Some advertising on the street near hotel (click on the photo to enlarge)

This is a photo from the top of hill above the

hotel, and the sign at left is on the wall shown

in the centre of the photo.

March 9th

Bobby and I arrived in Toronto safe and sound with a fairly uneventful flight other than Bobby had a less than desirable seating companion....I will leave it at that! I was lucky enough to be seated with a lovely older lady from Oxford, England who was traveling over to meet her daughter and new grandchild, who live in Toronto. She has 12 grandchilren in all, and we had a great little visits on and off during the flight. Bobby and I shared a cab over to the Ramada hotel, checked in, then headed for the showers. We had met Brad while checking in, and they were going over to a little Irish pub for a couple of "Greens", as Dennis and I liked term the consumption of a few beers in Malawi. Some of the Uganda crew joined us at the pub, and we all had a bite to eat. We shared some great stories about our experiences in Malawi with Joan, Ruth, Tammy, and Gary. Charlie was not able to join us at the pub, and Jeannette, had arranged to fly back home early from Uganda, as she had become quite sick, but had recovered enough to travel........they suspected food poisoning. We all agreed that the rest of us had been very fortunate during our 2 assignments in Africa, to not have gotten any ailments other than a touch of the good ole travellers diarhea.

After a couple of hours the jet lag had definitely kicked in, and everyone was exhausted. I awoke in the middle of the night after having what I thought was quite a good sleep, and it was only 1:30 AM. Not able to get back to sleep, I finished a book, and worked on the computer for about an hour, then managed to get back to sleep for a few hours.

Arriving at Mama Mia's restraunt

Going for lunch with Brad, Paul and Bobby

March 7

Today we say our goodbyes and make the long flight back to Canada. We left the hotel at 10:30 am, and flew from Lilongwe to Jo'burg, arriving at about 4 pm. We then had a 5 hour layover in Jo'burg, which really dragged out. Left Jo'burg around 9 pm, and arrived in London at 6:30 AM London time. Actually got some sleep on the plane this time. After arriving in London, we had to clear security again, and the one small suitcase that I was now using as a carry-on had a small jackknife in one of the pockets that I had forgotten about. Well, you would think they discovered an International Terrorist plot. They gave me the gears about how it is illegal to have anything like that in your possession in England, and I had to wait for an hour for the police to come and make a report about the incident. The "Bobby's" were really good about the whole thing, and after a few questions, they gave me back my passport and boarding pass. They said they get quite a few incidents each week and lot of them are to do with pepper spray, which is illegal in Great Britain as well. Lesson learned......make sure anything sharp or liquid over 100 ml is in the checked baggage.

For some reason, Brad, Paul, Nicky, and Dennis were booked onto an earlier flight than Bobby and I, so we had another 5 hour layover in London......lucky us! We arranged to get into an airport lounge however, which gave us access to the Internet, snacks, and coffee and Baileys, so they time went fairly quick. We worked on our blogs, checked our e-mails, and before we knew it we were heading down to board the plane for Toronto. We will spend a day and a half there to share stories with the Uganda team about our experiences in Africa.......looking forward to it, but jet lag could be an issue.

Gifts from the FINCOOP

Presenting Certificate to the President and GM

Thoko and I at the MUSSCO office

Mar 5-6

Friday, March 5th was our meeting with the FINCOOP executive committee and management. We went to the office for a few hours in the morning to finalize our report and print off copies for everyone. Brad and I went to Mama Mia's for lunch that day, and as we were walking over Booby called to say that they had just arrived in Lilongwe, but would check in at the hotel before going for lunch. After lunch we headed back down to the FINCOOP as Thoko was supposed to be coming up to visit with me for awhile and attend the meeting. Thoko was waiting for us at the office, and she looked great, especially since she had been sick for the past 4 days. We had a good chat, and then held our meeting with the Board and Management. They were quite happy with our report and recommendations, and presented us with a couple of Malawi paintings at the end of the session. The President then inivited us out for supper to Don Brioni's, which is right across the street from their office, and where we had eaten the previous night. The food was quite good on Thurs. night, but I had a sirloin steak this time and it was very tough to chew. We had a great time with visiting with Thoko, Anthony, Blessings and the board members. We left the restaurant at about 10 pm and met up with the rest of the team at the hotel for a drink to end the night. Dennis and I were the last to leave and were sitting at the bar on the same corner that Brad and I usually played crib. All of a sudden there was a brown furry thing climbing over the edge of the counter, and it ran right past my arm under the cappiccino machine.....we looked at each other and said in unison "what the f*&%$ was that! Then it ran under our bar stools and headed for the corner. We were shocked, but could not help having a good laugh at our reactions and expressions. The bartender explained that it was a Malawi rat, and that it had probably eaten some of the poison they had out, because they normally don't show themselves when people are around. They can sure move though.....

