February 12 2009

J-M was having a Malawi Moment kind of day yesterday. What is a Malawi Moment you might ask? Well, it’s the kind of experience in which the simplest thing gets very complicated, or takes forever to resolve itself. Example? Getting the handle fixed that raises and lowers the driver-side car window. Yes sir, we’ll fix that right up for you, no problem, a simple thing, no charge. Three days, two trips to the garage, many apologies and 4,500 kwacha (about $32 US) later, the car is back and thankfully the window now works. Add to that: the Internet is down, you have to cancel your round of golf due to lack of transportation, can’t pick up your wife after work and can’t let anyone know about it because you are suddenly out of phone credit. Now, you are having a Malawi Moment, or perhaps several moments.

Planning a favourite recipe for dinner? Or perhaps a new one found on the Internet when it was working? Be prepared to adapt, substitute and generally be creative. On any given day all of the ingredients might show up at the store or market, some, or none. It’s the daily shopping adventure.

Lest this update sound like I am sinking into mid-February depression, do understand there are many good things on the horizon. We have a long weekend coming up at the beginning of March, with plans afoot for a trip to Domwe Island, a lovely spot off Cape Maclear. Shortly after that is a weekend safari to Liwonde National Park, one of Malawi’s best wildlife centres. And then there is Easter break, with Northern Malawi and Zanzibar to look forward to. Lots in the works and much planning to be done.

And who knows, maybe last year’s book order will arrive soon, the power will be on when we arrive at school Monday morning and the coffee maker will be working. The school network will have the virus issue resolved and our classroom projectors will arrive. I remain an eternal optimist. After all, the truck at the end of the street did move on the day after my last post and I am sure someone has happily received their load of lumber.

February 3, 2009

Well the technology gods are not with us this week. The power outages increase, the school server is plagued by viruses and it seems impossible to upload images to this blog today, hence the lack of photos in my recent postings. You will, however, find links to a couple of the albums I did manage to upload in the January 6th posting. Hopefully, they work. I am an eternal optimist.

My campfire cooking skills are being put to the test again. What do you do when you have 14 people coming for dinner, are in the middle of preparing a big pot of chili and the power goes? You head off to the nearest store, find a charcoal stove and hope for the best. By the time the guests arrived the chili was well simmered, the power deigned to return, and best of all we now had a charcoal cooker for the next power outage. Hakuna mutata, as they say in Swahili, palibe vuto, in Chichewa.

Patience is definitely one of the lessons Africa teaches. In his book, The Shadow of the Sun, the Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski, quotes a fellow traveler’s remark about the local people’s “fantastic talent for waiting”. It is a talent indeed, a talent I envy with each power outage, each time I contemplate the missing book order, the lack of a decent pencil sharpener… And yet, as we have seen countless times in the last few months things tend to sort themselves out in the end. The chili was just fine. No one went hungry. We had the charcoal cooker yesterday to get us through the dinner hour.

And just down the street another story of incredible patience plays out. Every afternoon for the past 9 days, we have marveled at the patience of the fellows camped out by the truck at the end of our road. Somewhere, someone is waiting, probably quite patiently, for a truckload of lumber which has been parked at the end of our road. It appears to have tire problems. Each day a different wheel seems to be off the truck. The driver takes refuge in the shade of his truck during the heat, or inside when it rains, guarding his cargo and his truck. This is a residential street lined with compound walls and maize fields. The nearest stores, restaurants and market, not to mention bathroom facility, are about 2 kilometres away but every time we pass there is someone sitting by the truck. It is never left unattended. Eventually the problem will be resolved. The truck will be repaired. The lumber will be delivered. Or we will have a permanent truck sculpture to mark the corner of our street.

January 29, 2009

Driving in Lilongwe is generally pretty easy, except at night. Yes, there are some places where traffic bogs down, such as the entrance to area 2, the shopping area, but for the most part the biggest hazard is weaving around the potholes. Then comes nightfall, about 6:30, instant blackness, and very few streetlights. Many of the traffic lights turn off at sundown as well, in a random sort of way.

The most difficult time is that first hour until about 7:30 as there are so may people walking and cycling along the road with no lights. Rush hour is more a matter of dodging pedestrians and cyclists than cars, although the drivers who insist on using their high beams don’t make life in the driver’s seat any easier.

Then there is the getting lost factor. The darkness makes it much harder to pick out landmarks that are easy to follow during daylight. This was the cause of our great Chinese food adventure this week. Getting to the restaurant was quite easy but coming back, we took one wrong turn and found ourselves circulating in the maze that is area 9. When we finally managed to get back to the restaurant we just knew getting directions was going to be a challenge. The creative English in the menu explains our concern. Can you guess what a dish called, “Holy basil rabbit” might be? Neither could we. We didn’t order it. Anyway, after much discussion we convinced the proprietor we hadn’t lost our car, rather we were lost, or as he put it, “You lost the road?” “Yes, we lost the road”, we humbly agreed. Without a moment’s hesitation he kindly offered to jump in his car and lead us back to the main road. Another adventure with a happy ending, appreciation for basic human kindness, and great sighs of relief.

