Just the latest around here

I think it goes without saying that I've been awfully busy lately. The last few days have been a wee bit quieter because Jorge is off at the lake with his sisters, Milo, and nieces. I had too much work to be able to take another day off, though. Which means that for the 2nd year in a row, I did not spend my husband's birthday with him. Even though he's the one who told me not to bother making the drive to the lake, I'm sure I'll be subject to guilt-trips and recriminations over this one for at least the rest of the year.

To make up for it, we're celebrating tonight instead. To start, we'll have a selection of yummy antipasti and homemade spreads, then dinner will be roasted beef tenderloin with potatoes au gratin, individual eggplant parmesan stacks, and a beet salad with pecans and blue cheese. And for dessert, lemon cheesecake made with real Philadelphia cream cheese, a luxury item of extreme value and rarity in Africa. We'll even crack open one of our treasured bottles of wine from Solm's Delta in South Africa - the Africana Reserve, no less. So it should be a nice night!

Alicia and the girls are here for a few more days, but on Tuesday I'm flying off to Uganda for a week, where I'm helping the Ministry of Health with a pavilion they've mounted to highlight nutrition work in Malawi, for the African Union Heads of State Summit. This is a political event, so very much different from the technical workshops and conferences I'm used to attending. I'm hoping it will be interesting, but I really don't know what to expect.

Well, I'd better get back to my cooking!

Well, I am back in Malawi, still coughing, but not so bad that it gives me migraines anymore. The flight home was smooth, albeit long. I was a nosy busy-body and interrupted some poor woman on the flight to Malawi because she was talking about MUAC (Mid-Upper Arm Circumference - used to measure malnutrition). I take it as my personal business now whenever someone in Malawi wants to work on nutrition. I mean, the Minsitry of Health has my back on this, but still, I find an uncontrollable need lately for everyone to nkow that I am a big bwana when it comes to malnutrition. The woman, as it turns out, was very excited to meet me and wants to come to my office to see me. Thereby further inflating my big puffy ego.

I really don't have much to say, but I feel a need to keep blogging...

It is starting to be that time of year when friends move on or go back to the States. We've already had to say goodbye to Cassandra, our dearest friend here, and now we're facing the imminent departures of Christine and Ann. This is desperately sad for me. We have known these people for almost 3 years - a long time in the international expat world - and have shared a lot of good times together. And it's not so much that our friends are going away that is hard...it's the knowledge that eventually we're going to have to get out there and make NEW friends! Oh, the horror of small-talk, misunderstood in-jokes and awkward silences...I just want all my friends to stay!

Hmmm. In other news, Jorge is training for another inhumanly long race (50 miles or something similarly ungodly). We went to see an orthopedist a few weeks ago who bamboozled him into getting six shots in his neck (he was expecting one. You should have seen his face when she just kept stabbing him over and over again in the neck with that needle!) She gave him some sort of muscle relaxant that has really been great in relieving his neck pain, so I'm happy for that.

Milo is doing well, and merits his own update sometime soon, once I bring in some recent photos. I promise, I will do that soon!