Spent my last full day with the gang today. I told the TDA leaders last night that I was leaving, but that I'd love it if they could carry my stuff to Lilongwe for me. I'd meet up with them there to get my stuff. I am hoping to leave everything that I can't carry with me on the bike, at my friend Nimia's house, in Lilongwe. So, today, I was telling people that I'm leaving. A bit sad, but also exciting, like anything new and different.
Outside the gates of our beachside camp, there were lots of very very good wood carving artists, selling their goods. Very, very good. I kept telling them, "You guys are amazing. This stuff is great. You are real amazing artists. This is amazing." Most of us were buying woodworks. I ended up buying two very nice chief chairs with pictures depicting traditional life in Malawi, and a beautiful round table with a giraffe motif. I paid 9,000 kwacha for this, which is about $65. But when George heard that I'd paid the equivalent of $65, he got annoyed because he'd paid $70 for one chief chair and one table. (Though he shouldn't have been annoyed - he made more than that extra $5 off me, playing poker - haha.) So, I spent most of the afternoon, hanging out with these wood carvers, playing Bao, and talking with my tour d'afrique friends, when they came out to buy stuff.
Poor Tommy, shown in this photo, is a student. (Or so he said.) He didn't make many wood carvings, but he kept trying to sell me his key chains. All day long, he tried. In the end, in the afternoon, I ordered 4 key chains, with the names "Irene", "Solomon", "Deo", and "Salongo" on them. Told Tommy if he did a nice job with them, I'd buy them. So, he rushed off to make them, came back in a few hours, and they were nice. So, I bought them.
In the end, I had WAY too much stuff for my luggage allowance on the truck! Despite the fact that I was removing more than usual in order to go off on my own! Thor did one last act of goodness by allowing me to store my 2 chief chairs in his sleeping spot on the truck for the next 4 days - until Lilongwe!
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