Malawi Revisited

I spent my first days of my third time in "the warm heart of Africa" in Zomba plateau visiting friends from Lesotho (a former student and her parents). They had kindly purchased me a bus ticket from Lilongwe to Blantyre, several hours away, where we would meet. They also kindly arranged for friends in Lilongwe to bring me the ticket and transport me from the airport to the bus depot. Ethiopia airlines also kindly waited for late passengers to board my connecting flight in Addis Ababa, effectively eating away most of the 2 hour window I should have had to catch my bus. When I found no one in the airport was waiting for me, and realizing I had no phone number or address for my friends who lived a day's journey away, I put on my game face, texted my host's sister-in-law in Lesotho, crossed my fingers and hailed a cab to town. My plan was to head to Zomba and wonder around asking for an Indian professor and dentist.

While I would have been bemused by the idea of stumbling around rural Malawi searching for my friends, I was lucky that a message got through and they were able to meet in Blantyre as planned a few hours later than we had originally anticipated.

In Zomba I enjoyed magnificent rainstorms, picturesque runs in back country and Indian hospitality. I suppose the latter was both a blessing and a curse, which I should have suspected from experiences with the other half of their family in Maseru. As the father put it, in his culture, guests are sent from god and are treated as such. Doing so much as bringing my glass from the table to the sink was met with discomfort from my hosts. It took me two days to insist to them that I like to walk instead of being driven. Mealtimes became a battle much like open-air market haggling. They would scoff at the piece of chambo I put on my plate and insist on adding another, larger one. I would concede only if I could return my original choice. They would insist I eat both, the very thought of which made me feel painfully full. Finally they would allow me to put the smaller piece back. We shake on it and in the process of returning my chosen fish to the plate, it slips and splashes into my water glass. I profusely apologize only to be told that they like pre moistened lake fish. They practically thank me dropping their lunch in ice water. Indeed that I had water in my glass at all instead of soda or juice disturbed my hosts, as did my preference to drink my tea black and unsweetened and eat my food unadorned with globby condiments or plasticky dressings, all of which they took as signs I was uncomfortable in their home and they were bad hosts. I spent meals using my hand to shield host attacks of ketchup, salad dressing and second and third helpings flung in layered masses on to my plate while the first helping I was struggling to finish became buried underneath.

As my hosts were both working during much of stay, they shuffled me over to a Filipino doctor to take me hiking and to the botanical gardens. He had no fewer than 37 stuffed animal toys adorning his walls. I found it rather disconcerting but luckily we spent more time in the great outdoors than in his freaky living room. He was a shockingly fast hiker for his rather spherical frame. We hiked and plucked raspberries from their bushes- light orange in color but still remarkably sweet.

On my final day in Zomba, like a child you feel guilty for not spending enough time with, my hosts sent me to the market with the maid to get a dress tailored form local fabric. I packed it up in my backpack, said goodbye and boarded a bus to the north.

Who knew you could make a horse-shaped swing out of a tire?! A Malawian, that's who!

Rainbowed Plateau