March 6th we had the day off to do some more shopping at the market and just hang out until our farewell supper that evening with the MUSSCO staff. Attending the supper was our 6 Malawi Team members, Ingrid and Dereck from the CCA, Sylvester, Kingsley and Dickson from the MUSSCO office. We all met at the Lilongwe Golf club, where Brad and I had golfed on Wedndesday. We had a few drinks and appetizers (chicken livers, which most of us thought were little chunks of beef!!!) and I had one last Chambo supper before leaving the country.

It is sad to be leaving this beautiful country, and we will cherish our time spent in Malawi, and the friendships and acquaintances we have made during our 2 visits. The credit union movement in Malawi is growing quickly, and I sincerely hope that they can manage this growth and continue to prosper. Hopefully we have been able to provide them with some helpful suggestions and recommendations for their SACCOs. Even if they only implement 1 or 2 things our time here will have been successful.

Lilongwe Wildlife Park

Bella the Lioness playing around...

Lilongwe wildlife park...the lion's name is Bella. The Verhelst's will get a kick outta that!

At the FINCOOP Branch and the Market

Brad standing at the doorway to the Branch
Mavis, Branch Manager at the Market Branch

Selling Chickens at the Market in downtown Lilongwe

More photos from the tour of Lilongwe...

Banda Memorial in Lilongwe

March 4th

Back to the FINCOOP today to finish our meetings with their management staff and work on our report back to the Executive committee tomorrow. We requested a tour of Lilongwe when we got there in the morning and they were happy to oblige. Blessings, the Finance Manager took us for a driving tour of the city just before lunch. We visited their branch office in a market across town (see pics), and then did a tour of “Capital Hill” where all the government buildings are located. We then went to see the memorial for the 1st President (Banda), who led the country until the age of 96, and passed away at the grand ole age of 99. We then visited a nice Lodge located on the river in the middle of the city, and took a walking tour of the Lilongwe Wildlife Park, which is similar to a Zoo in Canada. We saw crocs, baboons, python, small deer and a lioness. Will try to post a couple of photos. After the tour of the city we took Blessings out for lunch to Summer Park, as it is close to their office. Big mistake! I think we got the same waiter that screwed up our orders and caused a 2 hour lunch as last year. I was going to order pizza, but they said that it would be about 20 mins., so we all ordered the chicken instead to speed things up. Well, I got my order fairly quickly, but Brad’s was about 20 mins later, and blessings waited close to 45 mins for his. We all ordered the same thing! Last chance for SUMMER PARK!

It is 6 pm and raining quite hard here at the moment. Brad and I were going to walk to a restaurant a few blocks away, but may have to change plans.

Setting up for a drive at Lilongwe Golf Club


Jewellery, carvings, etc. purchased at market

Eat your heart out Lynn, Tim & Glenn (curling team)

Today was a public holiday in Malawi called Martyr's day, so we decided to get in a round of golf. above are some pics at the golf club, and some of the souvenirs I have purchased. The golf course is not in great shape for all the rain we have had. The fairways are full of weeds, teebox's are bare and weedy and greens are quite rough and slow. Thomson lake course is much nicer in the summer...but I will take this one any day in March, specially with the temp today being about 28 celcius (eat your heart out - TO MY curling team). It was actually drizzling quite a bit while we were playing, otherwise it would have been too hot and humid. We finished just before a good shower hit the course. It is raining quite hard here after supper. Much more rain than we experienced last year. but it is the "rainy season" in Malawi.

GM's vehicle and reserved parking....hmmmm!

