Here are some photos from Jonathan that you might enjoy:

http://picasaweb.google.com/jonsahib/MulanjeMarketsJune2009#
http://picasaweb.google.com/jonsahib/LandaDeoAndNkolokoti#

Time to pack and then catch the flights back to the US!

LOTS more to come!

Blantyre, Malawi

Do you know much about Blantyre, Malawi?  If not, check out this Wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blantyre,_Malawi

Oh, and when you look at the page take notice to the photo on the upper right hand side of the wiki page.  The street view.  (The same as the image posted to the left.)  It is very near the hotel and was standing on that corner last night. A very active place.

Hotel View

How fabulous is travel to Malawi been for me?  Well, so far I have taken a cab ride from the airport to the Hotel and have only left the hotel campus to walk down to the next hotel for social functions.

This is not to complain, I am here for work – not to be a tourist.  And God knows that there is a tremendous amount of things we need to do.  Perhaps tonight, if we finish work before 9pm, then I will go walk the streets of Blantyre to get a feel for the area.  It may not be a true look into Malawi but I hope to experience more than the isolated world of the hotel and conference Centre.

After almost “face planting” into my dinner last night I somehow found the strength to stumble back to my room where I had one of the best nights rests in days.  Nothing quite like exhaustion to make the bed feel extra comfy.  I doubt I even turned over once before the alarm woke me 9 hours later.

Breakfast was wonderful.  Scrambled eggs, baked beans and toast.  And lots and lots of coffee!

My breakfast companions were three people from Burkina Faso.  One man is a professor of forestry, another is the head of the IT department at the insitution, and the lady is a professor who studies about seeds and germination.  They all speak french as a first language but their English was quite good.  Still, it helped that I have paper and pen nearby to write out a few words that we could not understand when spoken.

Internet is still “touch and go”.  Michael is letting me use his PC to check email and it is a little differnet keyboard layout so you may see more typos than usual.  My computer has also been giving some odd errors but it seems to be working OK.

I have taken photos but uploading them will have to wait for a more dependable Internet connection – or when I have more patience.

Now I am going to check on the meeting location to make sure that everything is set for tomorrow!  Hope to have one last post of the day around 2-3pm ET on Sunday.

Michael and I made the flights to Malawi without incident and found a taxi into town.  The Hotel is OK but we may change locations tomorrow.  Silly Michael perefers to have a room with running water.  I tell him that he is spoiled.

Actually things are fine and we had an excellent dinner.  (Indian food.)

Almost 9pm local time and so I will call it a night.  Hope to have an Internet connection again tomorrow!