!

Well, thank you for all your kind messages of support for my journey today - we left Stellenbosch at 4.45am and I am just home at 8pm after a very long and tiring last two hours in the dark!

The journey was good apart from one sad incident on the way. We found an enormous crowd of people on the road and there were leaves spread across the road which usually indicates a funeral. However it was later afternoon and funerals are usually in the morning. As we drove slowly through the crowd we asked what was going on. Apparently a hit and run accident had taken place and a young woman had been killed on the road just a few minutes earlier - she leaves behind a young child. I was so angry that the person who had done this just drove off - with technology not being very advanced here chances of finding the person are slim. I feel so sorry for the family of this young woman and the entire village community.

On a happier note, just before landing in Lilongwe, N my colleague, looked out the window and said he could not see any tarred roads - what was going on!! I just looked at him - we only have one main tarred road in Malawi which runs north to south....... we laughed about it. He has taken so many pictures of CapeTown and even of roads in South Africa - what a great experience for him!

Todays blip is in Lilongwe - I left a bag with a friend while I was out of the country and I went to collect it on the way home only to find his daughter busy using her fingers and thumbs to take the kernals off the freshly harvested maize. Her fingers and thumbs will be raw by the end of it - they have had a fantastic harvest!

I am tired so please forgive me if I do not comment on anything tonight - tomorrow is a public holiday here so electricity and network permitting, I will comment then!