delinquency, at this age?

i realize i have been quite delinquent in my posting and for this, i am sorry. now it seems somewhat ridiculous and difficult to recount our trip to malawi when we are more in the post-christmas time period. but we did go to malawi a few weeks ago which was originally why we have not kept in touch.

our visas were going to expire and so we were forced to spend two weeks travelling around a country that is, i think a well kept secret, but a beautiful one. some of the most lasting images or memories are: being somewhat shocked and alarmed when asked by a adolescent boy "would you like a killing?" instead of instantly reacting, i gave it a second until the boy produced a carved keyring, not in fact a knife or other weapon. in bantu based languages people often confuse the "L" and the "r" sounds which is of little consequence in say swahili but can make a shock in english turning an innocent question about our desire for a keyring into a proposal for murder. i heard this phrase more often than was comfortable, receiving a small shock each time. the pleasantly old-fashioned view of women walking in the hot sun with parasols to shield them. boys and women selling mushrooms the size of their heads on the side of the road. the ever present smell of fish oil that had at some mysterious juncture gotten on chris' pants, then on his shirts as he attempted to wash the smell out. it was a brief flirt with the life of a fisherman's wife that turned me from the idea completely. the amazingly beautiful view from our camping spot on a cliff overlooking the third largest lake in africa. making the understandable but stupid decision to drink from a waterfall after running out of water hiking up a huge mountain in the unforgiving african sun, luckily, my stomach has not suffered the consequences. small images and memories from a beautiful and amazingly friendly country.

after worrying pretty much for four months about spending christmas in africa (quite reasonably as anyone who has been to my parent's house at christmas time can attest to, it's pretty magical) we are on the other side, without any major depression or break-downs. in fact we had a very nice christmas, although it didn't feel quite like christmas, per say. we stayed in iringa in the house of some missionaries that we don't know, but are gone for a few months. it was lovely to have my own kitchen, i haven't been able to cook for myself in months and it was getting to me, so i compensated by cooking for about three days straight. it was chris and my first christmas together in our six years so we took advantage of the opportunity to create our own tradition which was mostly singing christmas songs before opening presents. so chrismas passed without problems and quite nicely, we were able to talk to most of our family, reading the night before christmas out loud, which is a hartley family tradition that i love, and spending the afternoon with the hart family.

we opted for spending the new year in a more romantic spot than iringa however and are now in zanzibar, staying with our friends claudia and saidi and their beautiful daughter kianga. it's good to be back here, although much, much hotter than our home-base of iringa, and much more full of people who would like to follow us around singing "jambo, jambo bwana, habari gani? nzuri sana!" which is somewhat of a downfall.

so there it is, a post, finally. i would love to hear from any and all of you. love. annie