Into Mozambique I go...

Word of warning, though this post covers only two days worth, they were very interesting and busy, and so this is a long post. Sorry!

My travels in Malawi had all been relatively easy and had, though often long, gone off without a hitch. I’d almost began to suspect that all the stories one hears about difficulty of travel on this continent had been vastly over exaggerated. Until I got to Mozambique.

As soon as the minibus taking me to the border town Milange stopped, people started grabbing furiously at my backpack that was in the back of the bus. I was in the furthest back seat, so I had to bat hands away and yell a wee bit more than I wanted to get people to leave it alone. They weren’t trying to nick it, but wanted me to take their crappy little bicycle taxi the 300m to the border post and onwards into Mozambique. I guess the best way to secure a customer is to take his stuff.

At the border post I had no problems, which was a relief, though the immigration officer was very suspicious of why I had only traveled in one country, Malawi, previous to Mozambique. She kept insisting – where have you been in Africa? She showed me other people’s immigration forms – lots of foreigners had listed far more than one country. It just struck me as funny that it would seem suspicious that I’d flown into Malawi, as if no one goes there by choice for Malawi, it’s just for transit.

On the Mozambique side, I proceeded by bicycle taxi to the nearest Mozambican town. A bicycle taxi driver had stayed with me for the 30 minutes at immigration. He was pretty patient and desperate for the work. The legal procedure for the Malawians to get into Mozambique for this short term work is quite funny – they buy a scrap of paper from a vender (who literally rips a piece of paper from a notebook) write their name down, sign it and then get it stamped by both Malawian and Mozambican authorities. That’s as easy as bureaucracy gets, eh Brian? Once in the town, he tried to change the fare to double what we’d agreed, citing that the cycle was uphill. I wondered if the landscape had changed since the last time he’d done the trip. I gave him all my remaining Malawian currency (Kwacha).

Once in the Mozambican Milange town, I sought out transport onwards to Mocuba. The only transport was a Chapa (a pick-up truck) who said he’d be leaving if they got 10 passengers. I was number two. I asked what would happen if there wasn’t ten? We might leave tomorrow. ‘Might’. Ah yes – I have patience in my aresenal! We waited around until there were 8 of us, but it was getting on towards 3pm and the drive to Mocuba is cited as 4 hours in the Lonely Planet (though I sensed misinformation) and I didn’t want to get stuck in this town overnight, pay $10 for accommodation, and still not be sure if we were leaving the next day. So I offered to pay double my fare ($15 from $8) if we left right then. The driver thought it over and agreed. Woo!

The driver was awesome. He’s Mozambican, but third generation of Indian descent. He let me sit up in the front with him. He spoke a little English and smokes like he’s got nothing else to put in his lungs. It was a crazy drive, all dirt road, and lasting about 8 hours. He liked to yell passionately about things and to gesticulate as he drove – I kept my eyes on the road for the both of us. Once in Mocuba (the length of this paragraph doesn’t really represent how long the drive really was) he had to drive around town delivering the goods in the back, and making sure he got the price that had been promised by the people who’d loaded it. It was fun, and a little mad. Around 11pm we went to the bus depot where he showed me which bus I’d have to get to Nampula the next day at 3.30am and found a cheap hotel ($8 and not worth a penny of it) right next to the bus. Also, amusingly, Lonely Planet describes Mocuba as ‘Nobody’s favorite town’ but it was this chapa driver’s favorite in the world. Pretty funny.

The next ‘morning’, after barely 4 hours sleep, I got into the bus to Nampula. It was a fairly uneventful 7 hour drive along (mostly) paved roads.

