Tis the Season, Africa Style!

A very Merry and very late Christmas to you all! And Happy New Year!

I apologize for my slacking throughout the holiday season and even since then, but my excuse is that I did not really have time nor access to post a blog during the holidays and within 2 days of being back at site came down with acute bronchitis that spread into my sinuses and was out of commission for nearly a week! I’m just starting to really feel better and even now am still hacking up a lung and am almost through my 3rd roll of TP with how much I have to blow my nose. It’s really unpleasant… 

Any hoo… shall I fill you in on my African holiday shenanigans?

Well ok! Here’ goes…

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Deck the Palm Tress – My Holiday Lake Shore Tour

I know it’s small, but it was the best picture of Malawi I had without access to the internet. I’ve added red numbers to the various areas (in order) of the lake we visited so you can have an idea of where all I went!

Thursday before Christmas I traveled down Southeast a bit to stay with Chloe and see her site in Balaka. Friday morning the two of us set out directly North to Mangochi district and eventually to Cape Maclear (1). At Cape Mac, I stayed at a beach lodge with Chloe and about 20 or so other volunteers. We enjoyed a Christmas Eve dinner at a near by restaurant of pork, roasted potatoes, green beans and some kind of cheese broccoli dish. It was delicious and we finished with a warm cake drizzled in caramel icing.

On Christmas day a group of 8 of us went snorkeling!

All of us about to load up in the tour boat and go across to a small island for snorkeling.

                                 
Chloe looking hott in her snorkel gear – Me surrounded by a million cichlids!

This is a view from the boat back toward where our lodge was.

We all had a really fun time and spent nearly 4 hours out in the water! We were lucky that the entire time we were there we did not experience much rain during the day, but more than one night of our stay there we were entertained by lightning storms over the lake . One night I was even able to capture at least one good shot:

Breath-taking isn’t it?

Chloe and I had really only solidified our plans up to Christmas. We had yet to commit where to go for New Years, since there was more than one thing going on. One option was to go up with most of the people we were with at Cape Mac to Nkhata Bay, however we weren’t sure if we wanted to travel that far north. The other option was to go down to Blantyre with a few other friends from our group, but that didn’t seem too exciting and Blantyre was kind of “been-there-done-that” for both of us.

While trying to decide, we spent a couple more days just lounging around the beach at Cape Mac and enjoying the warm weather, water and sun. Finally I suggested that maybe we should just go to Nkhata Bay since neither of us have been there and maybe we could make a “Lake Shore Tour” of the week leading up to the New Year by stopping at various beaches along the way. Chloe thought this idea was more than perfect and apparently so did a couple other friends, Daniel and Mary, who asked if they could tag along as well.

So Tuesday morning the 4 of us headed out of Cape Mac and traveled up north along the M5 (aka Lake Shore Road) to Nkhotakota (2). Using the Malawi Lonely Planet guide book we located a small inn on the beach call Sitima Inn.

The building was such an odd, eclectic place, that all four of us instantly fell in love with it. The owner, a eccentric South African man name Zig, was more than welcoming and sat to talk with us while we enjoyed beers on the second floor balcony of their bar. He even gave us a ride out to the main road the next morning! The inn was along a stretch of beach that did not look particularly safe to swim in because of the amount of reeds (prime schisto territory!) so we didn’t swim here but the view was still beautiful.

From the bar balcony looking out over the beach.

Down on the beach, the view of the broken down dock. The Ferry still stops here though and since the dock is destroyed they bring people to shore using emergency rescue boats!

Down the beach a little ways. Here is a traditional dug-out canoe sitting on the beach. A lady is digging up sand to sell.

After out stint in Nkhotakota, we headed further north to an area called Chintheche and stayed at a very popular beach resort called Kande Beach (3). All of the places we went to were in their own way beautiful and awe-inspiring, but I must say Kande was probably the best beach.

Kande Beach VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We spent 2 nights at Kande and enjoyed delicious burgers and fish at their restaurant. On Friday morning (New Years Eve) we finished our north bound travel at Nkhata Bay (4). There were probably over 30 of us all together staying at a lakeside lodge called Big Blue Star. Many of us were camping, but Chloe and I stayed in the dorm room (that had 16 beds!). 

Nkhata Bay VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

For New Year’s Eve we all went to this bar/club/restaurant called Kaya Papaya where we also met up with a group of Peace Corps Zambia volunteers who were visiting Malawi for the holidays. We all danced and drank and had a fun time and ended up doing the countdown TWICE! No one was paying attention apparently and so the first one was late and then a bunch of people missed out on the first one so they did it again! It was pretty silly!

Saturday we all just lounged around, nursing our wicked hangovers and watched nonstop music videos on the satellite TV at the lodge.

Sunday Chloe, Mary, our friend Brian and I, left early in the morning to make the very long journey to Lilongwe. First we went to Mzuzu and stopped to check out the market there so I could buy some chitenjes. We had a really difficult time finding a ride out of Mzuzu, mainly because there were 4 of us and 4 is a hard number to hitch with, but also the North is less populated and thus less traffic and people willing to pick people up.

We finally got a ride that was going all the way to Lilongwe. It was a pick-up truck with an extended cab, but there were already 3 people in the car so 2 of us could cram in the back of the cab and the other 2 had to sit in the bed. Mary and I were the “lucky” ones who got to sit in the back and about 45 minutes into the ride it started POURING rain! Needless to say we were both miserable. We both were huddle up against our packs in our rain coats trying to not freeze to death while being pelted viciously by the onslaught of rain. Luckily the rain only lasted about 20 minutes but that was definitely 20 minutes TOO long!

