Dry days, cold nights and giant avocadoes

We arrived back on Sunday to find the wet season has finished. Already the corn fields are drying to a crisp, broken, brown. The skies were cloudy when we arrived but it doesn't look as if it has rained for a while.

Our avocado tree still has some fruit very high up but Andrew has made an implement... a hook on the end of an enormously long bamboo pole, which he and Limited use to knock down the fruit. They are at this point about the size of a small football and I am talking Australian Rules here, so about two-thirds the size of that ball.... enormous. I have frozen some of the pulp because one alone would last the two of us a week.

It is a brief return visit because we are travelling again from next week but not for as long this time. Andrew and Limited seemed sincerely pleased to see us back, or me back ... I guess there is more home-cooked food ... but I also think life is a bit too quiet when we are both away.

Limited seems to keep himself busy when we are away with very tidy cupboards and drawers and a garden made out of juice cartons and cardboard boxes out in the courtyard where we have the generator. He could see that my plan to grow herbs in pots on the verandah was not working and really, I should have had enough sense to see that it was too shady, and so he found some old boxes, cut them to make containers, filled them with soil and moved my plants.

The basil is looking very good although something is chewing the leaves and the dill, parsley, coriander and mint are well under way. When I come back I will get some big plastic tubs from Game and we will expand the courtyard garden. Game is such a godsend. It's the South African version of K-Mart in Australia and we can get things about which we only dreamed before... like potting tubs, batteries, mineral turps for my neglected paining and all the housey, outdoorsey, gardeney things one needs.

The only downside to my sunny courtyard is that every time the generator goes on the place is engulfed in diesel fumes but this is Africa and one adapts.... it still has to be better than what we can sometimes buy.

Our Danish neighbours are leaving and we are all so sorry about it. It won't be the same without Birgitte and Henning and while I have been so much on the move I have not seen much of them, it has been great to have them around. But such is the expat life - people are forever coming and going or out on leave or travelling for work and getting people together for any sort of social life is hard.

And our little community at 43/24 is going to be even quieter because their house has been taken by someone who lives in the UK and plans to visit for business. The saddest part of it all is that Chifundo, who worked for Birgitte and Henning is not going to be kept on. This means she will have to leave her house because that goes with the job.  It is a reminder of how vulnerable people here are and how important it is for them to have a home somewhere.

There isn't much to a traditional Malawi house but of course, for the locals, the cost is huge. The biggest part of it is the timber and the concrete foundation which probably come in at around K50,000 ($A300) but where wages are on average K5,000 a month, and where the well paid get, K20,000 -K25,000 a month, that is a huge amount.

Because the money does not just support a nuclear family unit, but many more, there is no chance to save. Limited's father is dead and so is one brother and one sister and his mother cares for the grand-children so he helps to support her. He also has one brother who is HIV positive and very sick and because he is the only one earning, he helps to support him and three or four other siblings and their children.

The Huxhams who were here before us have helped Andrew build a house in his village and we must do the same for Limited.We will do all we can to ensure that they are helped as much as possible before we leave. But it is not as simple as just handing out money because that creates expectations. We shall have to look at how to do it. The Huxhams gave a loan which was paid back and perhaps we will do the same.

There is so much need here that if you give to one word soon gets around and you have to be prepared to give to all. A loan is much more work but perhaps a better solution for all concerned. It is not that we would mind handing over the money because it is, for us, so little, but more a matter of sometimes too much helping hurts in other ways. I know that can sound a bit silly but 'aid' of  any kind can be both patronising and disempowering. There's a fine line to walk in when to help and how much to help. However, making sure Limited as a home before we leave is a goal.

Fred seems to have recovered from his 'lost job' trauma and I can only hope, for his sake, that he learned his lesson. The garden seems to have spread itself since I left but I have been away seven weeks and it was the rainy season so it is hardly surprising.

The weather now is mild and coolish. It is cold enough at night to light a fire, wear a jumper or sleep under a blanket but I am still wearing light, sleeveless tops during the day. The other good thing is that because it is cooler there are less mosquitoes.... the reason why we slept with the air conditioner on in the first place. It is wonderful to sleep in a silent room.

And the work on the electrics seems to have been successful so that is one major job ticked off at last. Power cuts were less frequent I thought, with none between Sunday and Tuesday night but today seems to be catchup and we have had surges and cuts all morning... this must be the sixth time in five hours the generator has gone on. Still, at least I am not running up and down stairs anymore to flick circuit breakers back on.