March 2nd

This is day 2 of working with the FINCOOP. We met with Andrew (Internal Auditor) and Moses (IT) to go over some of their duties and areas of operations, and fielded questions they had about how things are done in Canadian CU’s. We went for lunch at the Summer Park restaurant which is close to the FINCOOP. This is the place that we went to last year on the 1st day for lunch and it took over 2 hours to get our meals. Against our better judgement we decided to try them out again, and this time the experience was much better. In the afternoon we were supposed to meet with the Branch Manager, but he got called out to another branch on some type of emergency. Brad started on our report to the Board, and I, well, lets just say I didn’t get much done this afternoon. Wyatt is supposed to be arriving in Lilongwe at 2 pm, and we are getting together for supper tonight. We knocked off at about 3:30 and headed back to the hotel. We decided to avoid the gauntlet of people selling peanuts, newspapers, clothes, shoes, etc., along with a number of beggars, and took an alternate route back to the hotel. Wyatt had left a message that he had arrived at his hotel, and I went about trying to call him. After several attempts I finally got through to his cell phone, and he caught a cab over to our hotel. We visited for a bit then headed out for supper to a Thai food place called “The Hut”, which is only short walk away. After supper we went back to the Sunbird and visited for awhile and then Wyatt had to leave as he was heading out to the mine at Karonga (7 hr drive) in the Northern region, where Brad and I had worked last year. The vehicle pictured above is the GM's and the writing on the wall is "Reserved for GM". Hmmmm food for thought...

Working With FINCOOP

Sunbird Hotel....home for the next week!

With the Guard and one of the Staff members Davison & I at the Makuzi Beach Lodge bar

March 1st

Started working with the FINCOOP today. It is $770 million Kwacha in Assets ($5.2 million US), which is very small by our standards, but it is the largest SACCO in the country. They have 4 branches and employee 33 people (one being Thoko as noted earlier). They have only been in existence for a little over 5 years, so they have had pretty phenomenal growth in members over that period. A lot of that is due to their open bond, and the fact that they offer Mobile banking (different from our Mobile banking via cell phone). They actually drive out to the rural districts and set up a temporary office in church, school, etc. to provide banking services to the Malawi people in remote areas. They have what looks like a small camperette on the back of a small truck that is welded into the box and then they have a safe inside of that for the cash. Each day they are at a location they have an arrangement with the Malawi police (at a cost) for them to provide security.

Went for supper today at a Chinese restaurant close to the hotel. We decided to order 4 dishes to share, and I warned Brad not to order any pork dishes because we had eaten there last year and the spareribs were horrible (all fatty and very little meat). I selected my 2, and Brad said “We gotta try the Spareribs”, to which I said “you”ll be sorry”. The waiter started bringing the food, and we started eating, but we were still waiting for the ribs. I said, “It takes a long time to cook all that fatty grisle”. Sure enough, when they came the ribs were about as bad as last year, if not worse. My only comment was “they are all your’es” enjoy!

After supper we stopped off at the little pub attached to the hotel to have a green, and play a game of crib. We started the game and we noticed a fellow come in behind us. He was giving the waiter a hard time about not having any small glasses, and was being quite a jerk about it, but we just ignored him and kept playing. After one game, Brad was feeling quite tired, so he headed back to the room. I stuck around to finish my cigar, and the fellow at the other end of the bar asked what game we had been playing. I explained what crib was, as he had never heard of it. Skaulke (best guess about the spelling) is his name, and it turns out that he is a South African from Pretoria in the country to fix satellite dishes, and he is a helluva nice guy. He bought another green for each of us and he told me some amazing stories about some of the trips he has made to different countries in Africa with his work. He has witnessed cannabalism firsthand, has been chased out countries by police with AK47’s, had one guard put one to his head because they thought he was American, etc. I bought him and I another green and we talked for about 3 hours, and after several greens I had no problem sleeping this night.

For those of you following my blog, please post any comments and our news that you may have from Canada!

