Home Sweet Home

To get to our home you drive up a short driveway that is badly rutted and washed out. You come to the security fence and someone has to get out and reach through a small hole in the gate to open the latch. The house itself is a sturdy 4 bedroom 2 bath brick structure. It is beautiful on the outside with large trees and colorful plants all around. It has a covered carport connected to the front steps which is nice since it rains so much right now. Inside it is very simple. It has concrete walls and floors with chipped paint and cracked tiles everywhere. It is sparsely furnished. We have a few living room chairs, a bookshelf, a dining room table with 4 chairs and some bedroom furniture which the synod provided-that’s about it. The kitchen is small. We have a stove, sink, refrigerator and a microwave. There are no cabinets nor countertops. We wash all the dishes by hand. The power has gone out for part of three days in a row which makes us feel somewhat like pioneers- improvising meals, eating by candlelight, washing dishes by hand, and basically living very simply.

We sleep under mosquito nets suspended from the ceiling to avoid being bitten at night and contracting malaria. Sleeping under the nets can be a real hassle. Jumping out of bed at night, tangling with the net to try to reach the pot in time can be a mess! All of us have had to deal with vomiting or diareah since here.
The hot water for showers comes from a large suspended tank called a geyser. It only has a few gallons of hot water in it, so we get wet, turn off the water, shampoo and wash, turn back on the water to rinse, and then turn it off so the next person has enough hot water. No long leisurely hot showers.

Security is a huge issue and a major pain. Every time we either enter or leave the house we have to unlock many locks-the lock in the door, the two locks on the bars guarding the door, the lock on the front gate, etc. All the windows are barred and at night we were told to close all windows and draw the curtains. We have a key chain with no less than 12 keys for all the different locks to the house. Not only is everything locked, we have a “caretaker” who lives on the property who is the day guard, and two men who are in the backyard at night as night guards. This is common practice for virtually everyone who lives in a house here. All of this unlocking and locking makes even simple things like running an errand a major project.

Patrick lives in a house that is in our side yard with his wife, two children and two others who live with them. He works for us during the week-cleaning, doing little projects, washing laundry etc. This is common practice, and his income from working for us provides for him, the others who live with him and several other family members scattered around Malawi. He is a gentle soul. We feel we can trust him, and are grateful to have him. He worked for the family who lived here for the past eight years, and so he knows the house inside and out. It was three or four months between their departure and our arrival so when we arrived he was desperately waiting for us. I don’t know how they survived, but he did not want to leave since living in the house is a major perk of his job.