I got off the bus and had my first ever experience with Police looking for a bribe! I’d read about it, heard about it… I felt kind of like a kid who’s won the raffle – Wow, this is happening to me! A little strange, I know. But because I’d learned what to do in those scenarios, and I had plenty of time so wasn’t being inconvenienced, so thought it was a very interesting experience. Here’s how it played out. I got off the bus and there were two police officers waiting. They asked to see my passport, and since I don’t yet have a notarized copy of it, I handed it over. They checked through the photo and visa pages for about 15 minutes, mulling over the gravity of the problem in my document. Then, they informed me that my visa was wrong. It had a ‘start date’ and a ‘duration amount’ but no ‘end date’. I explained, with the help of the bus driver (which makes two awesome bus drivers in a row!) that they don’t write an ‘end date’ until you leave the country. That I have 30 days from the starting date, and this was day… two. One of the officers was happy with this, the other (shorter and fatter, let’s call him ‘The Fat One’) was not and reiterated over and over that this was not allowed. After a while, the bus driver told me (I supposed my feigned ignorance of what was really going on convinced him) that the police wanted ‘soda’. ‘Soda’ or ‘Fanta’ or ‘Coke’ is the typical way of asking for a bribe. I said that I wouldn’t pay, because I don’t have very much money. Then I offered to go to the police station or immigration office with them. The Fat One eyed me up and then, in an aggressive, pompous manner, declared that yes, we would go to the police station, and turned ready to go. I, just as speedily, grabbed my bag, buckled it around my waist (to show that I was serious about going) and caught up to him very quickly. I think my eagerness and willingness put him off because The Fat One stopped, exchanged a few words with the other police man and handed me back my passport, informing me that I could go.

What fun police interactions are! As long as you have time (i.e. not in any kind of hurry) and patience, it makes for an interesting, not altogether awful experience. It’s certainly not worse than someone badgering you for money or trying to sell some huge wooden table to you as you try to walk (as if I would carry that wherever I’m going).

I was then very lucky as I got to the Nampula bus depot expecting to find out at what time the bus to Pemba was leaving the following morning (predicting 3-4am) but found there was a bus leaving in an hour! So I climbed on and an hour later, when close to sixty five thousand bags of flour and shoes had been loaded into the passenger area, we left! Twenty minutes later, a tire popped like a gun shot. The passengers groaned and, with the familiarity of high schoolers doing the monthly fire drill, exited the bus. Twenty minutes later, the wheel had been changed and we were off again.

About 3 hours later, one of the strangest things ever to happen to me on a bus… happened. We crossed into another province, the bus stopped, and we all had to get out and rinse our hands. Then we got back on and continued on our way. It was so strange. They said it’s to stop diseases from entering the province, which I suppose makes sense in ideological terms… but, as far as I know, diseases can be transmitted via other means as well. Therefore, it seems a waste of time to have everyone wash their hands (with, presumably, unfiltered water) if you’re also not going to brush everyone’s teeth, give everyone a vaccine and search your bags like Australian Immigration. Pretty funny.

Twenty kilometers from Pemba, Boom! Another flat tire. We kept driving, because it was so close. We could hear the loud flapping of the tire for 10km (during which we went a little slower, but still overtook a pick-up truck whilst going uphill). Then they stopped and cut the tire away from the wheel. It was explained to me that the flapping sound would attract police attention. Ah.

I finally arrived at my accommodation at Pemba Magic Lodge 36 hours after leaving Blantyre, with probably 30 of those hours spent on buses. Welcome to traveling in Africa.

Thanks for reading!

Trip to Likoma Island

To sum it up, so you know what you’re about to read – Likoma Island is great. Getting there is awful. Thus, my advice is to visit if at all possible but make sure not to try and get there. I actually found a statistic that rated the ferry service as the absolute worst in the world. You can check the stat here. But don't get distracted! Come back and read!

I left Blantyre in the morning for Monkey Bay, the port town where I’d be catching the ferry, called the Ilala, for Likoma Island. At Monkey Bay I stayed in a lovely little electricity-less hostel called Mufasa’s which was right on the lake. It was pretty idyllic, and currently the staff is comprised of a couple of American girls, an Israeli and a Dutch guy who, how should we put this, like to have a good time? Spend the majority of nights, days the time drunk, stoned not sober, which makes for a great atmosphere, though I didn’t partake in the daily festivities as I had to catch the ferry early the following morning. The lake was wonderful to swim in, until I found out that once in a while a crocodile parks his camboose on the beach and can get a little bitey. Then swimming was less fun. Then, when I found out the last croc siting was in 2009, I felt a little bitter at having cut my swim short.

