Indie and I are off to Malawi!

Heavens, it’s rolled around quickly, but I am off to Malawi again. [And I have a head torch. And it flashes. Yes! – tell me in the comments if you know where that’s from!]

Anyway, away I will be and Indie is coming with me! He’s now almost all set up for the travels to act as my wallet and my organiser. I will be putting the few cards I take with me in the card slots, but otherwise, he’s all set.

Indie - my beloved Mulberry agenda

First up: my basic Chichewa phrase sheets. I am SO bad at Chichewa (though at least I try! None of my colleagues have ever bothered in the four years we’ve been going out to Malawi). I can manage muli bwanji and on a good day, trot out ndili bwino, kaya inu? in response. On a really good day, I can even manage mwaswera bwanji (late afternoon) or ndaswera bwino, kaya inu? in response. Maybe I’ll manage to learn a bit more this time…?

Then I have my flight itinerary (folded and punched, with the edge trimmed slightly to fit – another joy of the binder being A6!). This is followed by a series of packing sheets (printed on index cards, cut in half – the card is sturdier than paper).

Reverse of my flight itinerary (can't show you the front!) and one of the packing lists

Then I have a diary for the time I’m away – appointments on one side (from the A4 two pages per day file from Philofaxy) and notepaper for the other side. Again, the delight of A6 is I can just print four to a page, slice and punch. Perfect.

2DPP from Philofaxy (just the date part) plus notepaper

After that, some straight notepaper, printed on Clairefontaine cream paper, for extra notes during the trip.

At the back (though they will get moved to the front to make writing on the paper easier…) are two plastic document wallets (A6), punched to hang on the rings. One of them has Malawian kwacha in it (don’t be fooled by the 500 or 1000 into thinking that there is loads of money there – there are 600 kwacha to the pound!); the other has Bank of England notes, ready to swap at the bureau de change.

In the zipped pocket at the back I’ll pop a data stick or two and any other cards I need.

So, that’s him all set to go. I think his rugged Indiana Jones’ notebook look will work well in Malawi! What do people think?

As I will be away from Friday, tionana! I’ll be back blogging after the 18^th.