1 - 5 SEPTEMBER 2011

MONKEY BAY, MALAWI

To reach the lake required a rather long day on the bus riding all over the countryside past the Zomba Plateau to finally arrive in Monkey Bay around 4pm.My seat mate was very chatty and turned out to be a lovely man. He was from Blantyre and travelling up to Monkey Bay to sell locally made pots and pans, which he had found to be very popular there. He had at least a hundred of them all tied up and they required constant checking at the many stops to ensure no one was carrying any off with them! 

View from my campsite, looking out of my tent

Arriving in dusty Monkey Bay, I meet with a couple of locals who would like to take me to Venice Beach but after the long bus ride I can’t be bothered with the 1.5km walk and opt to stay at the nearby Mufasa (yes, same outfit as Lilongwe) Rustic Camp. An insistent young man escorts me to the gate, all along regaling me with the many services he can offer me whilst staying in Monkey Bay; Do I have dollars to change? Will I go to Cape Maclear? Giving non committed replies, I politely thank him and enter a little piece of paradise. On a tiny bay of the lake, Mufasa has no power and little individual campsites set into several tiers overlooking the water. I quickly pitch my tent and decide that it

Monkey Bay at sunset

was an excellent decision to come here and now my plans are in place to get to Mozambique I settle into a few days of absolute relaxation only after making a decision of whether to swim in the lake of not! In Lilongwe I had enquired of the tourist office about the biharzia (schistomes - a small parasite worm) in the lake, to be assured that it was only further up north and that Monkey Bay and Cape Maclear were safe. Here in Monkey Bay the locals say they will not swim in the lake, but I notice that they enter it often for laundry, filling buckets etc. That night I meet a couple of local expats who are of the opinion that the lake is far too nice not to swim in (agreed) and that the treatment is very simple and worthwhile taking if you do swim, whether you contract Biharzia or not.

Cape Maclear

To be on the safe side consume a handful of pills once only, three weeks after swimming in the lake. Sounds like a plan and each afternoon I cool off in the gorgeous, crystal clear waters of Lake Malawi confident that parasite or not I will take buy a ‘cure’ here anyway. One of the expats here I meet is Birgit Albers, founder and coordinator of the Back to School Project here, www.btsfmalawi.org   After originally travelling here she promised to help a young man with funding his education, back in 2002 and since then she has returned each year from Tasmania after finding sponsors to annually fund secondary education for Monkey Bay’s poorer, aspiring students at a cost of A$180 each.

I spend a morning getting to Cape Maclear in a Motolo – a nice name for an uncomfortable truck! 

I think they use mosquito nets to catch these little fishies

Of course we are all seated in the back where it’s dusty, hot and very bouncy on the rocky roads. Not many tourists here at Cape Maclear – I wonder if many have been scared off by the recent riots in Lilongwe and Blantyre a few weeks before. Nineteen people died but the march organisers had promised to hold off on any more marches after the government agreed to talks on their demands. Wandering around I call in at a community store for tea served in a huge teapot – enough tea for 6 people! I get chatting with a german doctor volunteering at the clinic here, who tells me the clinic’s bilharzia treatment is $80. I’m shocked and we both agree that is so overpriced in acknowledgement of the tourist’s deep pockets!  I think I will try to source it in Monkey Bay or further on at Dar es Salaam.  

A wedding party in a matolo hits town

My new friend is lovely to talk to and she agrees that she could not stay here if she had nothing to do and her next ‘gig’ is with Medicin san frontieres. We part ways and soon enough the matolo I caught to the Cape is starting to fill up to return so I get on board and back to Monkey Bay for a bit more relaxing/reading/swimming/eating. Speaking of which, in Monkey Bay I think I have found my most unique meal yet – raw cabbage shredded, with a sliver of tomato, topped with chips and a fried egg! Again strangely satisfying but incredibly unhealthy especially with that extra scoop of cooking oil ladled over the cabbage. Another day I visit the hospital and eventually find the pharmacy there behind a closed door:

Bicycle taxis

Yes they have the bilharzia medication but it is out of date. By a month. I try to persuade her to sell it to me, cause I figure 30 days either way surely shouldn’t account for much but in her words “I am scared to give it to you”. I understand her position and head back into town to try the private clinic when I meet Birget getting her maize ‘milled’.  She offers me a visit to see her project and after telling her I where I was headed she drives me to the clinic where I find that they do have the medication, I hadn’t brought enough cash with me, Birgit loans me the 2000 kwaitcha. How kind!! We head on to her project where she started from scratch and now has accommodation for eight long distance students, a sustainable environment including a fab vege garden, the produce of which she sells to the kitchens at Cape Maclear (locals don’t like lettuce), fruit trees, chooks etc. There is an after school facility for tuition along with a local manager, staff and security. The local chief gave Birgit the land after she proposed the idea and it has certainly grown like topsy, to the point that perhaps she now has too many students to manage on her own. The last manager robbed her during her absence last year and now she is trying to quickly get the new man up to speed before her departure next month. After nine years here perhaps Birgit is encountering some jealousy from the community, which would not be unusual because she is finding many negatives lately about staying on.

A last view of Monkey Bay, mmmmmm

Along with local price rises and students who get sponsored but do not attend school, this year she has 140 students on her books, there have been problems with borders who abuse the hostel privilege, schools not being honest if a student is not attending school (they still want to be paid) and you only have to say no to the wrong person in small communities (take work for example) and things can get tough for you. It is Birgit’s birthday today and we share a delicious chocolate cake that she has baked. She relates how she used to raise money baking muffins to tourists a long time ago and I can imagine how popular that would have been! I am also able to repay Birgit in dollars for the medication, which is very handy for both of us. As we part ways, I wish her the very best in her project and promise to highlight it in my blog just in case anyone may be interested in helping the project out, either financially, materially or physically by volunteering….. www.btsfmalawi.com

Soon enough the weekend is nearly over – I always use the excuse that Sunday is a bad day to travel. It probably isn’t true but it works for me to prolong my stay anywhere I like. I reluctantly pack up to brave some very bad roads to try and reach Mozambique in a day!

FACT: Big discussions in the media here regarding provision of post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) to prevent HIV infection. It has been described as a ‘short term anti retro-viral treatment to reduce the likelihood of HIV infection after potential exposure, either through workplace exposure (nurse/Dr getting needle prick) or sexual Intercourse (condom breakage, sexual assault). The initial idea was to provide it to rape victims but now thinking is forming here that with this medication you may then have unprotected sex with an HIV positive partner and then take PEP to stay safe. This has led to quite a large demand for this prophylaxis to ‘keep people safe’. One thought was “we do not need conditions attached to this important drug that can save numerous lives”,  “Should people be left to suffer because they have deemed to be careless?” and another thought was “Why can’t prostitutes be allowed access to this drug?”  I say why can’t the blokes wear a flipping condom?????????