We climbed to the top of a rock-island and saw the view at sunset, which was beautiful.

In the evening, when night had fallen, I decided to have a little fun with my camera using the 60-second aperture, along some other obscure settings to get a couple of cool pictures. Here are the results:

There are other photos with two of me. It's fun to play with new discoveries.

The following morning I boarded the ferry. I would be on it for 35 hours.

Most guests stay on the top deck because cabins are too expensive, the lower deck is technically reserved for cargo (goats, chickens, the works) along with their owners, so we were told we couldn’t sit there. The top deck is quite nice – you get A LOT of sun. There’s a little covered area, that often feels hotter than direct sunlight, but other than that you’d better be ready to get a tan. At night, you can rent a foam mattress for $2. I had not brought a sleeping bag because I didn’t have space, so come 3am when the wind picked up, I was freezing. I’d put on my water-proof, and hopefully wind-proof, trousers and jacket, which meant I near boiled when I hit the hay at 9pm, but still near froze at 3am! Also, one has to be weary of the rats. I didn’t kill any, but they know who’s not their friend.

We arrived at 8pm at the island, which has no dock and, this particular evening, had no electricity! I tell you, you haven’t disembarked from a boat until you’ve taken a little dingy to shore, lit only by the moon. I followed my colleague, Peter, to a hotel nearby and tried to get some rest for the night. However, a windowless, concrete room would put Finnish saunas to the test and I’m pretty sure I lost half my body mass in water weight that night.

The next day we visited a bunch of schools – we were here on work after all. We made it to the hostel we’d planned on staying at in the afternoon. ‘Mango Drift’ is another great hostel, has a huge private beach and a lovely bar. The food was also great, but we’ll get to that in a bit. That afternoon, I rested, I slept, I swam. I recharged the proverbial batteries, and the real batteries as the electricity had been restored to the island.

The following morning’s wake up was 5am to catch a boat to a nearby island (12km away) where we needed to visit 3 schools. Why man settled so far from convenience will never make sense to me. ‘Convenience’ has changed it’s meaning over the centuries, but in this day and age it means where one has mobile phone signal, and internet.

After visiting those schools, we had to wait for the weather to calm down before heading back to Likoma Island to visit the two final schools. There, we interviewed a number of the students. It was very interesting to hear how much Mary’s Meals’ daily feeding had changed their lives, from their perspective.

We got done with everything around 3pm and headed back to the hostel where I, once again, crashed for the better part of the afternoon. For dinner, which, having not eaten more than a pack of coconut biscuits and small pieces of fish all day meant I was a wee bit famished, we had crocodile. Oh yeah, I got my revenge from the spoiled swim in Monkey Bay. Crocodile was actually delicious – kind of tastes like a mixture of beef and chicken, and has a texture similar to tough fish (like a tuna steak… but not). It was great.

One thing that never ceased to amaze me was the sky on the island on the way to it. The sky is huge, though not quite as big as in Texas, and so blue. The Lake is an even deeper blue and the way the light, which has a more powerful, luminous quality than I’ve seen before, plays upon the water and the land is simply stunning. Of course, sunsets and sunrises are the best where the colors of the leaves, ground, sky, clouds and water complemented each other delicately and transported me back to autumn evenings in the south of France, which artists such as Van Gogh and Cezanne depicted so perfectly. If only they’d spent a summer here.

The following morning, if 3.30am can be called ‘the following morning’ we had to get up to catch the Ilala back to Monkey Bay. We made it to the ferry at around 4.30am, waited until 6am to board, and then waited till 10am till we left. It’s probably the worst ferry in the world. Cheers to another 34 hours.

But I'm back at Doogles Hostel now. I have my last day at Mary's Meals tomorrow and I leave for Mozambique on Friday! So check next week for another update!

Thanks for reading!

p.s. Photos!

