More pics

 Our work today was productive. AGE Africa is adding an additional 700ish form one scholars this coming fall. (Freshmen in high school) That combined with the current 200+ returning scholars translates into a tremendous growth spike. This leads to needing additional staff here on the ground. We must visit the home and talk with the tribal leaders of every single girl who receives a scholarship. This is one of the things that differentiates AGE Africa from other organizations: we are absolutely sure that the family of every girl is indeed in such a financial position that they cannot afford to send the child to secondary school. We make sure that the girl wants to put in the necessary work to attend and be successful at school. And we make sure that the support structure around her is in place for her to experience success. All this to say, that this trip is about getting ready for the girls! 

In between the work though, we did a few things:

Went to a grocery store. Everything in Malawi is in English. So, there is no need to try to figure out what foods are familiar, it makes shopping pretty easy. They do use a British nomenclature though so cookies are biscuits, fries are chips, chips are crisps. Etc.

People sell all sorts of things on the side of the road, here they are selling individual rolls of toilet paper and mops

This is the primary market in Blantyre. Hundreds of stalls selling everything you can imagine. We did not get out to shop, this is a shot from the car window.

Toward the end of the day we went to a craftman’s shop called people of the sun. It’s filled with handwoven baskets, chairs, decor and crafts. And, yes, things are very inexpensive. The small children’s chairs in the lower left of this first picture are about $20 each.