More Meandering in Malawi - 19 June 2002
Monkeying About
England make it to the next round
Not been down since the rough roads
Jay Buenesco
Leonard Khaluhi
Bland trip to Blantyre
Lilongwe has a fair number of learner drives. Fortunately they keep well to the minor roads. Most of the learners traipse around in pickups with a collection of friends in the back. We were puzzled as to why this might be. We mused that maybe it was good training for when they pass and have to carry huge hoards of people on the back. In fact, we learnt of the true purpose one afternoon walking back from the shops when we found a Landrover with full learner regalia atop a small wall. The passengers were collecting rocks in an effort to get the sad vehicle back on the road.
We were not so sad to be leaving Lilongwe. Itís a strange sort of place but lacks any kind of buzz or even a little hum for that matter. The south of Malawi is where the bulk of the industry and wealth is and so we set off looking for a little more interest.
Things are starting to get a chilly, the weather and the scenery felt all very Scottish. The mist rolling over the craggy hills, turned to light drizzled, just enough to make us a little homesick (nearly).
We whooped down the road heading for Zomba (the former capital) but just as we were getting close Hippy mooted the idea of a quick diversion up to Monkey Bay. I accepted my mission and turned off where instructed. All was well until the tarmac gave way to dirt roads. I have given up on the idea of getting to Cape Town without having to get off the tar from time to time and so (as it turned out) the short stretches of hard packed dirt road were not too much of a hassle,
Then we got to Monkey Bay. Seeing that the renowned hostel called Garyís Place seems to have become defunct, we followed signs to a beach resort. By now, I should have been wise to the fact that beaches usually mean sand. We slogged our way through the soft sand, which got deeper and deeper as we got closer to the lake. Once we got to the camp, a nice member of staff directed me into a super soft patch of sand where I got instantly bogged down. Chuffed, not. At least once we got the bags off the nice chap gave me a push out of the sand.
The camp was a pretty typical backpackersí gaff with a large number of local lads looking for female WASPs to latch onto or other foreigners who they could sell their ganja to.
It was all a little reminiscent of the rather naÔve ladies latched onto nubile Kenyan on the coast near Mombasa. All I hope is that the women are savvy enough to realize that this may be great fun but the lads will be onto the next round of visitors when they are gone.
The only highlight was the sound of drums. On querying what that were for, and thinking it was just a bunch of kids larking around, we were entertained to hear that it actually meant that ëthe beer is ready and so the party is on, come and get it!í A most excellent way to send out invitations donít you think, if a little hard to control gatecrashers.
There was a rather interesting bloke staying there who I struggled to access his nationality, some kind of Belgium-Austrian cross who had developed an American English accent living in the US. He seemed to be on back-to-back research fellowships in Malawi learning the various languages and researching fishing communities. His experiences were mixed. He had lived in the homes of Malawians and learnt to hate nsima the food that the nationals appear to be addicted to, and to deceive his host as to when he was leaving after discovering more that once that if he said he was leaving they would choose this time to steal from him, presumably hoping that he would be well away before he noticed. Also he alluded to the fact that snobbishness is alive and well in Malawi.
Here there is one of the worldís greatest gaps between the haves and have-nots. The haves appear to enjoy flashing their wealth at the less fortunate, by for example buying small can of imported beer at 3 times the cost of the local, not because it tastes any different, but to show they can. (Designer beer, eh? Tout ca change and all that) while their treatment of waiters and their house workers is rude and dismissive, presumably to rub in the fact that they pay the paltry wages. (E.g. a house guard will be paid on average 13 quid a month and a teacher only 40)
All in all, not the best experience of our trip so far and we even managed to miss hooking up with the local VSO. A final word on Monkey Bay ñ there is a bay but no monkeys.
England make it to the next round
This was a straightforward journey to our next port of call, so I decided to experiment. I had been reading a rather trashy who-done-it, acquired in a book swap somewhere. This was not mind taxing so I thought I would try reading it on the back of the bike, when the roads were pretty straight and the navigation minimal. I have to say a remarkable success. Looks like my reading rate will improve from now on.
The road down to Zomba is not too interesting, but it was a nice day so we tootled along not wanting to get into a major settlement in a tired state. When we got there, we found that Zomba is not in fact the behemoth of a capital city that one might expect. Set in a beautiful spot in the shade of a huge escarpment, there are vestiges of colonial buildings left and the most charming old club ñ The Zomba Gymkhana Club.