Sunrise as I'm boarding the boat to visit the other island

Sailing a dhow to Mozambique. The land over there... that's Mozambique.

Dramatic sky

Melodramatic sky

Sunset from my hostel

The moon and it's reflection from the boat

Landscape by moonlight

Two weeks working

Hi!

In case you've been checking the blog and seen that nothing's been updated, after I had promised an update or two every week, I thought I'd post to explain why.

The Bulls are in playoff mode and I've entered a comatose state induced by rapidly changing anxiety, europhia and I-Love-Rose madness.

But also, here's what's happening in my life.  The last two weeks, I've been working for Mary's Meals during the week, and spending quiet weekends in and around Blantyre. During the week, I visit schools and under-6 centers etc, which has been very interesting, though I'm not sure how interesting it would be to read about. If you want to know more about Mary's Meals specifically, send me an email and I'll forward you two articles that I've written - one about how Mary's Meals operates, another is a diary-type thing of the days I've worked here.

However (drum roll) next week (louder drum roll) I will be updating (will some please turn up the damn drum roll!) the blog with lots of interesting information and photos! Woohoo, photos! Tomorrow I leave for Likoma Island - a small island in the middle of Lake Malawi (actually, it's quite close to Mozambique, who call it Lake Nyssa). I'm going there for Mary's Meals to take pictures, videos, interview workers and children there, and generally gather more information to be used for donors, fundraising events and the Mary's Meals newsletter.

The lake and the islands are pretty idyllic, from what I've heard. They better be pretty idyllic given that it takes a 28 hour ferry to get there, shiiiit.

Until then, I'll leave you with a short article I wrote for the Mary's Meals newsletter titled 'Width of a Smile'.  Thanks for reading!

The width of a smile

I’d heard and read many things about Mary’s Meals, but until I’d seen it in action on the ground in Malawi, it was impossible to understand the full scope of the project and the vast impact it has.

For starters, seeing the children in the flesh; moving, playing, laughing, singing, eating, is quite an experience.  They look positively full of joy and life – not how I might have expected starving children from one of the top ten poorest nations in the world to be behaving. It was especially striking when driving to a school – I see how hard some children have it along the way; so skinny, no shoes, tattered clothes, doing nothing with the sullen expression of hunger and a deep sadness… it’s heart-breaking. But then you see the school children’s smiles and all the hardship seem to dissipate.  They greet Mary’s Meals vehicles with songs, laughing, and unbound joy.  They too don’t have shoes or clothes without holes – but the despair in their eyes is gone, replaced with shining, dashing pupils that inhale knowledge like the air around them.

For some reason, I always imagine what they’ll be like in twenty years.  They’ll all have a basic education; half might have secondary schooling; a few might go to university.  And then they will be working for this country – for social services; for businesses; for Mary’s Meals.  I see that one cup of porridge a day multiplying into an engine that propels this country forward.  It’s a beautiful thing.

This image is even more striking when I visit the under-6 centres.  These could have been the children I sometimes see sprawling on the ground in and around the street. But here are orphans and needy children being given love, care, education and at least two square meals a day, which means they have the physical and emotional capacity and strength  to learn – to go to school and progress like the other children.  Their leap from despair to hope is greater than anything I’ve seen.  Their potential, once capped at a cruel level, soars.  I don’t think it’s possible to understate the importance of nutrition, attention and education on a child’s development before they’re six years old.  The UN might have statistics to compare or measure the impact of organizations like Mary’s Meals, but the strongest indicators are the luminosity of their eyes, the volume of their voices and the width of their smiles.

I am thrilled by the immediate impact of Mary’s Meals and cannot wait to see what this country is like in twenty years.

