Kasteel Nieuwenhoven, Belgium, March/April 2016

Suddenly,  it is springtime.  Within a week or two an exuberance of birdsong and early flowers has replaced the grim and grey winter I returned to from Africa a month ago. Today – the first Swallows: they have been following me!

It has been a busy month.  In Tanzania I had come up with the idea of creating a website with a personal account of our trip. Inspired readers would then (hopefully) sign up for future trips with me and so I would get to go back to Africa and do what I love. To put that in to practice meant learning how to build a website and also making  an arrangement with a travel company. Fortunately I was still on Tanzania time, which meant I was up at about 4 AM every day and could spend long hours on the computer, writing the texts and slowly finding my way through website design for beginners. I was very happy with website – Tanzania – I love it  – I got  a lot of compliments, but so far not much action on the tours.  I wasn’t really surprised – I have never been much of a business person and the website wasn’t  really about promoting tours anyway.

Meanwhile there was lots to do at Kasteel Nieuwenhoven (where I live in Belgium). Jeanne had bought a new sow who needed fetching and housing. Lots of jobs helping out on next stage of the renovations and, with spring coming fast, roses to prune. We cleared out a huge pile of junk from a barn for an Easter flea-market and so on and so forth. There is always plenty to keep busy with in our small community/village/co-housing whatever you call it.

But I was still itching to get back to Africa and after some online research chose the Lilongwe Wildlife Trust in Malawi for my next adventure. It seems these days you pay to volunteer – it’s a bit of an industry in Africa – but this place sounds good and I have signed up for an exciting program: besides working at their animal rehabilitation center I will be surveying Bats in Liwonde National Park with African Bat Conservation and following released primates in another National park, so lots of time in the bush. So I don’t mind paying for it, the money goes to a good cause – me having a great time!  So I’m leaving in 2 weeks and will be away for 9. Then I had the idea to use my hard-won website knowledge to create a blog for this trip, and while I’m at it catch up on the backlog from my Tanzania adventures after the group tour. And here we are.

So now I have finished catching up – it’s now,  the blog can go online and from now on the posts will be in (more or less) real time. Enough for now -things to do, and a two month trip to Malawi to get ready for!