Grace

zebra crossing!!

 On our way out of Majete we were singing. 

A (churchy) golden olden oldy that took on new meaning:

All things bright and beautiful,

all creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful:

The Lord God made them all.

He gave us eyes to see them,

And lips that we might tell

How great is God Almighty,

Sable antlope

Who has made all things well.

We might've made up some verses in between to align with the animals we'd recently seen. Feel free to do the same and sing along [click here for the tune]

The zebra's crossing the road

the sable wise and strong

The hippo's in the water

the elephant as well.

showing more skin than they usually do

On we went.  There were many things that made us feel welcome and happy to have found a place to stay at Grace Badawe's in Blantyre - reconnecting to wifi was one of them. Being able to share with mum that we were where we were, also meant she was able to (instantly!) answer some of our questions. Who was Grace Bandawe?

the grass is greener on the other side

Grace was a midwife. She was married to Lewis Bandawe in 1913 on the Blantyre Mission. By 1928 she had gained experience helping multiple 'lady doctors' at births, initially assisting as an interpreter. She worked hard among the woman of the Blantyre and Chiradzulu districts and went on to be the first woman to be elected on the Blantyre Town Council in 1963. She died in 1967 with thousands present at her funeral (from Memoirs of a Malawian by Lewis Mataka Bandawe).... Next thing I know is that Dr. Bijl was delivering babies in a building named after her in the late 70's and that it's now a place where you can quite comfortably stay. That still leaves a lot of gaps in the story of Grace but we were glad to have returned and become a part of it.

Grace Bandawe: a Conference Centre and Lodge but also the clinic where Pleuntje was born