7/13 Today we went on our hike. At first I thought there would be a road all the way up to the top, but after about ten minutes of walking, we turned off the road onto a trail. Half way up, there was a cabin with a lone cactus in front. Even from that level, there was an
Amazing view. It was so much different than hiking in Vermont. First of all, when we got to the top we could see for miles and miles with an unobstructed view. Whereas back home there are trees and foothills that lead up to the mountains. Here there is desert and then jagged peaks coming out of the sand. When we got back to the house, we unloaded our stuff and then went to the fabric market. All the women thought it was hilarious when I tried to bargain with them. We can then send the fabric to a tailor to get bags and other things made. Tomorrow we are going to start out second camp. I’m pretty excited and Its close by, only about 20 minutes. The last one was about an hour and a half drive.

7/14 The first day of our second camp went very smoothly except for the “rug rats”. They are the kids in the standards below 5. What they do is stand right outside the doors to classrooms and make distracting noises. They also try to get in line for food at lunch
time. The kids in my group picked up everything fairly quickly. Also I have a really good translator for this camp, Chickabachi, which means something to the effect of “what’s up?”. He really likes the kids and gets right down with them. The first day is the longest and hardest, but I like it the most.

7/17 The second and third days of camp were great. The presentations of the third day were spectacular. After the performances, some of the volunteers played soccer with the kids and a few teachers. This time there was no official team so we didn’t loose quite as badly. It ended up being a tie. Today was our first day working with the orphans. Here, orphans are considered kids who have one parent. So there can be “double orphans”. Today, we planted about 200 trees. Tomorrow we are going to work with street kids at a shelter for them in Lilongwe. The college students are on their safari right now, so we have the main house to ourselves.

7/18 Today we hung around the house and went to the fabric market again. Then at 1:30 we drove to the shelter for street kids. First we served them nsima and beans for a late lunch. Then we played some soccer for about half an hour. Then we split then into two teams and played some games. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to all that we had hoped to play. Finally, we played some ultimate Frisbee that eventually turned into everybody arm-wrestling each other. When we got home around 4:30, some of us went to the local craft market to look at jewelry and woodcrafts. Tomorrow we go back the orphanage to plant some more trees. I think there are 300 this time around.