Here and There, in Malawi

I spent the last week of 2010 traveling slowly up the northern shores of Lake Malawi and overland into Tanzania. On the long bus ride along the length of Malawi, I stepped off at a road block looking for a private spot in the bush to relieve myself. When the driver saw my surveying, he suggested asking the police to use their toilet. At first I thought that was a preposterous idea, until I remembered that Malawi is not Congo and the police are far less corrupt and can even be helpful. Right, I thought, Malawi is a normal country, and I tried not to pause and consider too much how somewhere along the way a place like Malawi became normal to a white girl from Jersey.

I stopped at Mwaya Beach where I used to volunteer as a nursery teacher to bring Christmas gifts to my teaching colleagues and check in on all of the staff. Thankfully everyone is still alive since my last visit. I found this remarkable because several people had died between the end of my volunteering and my last visit there, and because many if not most of them are HIV positive. When I got to the beach, I found myself totally alone in the bush, as it was in the evening and everyone had gone home. I had sent an email I was coming, but internet is less useful in these parts than the bush telegraph and I ended up spending a couple of pitch black hours in the sand before obtaining shelter.

I spent Christmas on Makuzi Beach, tranquil and secluded and fancy in a sandy sort of way. Christmas morning gingerbread cookies, miniature pies and coffee were delivered to my door and I spent Christmas dinner under the wings of three highly educated Malawian women and the henpecked British husband of one. We chatted about books, geography and public transportation. A German family passed around their traditional Christmas cake after dinner and the Italians at the table thanked them by singing Silent Night in German. The Malawians joined in in Chechewa and the South Africans in English. I kept my mouth shut since I only know the first 2 lines and I'm not much of a carroller. But despite being an irrelegious Jew, dozens of voices singing a Christmas song in 3 languages gave me the chills. Full of Christmas cake squeezed beside a huge dinner, we all staggered down to the beach were the Germans gave us our second treat of the evening: fireworks set off along the lake, exploding brilliantly against the stars.

After a quick, harassed stay in Nkhata Bay, I said goodbye to Lake Malawi, added bilharzia screening to my To-Do list and headed up to my favorite spot. WAY up. After a 10k hike uphill in midday Malawian heat with a 30 lb backpack, I was happy to rest my legs at Mushroom Farm. Not usually much of a planner, I made sure to request the second story of the brick and thatch hut weeks in advance. It is set on the edge of a cliff with only 3 walls so you can lie in bed watching the sunrise and the sunset, the night sky thick with stars or cut up by lightening.

 View from my bed

From there I began the 4 day journey over land and sea to Zanziabar. I stopped in a couple of towns along the way to spend the night, all unremarkable save for occasional oddities like the restaurant in Mbeya where the cook, perhaps hearing of muzugues hesitance to eat uncooked, unpeeled vegetables, served me a microwaved salad. But for the most part, it was long days spent in hot, over-crowded buses held together by duct tape.

I was so disoriented from heat and sun and sweaty car insides that when I finally reached Dar es Saalam, I wondered at the peculiarity of the bus depot where I was going to catch a quick ride to my lodgings for the night. It was the weirdest bus depot I had ever seen. There were no buses and I couldn't figure out how they got in or out. It wasn't until the ferry pulled up that the lightbulb went off. I spent the night on the beach to detox from car exhaust before boarding the island bound boat. I had heard vomitious horror stories about the ferry to Zanzibar. I shocked myself by not being ill, and I was able to ignore the retching around me by keeping my eyes straight ahead on the Jackie Chan movies.

Zanzibar was great, but the best part was arriving.