Feb 28th

Today we are “on the road again” as Willie would sing. We headed out for Lilongwe about 10:00 am, and the first part of the trip has some amazing scenery. It almost looks like Northern Sask, with all the tall pine trees in the forest South of Mzuzu. We actually pass through a game reserve while on the highway, and there is a possibility of seeing lions and elephants, although quite remote. We did not have the luck to see any wild animals except for a few deer. We arrived in Lilongwe about 1:30 or so, and took Davison to our favourite Italian restaurant -Mama Mia’s for pizza. It was another good meal, and then we headed back to the hotel to say goodbye to Davison. He was a great host, and we really enjoyed our stay in the Dwangwa area. After he left we decided to go for a walk to the golf course, which is about 10 minutes away by foot pony. We got about half way and it started raining, so we stopped under an awning to wait for it to pass. That was about 4 pm, and it is now 10 pm and still raining. It did let up a bit in order for us to get back to the hotel, so we figured we would give SKYPE (phoning via computer to Canada), which worked good, but only for short periods of time. Hope you had fun at the Poker Derby dear! Due to the rain we decided to stay at the hotel for a late supper, and then it was back to the room to review our material, as we start at the FINCOOP tomorrow morning. This is the SACCO that Thoko works for, although her branch is in Blantyre about 4 hours South of Lilongwe. I talked to her on the phone while at Dwangwa, and she is hoping to make it up to Lilongwe for one day while we are here.

Hope you had fun at the Poker Derby today Dear!

Feb 27th

BIG STORM LAST NIGHT! The wind started picking up about 3:30 AM and the rain and wind were really wild for about an hour. It was raining in my hut, or so I thought at first. I could feel this really fine mist coming down on me, but I could not tell where it was coming from, as I could not see that it would be coming through the thatch roof, and at the front there was a large porch, which covered most of the front of the hut. I finally realized that the wind was blowing so hard off the lake, and right at the front of my hut, that it was pushing the rain through a small screen (vent) at the top peak of the hut. It was kinda refreshing with the mist falling, but I moved my suitcase into the bathroom area to keep from getting everything wet. Well today, is a travel/sightseeing day. Brad and I have decided that the trip to Salema will be too long, so we are going to stop in Mzuzu, and visit Dennis & Nicky, and maybe have a look around the market. Davison was too pick us up at 8 am, and we were ready, but he did not arrive until after 10 am. (OK, that is getting a little ridiculous), but he had a good excuse. He had driven out towards Salema to check the roads….what a great guy! He said there were a couple of bad spots where we might have to get pulled through, and I had visions of pushing in the mud, so Brad and I stuck with the plan to go to Mzuzu. We headed out just after 10 am and I asked if we could stop at the Makuzi Beach Lodge, because I had met the owners on the flight back to Jo’burg last year. Davison, said and I quote “No problem, it is only a short distance off the road”, however that short distance (about a half mile) was a very narrow trail and quite rough. It totally amazes me that they have these great lodges next to the lake, but none of them have good access roads, in fact you would not want to take a car down any of them. Vans will get there, but a 4 wheel drive would be best.

The Lodge is very nice, and we had refreshments in the bar while waiting for the owners to come over from their house. Brett, the owner arrived after a few minutes and we had a good visit. Lara was actually the one that I sat beside on the plane, but unfortunately she was still resting from a big trip she had just returned from. Back on the road after about a half hour, and then we made another stop at the little market set up where we had to turn to go to Mzuzu. This is where Brad and I got some great souvenirs last year, at the best prices around. I purchased 2 hand carved wooden bowls, a fisherman in his canoe, some wooden salad forks, and a small globe this time around. They did not have any of the Jewellery that Penny liked so will have to wait until we get to Lilongwe. We arrived in Lilongwe around 3:00 pm, and we had late lunch at the hotel. Brad and I then decided to go for a walk to the market, which is about a half mile away, as we knew the way from last year. Good thing we took umbrellas, as it rained shortly after we left and did quit until after we returned. It was a very light rain though. We did not make any purchases, as this market is mostly, food, clothes, hardware, etc. for the locals. We returned to the hotel around 5 pm, and Dennis phones my room to tell us to come for a “Green”. We met them in the bar, got caught up on what they had been doing, and then headed to the restaurant in the hotel for supper. After supper Dennis showed us a video of some kids singing out at the school they visited, they were amazing. I have asked him for a copy of the video clip. Tomorrow we head to Lilongwe, and Wyatt will be arriving from Australia on Tuesday for a short visit.

