Saturday, 6 February 2016
I woke up early and went out at
06:30. It was already bright by then. I went for a walk and bought some bread
at the bakery before turning back and venturing another path. There were some
houses, police station, post office and the Malawi Defence Force Marine Unit
quarters. I returned to my room after an hour of walking and had a simple
breakfast.
I had arranged for one of the owner’s
brothers to take me to Cape Maclear this morning at 08:30. They charged me
MWK7K for the ride to and fro. Cape Maclear was about 15 km away and I told
Yusuf (the brother) to pick me up at 1 p.m. He dropped me off at some shops
near the marketplace of the village Chembe. I was surprised to find the village
was actually huge (a local boy later told me there were about 15,000 inhabitants in the
village). I walked through the village and before long, I felt like a walking
freak from the way everyone was looking and staring openly at me. Some children
actually ran after me demanding that I gave them some money. Annoying pests.
On the way to Cape Maclear
The main crop here is maize
The roads in Malawi are very good
The plan was to spend about 3.5 hours
by Lake Malawi just relaxing. I had my book, water and some food. I found a
shady place to sit and was just sitting there enjoying my solitude when a guy
approached to offer me a boat ride to a nearby island. Well, a few more guys
approached me all offering to take me out on a boat to an island where I can go
snorkel, at a cost of course. I was chatting to the local boy (he runs a
souvenir stall at the lodge outside of which I had stopped to rest) when a
couple of men came up looking sinister. The first guy shook my hand (Mister, in
the first place, I don’t go around shaking hands with men even those I know, what
more strangers!), introduced himself as Eric and offered me, yes, a boat ride.
I declined him. Then he said he’d give me a special price and again, I declined
him. Finally he asked what if he took me for free and I said no, I wasn’t
interested in riding a boat in the first place. He finally took the hint and
left with his friend. I told the local boy I didn’t like Eric (I had my
internal antenna giving off warning signs when he approached) and the boy said
he didn’t like him either and explained that was why he kept quiet all the
while.
Not long after, one elderly guy passed
by and stopped. He wanted to sell me some recycled stuff that some women made.
Yes, I get it about supporting the environment and empowering women but the
things he had - bookmarks, photo frames, cards - didn’t interest me. I couldn’t help thinking the book marks I gave out before as
souvenirs were never used because well, sadly people don’t read much in the
first place. As for photo frames, well, no one uses them much anymore and
besides, it wasn’t as if I had so much space in my bag.
The local boy I was chatting to kept
mentioning his souvenir stall. He wanted to show me his souvenir stall so much until
finally I thought ‘OK, let’s see what you got’ and followed him. Well, I don’t
mean to sound snobbish but nothing in his shop attracted me. Besides, I didn’t
want to buy any tacky souvenirs or trinkets. He wanted to sell me a necklace
made of some seeds. It wasn’t expensive at all but I didn’t want to buy something
just for the sake of buying. Yes, I know it’s good to support the local
industry and that at least he was trying to run a business instead of begging.
But I’m a backpacker (except that I have a trolley bag instead of a backpack)
and I didn’t want to buy some tacky useless souvenirs (sorry, it had to be
said. I feel like throwing most souvenirs I receive too for they are just
tacky). Then the boy said he hadn’t any breakfast yet. Oh great. Go on then, play
to my guilt. I gave him the pack of biscuits and made my escape.
I was reading when two men approached
me. One of them exclaimed, ‘Miss, you must be very rich!’ and pointed to my
bangles. I didn’t realise it but my sleeve had run up exposing my bangles and
he saw them. I was very shocked and looked around to see if there were other
people nearby in case they wanted to rob me in broad daylight. The man
continued, pointing to my bangles, ‘This is gold and this is silver and this is
gold. You must be rich.’ I didn’t correct him that the silver bracelet was
actually stainless steel. I laughed out and lied, ‘Oh, these are just gold-plated.
