So days 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 all go swimmingly: Tom cleaned and painted whilst I walked the dogs, entertained my baby brother and cooked for us all (which means cooking for 5!). Days 6, 7 and 8 go in a similar fashion except that I have lost my baby brother (back to normal life) and in between walking hounds and cooking, I got to do some toilet scrubbing (great!!) and some painting, and then some more cleaning but we are definitely making progress. By the evening of Day 9, all the rooms are clean and repainted. For Days 10 and 11, we had planned putting the lodge back together.
I must also add as it is fairly relevant and ironic:
From Day 1, all the way to day 9 we had been waiting for rain! Our rainfall in January has been REALLY low so I had been doing some little rain dances when I was walking the dogs and I didn't think anyone was watching - obviously in Malawi there is probably always somebody watching! Maybe I got extra brownie points for having witnesses to my weird and wee bit ridiculous behaviour... but on the night of the 9th, we were woken up by rain, and thunder. And then there was BIG rain and BIG thunder, and then, we were blinded with our eyes closed and simultaneously deafened by this gigantic clap of lightning!!! We both thought that that one was a bit close! We do have lots of very big trees around us after all!
But in the morning of Day 10, when cleaning and tidying were supposed to take place, we discovered that the lower corner of one of the khonde pillars had been blown away. There was also some paint damage in the lodge :/ We had JUST finished painting it!!! So the paint pots came back out, and now instead of looking forward to Day 12 being off, we are looking at Day 12 and Day 13 painting, cleaning, tidying: Joy!
On the plus side: we did get some rain! We are not sure how much as our rain gauge is broken at the top but this morning it was overflowing at 60mm.
Be careful for what you wish for they say :)