MARCH 3rd

March 3^rd was a public Holiday in Malawi…this day is devoted for the freedom fighters of Malawi…on this day Malawi remembers those who died in the fight against the British to gain independence… People go to the churches to offer prayers for the parted souls of the martyrs…

It's a rule in Malawi that if a holiday falls on any Saturday then the previous day will always be a holiday. If any public holiday falls on Sunday then the succeeding day will naturally be a local holiday…so March 3^rd fell on a Saturday this year so we had Monday off…yesterday I took a minibus with two other DI’s to closest city "Blantyre" which is an hour away and we went to a French hotel called Hostellerie De France ….

 

The hotel had a salt water pool with a spectacular view…

 and had really cool statues....

the french guy who owns the hotel was really nice, he asked us which country we were from and then made flags that represented them ...Mexico, Untied States, Bulgaria, and my state flag North Carolina "he had a really good time trying to mimic my southern accent with a flick-of-the-hand when saying C-AAA-R-O-L-II-NNNN-A"

when you look over the ledge you will see a 10ft tall brick wall that has broken pieces of glass cemented across the top....accompanied by some malicious looking barbwire...we had amazing banana crapes while we were there....BUT, there was some very unusual items on the menu like: goose liver, frog legs and, goose liver truffle...i chose to stay away from those!!

this was a huge palm tree outside of the hotel...i have never seen this kind of palm tree before...there are over 2,000 different kinds of palm trees that can be found all over the world...before i visited Thailand i thought there was just one kind "the one you usually see on postcards or tv" the Coconut Palm (Cocos nucifera)