Thoughts on Malawi

'She is positive'

‘She is positive’. Nelia told me this as we walked towards one of the volunteers. This was the first time I knowingly met someone with AIDS. She is a teacher at a U6 center. Before Mary’s Meals started providing for the school, she was very ill and weak. It was devastating to learn that, and to be told that many of the children in front of me also had AIDS. However, since Mary’s Meals’ work with the school, she has become much healthier and she is leading a fairly normal life. This is because all the volunteers are usually able to eat after the children have eaten. It made me aware of the scope that Mary’s Meals has, unwittingly sometimes. She is able to help these children because she is fed enough to do so. It made me think of the kind of impact we will see in 10-15 years when all these children being fed will be adults. It holds a lot of hope, I think.

I’ve also gotten a fast track education in Malawian politics, Malawian social and business interactions, African politics/social and business interactions, poverty and poverty alleviation, and a bunch more from a variety of people in the office (mainly because I pepper them with questions).

Malawian social and business interactions:

There is huge unemployment here. It’s not as easily measured in statistics, but you can see it on the street – everywhere, I mean everywhere, there are dozens if not hundreds of people hanging out, casually selling things (phone cards mostly). I talked with a guy who works at the hostel that I’m staying at and he said that he would literally take any job that was available – he even said (which was a little awkward) that if I had any job or any thing that needed doing back home, to please please take him with. He’s 25, married with two kids. And since he’s got a job, he’s doing very well compared to most others.

That unemployment stems directly from lack of education. Here’s how and why: there are only 10,000 university places in Malawi, for a population of 15 million, most of whom are under 30. This means that tiny a proportion of people are university educated. This means that they don’t, for the most part, start up their own businesses – made even more difficult by the fact that there are very few products that Malawians can buy in the first place.

Secondly, international companies that come to Malawi and set up industry find it very hard to find qualified, trustworthy workers to be in management positions. Corruption is over this country like chickenpox on a ten year old. It’s not just in government either, as one might assume. The majority of businesses and, devastatingly, charitable organizations have major problems stemming corruption. One example - an Irish NGO, ‘Goal’, had a manager steal 84,000 euros. That is money that had been donated from Ireland and ended up straight in a person’s pocket, from an organization that has a budget of less than one million euros. You can understand the thought process though – finally, after years and years of poverty I and most of you reading this right now cannot imagine, people are in the position to do well for themselves and their family. The temptation is bigger, I think, after coming from so little.

It’s not just corruption that is the problem - finding qualified locals to work in complicated management positions, for instance the logistics manager, is near impossible. Hence it is much more reliable, safe and cheaper in the long run to bring someone in from another country, who has been educated at a higher level and has much more experience, than to hire a Malawian. This, obviously, is not as beneficial for the people nor the economy in the long run.

In addition, there is a cultural difference also. In Malawi, and as I gather, in many other countries in Africa, the need for urgency does not exist the same way as it does in more developed countries. An example was described to me – if Mary’s Meals, hypothetically, needs a month’s supply of flour delivered to a school on the 1^st of May, the supplier will genuinely wonder ‘why not the 7^th of May?’ To compound things further, the supplier rarely voices such thoughts, instead just goes through with ‘okay, maybe by the 7^th of May’. But for any organization, urgency, promptness and reliability are very important. In this example, ‘why not the 7^th?’ – because that means the children won’t eat for a week. This is a cultural difference that is widespread, though of course not universal.

Malawian Politics

Lastly, I have written a long account of the politics in Malawi. However, due to recent events involving the expulsion of the British High Commissioner from Malawi by the President for critical comments leaked from a diplomatic cable, I think it wisest to not post such opinions on a blog. However, I would be thrilled to send anyone who asks an email that includes information from expats, from local Malawians, historical and present political trends, and my own thoughts. Just send me your email address at damien.b.engelhardt@gmail.com and I'll email you back. 

First days on the job.

I had my first three days of work at Mary's Meals. I wouldn't call it 'work' so much as 'school while working', because I didn't do very much but heck did I learn a lot.