Our ride stopped in Kasungu at a mosque (they were Muslim) to pray. Chloe and I set out for snacks since we’d been en route for over 5 hours at this point. When we came back the men driving us said they had a few things they needed to do there so they would not be leaving for another hour or 2, so they suggested we catch a bus. I’m fairly sure they were just trying to find a nice way to ditch us but who knows lol.

We sat on the road in Kasungu for over an hour and a half before submitting and taking a minibus. This minibus ride was by far the most ridiculous and at one point there were 28 people (children included) and 3 chickens crammed into what is supposed to only hold 12 people.

Two little girls sitting next to me and one of the chickens! At one point the girl in the red was sitting on my lap for part of the ride!

The bus stopped in some other town and they told us we had to switch buses. I was not very happy about this because the bus they wanted to fit us on was already packed, which meant we’d end up in the isle and thus be the ones to climb in and out to let people on and off. No way José! So we opted to stay there and try to find a hitch to Lilongwe.

We luckily found a truck going all the way to Lilongwe and all piled in the back of bed. Once in Lilongwe we went to our usual lodge, Mufafa’s to stay the night. The entire trip took a whopping TWELVE hours!

I stayed in town until Tuesday because Monday the PC office was closed for a holiday and I really wanted to check my mail before heading back to site. And I’m glad I did because I ended up having 2 packages to pick up at the post office!

After gathering my packages at the post office I called Simon from Mitundu to see if he was going to be in town and it turned out he was coming to town for a few things and said he could take me home. *happy dance* Simon picked me up at the office and by 2:30pm I was back at my nyumba in my village.

Thus concluding my Lake Shore Tour, holiday extravaganza!

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Back to Reality – Village Life Lately

Two days after returning to site I came down with acute bronchitis (as previously mentioned) so I’ve spent the majority of my time since the holidays recovering from that. I went on antibiotics for a week and slept a lot.

I’m happy to report that I am feeling loads better and hopefully by next weekend this wicked cough will have gone.

Since I was stuck at home feeling wimpy, I watched a lot of movies laying on my couch. One day Gladys came over while I was watching Inception (great movie by the way!) and she sat and watched a few minutes of it with me. She said the next day she wanted to watch a movie with me again, lol. So the next day I decided to take the movie to her and packed up my lap top and speakers and took them next door. Even though George is the only one who really speaks English well I thought they may all still enjoy it. I told them I thought we could watch a movie together and George and the rest were more than excited about the prospect.

I asked them what kind of movie they wanted to watch and Aubrey made punching motions and said, “fighting!” hahahaha I perused my video library and tried to find a good action movie and decided on Batman Begins. They all seemed to enjoy the movie very much and have more or less become obsessed with watching my American films.

Everyday since then we have watched at least one movie a day! So far we have watched: Batman Begins, the Hangover, Avatar, Super Troopers, X-Men, the Matrix, Romeo and Juliet, and Gamer.

Yup. hahaha The boys really love the action movies, and during intense fighting scenes Aubrey always says, “Ashally, goo-ed feelm!”

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The other day we got a spontaneous downpour and I was just hanging out in my house when I heard a bunch of laughing and singing. I looked up out my open front window to find this:

Vicky (Gladys’ daughter), Thalandila and Aubrey all dancing half naked in the rain! lol

I love my kids here

 

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When I arrived back after the holidays I was pleasantly surprised to find my garden growing!

These are my zucchini plants! I can’t wait till I will have food I grew myself!

I also went with Helen to harvest some maize (corn) from her garden fields. The same ones Nzelu and I went with her too a while back to water. Now look at it!

Nzelu followed too and had a good time running around the fields like a crazy dog, even falling into a water hole at one point. Guess that was his bath that day!

A couple boys pulling the corn off the stalks to take home.

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I was also roped in by Gladys, to buy a matching chitenje with her so we could both have one that was the same. The next day we coordinated to wear them at the same time, and I thought it was definitely a good photo op:

And while we were taking that picture, Aubrey and another boy Marriot posed for there own:

I also thought I’d include a picture of one of my lunches so you all could see what a typical meal looks like. The white lumpy stuff is nsima (see-ma) then below that on the left is eggs fried in cooking oil with tomatoes and onions (probably one of my favorite things here) and on the right is inswa (flying ants). Yup, bugs. They weren’t too bad, but I don’t know if I’ll make a habit out of eating them!

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This weekend there was a funeral and Sunday was the “Big Dance” day. I went with Gladys and George to where the ceremony was being held. When the Gule Wankulu (Big Dance) members are out and about the women and children run away from them. Legend is that they are possessed by spirits so many people are genuinely afraid of them. All members are men and all their identities are secret since they were crazy costumes with masks.

I told Gladys I didn’t want to run with her and the other ladies because of the mud (it had just rained) so I went with all the HSA men for most of the time. After they all ate nsima and beans, George came up to me and said, “It is time for the big dance, you have a chair, follow me.”

And of course, in the line of chairs reserved for all the village chiefs, I was sat smack dab in the middle. You know, since I’m not a spectacle enough already… However, as embarrassing as my seat was, it does provide an excellent view of the dancing. I realized a little too late, though, that I had my iPhone with me and neglected to snap pictures of the other dancers, but I did manage to get a few of the big animals at the end!

These are lions, each one is “driven” by two men.

Here is a traditional dancer on the left and the large black thing is a llama (I think).

Another traditional dancer on the left and the white thing is either a boat or a hat, representing the village headman.

The last two (the black llama and white boat thing) are not supposed to be seen by women, so the lions before them chase away all the women and children before these two come out.

I don’t really understand a lot of this, but it is their culture, and very entertaining to say the least.

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Well that concludes this update for you all!

I hope you enjoyed all my stories and pictures and videos! And I hope you all had wonderful holidays of your own!

I miss you all and promise to try and be more regular with my posts.  

Next time I’ll fill you in on my actual work!

Tiwonana!