The eating of the cake

 

 

 

 

The First Birthday Party for Darian

 

Moving to Malawi a month ago didn't stop us from celebrating Darian's first birthday. All of the decorations I snuck into our suitcases didn't hurt either (I knew Jeff would make fun of me for bringing fish table cloths and streamers but they came in handy.

 

 

 

Apparently there are only 3 stores that sell kids toys so we were lucky to only get one of these blow up ducks.

So we went to a carnival of sorts

 

And kian had his fill of the bouncy castles (yup, crazy enough they have them in Malawi too) and had to get his face painted . . . like a Tiger.

 

The birthday festivities for Darian

 

On the happy day of Sept. 11 we took Darian to "Pizza Inn" to celebrate his birthday.

 

 

 

Kian enjoyed himself with his favorite drink.

Some pictures of the kids playing in the backyard

 

 

 

As Jeff likes to say, Kian thinks we've moved to Central Park.

 

Kian's First Day of School (take 2)

 

So the comments below don't actually go with those pictures, though I do wish that Kian's school was at the beach.

 

 

 

Kian's First Day of School

 

So our boy is growing up. He started school on Monday at First Steps. It is a preschool really close to our house. Most of the kids that go there are Malawian.

 

Kian already has a friend who he says has the same name as him but his name is actually Kiernan. Nice kid though.

 

Kian and Jeff studying his letters. Apparently Kian will start getting homework soon. That should be interesting. What kind of homework do three year olds do?

 

And here is Darian doing his homework.

Lake Malawi

 

So this is Lake Malawi (Salima), the part that is supposed to not be pretty. We thought we were in Bermuda though, it was so beautiful (though we think everything is beautiful since we are comparing it all to East Harlem).

 

This is about an hour and a half from our house, I think I can deal with that. The lake here has waves for some reason, so it looks like a beach.

 

 

Bible in Chichewa

 

So we visited the spot where the bible was translated into Chichewa in the early 1900s

 

There was a girls school there who wanted us in their group picture.

 

 

The girls kept calling Kian's name and he was a little overwhelmed with all of the attention from the ladies. Darian (who is right in the middle) was enjoying it though.

The Cultural Museum of Malawi

 

We went on a field trip to a cultural museum where we learned the cultural practices and history of the three main tribes in Malawi: The Ngoni, Chewa, and the Yao. The most interesting part to me was the various rituals they have for when men and women go through puberty. There are some washings, teaching from older women and other rituals women go through when they come of age (ie have their first period). These were especially prevalent with the matrilineal tribes.

 

Some supposedly tasty little chicken type birds.

 

This is the museum with Johanna and Scout in front (also with Baylor here)

 

The Market

 

 

 

A few shots of the market outside of Lilongwe (Malawi)