Newsletter #76 - On The Rails!

24 days ago we moved to Lilongwe, Malawi

With 200kgs of luggage, 2 kids, and cat,

24 hours later, after a red-eye flight, a layover in Addis, a second flight, a long visa process at immigration and a bus-ride, we arrived in our new home

In those 24 days:

• we bought a car, a 20 year old Honda CRV All Wheel Drive
• hired a guardener and a nanny
• learned about some horrible diseases here (Google Mango fly)
• got a local mobile phone sim
• negotiated the currency exchange rate (it's not quite fixed here)
• got the internet at home set up (they use 4G sim card routers here because people keep stealing the wires in the ground)
• decided to invest in Starlink after all for the home internet
• got a sim card money account (basically I can top up and pay with my mobile phone sim card everywhere)
• got a real bank account (only my wife)
• found the local supermarkets with rubbish food
• found the local shops where you order the quality food through whatsapp
• send the 4-year-old to her first days on her new school
• found a daycare for the 2-year-old
• Start the generator at home when the power went down (but haven't found a location yet where I can buy fuel, buying fuel in jerry cans is forbidden)
• organised the water delivery, and the trash pickup (it's private)
• found solutions to avoid mosquitos (basically tuk the mosquito net under the mattrass), after a couple of sleepless nights
• went for bicycle rides with the kids on the dirt roads around our house
• met a lot of people
• saw monkeys
• went swimming in the school pool but the water was too cold
• bought fruit on the street
• ...

Life is getting on the rails

Lilongwe feels like an artificial capital city, wide roads, lots of open space and actually not a lot of traffic. People are friendly, and engaging. Our house is large and the construction is simple: wood, glass, concrete, plaster, cement and tiles.

And there's the typical orange-red sand everywhere, it's dry season so the sand turns into dust everywhere.

First week was hectic, now we're ready for Africa!

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