Malawi Monday {City Life}

We have officially been city dwellers for a month! Although the past four years we have made MANY trips to the capital city for picking up visitors, supplies, groceries, or just to get away; it is definitely a different experience actually living here. {If you receive our monthly newsletter, you have probably already read most of this list! If you aren't receiving our monthly newsletter and would like to, sign up is here.} Eight Experiences Living in the City:  Traffic here can be a beast! Plan accordingly and avoid certain roads at certain times, or you'll be stuck for quite awhile. Electricity being out means all "working" stop lights go out, too. No electrity= major traffic jams. We live relatively close to the new school our kids are going to. If we leave on time (6:30AM) it can take a mere 8 minutes to get to school. If we leave 5 minutes later, it will take an hour to get to school. yikes!  Everything still breaks in Malawi. This month our refrigerator, car, and water heater all broke. Things breaking is just part of normal life here, but the nice thing about living in the city is that you can usually find someone to come and help you more quickly than when you live way out in the village.  There is a good sized expat (foreigners like us) community in Lilongwe doing all kinds of ministries and work. We were invited to our first dinner this month with a family originally from Texas. We are thankful for the opportunity for community. Church is so awesome in your native language! We have been able to go to an English speaking church every Sunday. This is such an amazing blessing. To sing and worship in your native tongue  weekly is a game changer! For the first time in 5 years, our children have the opportunity to participate in some extracurricular activities at school! The joy it has brought us to watch them try new things, even though they are nervous, has been truly a gift as a parent. They are brave and really putting themselves out there. We are proud! Electricity is pretty good right now. We are in "rainy season" so the water supply is up and power outages are lasting about 8 hours a day (compared to 24-27 hour outages back in hot season). We have mostly had electricity all night (which is awesome, hello fans!). But the nice thing about living in the city is, I don't have to stock pile my groceries or worry about meat going bad. Grocery stores are nearby and all the big stores run on back up generators! So many people speak English here. We are going to have to be really intentional about language learning since it is pretty easy to communicate in English! Chitenjes are not required. When we lived in the village, I always kept a chitenje by the door to throw on if someone knocked. In the city, you see don't see as many people wearing chitenjes, but you do see lots of skinny jeans and Western wear.