Back in action!

I've taken a few months hiatus from traveling out into the field - some methodological changes have kept me more or less within the city limits of Lilongwe.  However, we finally got back out recently and this week I went down to Balaka and Ntcheu.  

The site visits went very well and our hotel was of extremely high caliber (meaning we only lost power once and I had hot water to my heart's content)!  My colleague had a rat in his room, but whatever, minor concession, right? 

At one of the sites we were sitting out in the hall waiting to meet with the administrator when some girls started playing music on their mobile phones.  The artist of choice?  Justin Bieber, of course!  I was chatting with my colleague but when the chorus came along I just couldn't control myself and I turned to the girls and started singing along, "baby baby baby oooooooooh".  The girls immediately starting laughing and my colleague just bowed his head in shame.  The funny thing is that I'm honestly not even a Justin Bieber fan!  I have no clue what got into me!  But seriously, people.  If you're going to play that in the middle of a hospital, you're bound to see some crazy stuff, right?

Anyway, we found this amazing place in Balaka called the Chifundo Artisan's Network.  It was highly recommended by one of my roommates so we swung by to see what it was all about.  Unfortunately we arrived at an odd hour and we couldn't get a meal so instead we got....... CAKE (really had to twist my arm on that one)!  It was so delicious, I can hardly wait to try to go back again!

Carrot macadamia nut, lemon chiffon, and red velvet (minus the red). Hey, stop drooling!

Also - not that I'm trying to start a strange pattern of posting weird looking bugs, this (not so) little guy sat at dinner with us and then stayed while we worked for a few hours.  It was big - like the size of my palm - and it was quite content just hanging out!

 

Next week I'm off to Ntchisi for the week....if we can get some diesel, that is!