Vacation

A couple weeks ago Tarek came up to me after rounds put his hand on my shoulder and said, “When I look at you I see someone who really needs a vacation.” Laughing I asked him if I looked that bad and he said, “Yes” with only a faint smile. So, I decided to let myself be convinced and then I quickly and easily convinced Deb to accompany me. Sunday we headed North to Mkuzi Beach (about a 4 hour drive from Lilongwe) both of us looking forward to no hiking, no running, just hours of laying on the beach reading books, swimming, and sharing stories. And that’s exactly what we did. We lay in the shade, swam, picked and ate mangos by the pound off a nearby overburdened tree, read, and slept ten hours a night. It was very restorative even if it was not entirely adventure free. Just before we left and I was packing up the car, a woman ran up to me and frantically said in a thick German accent, “Your tent is blowing away.” I rushed down to the beach and sure enough, there was our purple home setting sail on the small waves nearest the shore. Then on the way back to the main road (there is about a 4km dirt/sand road from the beach to the main road) we got stuck in the sand twice. The first time, as Deb assessed the hurdle, I laughed as I glimpsed our savior through the rearview mirror running towards us, her baby’s head bouncing along on her back. The two of them, along with a 13-year-old boy pushed us out of the trap. When we did finally make it to the road, we thought we were in the clear and drove 80km to the nearest Petrol station on our remaining quarter tank of fuel only to find that they, “had gone drought” as the attendant said. So we rolled up the windows to be more aerodynamic, turned off the AC, and amazingly covered another 60km, reaching the next station drenched in sweat but still smiling and with the engine still running.