Day 8. Thu 17th August.
Lengwe
This morning I finally manage to persuade the cook to provide just the
egg sandwich for breakfast - no suspicious salad or dubious chips - and
coffee. However, when I ask for milk in the coffee (and I asked for it
in Chichewa too - Mkaka) the dozy twonk brings a jug full of tea.
Unfortunately I pour it into my coffee without checking - never
assume anything is what you think it is in Malawi!
After breakfast I finish off photographing the kids' pictures and send
a long text to the UK with the names of all the participants so that
they can use them in the UK sessions. I'm hoping the kids in the UK
will also send personalised greetings back to Malawi, but none of that
will happen until I get back to Blantyre and get on line.
Tim arrives, and we grab a couple of fresh rolls from the bakery and
jump on a Matola to head for Lengwe. One front seat is available and
Tim very kindly lets me take it.
Not counting Nyala
Park, the private reserve owned by the Illovo sugar
company, Lengwe is the next reserve north of Mwabvi. It lies
about
50 km north of Bangula, just past Nchalo, surrounded by the huge Illovo
sugar cane plantations (what must the local people think to see these
acres of green, constantly sprayed with water, when they are grubbing
in the mud for a cupful for their children). From the main road to the
entrance to the park is about 5Km, and there are always a few bicycles
hanging around the turnoff hoping for some trade. We hire two and agree
a price of MK100 (about 40p) each. We both have full packs, plus I have
the laptop, and I am wondering if we can manage on one bicycle each,
but Tim climbs confidently onto the back of his and sets off, so sling
the laptop round my neck and follow suit. Within a few minutes my back
is in agony from the weight of the rucksack, and my legs are aching
from the effort of trying to keep my feet cocked up on the back axle.
It turns out that the bicycle itself is is as much distress as I, as
the spokes in the back wheel start breaking with loud pings, and the
back wheel finally collapses entirely.
The driver is distraught and
clearly thinks it is all my fault. I am in the middle of trying to
explain to him that if he is going to run a taxi service he must know
the limitations of his own vehicle (tricky, as he speaks no English)
when a motorbike comes chugging down the road in the opposite
direction. We flag him down and somehow between the three of us (he
also speaks very little English) manage to persuade him to turn round
and take me the rest of the way to the park gate. Then I discover I
have no small change to give the bicycle driver, who wants his full
MK100 even though he's taken me less than half way. Eventually I manage
to persuade the motorcyclist to give the cyclist MK100, which I will
pay him back when we get to the park, and I clamber on the back of the
motorbike and off we go, leaving the poor cyclist staring at the
wreckage of his bike.
The back of a
motorbike is just as uncomfortable as the back of a bike
with a full rucksack, but it is mercifully a good deal quicker, and
within a few minutes we reach the turnoff onto the Park entrance
road itself, where Tim is waiting. I expect the motor cyclist to drop
me off here, but he zooms straight on up the drive, so I give Tim a
cheery (if wobbly) wave as we whiz past. It's only a kilometre or so to the
Park gate where, luckily, the park wardens are able to give me change
and advise me on how much I should reasonably pay for a motorbike ride
to the park. I pay the motorcyclist MK300 for the trip, plus
the
MK100 he had paid the cyclist and we are all square, and I sit down to
wait for Tim and ease my aching back.
However Tim never arrives. A game warden arrives on a
bicycle, and I
ask him if he can go and look for him. He says he is not allowed off
the park grounds in his uniform, but agrees to lend me his bike so that
I can go and look. The last thing I hear as a wobble round the bend is
"by the way, no brakes".
I cycle back to the end of the park drive, but Tim is no longer there.
Then I remember that he knows another Peace Corps volunteer, Catherine,
who stays in one of the villages near the park, so I assume that he
must have gone to her house and cycle back to the gate.
I pay my park entrance fee, and am whisked away in a 4x4 to
Nyala Lodge and a welcome cold drink.
I find Max deep in conversation with an Italian family who
are
presumably staying at the lodge. Max Del Buffalo is plump and friendly
and
highly intelligent and great fun. He actually works for Jambo
Africa, who took over Nyala Lodge a few years ago, and he now runs it
single handedly. Italian by heritage, he was brought up in South Africa
and Malawi, and considers Chichewa to be his first language, closely
followed, in no particular order, by English and Italian, although to
speak to him you would never think that he wasn't English.
The trip out to the village
turns out to be a tourist outing arranged
by Max for his current visitors, the Italian family, which comprises
Mum, Dad and teenage son, each carrying their own weight in expensive
camera equipment. They speak very little English, but are very
pleasant. Apparently these outings to the local villages are a fairly
regular occurance - they give the tourists the opportunity to see the
villages, allow the villages to get involved with tourism, by virtue of
a small charge, bring the villagers a little income. Max says I'm more
than welcome to join them. We are supposed to be joined by Menno
Welling, a dutch guy who did his PhD. research around Lengwe and Mwabvi
and now heads the anthropology dept. at Malawi University (he also
arranged the surface transport of the football kit to Bangula United
which should be arriving in Malawi just about as I write this). However, Max says that
he isn't coming after all so there will be room in
the
vehicle for me and we are off in half an hour, so I dump my
rucksack in a
chalet, splash some cold water about, and off we go. Tim and Catherine
have also turned up, so we have a Discovery-full, and another vehicle
of local park staff leads the way.
All goes well to start with, although it is not actually in
the village
as, apparently, these dos normally are, but out in the country between
the villages. It is absolutely packed with locals, particularly
children, and the Italians get stuck in with their cameras. We get a
some native drums, followed by traditional welcome dance, and then we
are taken to look at the local still. Masau fruits are ground
up and fermented and then distilled in a primitive still. The
resulting brew is actually not bad - Tim and I both have a taste (and
mercifully do not immediately go blind), and Max buys a bottle to take
back to the lodge.
We move on to traditional Gule Wamkulu dancing, but things are
starting to get out of hand. Everyone forms a circle to watch the
dancers, but there are hundreds of children milling about and getting
in the way and the circle keeps closing in as people try to get a
better view. The organisers try to keep everyone back so that the
visitors (us and the Italians) can see, but it's a losing battle. Then
a fight breaks out between a couple of locals, and Max decides that it
is time to beat a hasty retreat, which is a shame as there is a group
of women busy cooking nseema for us (a shame for them, as they are
working so hard, not so much of a shame for us as nseema, the staple
diet in Malawi, a sort of porridge made of maize flour, is
actually revolting.)
We jump into the vehicles and return to the
lodge. Max is very apologetic, and refuses to let us pay for the
outing. Tim and Catherine stay on at the lodge for drinks, and then
decide to stay for dinner too, so, along with the Italian family we all
have a very pleasant evening - particularly when Max digs out the
bottle of Masau spirit.
I am a little concerned about my onward journey. I need to get back to
the main road and then back the way we came to Nchalo to catch a
minibus to Blantyre - catching a minibus from the turnoff would be
impossible as Nchalo is a change-over point and all minibuses will be
full up before they leave. Tim is getting a lift to Blantyre with some
park people, so I could get a lift with them, but they are leaving at
about 5 o'clock in the morning, and, apart from the early rise, I want
to have a look at the office computer while I am here as they allegedly
have some maps of the Mwabvi reserve that Gaynor wants me to bring home.
The issue is resolved by Max who has a quiet word with the Italians. It
seems that they are heading to Blantyre tomorrow as well, and are happy
to give me a lift.