Wedding Reception at Safara House

The evening of the wedding, we had the reception at Safara House in Lilongwe. It was an idyllic night. 

In lieu of gifts, we asked everyone to bring a pie for dessert. The variety and quality were incredible. Apple, pecan, berry to chocolate chili to banoffee.  People actually held back at the buffet to save room. I've never seen that before.

The food at Safara House was exceptional. They roasted lamb and chicken on a spit for us and then added 8 vegtable choices. No one left hungry.

We're from Minnesota ya know. 

Family wedding photos

Many of the 80 guests

As a joke, Meredith's boss went to the district council and protested our wedding by demanding lobola on behalf of her father (a Malawian dowry). He wanted two chickens in order for the wedding to proceed.  Malcolm had to withdraw it because they started to take him seriously and lodge a formal complaint. He passed the note to us, thinking nothing of it. However, at the wedding, we decided that those two chickens must be paid. We wanted nothing to stand in the way of this marriage.

Showing the video from the DC wedding earlier in the day. Yes, it was all filmed.

Desi, Abbie and Sam brought the chickens for us. They even put a bow tie and necklace on them to dress them up. A big thanks to them for doing so. Then the chickens became the hit of the photo booth.

Our photo booth shot

A District Council Wedding

This was not in the plan at all when I came to Malawi, but this place and the people here have become so important to us and our relationship that we wanted to celebrate it here first. We decided to make it official and get married at the Lilongwe District Council (re: town hall) on Friday, March 13th. A more formal ceremony in the US is planned for this fall. Until then, here are the photos. 

Friends and family from back home were missed terribly. Our days with you will come in October and we look forward to an equally joyous celebration.  So many of you raised a toast to us that we knew you were here with us in spirit.

The women of the District Council. They were the officiants.

From the honeymoon on Mumbo Island.  See the shack in the picture below? We stayed in one just like it on the other side of the island.

Art Projects at BMIS

One of my ongoing projects this year has been working with students at Bishop Mackenzie International School. At first it was with a creative writing class, then it ended with teaching some video lessons and working with art students. A big thanks goes to Bridget Mutussa and Eric Beckett who let me into their classes.

I wanted to showcase some of the fantastic work done. As always, it was an inspiration to work with these students.

Lerato wanted to use video to enhance her considerable drawing skills.

We spent hours fine tuning things on the computer.  Mainly it was me showing her how to do things and then getting out of her way. Here is what she came up with at the end. Remember that when she is famous, you first saw her work here.

There was another group that I did some of the video assignments from Hopkins with. They seemed to love it and did fantastic work on the projects.