29 AUGUST - 1 SEPTEMBER 2011

MALAWI – Country number 18 - MALAWI

LILONGWE and BLANTRYE

I had cashed up on Malawian Kwaitcha for a very reasonable rate at the border so getting transport in Malawi wasn’t a problem. Although the money changer at the border had tried to cheat me, I picked the ruse and we all had a good laugh afterwards when I complimented them on it. From my map I find where the bus is travelling and ask to get dropped off in the centre of town to locate the backpackers I’d picked. They’ve moved but after directions (you know now how it goes: go right while they wave with their left arm) and a couple of qualified guesses, I find the Mufasa Backpackers still in a good location to town for food, transport, banks etc.   Nice vibe here and full of Peace Corp volunteers who are still a good source of info for further inland but not terribly sociable to anyone not of their ilk. Bar out back under huge trees, good kitchen and my dorm mate is lovely. 

There are two distinct areas of Lilongwe – Old Town where all the action is and where I am staying and the City Centre – the administrative home of Malawi and there is not a lot in between. I’d left my phone charger behind in Lusaka but found a replacement so easily in the nearby market here along with good local food available here so initially all is good. Next day I head to the Mozambique Embassy for another visa – easy peasy and pick it up in the afternoon at 2pm? Excellent.  A quick look around the city centre and try the post office to see if they know where to find the Girl Guides. No luck there so I keep trying their phone when I get eventually get an answer. The lady wants to speak to ‘my driver’ to pass on directions so I ask a nice young man in the combi with me if he can listen to her instructions and then repeat them to me. Too easy again and I find their headquarters within the hour! Ruth Magela, their Executive Director, is very welcoming and tells me they are holding their ninth AGM down at Blantyre on Thursday, inviting me to attend. As my Malawi plans are in a state of flux, I figure visiting Blantyre to meet with Malawians is a good an excuse as any to travel there. We take photos and I admire the Guide World Flag getting a good airing before the big day!

I find I am starting to settle into a little navel gazing here in Malawi – damm these larium pills and a general malaise of being around too many ‘do-gooder’ volunteers with American accents perhaps? I am not really interested in hanging out with a lot of stoned mzungus by any lake, no matter how lovely when I could do that anywhere in the world. Although the photos of the view over the Rift Valley at Livinstonia do look amazing! AND there is a music festival by the lake at the end of this month. But as much as I had initially planned to travel up north then catch the Ilala ferry south, I estimate that I cannot travel to the north of Malawi and the north of Mozambique as I had originally hoped to do because this would not allow me get to Nairobi in reasonable time to travel to Madagascar before December…. Perhaps that is getting to me – why can’t I do everything? And why when I had so much time, is it becoming decidedly short?

After chatting to couple of different girls at the hostel, I glean that Nkhata Bay IS lovely but so is Monkey Bay and in the end it is only a lake with places to stay for tourists. I debate with myself that I’m interested in unique attractions and I stayed at a lovely lake a few years ago in Nigaragua and it had a volcano, which was very unique!  So with this in mind I decide to travel south to Blantyre for a look see then head straight over the border to Mozambique to visit Ilha de Mozambique, which as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is deemed very unique.

So after 2 nights in Lilongwe, it’s an easy bus ride down south to Blantyre, Malawi’s oldest settlement, to stay at Doogles Backpackers located 200m from the bus station!  Even though Blantyre is also Malawi’s most populous city it is very quiet in town today because of Eid, the end of Ramadan and as good as a public holiday you could get, including in its sister city, Limbe only 5km down the road.  I head there to the train station to confirm the one and only train in Malawi that heads east from Limbe once a week to the Mozambique border left today and departs Liwonde tomorrow. As the GG AGM is on Thursday which means I’d have to wait a whole week for the train. I could stay at the lake for that week, but there is a border crossing nearer the lake that may be easier to cross especially for transport on the other side to Cuamba.. hmmm this all bears thinking deeply about again.

There are a couple of interesting buildings left here and there: Blantyre has St Michaels and All Angels Church - a grand old mission church built by a determined lot of scots back in the 1891 as a very impressive memorial to Dr Livingstone. And the oldest European building in Malawi, built for the manager of the African Lakes Corporation (HQ in Glasgow!) who operated here in Malawi for many years.

The Malawi Girl Guide National AGM was held in at the Luinzu Secondary School and I arrived to meet with the National President Ms Margaret Ali and the Chief Commissioner, Mrs Dziwas Mbewe who are all very welcoming. The ceremonial opening included Colours, with the girls being very correct and gorgeous. This is followed by a bible reading and sharing on the topic of ‘How to become a steadfast and bold girl and young woman’.  This was followed by a candle lighting accompanied by ‘This Little Guiding Light of Mine’, welcoming addresses and the Guest of Honour, Jacinta Claisi who spoke very confidently.

A cute Brownie

There were activities by the girls themselves, including one play about a grandmother who tells her two granddaughters that their mother has now died, their father is already dead but she is old and has no money to support them. She tells the girls that they will have to go where the men are drinking and prostitute themselves for money. One girl does so and contracts HIV. The other girl tells her Guide Leader what her grandmother wants her to do and the leader affirms that it is wrong and she visits the home to talk to grandmother. Imagine THAT at our staid ol’ Australia GGs AGMs!! Go down a treat, you think? Big brave issues get tackled here on a daily basis and it can be easy to forget the many obstacles in young girls and women’s lives here, which Guiding is seeking to address.

Back at the hostel, I talk to anyone who has come west from Mozambique about which border crossing they used. My original plan was to travel by train and cross at Nayuchi as it looked the closest way to Cuamba, but on closer inspection of a very good map here at Doogles, it shows the road further north to be of a better grade. A couple had crossed the day before and told me that they had found the transport connections there ‘tricky’. Now I am way past wanting to tackle tricky transport because that can only lead to becoming stranded so I made up my mind to cross further north at Mandimba.  Now it makes sense to travel up to the lake for a look see then cross from there.  After the good reports I will check Monkey Bay out for a night or so then decide when to travel onwards. Ahh I do like it when it all looks a bit clearer – perhaps I confused with too much choice of where to go here in Malawi?? lol

FACT: After the Portuguese, the most famous explorer to reach Malawi was David Livingstone who reached the lake in 1859 and recorded that it was a ‘Lake of Stars’! His exploits inspired a generation of explorers and missionaries to reach Africa and in 1875 the Free Church of Scotland built a mission at Cape Maclear, closely followed by the Established Church of Scotland who built in the Shire Highlands and named it Blantyre. After Cape Maclear proved malarial, the mission moved north to the eastern escarpment of the lake and the Livinstonia Mission is still there today.

FACT 2: There is a big crackdown in Liwonde district on charcoal dealers! This is in response to a taskforce looking into deforestation issues – Malawi has only 10% of their forests left intact.  It is now illegal to possess charcoal!