My role here is somewhat limited (which I had previously assumed) because of a number of factors: I'm only here for a month; most of the jobs are held by Malawians, not expats; this is my first real experience with the administrative side of an NGO.  However, I will be useful as providing a fresh look at how Mary's Meals works, how the schools operate, how problems encountered have been or will be resolved, etc.  That's not to say that I'm here looking for the flaws in the system to correct - I'm just providing a fresh perspective.  My main role will be visiting schools with Field Managers (of whom there are two who cover the whole of Malawi) both near Blantyre, and in hard-to-get-to places, such as the islands on Lake Malawi which is only accessible by flight (very expensive) or the once-a-week ferry.  That trip will actually be the culmination or goal of my experience with Mary's Meals, as I will be going with only one other person and we will learn about the successes, problems, experiences and complications associated with Mary's Meals working in eight schools on these two islands.  I'm also an up and coming, semi professional photographer (as of this job) and I'm to take photos and videos of the schools and children, both for publicity and for a closer look at some of these schools that are hard to visit.

While I'm disappointed that I won't be able to contribute to Mary's Meals in a greater capacity, I will know the organization's operations in Malawi inside out by the end of the month.  This experience, I hope, will be invaluable in future work in development and philanthropy.

First Day

I learned a TON on the first day.  Many of the things were pertaining directly to Mary's Meals - how they chose what food to provide (nutritional value of soy-based porridge over the typical maize-based porridge served in the country; mainly the huge difference in protein and vitamin values), how schools and volunteers are chosen, what problems arise (water shortage, children from other schools coming, flour not being delivered on time). I also learned the ins and outs of how they cook, who delivers, etc. It was very interesting to see and experience, but I suspect would be not that interesting read. So I won't write it, but if you want more info, leave a comment asking and I'll email you.

Second Day

On the second day, I realized that I had learned a metric ton (tonne?) yesterday, and today I learned an imperial ton. Because an imperial ton is heavier.

Did that joke land, like, at all? DAMMIT. Moving on.

I visited the smallest school that Mary’s Meals works with in the Blantyre area, and I visited the biggest school. The smallest school is a 30 minute drive via dirt road (bumpy, oh so bumpy). The school has 300 students to 3 teachers (not a typo) and up until two weeks ago, the teachers had to walk 30 minutes to the nearest, unreliable water source. Luckily, with the help of Mary’s Meals, they installed a well next to the school. This school doesn’t have a classroom. The children learn outside, either under the shade of a thatched awning, if they’re lucky, or under the ever moving shade of a tree. The only real building is the one that Mary’s Meals constructed to house the cooking supplies! But half the time, the children can’t use it because there are open flame fires cooking the food. On the way to the school, most of the houses are made of mud brick and about half of them only have holes in the wall as ventilation (as opposed to windows).

The second school is the biggest in Malawi, and the headmaster thinks it’s possibly the biggest in the world (I’d have to double check that…). They have 11,050 students. That’s definitely not a typo. Eleven thousand students between the ages of 6 and 14, and they only have 100 teachers. That’s it. And it’s not evenly distributed, meaning that the youngest age group actually has a ratio of 200 students per teacher! And the number of students is constantly increasing because of Mary’s Meals. In 2006, when Mary’s Meals started working with this school, there were ‘only’ 7000 students. This seemed to me a logistical nightmare – where do you put 11,000 children, where do they play, how do you organize them eating… it is bananas. The school has recently put up blackboards all over the school to create improvised classrooms. They do a good job considering the circumstances. They stagger feeding, so the earliest volunteers have to arrive at 4am to start cooking the food. The children walk from up to 8km away to get a meal, and if the water doesn’t run and thus the food doesn’t get made, a large portion of the children leave. The education and health of these 11,000 children is dependent on Mary’s Meals. Pretty crazy.

Third Day

Today I visited the Under-6 projects that Mary’s Meals started at the same time as their primary school feeding program. However, the U6 is very different from the feeding program, even if the premise is the same.

‘Feed children in schools’. How do those children get to school? Their family, for the most part. What if they are orphans? In rural areas, the community is much more helpful to each other than in urban areas. Therefore, who takes care of a child, feeds a child and educates a child if he or she is without parents and maybe without siblings? These are some of the devastating challenges that face many children in Malawi.

