From Bech

Well, I finally got my own khasu. You may remember me longing for one of my own in my post from many weeks ago. I don't know whether it is a distinctly Malawian tool, although every Malawian owns one, but it is beautifully simple and well-designed. Above the khasu are two of the first baskets I bought at the biggest market in town. Baskets are to Malawians what plastic is to Americans. Even the trashcans are woven. The ubiquitous baskets are one of the things I love most about this place.

Marley and I left for Lake Nyassa, or Lake Malawi, yesterday to celebrate our first year of marriage. She found this in the Seven Eleven right before we hit the road.
Marley took this incredible picture below as we drove to the lake. Village landscapes like these have already become ordinary to us. This is ordinary here.
Here is a view of this vast lake from the porch of our room. We stayed in the government-owned Sunbird Livingstonia Hotel.
Here I am with a hat I bought yesterday at the curio markets, which are distinctly African and local and always far richer than the American souvenir shop, though no less predictable. The sellers are always smooth-talking and oily, poised and desperate, falsely sincere, and always uttering over and over phrases like "looking is for free."