Getting There and Getting Settled

At two hours, mass this morning was the longest I’d ever attended, but was not boring in the least! The choir were in full voice and hearing John lead the prayers in chitumbuka was quite strange. The dancing was nearly constant throughout, and when the girls joined in their attempts were greeted with huge laughter! Afterwards John told us it took him a full two years before he was at ease speaking the language, but by now he may as well be a native.

Last night Jamie, Jack and I arrived in Mzuzu, and the occasion called for a few beers. John was delighted with his new bottle of Jameson’s, cracking it open immediately and thrusting double measures into our hands! A game of charades helped to break the ice – the banter started flowing straight away. We had John acting out the bible, and Roseanne acted out Sex and The City. It’s a good thing John doesn’t disapprove of blasphemy!



The journey from Cork to Mzuzu passed without much incident…I left my phone behind me on one of the planes which was pretty stupid. I found a dodgy phone dealer in Lilongwe who sold me a nokia at a bargain price. The only problem with it is that the battery won’t charge properly!

This afternoon we were invited to watch a football match between Ungweru Youth and their local rivals. The match was pretty fast-paced – which has me a little worried ahead of my debut with Ungweru Youth next week. There was an Irish guy, Dave, playing with the opposition. He’s here for a year teaching some of the locals about solar power as a power source. An entire year is a pretty impressive commitment.











Ungweru youth then put on an evening of performances for us followed by a disco…what a night! We irish were put to shame on the dance floor. To put it this way we never felt so white in our lives! The Malawians, like all Africans, are incredible dancers. We taught them some Irish as well, “conas atá tú?”, “póg mo thón”, and of course “what’s the craic?”.