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Last night was the best one yet, the rain kept the temperature down and the power stayed on all night! We awoke to a breakfast of eggs, sausage, bread and chips before hitting the road. We fueled up the bus on the way to the chigmurkure center and watched a vendor selling 3 chickens he was carrying upside down.
Fears were faced and OSHA violations were broken as Derek and myself spent a large portion of our day at the centre on top of a 20’ shaky tower. There were four massive water tanks atop this tower and we were tasked with plumbing isolation valves on each tank which were too heavy to move and we resorted to siphoning the water out with garden hoses.
At lunch, we sang Amazing Grace and Jesus Lives me for the elderly that gathers on Wednesdays and they sang Amazing Grace back to us in Chichewa! We ended with dancing as the elderly all showed us up with there moves!
The last portion of our day was spent plumbing in an above ground valve set for the garden. Beginning at 1, we had to be out of there by 2 and with our efficiency and expertise we left at 2:45. As we left the centre, a bunch of us got notes from the kids, mine was from Ajela requesting my friendship and chocolate!
We then headed to a crocodile farm at Koombe Estate and Thangadzi River Conservancy and in the way, saw a handful of Pivots they used to irrigate, I guess they had 12 pivots in total. We picked up our tour guide and headed to the Crocodile Farm.
Typically they wouldn’t let the crocodiles get very big, and would sell the Crocodiles skin and meat from the tails. We were told the market isn’t there anymore so they only feed them every two months so they don’t lay eggs. This meant the crocodiles were free to grow without being harvested. We must’ve seen a hundred massive Crocodiles who were still scared of Caleb’s drone. On our way out, we visited a massive tree that must’ve been a thousand years old and sounded hollow on the inside.
Back at the compound, we enjoyed supper and listened to Southern Irrigations monthly staff address, and only slightly distracted by a frog. As the rain began to poor, we played competitive games of Uno and Egyptian Slap. The night ended with a few of us doing laundry by stomping on it in a bucket, and it took many rinse cycles to clean those clothes! That’s it from me, see y’all next week!