We booked into a cheapy hotel and made our way up to the club to watch England take on the might of Denmark. Weíd seen Denmark in action against someone else earlier in the week and theyíd looked hot to trot. How glad we were that they put up a pretty poor showing against the lads and allowed us to notch up an impressive looking score line. Although we had to pay to get in, beer and chips were dead cheap and so we had just about the perfect afternoon.
By a strange twist, we bumped into a south-to-south VSO volunteer, Bernard, who had come up to Zomba to go to a party that was due to be held that evening. We thought that it would be easiest to catch up with all the VSOs at one fell swoop and decided to blag our way into the party. We left with vague instructions as to how to get there. After an hour of swooping around the escarpment-front roads above Zomba looking for the house, we gave up and returned to our basic hotel for the evening. As usual, we took the not being able to find the place as kismet that we shouldnít really be attending.
Personally I found the wanderings on the escarpment rather pleasant, nice twisty roads, watching the sun go down and looking at the scenery.
Zomba, again, is a little short of night life and so we chose to go for an active approach and head up onto the plateau for a bit of off-roading and walking and spend the evenings recovering.
The Zomba Plateau (or at least the bit that we went to) is not so much of a plateau, but more a bit of a hill with a steep side. When we eventually found the hut that houses information and a relief model of the plateau, time was getting on and we were relieved when the guide told us that we could go all the way round the trails on the bike. And so we set off. After bottling out on some pretty grim deeply rain rutted roads, we headed back to the hut to change into walking mode and take in a few views. Now even later of course, we had to fairly trot along if we were going to get back at a reasonable time. We had made matters a bit more difficult for ourselves by taking in a cup of tea at a very swanky hotel (three bloody quid ñ I ask you)
You can guess this was Patís idea, rather than skin flint Hippyís.
The views from the top were stunning and the walk up was made all the better for a group of butterflies that put a whole new meaning to the concept of a butterfly relay. Different species of butterflies would fly ahead of us an the path as if leading the way and land in front of us only for a new one to take over the guiding process. How charming is that?
We felt for the geezers pushing their bikes up the hill, only to push them down when they had piled them above seated head height with chopped wood to take for sale down in town. It is hard to explain the complex construction support techniques used, so far as to say they are at the limit of credulity.
It seemed to me that theyíd got it all wrong. With the technology that they had used to build a high frame over the rack to carry these huge piles of wood, they could easily have made frames to carry the same amount down by the wheel and so been stable enough to ride their bikes instead of pushing them everywhere. I guess itís a case of ìWeíve always done it like thisî
The views from the escarpment were fantastic looking clear across the South Malawi pains to the Mulanji Mountains. The sunset too was pretty inspiring. Before leaving the plateau, we succumbed to some of the hawkers and bought some ìlady garnetî and ìamethystî crystals. I remain unconvinced about the legitimacy of these items, but the raspberries that we bought were quite genuine and very tasty.
We had discovered that the interval between ordering food and getting it could be huge and so we took a set of cards to dinner with us. After a pretty protracted game of rummy our dinner arrived and all was well. After eating, a couple of local guys came over and asked if they could join us in playing cards. We were delighted and looked forward to an intense cultural experience. Regrettably, the language and sobriety gap proved to be insurmountable and we only got to the more complex rules to their game before a van arrived and took them away.
It was about time that we got on with the visiting of VSOs and we did our best to ring around and make appointments. We had little joy with the phone and so asked locals where their places of work were. Oddly, when we had asked where they lived, the locals did not know. Usually, everyone in a town knows who the VSOs are, where they come from, what is the state of health of their families, etc, etc.
Not been down since the rough roads
We were on our way to see Alexandra who is bizarrely a food processor out of town when we were forced to abort the mission. Going through a market area of a town there were 3 blokes carrying heavy loads on their heads walking down the road. We slowed down, as the high way code suggests being aware of a potential hazard. Two of the men spotted our arrival and moved out of the way, the third inches in front of decided to veer across our path.
