M & M

First, let me begin by saying that I am over the malaria. Thank you Lord. And thank you all for your prayers. That was a tough sickness. I was sick and it was such a strange sickness that I had never experienced before. I was exhausted and slept all the time but worse yet, I had a headache that would not go away. It was right in the front of my head, behind my left eye. I thought at first it was sinuses but nothing would take the pain away. I tried Advil, Sudafed, Comtrex, Tylenol, panado and nothing worked. So when I went to the doctor and tested positive for malaria he gave me some malaria meds. Those meds, in combination with my diabetes meds, made me even sicker. I ended up going to the clinic at the hospital because I was not feeling better. The doctor did not test me again for malaria but told me that the malaria drugs they gave me should have taken care of the malaria virus. He said he thought my continued headaches were migranes and gave me some different pain killers and what he said were sleeping pills. He said I needed to completely relax to get rid of the migranes and I was not sleeping because my head hurt. What the “sleeping pills” ended up being were valium. I took them for 2 nights really did not want to take any more. However, I no longer have headaches and my energy level and appetite are returning. Thank you again for your prayers.

The church we have been attending has an annual worship service and picnic with another church in town in Zomba at the Zomba plateau. It was this last Sunday. The plateau is a beautiful place. The drive to the plateau was breathtaking. It really makes you appreciate how beautiful Malawi is. However, it didn’t feel like we were in Malawi. It felt like we were in Colorado driving up the mountain. Sometimes I couldn’t watch out the window we were so close to the cliff’s edge. It was a narrow road so if another car approached, one of you had to stop to let the other car pass. The only difference between a road in Colorado and this road was that we had lots of people walking with firewood on their heads or vendors trying to sell their curios, fruit or vegetables alongside the road.

The worship service was great and afterwards we had a brai. I cooked our chicken on one of the grills and had a discussion with three men from South Africa as to why Americans cook hamburger patties on the grill. To them, those are to be cooked in the kitchen. I said hamburgers on the grill are an American tradition – they are so much better on the grill than the stove and we intentionally start our grills just to make hamburgers on them. Then we started talking about “grilling” vs “barbequing” vs. “braiing”. I said we invite people over to grill out. They said someone from Australia told them that if they cook on gas, it is called barbequing. They said we make it too complicated and should just call it “brai”. Funny.

As I was making cupcakes from scratch because a cake mix over here costs about $8.00, and calico beans to take to the picnic, I was thinking it would be really nice to have some macaroni salad. Well, sure enough, the first dish I came upon at the food table was macaroni salad. I was a happy camper, as Ray says. It was great. The food reminded me of a picnic or a party at home and Mphatso was overwhelmed with all the food. She ate about every type of meat there was and picked another dish that had some type of noodles in it, along with some rice. Her three favorite foods: meat of any type (liver included), noodles and rice. I’m thinking Spaghetti Works, Famous Dave’s and a hamburger on the grill are in order.

So, what does all of this have to do with M&M’s you are thinking, right? M = malaria, M= macaroni salad. Sorry, I couldn’t resist……….but I could use some M&M’s about now!

Mphatso funny: She pointed out to me that she has a little tiny bump on her head. She said she thought she got bit by a mosquito net who said she was good chicken. I laughed and told her to go tell Bambo (Ray). She told him and he laughed and said, “Hmm, maybe”. She looked at us and said, “What’s the ploblem?” How do you not laugh? She brings such joy to us.