Three days, three continents, nearly 30 hours in the air and 3 1/2 hours (inexplicably) waiting in the immigration holding pen at LAX, we arrived home late Tuesday in a stretch limo (sent by Uncle Veen who’s in Japan at the moment) accompanied by Uncle Dave (who met us at the arrivals gate at LAX – we’d told Vasco that as soon as he saw Uncle Dave, that meant he was an official U.S. citizen and so when he spotted... Read more
Apart from my beautiful son, my very favorite souvenir from Africa was this hand-made rag doll of Archbishop Desmund Tutu that I bought at the Jo-burg airport. I love Tutu so. That crazy, infectious laugh.His beautiful spirit.His circa-1980 spectacles. The doll is a Zuko Doll – the product of what has evolved from the Masiphatisane Sewing Group begun in SA’s shack towns in the 1980s. I did a bit of reading about them when I got home and I loved... Read more
Our first stopover on our journey home to California from Malawi was in Johannesburg, where the sound of FIFA vuvuzuelas filled the air almost everywhere we went in the city that is home to two of my heroes: Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The one place we couldn’t hear the raucous enthusiasm of soccer/football/futbal! fans from around the world was at the Hector Pieterson memorial in Soweto. Most of us probably don’t know Pieterson’s story, but it is a... Read more
Hiya from JoBurg where we’re on a long layover between flights and I’ve managed to find a computer out of earshot of the vuvuzuela honking that pervades, seemingly, all of southern Africa at the moment due to the World Cup here. Sadly, not only am I now without iPhone (friggin’ AT&T bastardos), but on Friday, without warning, my Macbook Pro laptop died. We had it checked at the iStore here in JoBurg (their version of the Apple Store) and …... Read more
A quick note to say that, Lord willing, we will be home in Los Angeles (and then the Gu) a week from tomorrow. The adjudication of our case by the US Embassy in Malawi will take place at 2 p.m. tomorrow in Lilongwe. We will overnight with friends of our hosts here, the beautiful Halliwell family, in Lilongwe and then pick up Vasco’s immigrant visa on Thursday morning before returning to Blantyre. We are to be on a South Africa... Read more
Hi everybody. We’re feeling pretty darn grumpy over here in Malawi at the moment. New delays. Unexpected frustrations. General we’ve-so-had-it-with-all-the-bullshiteness. Yesterday, we awoke at 4 a.m. in Blantyre, packed overnight bags and hopped in the SUV with our driver, James No. 2, at 5 a.m. to drive five hours north to Lilongwe to appear at the U.S. Embassy for what we thought was the final step in our adoption process/immigrant visa application process to get our son back to the... Read more
Such beautiful voices.Such beautiful people. Read more
My iPhone has turned into a block of wood. Well, plastic and stuff. No service. No service. No service. Grrrrrr. Glad I spent two hours on the phone before we left California setting up my roaming and international plans. Additionally, the Interweb here is … well … in about its Neanderthal era. Thus, none of the lovely video we have of Vasco and his family, our safari(s), Vasco exploring Blantyre again, the kids at Smile Malawi singing and Vasco singing... Read more
Vasco and Frankie on Wednesday at Smile Malawi Back on October 12, 2007, a few hours before we met the boy who would one day become our son, we met another little dude named Frankie who absolutely stole our hearts. Frankie (not his real name – he doesn’t remember what it is, where he comes from or anything from his early years before becoming a street kid in Blantyre at around age 4 or 5) and Vasco were the only... Read more
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