The first thing that stuck me upon entering the first pre-school we visited was how happy and healthy the children looked. They looked nothing like the adverts you see on TV for Oxfam or Save the Children – they looked like they were having the time of their lives! This immediately signaled to me the huge impact that Mary’s Meals is having. The meals they receive at school are often the only food they’ll receive during the day. Without Mary’s Meals, they would be scrounging for food, stealing, and very possibly not alive today. These were some of the thoughts I had whilst looking at them wolf down their porridge.

Nelia, who is in charge of the U6 program and was kind enough to show me some of the different schools, explained to me that there are many differences between this program and the primary school feeding program. Children under six years old are in the most vital formative periods of their brains, their psyche and their bodies, meaning that if there is any time where nutrition is most vital, it is then. Therefore, Mary’s Meals provides more than porridge (which is what they provide for the primary schools), they also provide money for the workers and volunteers to buy additional food, such as eggs, meat, beans, vegetables and fruit. Thus, one meal is porridge, and a second daily-changing meal is provided later in the day. This gives them the nutrients they need to grow and develop healthily.

We visited a school that was very remote. Think of dirt roads for twenty minutes (not thirty, thank heavens). The school building is actually the house of one of the teachers – she gives up two of the small rooms for the children to learn and for the cooking to happen. This is the kind of kindness and self-sacrifice that I’ve seen with all the people in and associated with Mary’s Meals. It’s one wonderful thing to see people with money, education and time give generously to help others; it’s another to see people with nothing doing the same.

Thanks for reading!

First days 'in country'... Malawi

I think that, no matter how the landscape had looked when I landed in Malawi, I would have been surprised.  But perhaps I was even more surprised to see how lush it is.  Grass, trees, crops (tabacco and corn mostly) aren't things you need to find - they're everywhere.  The evidence that this is a dry area (at least, now during dry season) exists only on the dirt roads where the pale yellow sand gets blown up by passing buses.

There isn't a huge amonut to say about Lilongwe, the capital,l except that it's possible that Peace Corps Volunteers outnumber locals. It's a busy city with very little going on.

Malawi is often described as 'The warm little heart of Africa' and that is evident the most in the people. They are, by far, the friendliest people I've ever met.  Everybody wants to chat, laugh, learn something about you.  I think I've exchanged phone numbers with 4 different Malawians, even though I'd talked for a whole 30 seconds with them!  Everybody wants to help with your bus, your hostel, your food - and nobody has looked for a kickback.  They don't want you to use their bus, and they don't talk to the driver/owner, implying to me that their not receiving a commission for bringing me.

Especially regarding public transport... thank God they're nice, because the system sure ain't efficient.  My first experience with the buses was trying to catch a minibus (which seat 15,. but fit 390) to another side of town. The guy told me they were just about to leave, so I hop into the almost empty bus thinking 'Thank heavens this isn't as crowded as some of the ones I've seen'... we waited, right in that spot, for 25 minutes till it filled up. Three other buses headed in the same direction passed us.  Ahhh, if you don't have patience on those buses, you don't have anything at all.

Via Couchsurf, I met someone who kindly offered to let me stay with them in their teeny tiny village in which they were working (they are Peace Corps).  7 hours of transport later (close to two of those hours sitting stationary on buses!) I arrive in Bwanje.  There were quite a few people living in Bwanje, but you wouldn't know it from the main road, and you wouldn't know it at night - no electricity.  And no running water.  And no cars.  And one dirt road.  I knew this was going to be fun.

A couple of the most interesting things I learned/encountered over the two days I stayed with Mary:

- The showers... are not showers. There's a little area, surrounded by bricks for privacy, where you bring a bucket of water and use a cup to wash the water onto your body.  The water is that which you collect from the nearby well.  In hot and dry season, many wells dry up, though at the moment it was fine.  The water is, surprise surprise, cold!  But when it's a hot day ('hot' and 'cold' season should be renamed 'hot' and 'my goodness it's hot' season) a cold cup of water feels great. Mary's developed a way of getting warm water - leave the plastic tub of water out in the sun all day!  It's almost too hot when it's time to shower!

