March 23 - Dinner at Rona's place

Today, Jessica, Jason and I went to the tennis court. I was not playing of course because with my astigmatism and glasses I am not talent for any sports involving the ball, particularly fast moving small ball. Jessica, Jason and later Rona and Nick played well and a young Malawian guy was in charge to make them sweat. At he court I met Rona from the Philippines, Joe form Cleveland, Ohio, Anne from Quebec City and Nick from Montreal.Rona has been working at OSC in Mzuzu for one year and she plans to stay here.  Joe has been in Malawi for three years and he has a start-up company providing security devices. Anne and Nick were in Mozambique for one year; Anne was teaching and Nick was dealing with the irrigation. Now when their contracts is over they will travel around Africa for another year.
Rona was kind enough to invite all of us to her place for a dinner. everyone brough some food or drinks. We had a nice dinner with a lot of various and delicious food. I supposed to make gin and tonic for anyone who wanted it. You will find out soon why I say "supposed".
James and Jessica showed me a new supermarket Chipicu Plus, which had much better selection of everything and better prices too. I was so excited when I saw a well stocked fridge full of Schweppes for almost quarter of the price that I paid a few days ago for one can at the previous store Cash and Carry. All bottles had only Schweppes logo on it. I happily grabbed 10 200 ml bottles.
After the dinner I made nice and strong drinks and you know what, the drink was not bitter at all. Newbie to the country did not know that the name of the drink is on the top of the bottle so I took soda water and slightly yellowish ginger ale. For ginger ale I thought that the bottle was little bit older or that the slight colour was reflection from he other bottles in the fridge.
I learned from that experience. Also, when I bought four green lemons two of them were green oranges, which of course I took with myself for making a drink. The other two pieces of citrus fruit, that I left at home, were really green lemons. 
Anyway, after the dinner we split in two teams and we played pantomime by guessing 10 words that the other team put down. It was fun, especially when we could not explain the word in 2 minutes time. 
And one more thing. i saw the first cat in Malawi. Rona has four pets: two dogs and two cats.
The cat that I saw was 9 months old.

Danas smo Jessica, Jason i ja otisli na teniski teren. Ne, ja nisam igrao tenis jer sa mojim astigmatizmom i naocalama ja sam potpuno netalentiran za sve sportove s loptom, narocito brzim i malim lopticama. Jessica, Jason a kasnije Rona i Nick su igrali sa mladim momkom iz Malawija koji ih je svih troje dobro oznojio. Kad smo dosli na teren upoznali smo: Ronu sa Filipina, Joea iz Cleveland, SAD, Anne iz Quebec Cityja i Nicka iz Montreala. Rona je u Malawiju vec godinu dana, radi za organizaciju OSC i planira ostati u Malawiju. Joe je osnovao kompaniju koja prodaje i postavlja uredjaje za sigurnost. Anne i Nick su bili u Mozambiku godinu dana gdje je Anna poducavala a Nick se bavio navodnjavanjem. Njihovi ugovori su zavrsili te ce sada putovati po Africi slijedecih godinu dana.
Rona je bila ljubazna da nas sve pozove kod sebe na veceru. Svatko je donio nesto hrane ili pica (kao u studentskim danima). Imali smo finu vecericu sa dosta razlicite i ukusne hrane. Ja sam trebao biti zaduzen za gin i tonic. Vidjeti (citati) cete zasto kazem "trebao".
James i Jessica su mi pokazali novi ducan Chipicu Plus, koji je imao puno bolji izbor svega, a i bolje cijene. Tako mi je bilo drago sto sam napokon nasao frizider pun Schweppesa za skoro cetvrtinu cijenu sto sam platio za jednu konzervu prije par dana. Sve boce cu imale samo Schweppes znak na njima. Sretno sam ubacio 10 boca od 200 ml  sa police u kosaricu.
Poslije vecere napravio sam par finih i jakih "gin-tonika" i znate sto,  pice uopce nije bilo gorko kao sto je trebalo biti. Novopridoslica u zemlju nije znao da je ime pica otisnuto na vrhu boce te sam uzeo soda vodu i lagano zuckasti ginger ale. Za ginger ale sam mislio da su dvije boce bile malo starije ili da je to bila refleksija od drugih boca u frizideru.
Gibonni bi rekao: "Ovo mi je skola, drugi put cu pametnije". Osim tonika sam kupio sam i "cetiri" zelena limuna. Poslije se ispostavilo da su dvije bile zelene narance, koje sam ja naravno uzeo sa sobom da napravim pice. Bar je sve voce spadalo u agrume.
U svakom slucaju poslije vecere smo igrali pantomimu. Podijeli smo se u dva tima i pogadjali smo 10 rijeci sto je drugi tim napisao na papiricima paira. Bilo je zabavno, narocito kada ne bismo uspjeli objasniti rijec u dviije minute.
E, jos nesto vidio sam prvu macku u Malawiju. Rona za kucne ljubimce ima dvije macke i dva psa. Macka je bla stara devet mjeseci.

Joe, Rona, Anne, James, Jessica and Nick (I was taking a photo)

First cat in Malawi - Rona's pet

Lap cat enjoys spending time with Anne from Quebec City