Reggae feelin´

It has been nearly 2 weeks since my last entry and of course so much has happened!

The weekend after my last post was very relaxing.. A good night out with Elleana and her sister on Friday night where we went to Doogles for a gig of this guy (Ron Nkomba) I´ve also seen at the lake of stars. Good music! A mix of reggae, folk and soft rock I would say. We danced till early morning and I slept nice and long on Saturday. Blantyre seems to be quite a place for the whole Raggae and Rastafarian buisiness, you see a lot of supporters. It gives it I think a nice atmosphere because besides the whole hardship and surviving fight you have this music which cheers you up. Then the people are one and can forget about the differences and inequalities in this world around them it seems. I like this about Reggae. One love!

So Saturday went by fast, Jennifer and me went to the Limbe market which was really an experience. Totally Africa! There are stalls and huts, piles of clothes, goats, chicken, cows and people all over the place. And I´m talking about a place of about 3 football pitches! Through it runs this stinky little river what makes it even more original. Its huge! You can get anything here! If you don’t want anything be careful, people drag you into their stalls, nearly throwing clothes at you or simply scream from the top of their lungs just to get your attention. From every side some boy or men standing in the middle of their piles scream “one peace only a fifty a kwacha!” the other one “two pantses only a hundredi kwacha!” Its fantastic! The dialect, the life, all these things you can buy. Everyone is staring at you, what is a “muzungu” doing in the market? Some boys were just laughing their heads off, I still don’t really know why. Maybe they were happy to see us or just found it so hilarious seeing us completely overwhelmed trembling from one stall to the next. We bought some bed linen, a Chitenga (traditional colorful peace of material which women wrap around their waste or carry their baby with, or use for several other situations), which I can use as a beach towel, some flip flops, a nice little summer dress for Jen and of course some fruits and vegetables. Covered in sweat, overwhelmed with this experience and packed with hipes of veggies we went back home to have a nice big dinner. What a wonderful day!

Sunday I went to the swimming pool (! Yes there is a swimming pool in Blantyre!) with Nikki. It is a bit outside of Blantyre, I definitely need to get a bike, and the trip is so worth it! It belongs to a middle aged French guys hostel, “Hostellerie du France”, and is simply stunning! Behind this old colonial style house (hotel and restaurant) is the pool on a terrace, overlooking Blantyre, surrounded by trees with lots of birds. You can see right to the other side towards Mt. Soche, a big mountain just at the side of Blantyre. It gives you a fantastic view! There we spent the day, a bit decadent but so nice, reading, sunbathing and cooling down in the pool.

It was hard going back to work on Monday but things are progressing and slowly I find my way around the college. The week was the week of the finishing students writing their exams and I was involved in taking and marking them. I already know a few of the students from my orientation and its nice to be participating in their final weeks. On Wednesday I went to a national football game (2 Euro to get in) just a bit up the street from the college. Malawi vs. Ruanda, friendship game in preparation for the All African Cup and we won!! 2:1!!!! It was really good fun! What is a big screen, life commentators on power speakers, big half time shows and slow motion repeat if you have the voovooselas and the crazy crowd dancing to Malawian music?! (again a lot of reggae!)  I think I missed half the fouls and actions on the field, I´m just not used to the perspective. Being spoiled with all the technical equipment in Europe, especially as I usually watch (if I watch it) football in TV and not live, I was surprised how precise the fans could see what was going on down on the pitch. We were so far away! So I just waved my flag I bought at the entrance for 10 cents and which was handmade out of 3 little stripes of cloth, red, black and green roughly sutured together and a white sun painted in the centre, this stapled on a wooden stick. This is Malawi! Improvised but original! My new rasta-friend Raz who went to the game with me, walked me home and I learned a lot about this whole philosophy of being one nation, coming back to Africa, to the roots of the human race, smoke the roots as well in form of weed, pray to Haile Selassie (third messias on earth and king of the one free country in Africa, Ethiopia), grow your hair in dreads as it shows that you don’t believe in Babylon (the ideology and uniformity of the west) and be open, friendly and stop thinking in categories. Interesting! So easy people to hang around with! The colour of your skin doesn’t matter and that’s really nice for a change! (I sometimes ask myself who is the racist? The white or the black?)