January 23, 2009

Rain, rain and more rain. It is definitely the theme of the month. No, it doesn’t generally rain all day, and yes, it does cool things off to a very comfortable temperature, but we do find ourselves saying: enough already! But say what we will it is going to rain, and then some, for the next month at least. So it is grin and bear it time. The rains have turned everything beautifully green. The fairways on the golf course look like real fairways now. Unfortunately it also means the rough is impassable and those long fairways are pretty formidable when there is little extra roll on that ball.

Our trip to Zomba, former capital of Malawi, was also pretty soggy but interesting. The landscape is quite different as it is nestled at the base of a mountain. The major economic force in the region is the university which was relocated here from Blantyre to compensate for the loss of the government jobs when the capital was relocated to Lilongwe, an astute political move. Unfortunately the stunning views of the Zomba plateau were obscured much of the time by cloud; however, our knowledgeable guide made our hike to the Falls and various lookouts quite interesting. He also protected us from the ever-present rock sellers. And once again we were astonished by how much cargo a Malawian can manage on a simple bicycle. Transporting stacks of firewood down the mountain is grueling work, to be compensated at the end of the day with barely enough money to survive and maybe a cold home-brewed beer before having to haul that bike all the way back up the mountain again to the home village. Life continues to be quite harsh for people who live in those remote villages.

Back in Lilongwe our time has been consumed with school and travel plans for the upcoming holidays, not to mention trying to figure out how and when we are getting home this summer. Both events still seem a long way off but getting anything organized here takes time.

Finally, a break in the weather: lovely, mid-twenty temperatures, quite hot in the sun actually, and no rain for three days. Being able to hang the laundry outside instead of having it add to the humidity in the house is even a treat. And the road crews have managed to fill in some of the potholes which multiply with every rainfall. Yes, we are enjoying it while we can.

January 6, 2009

We found rhubarb! Now on a scale of excitement that might seem pretty low, definitely way lower than the arrival of those beautiful new granddaughters. They are 10++. However, anyone who has tasted J-M’s rhubarb-raisin pie knows that finding a supply of rhubarb is pretty exciting. But let’s just back up a bit first.

It’s been a while since I have updated my musings, due to the aforementioned baby boom excitement, and our recent travels. The arrival of Quinn at the end of November, followed by Willa in early December, plus the end of term and holiday travel meant little time to write more than a flurry of quick emails. Now we are back in Lilongwe and have a few days to relax before the beginning of the new term. I have even managed to upload some pictures to my albums.

http://tinyurl.com/kenyapics

http://tinyurl.com/zombapics

Our trip to Kenya, though planned at the last minute, turned out very well indeed, thanks to Tasha’s wonderful extended family. Tasha is one of our fellow travelers from the Zambia safari who has a large extended family in Mombasa. They kindly arranged our accommodation and even put us up, or put up with us, for two nights in their home. They treated us to Christmas dinner, arranged for us to participate in their family excursion to a retreat centre and to visit Funzi Island with them. It was an amazing opportunity to be part of the local community rather than just tourists.

Highlights of the Kenya experience:

First and foremost: Tasha's fantastic family and their wonderful hospitality, not to mention the food!

Kenya Air:
They treated me so well the minute they spotted me hobbling through the check-in line on crutches. Yes, I managed to sprain an ankle two days before our flight. However, the Kenya Air folks had a porter with wheelchair waiting for me in Nairobi and he very efficiently whisked us through all the lines and security checks just in time to make our connecting flight to Mombasa, which is in a different terminal. I am sure we would never have made it in time left to our own devices. They were equally accommodating on the return flight.

The dolphin dhow safari with lunch at Wasini Island:
This was a little excursion we managed to negotiate on our own and it was superb.
A day of snorkeling, great waves and a delicious lunch. Check out the menu in the picture. We certainly did not lack for good seafood and fish on this trip.
Cracking our own crab was also a pretty entertaining part of the Funzi Island trip mentioned above. And the visit to the slave cave at Shimoni was definitely a sobering historical monument.
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Shopping: stores with stuff in them, wow! Not to mention bargaining, on the beach for kikoi’s and almost everywhere for whatever. Tasha was a great help in establishing reasonable prices and we took it from there.

The beaches: beautiful, fine white sand, clear water.

Ali Babour’s Cave restaurant: a fine dining, candle lit experience inside a coral cave, looking up through the opening to the stars.

The people: warm and friendly. We felt “karibu” everywhere. No, that is not a large North American antelope type creature; it means welcome in Swahili.

Lowlights of the Kenya experience:

Not many, but three come to mind.

The beach guys, the young men who are waiting the minute you step off the hotel’s private property onto the public beach areas. They want to be your friend, give you a tour, sell you stuff, basically relieve you of your shillings. They were friendly and not overly aggressive but definitely pesky. Unfortunately it is a sign of the local economic times that they have no other work and it is hard to get upset about them trying to earn a living however they can.

The two flat tires on the bus on the way to Funzi Island were certainly not highly appreciated although they did give rise to a certain amount of humour.

And finally, needless to say, the thieves who snatched Jen and Tasha’s bag through the bus window while we were sweltering in line for the ferry were completely unappreciated by all. Fortunately there were no documents or irreplaceable items in the bag, mostly dirty laundry.

The positives definitely outshone the lows and it was a great holiday experience.