Madonna comes to town!!

It's all over town and in any major newspaper... But , "the Material Girl" has hit Malawi and is staying in town. She is here on a humanitarian visit and if you didn't already know, she has adopted one or two children from Malawi.. Apparently she was stripped of her VIP status by the old president, but her status has been reinstated by the new president, who if you did not know, was a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

She has visited two hospitals and an orphanage.. She visited Michelle's hospital on Thursday, but Michelle was at lunch! Bummer. The other bad news was that Madonna committed to help build a pediatric ICU clinic or something but at the other hospital in Blantyre.. not here.. Of course we will  not see this come to fruition but it is needed badly here.

madonna showing malawians some moves  To my left is the newspaper article about her trip here... if you're interested in those sort of things..

The rest of us here in town enjoyed the sweltering heat and headed to the pool. Yesterday we went to our club and watched soccer and english rugby while the kids swam and hung out with friends.. We skipped the Ball last night as the kids really didn't want us to leave.. We took it as a sign that a family night was in order so we called it a family night, played cards, had a sing along and watched a movie.. Needless to say, it was needed and was a good time.. There's not much to do here and the kids are forced to have alot of time together.. I think with Michelle's schedule at work and us a large group of peers here for Thanksgiving, etc.. we needed to take a night off.

Time crawls during the weekend here and we've had a nice one so far.. We also went out to lunch with the kids here to a great little restaurant called "Lark" and enjoyed a hip little place that offered wonderful food.. I had a smoked salmon and cream cheese on rye sandwich.... The town is empty on sundays as everyone treats it as a day of rest. Grocery stores are only open from 10 am - 1 pm.. We hit the shops up early, grabbed what was left of fruit and vegetables .. I caused a long delay at the check out counter using my Visa card.. It didn't work the first two times , but the third is the charm!!. It takes forever because the have to put everything in manually which can take a very long time.  Photo below is of a woman carrying her child.. she was in front of us in line at the grocery store.. All women carry their children like this using a cloth wrapped around their waste.. Most of the time, they'll have something on top of their head as well... or on the back of a bicycle..

Nothing else to report.. kids are with Michelle right now.. she is taking a tennis lesson and the kids are swimming..  Happy sunday at home.. miss everyone.

waiting in line..