- The toilet... are a hole in a ground.  At night there are maybe ten thousand spiders and mini scorpions.

- You live from surise to sunset. Mary does have a small solar generator, so she can charge things, and hang up a light or two (which she's planning on doing), but otherwise, if you stay up, it's candle light.

- There are more stars in the Malawi night sky than there are in space.

- Two oxes pull the cart full of stuff.  This is the real Toyota Tundra.

- People here are basically subsistence living, though not necessarily growing all their crops for themselves.  Meaning that the activities of the day aren't a (to us) typical clock-in clock-out of a  job - you work on the things you need to live. You work the crop to sell that day or week so you have money to buy food. You build things for your house.  It's fascinating, and I only brushed the surface.

- There is phone signal. Five bars. I can't get five fucking bars on the Red Line in Chicago!

- Nobody cares about whether the Cubs win or lose. In fact, most people barely (if at all) realize that they exist. It's a mini-paradise.

- Once again, the people are extremely friendly. I walked around for about an hour one day and had one very long conversation along with two shorter ones.  All of them fascinating, friendly, full of smiles, jokes and fist bumps.

- The houses are made of mud brick and the roofs are either made of straw or corrugated iron.  Iron is more expensive, and the richer have it, because it doesn't need to be fixt/repaced every two years, and (in theory) it doesn't leak water.  What they don't tell you in the fine print is that it bakes you compared to the straw roof.

After two lovely days with Mary, I rocked on down to Blantyre where I'll be staying for the next month.  Experiencing the small, rural village Bwanje was more fascinating than I could ever describe on a blog.  Here are a couple of pictures that don't do it justice.

Parade for Easter in Lilongwe

On the way down south

Mary's house in Bwanje

View from Mary's porch

Shower!

Little village

Woman carrying baby on her back and stuff on her head

This is how you bake cake!

The next update will be about my job!

Thanks for reading!

Going to... Africa.

Sorry for the delay in posts! You can expect them twice a week again!
First off, we left Ecuador. The trip was amazing. Visiting the Galapagos Islands was the definite highlight (there are probably 45 highlights within that one week). I'd recommend for anyone to go... but maybe try to spend less time than we did in Quito if you're not planning on working and learning Spanish.
The past week/10 days I've been frantically getting things together for the next part of the adventure. 'Getting things together' entails seeing the dentist, orthodentist, optician, back doctor, getting 4 different vaccinations, stocking up on 4 months supply of malarone, washing/repairing clothes, playing two rounds of golf (what?) - basically getting an MOT on my body. Why? Because I'm headed to Africa.
I've got the opportunity (and am taking advantage of it) to work/volunteer for two different organizations in southern Africa. The first is a charity called Mary's Meals - they help communities provide meals for children in schools, thus giving the children inreased incentive to go to school - and give the parents incentive to send them (as opposed to having them work). I will be working for Mary's Meals in the Southern Malawian city called Blantyre. I start Tuesday. After working with them for a month, I am hopping over to Maputo, Mozambique to work with Save the Children for two months. The hope is that over these 3/4 months that I will gain experience and insight into the development/philanthropy field of work so that I can work for a similar organization permanently.
I arrived in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, today after connecting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I haven't had a chance to discover the city at all, but I'm excited to visit around tomorrow. The drive from the airport, however, was gorgeous. This part of the country at least is quite lush, full of vegetation - there are these cool trees that have huge yellow flowers. Everyone I've met has been so nice and the hostel I'm staying in is pretty chill.
This weekend will entail visiting Lilongwe a bit, then trekking over to a tiny town called Bwanje to visit someone I met through Couch Surf. I hope to be in Blantyre by Monday to start work Tuesday.
Things seem to be happening pretty quickly. While that is exciting, it is also pretty scary. I am, sadly, doing this part of the trip alone. Kristen is going to be moving to Chicago and start working (good luck!!!!!!!).
Anyway, I'll update on the beginnings of this adventure on Monday. Until then, thanks for reading!