DWASCO SACCO cont'd

Feb 26th

Awoke on Friday morning after a good night’s sleep….the bed’s here at Ngala are great. They are King size and have really good mattresses and thick comforters. You might think that why would you need a comforter when it is so hot? There is a large fan over the bed to get the air moving and it blows through a huge mosquito net that covers the bed, and I like to leave that running all night. In the middle of the night if you are not under the comforter it does get quite cool (I said cool…not cold!!!). Will try to post some photos again when we get back to Lilongwe. After breakfast we were ready to head out by 8:30, but Davison did not make it to pick us up until after 9 (not a problem). We spent most of the morning preparing our report for the Board meeting at 5:30 today. We will meet the Board, exchange some gifts, give our report back, and have some refreshments and snacks. We invited Davison to join us at the Ksasa club for lunch, and I had the Chambo fillets again (can’t get enough of that fish – go figure!). We headed back to the SACCO for a few hours, and then Davison drove us back to the lodge to get ready for the meeting. Brad went for a short Kayak ride on the lake, but I just relaxed around the lodge. I heard too many stories about the crocodiles to feel comfortable out on a small Kayak in Lake Malawi.

Davison was to pick us up at 5:15 pm, but did not arrive until about 7:00 (not a problem!), as he had taken his Toyota Van in for repairs and it was not ready, so he then had to borrow a director’s car to pick us up (it has A/C whohoo!). The board meeting went very well, they were very appreciative of the gifts that we brought. I had some Canada key tags, and some small flashlights to give them and Brad had a few hats and some Wainwright pins. The Board presented us with a nice hand drawn sketch of the Building in a glass frame and a golf shirt with the SACCO name. We then had some snacks, which were chicken wings, meatballs, pigs in blanket, and some other snacks that were prepared by the Ksasa club. Everything was very good, but due to the meeting be late the food was not even warm anymore, which was a shame cause that kind of food is best served hot. They even had some beer, wine or brandy for refreshments. We got back to the Lodge at about 10:00 that night, and hopefully will get a good nights sleep for the big trip to Salema tomorrow.

Feb 24th

Woke up this morning and after getting ready for the day, packed up my suitcase to get ready for the big move to the Ksasa club. Davison had talked to the manager yesterday, and was able to book us in there for Thursday and Friday nights accommodation. As Brad and I are having breakfast, the cell phone rings, and it is the manager from the Kasasa club informing us that he can only get us in for Thursday (which is what the desk clerk and told Brad and I when we asked about it at Noon yesterday), but not on Friday. We said to forget it, as we will stay where we are, although it is not real convenient for Davison to pick us up and drop us off each day. It is quite a bit further than the Ksasa club where we have been going for lunch each day. We are quite happy where we are, the view is great, the meals are excellent, and staff at the Ngala lodge treat us really well. The benefits at Ksasa are 1) a lot closer to the SACCO office, 2) Air conditioning, and 3) Television in the rooms. On the 3rd point, we do have a big screen TV here, but when I asked at the bar about going to the TV room, the bartender looked at me as if I was crazy, and the owners were away for the night…$%&(&^*%. Excuse the language, but I wanted to catch some of the Olympics. I did read via TSN sports on the Internet that Canada Men’s curling team won all their round robin games, and that the Women were 8-1. Today we mainly spent going over some operations with Davison, and working on the report back to the Board tomorrow at 5 PM. We will be giving the report at the SACCO and then going to the Ksasa club for supper. In the afternoon we got a tour of the Ethanol Plant by Felix Mulenga, Quality Controller (and some of his staff) for the Ethanol Company Ltd, which is only a short distance from the SACCO. We were told how the process works from start to finish and got some great pictures from the top platform where the distilling process takes place. Sorry about not being able to post any pictures as yet, but maybe I will have better luck when we get to Lilongwe.

Forgot to mention that there was storm near Dwangwa last night that poured down on the area (but missed us at the Lodge), and it made it too muddy to take a tour of the sugar cane factory. The storm has washed out the Highway South to Salema (A resort and trading centre on the Lake), where we are heading on Saturday for one night and then back to Lilongwe for the duration of our stay. The road being out, means we will have to go around by Lilongwe which is 6 hrs instead of 3...bedtime!

