Day 5 in the U.S.

Mathew at Walmart....

Since Mathew arrived about 5 days ago, we have been out to a few stores, including Walmart.  People have many things to say about Walmart and may have some things to say about us bringing him to Walmart, and that's ok....We went and shopped some and he certainly saw some things and had some thoughts about the experience.  He noticed that there were a lot of 'old people' shopping there (which he defined as 50 or older; I let it slide...figured he was probably just jet-lagged)....In addition, he noticed that the store was open 24 hours...and he wondered why that would be necessary to have a store open so much, what would people need to shop in the middle of the night?  I speculated that maybe toilet paper might be a necessity, he agreed.  Maybe  cigarettes?

We went for a walk on Saturday and Mathew made some observations about what he saw.  He wondered why there were no families out in their yards; he saw (again) some older people, but no young families with their children.  He noticed that the garages were mostly open and wondered about items possibly being stolen from people.  Along that same line, he observed that in Malawi, in a suburb, most of the houses would have fences around them for safety.  He interpreted that it must be safe here or maybe there is low crime or people feel safe by not having the fences.  As we were discussing this, we walked past a house with a big dog barking in a window.  I pointed out that many of the houses we walked past had dogs; and said that sometimes people have dogs for protection, in addition to companionship.  I asked if he thought as a burglar he might be willing to go into a house with a dog versus without one...he got the idea.  I also pointed out that some people have home security systems...and also that some people do have their homes broken into!

Mathew in his Sunday Best...

We do not attend church, but it is very important to Mathew.  We found a few options for him and he chose a church close to us to attend at least for this first week...He is ready, as you can see in the photo above.

Wafupi Bag party; new bags on display and for sale!

On this past Sunday, we held a Wafupi bag party, displaying and selling some great new bags that Mathew brought with him...they truly get better with every shipment we get delivered!!  We sold some bags, then held a Meet and Greet with Mathew!  It was fun to talk with people about Malawi and The U.S. and learning about each other.  We had a real nice afternoon.