So the week past buy and Friday night we all went to this reggae concert some half an hour out of Blantyre to see the Black Missionaries. That was real Malawian, the place was steaming! Everyone was dancing and having a good time and the good thing is all of this is not very expensive so affordable for most the people and therefore not so posh and extravaganza as some other places I went in the first weeks. Well the security is not that good, although there were army guys standing at the doors with rifles but the camera and phones of my Canadian friends got stolen when standing in the Q, it just happens so quickly! But again, hopefully that feed some hungry kids. I really enjoyed chatting to the people and dancing. I even got a proposal of marriage, a really serious gentlemen thought it was the solution to just start a new race, whatever that means. All in all it was a great night! Elleana brought a German guy along and it was nice talking a bit of German again :) On the way back we had to take a taxi because the Minibusdrivers were all inside drinking, unfortunately the taxi didn’t start so the two guys had to push it. While doing this some kids tried to steal their valets out their back pockets so they went after them. We, sitting in the taxi, which finally starts and turned around, realized the guys were gone! What a fright! But we found them completely high on testosterone and adrenaline level but with their valets and belongings. Crazy night! You learn out of these experiences!

After 3 hours of sleep Nikki and Hazel picked me up at 6 o´clock in the morning to go to Monkey Bay, girls weekend of all female VSO´s (the male VSO´s had a boys weekend at Cape McClear). It took 3 hours to get there and the place was –again- absolutely beautiful! It’s a south-african guy with his 3^rd wife and boy who owns it. A real hippie! Directly at the lake, a little bay, a little campsite, some rooms and a little bar (Called the joint) next to this huge, 3000 year old Boabab tree is all you find. No electricity or running water (only that from the lake) but a lot of atmosphere! He even got a car radio with some speakers running on car battery for us so we had some music. It was a long night, started with a boat trip along the shore and back where I still don’t know if we were the attraction for the fishermen and kids or the other way around. It felt like in a zoo where you don’t know who is watching who. And ended with a lot of drinks and dancing back at the joint! Even the little boy, Sander who is 8 years old and already a hippie with long hair, was dancing along with us as if we were all friends. There were a few other travelers but mostly VSO, we rocked the dancefloor! Most surprisingly I met a German girl from Gießen!!!! She is travelling through to visit her friend in Mosambique. What a coincidence, it was like meeting someone from the family haha! And surprise surprise, she is a Rasta through and through, wearing dreads and the whole lot. I think that’s really hunting me! Maybe I´ll see her again..

Sunday I was just completely tired, you can only sleep that long in a tent until the sun is up and it changes into a sauna. So up at 7 and not able to sleep any more as a lot of exciting things were taking place. Breakfast made on open fire, clothes swap with the other vols, a few of them leaving soon and packing up the things. We were home by 4 and I had to do a ton of washing which made me really sick because I think I lost about a litre of water from sweating! Nearly fainted. I was so happy to be back in my bed. Chris and Jen went to Zomba plateau that weekend and they had a lot to tell me about it.

And now this week started and again so much has happened. I went to Chikwawa monday and tuesday with one of my collegues for district supervision and started some Chichewa classes. But I think I´ll tell you about it the next time when I´m back (if I´m back) from Mulanje Mountain. Our plan for the weekend, to climb that mountain, but the Malawians say there´re evil spirits on top and a lot of people never returned. We will see..

Peace man! (I think that has to be said for the end of this post)

Hanna

here you see the homo sapiens sapiens in their typiacl way of socializing and attitude

our camp

Monkey at Monkey bay

the baobab tree with Julia, the girl from Gießen

the bar