I was staying with Mark in Lilongwe and we had a great time shopping, a crazy night out with Hazel and some other volunteers where we tried to have some dance competition with Malawians - of course we lost – and visiting friends. On Monday then FINALLY with only two hours behind schedule Andrea and Clara arrived in Lilongwe Kamuzu Airport looking very white and pretty tired. They had an ok journey and left Frankfurt despite the snow right on time. I was soooooo happy to see them, it is so good to be able to share a bit of this with someone so close like Andrea!
We spent two lovely days in Lilongwe, even Raz came up for a visit and brought us to the village he used to spend a lot of his childhood to meet his grandmom, auntie, uncle and cousins and pretty much the rest of the village too. We brought some presents for Christmas and the kids were thrilled, it was an interesting experience to be so close to real village life. Raz lost his mom when he was 15 and after that his dad started drinking and lost his job in the government so Raz moved to his aunt and uncle. They still lived in Lilongwe that time but spent a lot of time in the village to see the grandmom. He left all of them when he was about 18 when his dad died as well and the family couldn’t take care of him anymore. He had to stop college and moved to Blantyre trying to make a living somehow. It has been 10 years since the last time he´s been back.
It was a real good surprise, his granny didn’t know he was coming and she was so happy! We had a little tour to the fields where they grow maize and sometimes beans. It was fantastic! Raz´ uncle and cousin just came back from the field and didn’t even recognize him in the first moment, his cousin was 3 when Raz left. First of all they went to put on some nicer clothes I thought that was really sweet, then we had some Nsima and a tour through the house. They live really basic, a little hut with the kitchen in an extra hut outside, just a fireplace with some pots, then also an extra bathroom hut (don’t want to go into details here..) Raz said they were so happy to see him and also that we came along, we can come back any time we want. So friendly, open and lovely people!
That afternoon then we picked up Josefin (another German volunteer – teaching – who is coming with us for Christmas) and started our trip to the east, destination: lake shore!!! We just came as far as Nkhotakhota and found a lovely little backpacker runed by a former South African, Siegfried, about 65 years old and in Malawi since 2003. He told us a few stories about the house which was built by a Malawian who just liked to build houses without even being an architect. The house was interesting with a huge terrace and very open built, no doors, only the rooms had doors, and directly at the lake shore. A beautiful place to celebrate into my birthday! We had a nice dinner with some wine together with Siegfried. But already at 10 o´clock I was so tired that I went to sleep. Midnight on the spot suddenly three girls were waking me up again with a “cake” topped with candles and singing “happy birthday”, how lovely! It is so good to have friends around!! Of course also my family called and I had a chance to also wish Paul a happy birthday.
The next morning we all went to the beach where we were the only Muzungus and just chilled out in the sun, we actually all got a bit to much sun. For a while a Malawian guy decided to have a chat with us underneath the grass umbrella, he was maybe 30 years old. Unfortunately all he could speak was Chichewa. Without any success of course, Josie and me tried best to tell him that we don’t feel very comfortable with him sitting there staring at us. I think he tried to tell us about himself, his job, that he goes to church a lot and how well known he is in the village. After maybe 45 min of unsatisfying conversation he realized that there is no point talking to us so he took his trousers off and went swimming. We really didn’t understand what this was all about but it was funny anyway.
At 3 p.m. we left this beautiful place, slightly red, heading towards Chinteche where we found another nice hostel at the beach. And because it was my birthday – still – we took a family dorm with two rooms, toilet, a terrace and a few roommates like spiders and some chicken on the terrace. After a good dinner we went to sleep what a wonderful birthday!
Next day, Christmas, we went to Rumphi. We left the lake shore and took a wonderful way through the juicy forests in the north of Malawi towards the Nyika plateau. Here the landscape becomes more rocky and wild. The road gets much wilder too, a lot of pot holes, so slalom driving is a must. We arrived Rumphi close to night fall, and met with Ling, Diana, James, Marianna and Wilson (almost all VSO vols who I don’t see very much because they´re so far in the north) and we all had a lovely evening with Pizza, Lasagne, christmas songs and a game from each country - England, Germany and Holland. We had to take a paper box with our teeth from the ground which got smaller and smaller each go without using our hands, we had to put nails on ropes tied around our waste into bottles and also a game of panthomine, very funny!
The next morning we tried to leave early and decided not to go into the Nyika National Park and see Livingstonia and the waterfalls instead. Unfortunately it wasn’t possible to do both because Marianne told us that the streets we wanted to take didn’t exist anymore. So we took the M1 again further north just to find out that also the turn off to Livingstonia was closed. This was unacceptable! We didn’t drive all the way here just to neither see Niyka NP nor Livingstonia so we turned around and used a dirt track some locals told us about. It was a 2 ½ hour ride over the hills and mountains of Nyika plateau and absolutely stunning! The fresh green in combination with rich red glowing earth, real Africa! The views were breathtaking, most of the time we were on the grade of the mountain spine, left and right of us the valleys full of guava and coffee. Livingstonia lays quite high in the middle of nowhere. Overlooking the mountains with the lake at the horizon. Beautiful! I am so in love with Africa! Livingstonia is a university town, well organized, founded by David Lovingstone around 1920 as one of the first missionaries in Malawi. He first tried to found a mission at the lake shores but nearly everyone died of Malaria so he decided to move higher up and found this beautiful spot. We took a room in the stone house and hired a guide, Thomas, a local, tiny guy who showed us the waterfalls and the university. We were the only guests and as the uni was closed over the Christmas holidays and a lot of locals left to visit their families it was really quiet and relaxed. A peaceful and at night a pretty scary place, felt like in a movie, the colonial style house with the big porch, a simple kitchen, big rooms and a power cut in the evening. Only the nature sounds and us. Next morning after a nice breakfast on the porch in the morning sun we took the dirt road back to the lake. Thomas went with us and tought us some Chichewa songs for kids, good fun! In Chilumba we had to say good bye to Josie, she will take a ferry back to Monkey Bay and then a minibus to Blantyre where we will see her again when we will be back I´m sure! Thomas left us in Karonga, a few km further north we wanted to spend the night in a hostel at the beach but that one was really crab so we turned around and decided to spend the night in Karonga. We found an ok place runned by a Malawian lady and because it was already getting dark and we didn’t have anything to eat yet we asked John, one of the night guards, if he would come and have dinner with us in town. It was a bit weird but we were to scared to go alone, Karonga seems like a typical border town, not a place where you feel home, a lot of truckers, alcohol and again a power cut! John was ok with that. He was not the most talkative person in the world but he told us he hasn’t been paid for the last 3 month and is thinking of leaving the job for new years as he cant make a living like that. We wanted to invite him for food but he refused, he took a fanta orange instead. We had some nice Nsima with beef and veg. As soon as we were laying in our beds again the power came back on, now we didn’t need it anymore but at least we had a fan.
The next day we first did some culture research and went to the Karonga museum where we found a skeleton of the so called Malawisaurus. The great rift valley which stretches from the Jordan all the way down east Africa to the Malawi lake is a great source for fossils and dinosaur bones. In the museum we also found out a lot about Malawian history and culture plus had a lovely breakfast. After that we finally reached the border to Tanzania but this experience will be posted next time. I really enjoyed malawis north, it is poorer a lot of tobacco, coffee and mountains. Now I am excited to see Tanzania, some wildlife and Dar es Salam.
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