Malawi - Brad Day 1 & 2

Meetings, monkeys, geckos and finally some sleep...
Our four-hour layover in Jo-burg was uneventful and the best part was we had to go outside to board our plane in the warm African sun. As luck would have it I sat beside Rosemary Kanyuka the Chief State Advocate for Malawi Ministry of Justice who I had a conversation with all the way to Malawi. Still no sleep for 29 hours so far but at least I know a high powered Lawyer in Malawi.

We met Dixon the MUSSCO operation Manager at the MUSSCO office in the morning for a quick briefing before we head out to our respective SACCOs.

MUSSCO negotiated the purchase of a new banking system from Kenya that all of the SACCOs will be converting to within the next two years. They scrapped the banking system they were converting to last year since it did not give them the capacity they needed. Each SACCO now has a policy on Gender and HIV and Dixon stated there has been some movement on gender.
The trip (Lilongwe - Dwangwa) was uneventful but the scenery is beautiful since it is the rainy season here and everything is so green and lush. We arrived at Dwangwa and went in to meet Davison the SACCO Manager Bruce and I will be working with and went to the Kasa Club for something to eat. Made it back to the hotel and crashed around 10:00 pm, awake for 38 hours so I slept pretty well.

This Lodge (Ngala Beach Lodge )is right on one of the beaches on Lake Malawi and I have a great view of the beach and Lake Malawi right outside my door. There is a family of monkeys that run from tree to tree. Chris says they are pests since they eat their garden vegetables but the tourists like watching them. The other neat thing that they have here is two gecko lamps at the bar that three or four real geckos hide under to keep warm and attack insects that are attracted to the light. They were fun to watch scurrying around eating bugs it was great entertainment.  Stay tuned for stories of our first day at the SACCO in Dwangwa.