There was no way to avoid a collision, Pat swerved and we and the bike fell over as we clipped the guys foot. I got up, apparently fine, to hear Pat shouting ëGet the bike off my leg!í (memories of a Kaiteur trip with a chap shouting ëyouíre meshing me legí came flooding back). As I struggled to lift the beast off him I demanded and got assistance from the now extensive crowd.
Pat released and checking for injuries, my body gave out on me. My sight went blurring and I knew that if I didnít sit down I would fall down. I sat on the ground trying to stay conscious, knowing that really there was nothing wrong with me and this was just shock, but failing to make my body work. Pat stood over me, willing me to stand and be able to escape the crowds. The man we had bumped into seemed to have a bruised toe, but was otherwise fine. After what must have been only a few minutes I agreed to get back on the bike, but only 200m down the road, my eyesight went entirely and my body felt the tingles, which I know to be the precursor of fainting.
The thought of fainting on the bike was not good and we had the stop again. Being only just down the road from the accident children were able to run the distance and surround us once more. I felt so stupid but knew it was pointless trying to get back on before my body was fully functioning. A lovely man came up and directed us to the hospital, we thanked him and explained that I just needed to recover from the shock and I would be OK. And I was.
Nothing much broken ñ even the indicator could be fixed without having to resort to a ëScullyí.
We caught up with Jay Buensuceso at the Central Hospital. What a fantastic guy! He is one of the south-to-south volunteers and hails from the Philippines. After interrupting him briefly on his morning ward rounds, we arranged to meet him for lunch. His view of Malawi and the differences to the Philippines were most enlightening.
He works in extremely frustrating conditions. The surrounding hospitals and clinics seem to believe that there are many more facilities and expertise at the central hospital and send many of their patients there for treatment. Poor Jay seems to be about the only doctor in the place for much of the time and collects a fairly hefty workload as a result. His efforts to encourage locals to volunteer and help out have fallen on stony ground and he sees this is the major difference between Malawi and Philippines. Apparently in the Philippines there is something of a volunteering and self help culture whereas Malawi folk like to look after number 1.
Other frustrations are the inability to treat illnesses even when they have been positively diagnosed. Drugs do not always arrive in the quantities that are stated on the manifests. Where does it all go? Hmmm. Because of the short supply, the pharmacy countermands prescriptions and reduces ten day courses of antibiotics to five which means that re-infection rates are high. He estimates that 90% of patients are HIV+ and reckons that most of the beds are taken with AIDS related illnesses. The hospital tends to send patients home for home care knowing full well that there is no hope for them. This cunningly reduces the hospital death rate. Hmmmm sounds like juggling figures to get waiting lists down to me.
What he misses most are the ocean and being able to do the normal things that he does back home. Heíd been down to Lake Malawi once when he arrived in country but was terribly disappointed that the smells and sounds of his native coastline were missing.
Leonard is a lovely chap, who is also a south-to-south volunteer from Kenya in this case. Heís a vet working out of Zomba and works mostly with farmers on breeding programs and preventative care. He has put a lot of effort into training local field workers to carry out routine treatment to increase effective and speedy treatment especially since his main frustration was this lack of spares for his vehicles. Clearly many of the farms are down very poor tracks into the country and his landy takes rather a beating, unfortunately the funds are not forthcoming for the repairs. This month the funds have also been stopped for medicine so his work is doubly handicapped.
In all, he has enjoyed the time in his placement as it has pushed him up into more of a managing role, which may be more attractive to United Nations Volunteers who he is keen to apply to. His other options include studying for a higher degree and he seems keen to get into England were it not for the exorbitant fees.
ANY SPONSORS OUT THERE READY TO STEP FORWARD? (contact lkhaluhi@yahoo.co.uk)
It was so boring that we stopped at the Postal Hut Museum. This is an old postal hut that is now a museum.
But seriously, we paid ten bob to get into this place which measured ten feet by eight and had 8 pictures, 3 telephones and an incomplete set of Malawian stamps. We were disappointed and the curator could clearly see this and so not wanting dissatisfied customers, he took us around the back to see his collection of three red post boxes (Vic, Edward and George). We thanked him and left.
When we got to Blantyre, I was amazed to see so many shiny looking factories. The rest of Malawi is really behind the times in comparison. Having booked into yet another backpackers gaff, we settled down to see a most satisfying display by the Koreans knocking out the Italians. The more weak teams left in the better, I say.