Working with Dwasco

Feb 23rd:
Have not been able to keep up the blog for the past couple of days due to the poor Internet connection. I am having to write this up in Word and then wait for a connection to publish it to the Blog. My update of the events for the last couple of days will start with an apology to Penny for waking you up at midnight yesterday to try out my Skype connection…..Sorry Dear! About all I heard was that you could hear me, and then the rest was very intermittent and I could not catch a whole sentence. Anyway, we started the morning of the 23rd with a great omelette at the Ngala Lodge, then Davison came to pick us up at about 8:45. We were introduced to most of the staff members, then met with Davison in the Boardroom to discuss some of the areas of operations that we will be helping them with. I won’t get into any detail on that, as the operational stuff is not that exciting to hear about. We went for lunch at the Ksasa club, then Davison took us for a walking tour of the Dwangwa estate, where all the sugar cane factory employees live. It is actually several small villages, with a small trading centre, every church know to mankind, and very busy! We visited the building where the SACCO first started, and met three of his Board members, that now work in the building, as it is now the Human Resources centre for the factory. Davison then took us to a tailor to get measured up for a couple of handmade Malawian shirts we (and Paul) had requested, and then we headed back to the SACCO. Brad and I have been taking turns driving Davison’s Toyota van to and from the Ksasa club, which is about 5-6 Km away, but you can only go about 60-70 Km max. as the roads are very washboardy from all the rains. They are not great at the best of times, but this week they are especially bad. Sitting on the right side of the vehicle and driving on the left side of the road takes quite a bit of getting used to……..not only that, but you are dodging pedestrians and bicycles on both sides of the road constantly. It is not bad on the road we are using, but when you get on the paved road to where we are staying it is a real challenge. Davison let me drive to the trading centre today (24th) and I was not comfortable going over the speed limit of 80 Km, but Davison does it at 110-120. I have visions of a kid running out into the road, and I would have a hard time living with the hitting a child or anyone else for that matter, so being very careful. Back to the days events.....we finished at the SACCO around 4 :30 PM and headed back to the lodge. For supper this evening I had a steak, which although quite small by our standards, would rival any North american steak. Sandy said that it was sirloin and it tasted like as good or better than any other I have ever had....plus it was cooked just the way I like it.
During supper we started chatting with a Maria, a visitor from Ecuador, and she told us about some of the work she is doing while in Africa. It is just amazing who you meet up with in our travels. Oh yeah, we also met a South African gent that is working with some marketing co-op, and he is the most annoying person ever.....all he does is bitch and complain about what is happening in Malawi, and runs down just about everyone. Needless to say we try to avoid sitting close to the guy, but the dining room is quite small and he has a loud voice. Anyway, great meal and we visited in the lounge for awhile and then called it a night.

Feb 22nd:

Finally caught up on some sleep last night and ready for the task of working with the SACCO’s in Malawi again this year. After breakfast we had a short meeting at the MUSSCO office just down the street from the hotel, then Brad, Dennis, Kati, Dixon, and I headed out on the road to Dwanga. The trip to Dwangwa took about 3 hours of traveling on a narrow highway with lots of Malawia people walking, biking, etc. on both sides of the road. Dixon, our driver did an excellent job of weaving his way through the pedestrians and the on coming traffic. We met with Davison, the GM of the Dwasco Employee's SACCO and met some of the support staff, then headed over to the Kasasa club for some much needed food. We were all starving as we had not had anything to eat since breakfast in Lilongwe, and it was now after 3:00 PM. I had the local fish (Chambo) and it was fantastic. They served breaded fillets rather than frying up the whole fish with head and all like I experienced last year. After lunch, Brad and I said goodbye to Kati, Dennis and Dixon as they were heading over to Mzuzu for the night. Davison then drove us over to the Ngala Beach resort where we will be staying for the next few days. He introduced us to Sandy and Chris, the owners of the resort, and they are a very friendly couple that like to visit and find out all about their visitors to the resort. We have a beautiful view of Lake Malawi just outside the door of our Hut, and the scenery here is like what you might see at a tropical resort. We checked into our rooms, and they were quite hot and humid, so we headed to the bar for a couple of beers and sat around and chatted with the ownersand some of the patrons for a few hours. The humidity is going to take a little getting used to, as they have had lots of rain here, and even without sun, the humidity is 100%. Oh, we have monkeys! They are seen scampering about in front of the bar area which overlooks the lake…..they are cute, but according to the owners can be quite the pests. We have no internet here so will be doing some blogging on word and can hopefully put it on the site tomorrow at the SACCO.

