Day 32 (to chisel some)

One of the curse/blessing trade-offs of being always-on-the-move is that you have to be up and at 'em at the crack of dawn every day.  Curse because, duh.  Blessing because it turns out that sunrises are stunning.

Pure beauty

Drove to our second Malawi campsite today.  A more local, less touristy-feeling site, after long hours of winding up and over the perimeter mountains.  

Driving through Malawian mountains

We stopped at a local market around the way where women scowled at our cameras and I bought the most rewarding avocados I've ever encountered.  Though, that may be more a product of 32 straight days of camping food than of the produce themselves.  Though the sugar snap peas I also bought certainly didn't distinguish themselves for superstar flavor.  

But I'm getting side-tracked.  Which is easy to do when you build up a month's worth of food cravings.  My hand-copy journal is riddled with notes about the things I wished I was eating along the trip.  

We arrived at our site in the mid-afternoon, and most people went straight for a dip in the lake.  

Looking left

Looking right

My tent-mate and I went straight for a wood-carving lesson at Norman's school of woodcarving, where I was assisted by self-nicknamed "Mr. Nice" and she was assisted by "Mr. Bombastic."

Norman's School of Carving

And by "assisted," I mean that they would lavish praise upon our wood-carving skills while we hacked away at a block of tree for an hour, and would then finish 90% of the actual work in the last 10 minutes. 

The facade of skilled craftsmanship

The real craftsmanship

I (sort of) made that!

Norman's youngest son out of 12 sat an elevated railing, chipping away at a hunk of wood with a hammer, as his penultimate son joined us on our log to chisel some masks.  

The penultimate son

Hello

Following the carving, Mrs. Nice and Bombastic, not wanting to adjourn the evening too early, led us down a winding path through dusky greenery, to visit the local witch doctor for individual predictions.

 Through the dusky green

Growing up with a dad who faked preposterous fortune cookie fortunes during my childhood (Hi, Dad), I don't subscribe to much spiritual hokum, as it were.  Nonetheless, I was still hoping for a prediction with some vague poetry that could be retained and applied future situations needing the weight of significance.  Unfortunately, the "prediction" consisted mostly the answers I had already given to Mr. Nice's inquiries through the course of the afternoon:
- You have a sister;
- You don't have a boyfriend;
- You like your job.

What it looked like inside the hut

What it looked like with a camera flash

But the best part was their final pitch, in which they offered the sale of any or all of the following 3 potions:
1.) Love Potion #9- For single people who want to find love.
2.) Love Potion #7- For coupled people who want their love to last.
3.) A potion for hangovers.

Clearly, people who have done their market research.