Fincoop day 2

I heard the chanting again this morning if this keeps up they may convert me, since although I don't know what they are chanting about it sounds interesting. This morning at Fincoop we met with Moses Nyamwera their IT Manager. Bruce and I already knew Moses from our time in Karonga last year where he was working he had just moved to Lilongwe in December. We kidded him that he had heard that Bruce and I were coming back to Malawi to work with Fincoop and he had to get a job with Fincoop because he missed us. Actually his wife is a nurse working at one of the government hospitals and he followed her to Lilongwe. When we were meeting with Anthony yesterday Moses came into the office and Bruce said we have met before, I turned to get a good look at him and said hi Moses, I am not usually good with names but his came to me right away.


We worked with Moses for part of the morning; since he is busy with his banking system conversion he didn't have a lot of time. We then met with the Internal Auditor Andrew Tembo who is new to the position but is very knowledgeable in the audit field. We stopped at noon and tried to go to Don Bryonies for lunch but found out they are only open at supper time so we decided to try the Summer Park Restaurant. This is the restaurant we went to last year and ordered fish and chips and the fish came with the head still attached and the bones still in. I ordered the chicken and thankfully it came without the head attached. It was southern fried and it has rivaled any fried chicken I have had, so the Summer Park has redeemed their reputation.

Fincoop's Internal Auditor Andrew

 Summer Park Restaurant

After lunch we had a little time to kill so we went back to the hotel for a few minutes and then ventured out to the store so Bruce could support the Malawi tobacco growers. I also took the opportunity to exchange some dollars to Kwacha man do you feel rich when you get MK 17,000 in bills. On the way back to Fincoop Joseph Banana tried to sell Bruce a painting or two, yes his name was Joseph Banana and he wore a yellow vest. If you had read the banking in Africa blog by Robert Christiansen last year you would have read his account of the preacher who stands on the corner on a cement block and yells his sermon from the top of his lungs to the people passing by. He was on his pulpit in the morning when we first walked to Fincoop and he was still there at noon with a horse voice but still enthusiastically preaching the good word. You have to admire this man's commitment because he was not collecting Kwacha as there was no collection plate; he was preaching it seemed to me because it was something he loved.


Back at Fincoop we finished the afternoon with Andrew, started to work on our report packed up and headed back to the hotel. Wednesday is a holiday in Malawi it is Martyrs Day so we don't come back to Fincoop until Thursday. A friend of Bruce's Wyatt Buck who is heading up the mine expansion in Karonga will be in town tonight and we are meeting him for supper. Wyatt showed up and we ate at an Indian Restaurant called the Hut, the food there is great they cook it the way you want. The owners came over and we talked for a bit, their two sons are living in Toronto so we had a good conversation about Canada.

When we returned to the hotel the street was almost deserted so it was a peaceful walk back to the hotel. 

With tomorrow being a holiday we will have to find something blog worthy to do, stay tuned.