Touring & Long Flight

Saturday (Feb 20) morning we headed out again on the Big Bus to see a few more sights of London before heading to the airport right after lunch. We Boarded the flight to Jo'burg at around 6 PM London time and then spent the night in the plane, finally arriving in Lilongwe at about Noon today. On the landing approach at Lilongwe we got a bit of a scare as the plane was just getting ready to land, and all of a sudden we were headed back into the air. The pilot informed us that due to a strong tail wind we were coming in to fast, so he had to circle around and do it again. We landed safely. We were all severely jet lagged when we arrived as none of us slept very well on the plane...so we did not do much today. We arrived at the Sunbird Hotel, and made a quick change into shorts and sandals, and then headed to the lounge for a drink, then off to bed for a short nap before supper. We went to Mama Mia's Italian restaurant, and most of us had their pizza, which is quite good (for Malawi), but not near as thick as a Canadian pizza. The whole bill for supper was $77 US, with drinks for 6 people. So it is very cheap to eat here compared to London or back home. Actually London is quite expensive for both hotel rooms and food, but we were only in the Tourist area.

Heading down to the MUSCCO (Malawi's Credit Union Central) in the morning for a short meeting and then we will be travelling by truck to Dwanga, where Brad and I will be working with the CU staff over the next 4 days. Hitting the hay......can hardly keep my eyes open.

We made it to London for a short sight seeing tour of the city for the next couple of days.

Day 1: Arrived in London at Noon on Feb 18th (Thurs) and after an adventure of riding the Express train, the underground train (tube), and finally a taxi, we finally made it to our hotel (Holiday Inn). Brad and I then waited for Bobby C. to arrive. His plane was late, so we had a nap to recoup from the jet lag. After Bobby arrived we went for a walk around the area to check out the shops and to locate a good place to eat. Stopped at a small Pub (naturally) to grab a bite, and had our first taste of the English ale. The one I ordered was horrible (real bitter) and not cold at all....next time will be better. We headed out to do some more sight seeing a got some pics of Buckingham palace, and other historical landmarks. The city is so very old, with tons of history, it is hard to decide what to see during our short 2 day visit. It was raining off and on as we walked around, so it was not really a great day for photos. We did manage to check out another pub (naturally) and beer was better, but still looking for one that I like.

During our self guided walking tour we spotted a little Italian restaurant just up the street from our hotel, that we later went for supper. The food there was fantastic! I had a seafood fetuccini dish that really made the day! The other boys had pizza which they said was very good also.

Day 2: Went for breakfast across the street, as the hotel rest. had a lineup, and they headed to the bus station to get some tickets for the bus tour, river cruise and the London eye.

The Big Bus (as they call it) has an upper deck to get some great pics, but as the weather was quite chilly, we were glad to get off and go for our tickets to the Eye. The eye ride was great, and it was clear enough that we got a great view of the city, the river and central London. We then hopped on the River cruise for a quiet ride down the River Thames. It was another great way to get around with out wearing out our feet. We then hopped back on the bus for some more sightseeing with lots of commentary from the tour guide up top. Next stop was to check out Picadilly Circus to see if there were any entertainment on the street, check out the shops, etc. Due to the weather, we did not get to see much for entertainers, except for a short juggling act that was quite lame. Later in the afternoon we stopped for an ale at a small pub, and finally got a brew that I liked. It was a "blonde" beer as the waitress called it, and it was quite similar to our lite beer back home......and it was cold!

The bridge shown below had us all fooled as we thought it was the famous London bridge but is acutally the Tower Bridge (no really). It could be the huge towers that give it the name....just a guess (LOL).

Well better sign off for now...the internet was not working here yesterday, and it costs over $20 per day to be on, so will let Brad and Bobby update their blogs using my connection.....always looking to save a dime us bankers!

Team Malawi in Toronto

2009 was the 1st year of a 2 year committment to provide coaching to CU manager's in Malawi around such things as policies, procedures, best practices, etc. This picture is from Feb 2009 when we all met in Toronto to prepare for our work in Malawi. We were organized in teams of 2, with Brad Hopfauf and myself travelling up to the extreme Northern part of Malawi at Karonga, and to Mzuzu, which is more in the Central part of Malawi. That's me on the far right (As you couldn't tell!)

Malawi Coaching Program

This blog is to document the work that we will be doing with the Canadian Co-operative Association (CCA) to consult with Credit Union (SACCO) managers in Malawi. This is the 2nd year of a 2 year assignment, and I am part of a team of 6 Credit Union manager's from across Canada that leave for Africa on Feb 17, 2010.