Adventures with Julia

September 4, 2016

Sitting in the United Emirates Lounge in Johannesburg.  Yes, we flew two hours south to connect to a flight north.  Is costing us an extra four hours.  On the other hand, I have excellent wifi here.

Yesterday, our last day on Lipoma Island, Martin, a waiter at Kaya Mawa, offered to take us us to the wedding of a relative of his, to which we had been invited by Mike, the bar man, the night before.   Sounded like an interesting experience so we agreed to go.  He walked with us to insure we found the place.  Along the way we saw several homes and ran into 3 ladies carrying fire wood to cook food for the party.  Martin insisted we take photos of them.  At 8:30am we arrived  at the local village primary school, because termites had devoured the local Anglican church.

We stayed about an hour at the service enjoying the dancing and singing and parading around the building.  We knew the activities were to go on all day, so we left to have some final free time.

I snorkeled around the islet outside our suite and spent a good bit if time studying the cichlids and their behavior.  Watched several males, protecting their territory and thought i spied a couple of nests.  Some of the fish have beautiful colorations.  After 45 minutes, however, my body is really cold and my feet start cramping.  Time to get out.

 

Meanwhile, Mark is sitting on our patio thoroughly engrossed in the black headed weavers, who were very busy building their nests.  They try to steal nest material from each others nest.

 

The builders must be very vigilant in protecting their new homes.  Our patio is a perfect spot to watch as there are palm trees next to the trees used for their nests.  Mark saw one weaver begin the process by making a knot with a strand onto a tiny limb and then take another strand and work it around to make a small circle.

They continuously strip a thread from different palm fronds, carry it to their nesting location and weave the strand around others already in place.  Several nests were in one stage or another and a few looked finished, although the owner continued to fuss and protect his turf.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we had lunch and relaxed awhile before walking back to the wedding at about 4pm, where the party was in full swing.  It seemed like several villages, maybe 200 or more people, turned out in their best clothes and hair dos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everyone looked fresh and clean.  They even smelled good, which has often not been the case.   The idea with the party is that people throw money at the bride to get her to dance.  The more money thrown, the more she dances.  We had been alerted to the concept and took a bunch of small money with us to get into the action.  She danced, but did not look too happy.  Either she wanted more money or she was very tired after so much folderol.  After all she had been dancing in the school/church since 8:30am.   As usual, we could not resist the children and took several photos of them, the bridal party and a couple of young, single men looking for some action.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By 5pm, we were out of there.  The music was bad and very loud.  We walked back to our wonderful suite and relaxed over a drink and watched our last African sunset.  Dinner was very good again – mushroom risotto starter and tender stuffed chicken breast in a delicious sauce with snow peas and a sweet potato mash.  We have concluded the chef at Kaya Mawa is the best of all the chefs we have experienced.

This morning we were up early to go kayaking.  Had a lovely hour on the lake, which was mostly calm.  Then breakfast of eggs benedict and french toast.  I have acquired a very fat belly.  Will need to be religious to get my figure back in shape.  Our weather everywhere in Malawi has been near perfect.  Warm sunny days, not too hot and mostly cool evenings.  Am out of time at this airport.  Will try to finish at the layover in Dubai, if I can manage it.