Not real.’ They looked surprised and like they’d never heard of the concept of
gold-plated jewellery. Turned out he wanted to sell me paintings done by his
sister. The paintings came in three sizes. None particularly appealed to me
because I didn’t come to Cape Maclear thinking of buying paintings. Finally I
told him that I didn’t want to buy anything, that I just wanted to be left
alone, that I just wanted to read and be left in peace. I told him it was
presumptuous of him to think I wanted to buy anything and that I felt bad about
not buying when he’d laid everything out.
Before I left that morning, the rest
house owner had told me that he wanted to show me some key chains and souvenirs
that he made on my return from Cape Maclear. Oh boy. It was all I could do not
to roll my eyes when he said it. Seriously, I was beginning to think Malawians
think of foreigners as walking moving cash cows. Moo! Karrrchinnnggg!
I left my perch at 12:40 and walked
back through Chembe village, wary of any possible men hiding and jumping out on
me. Attacking me for not buying anything from them, for declining their offers.
I met up with Yusuf at the spot where he dropped me off and we rode back to
Monkey Bay. It was too hot to be outdoors so I stayed in and tried to have a
siesta.
I ventured out briefly in the
evening. Again, what was with all the stares and looks? I was getting mighty
sick of it. I bought some grilled corn (it was hard to chew) and some buns and
doughnuts from the grocery store before returning to my room. That evening, the
rest house owner came over and knocked on my door, no doubt wanting to show me
his handmade key chains and whatnot, but I was in the bathroom and so ignored
him. I was getting sick and tired of people viewing me like I’m some kind of
freak but still wanting to sell me things I don’t have any need for.
Now, the owner’s friend, James, told
me he saw me at Lilongwe airport. He then told me he could arrange with his
friend, Jimmy, to pick me in Lilongwe and bring me to airport on the morning of
my departure. So I told him where I’d be staying in Lilongwe and told him to
tell Jimmy to pick me up on Monday morning at 5 a.m.
I had to get up early the following
morning so I was in bed by 20:30. It was too noisy to sleep though; it sounded
like the whole of Monkey Bay was partying.
Sunday, 7 February 2016
I woke at 00:30 then at 02:30. I
finally got up at 04:30 and got ready. I finished packing and had some food
then went out just after 05:00. I was told the bus could come anytime between
06:00 to 06:30 (the shopkeeper told me it could come after 05:00). Well, I
wasn’t going to miss that bus.
I walked a bit around the rest house
and was turning back when I encountered a young man. He was shirtless and he
made as if to shake my hand. No, sir, you’re not my mahram so I wasn’t going to
shake your hand. He proceeded to ask me something in a loud voice and when I
looked at him, puzzled, he repeated himself, his voice rising higher each time.
I looked around to see if there was anyone else around then I walked away from
him slowly. Thankfully, he didn’t follow or attack me. What a strange person
and scary too.
The bus rolled in at 06:25 a.m. and I
went up after paying for my fare. This time, I sat next to a girl on the
left-hand side of the bus (the one with the two seats together). We struck a
conversation and she told me later that I was the first Muslim she’d met who
isn’t dark. We pulled into Salima at 10:30 and again the bus stopped for half
an hour. I couldn’t help noticing people selling tomatoes along the way. So
many tomatoes and it’s not as if the people there eat a lot of pasta with
tomato sauce. I mean, I’m sure the scene wouldn’t look odd in Italy. I did
wonder how long the tomatoes would stay good in that kind of heat.
There were dark clouds overhead as we
neared Lilongwe. We finally panted into Lilongwe bus station just before 1 p.m.
I ignored the cabbies and walked down to the main road where I had sighted some
bajaj from the bus. I rode one to Longonot Guesthouse in Area 3 of the city.
Lilongwe is very well spread out but it turned out that the guest house was
less than ten minutes away from the bus station. Still, it felt like in a
different world altogether. The houses are bigger and so are their lawns and
gardens. The golf course is nearby and I surmised that it was a posh area. The
guesthouse itself is a big bungalow with about 23 rooms and a large garden.
I had problems at check-in – Banet,
the young man manning the reception was new – and it took almost an hour before
I was given a room. I had to change rooms later because there was no water from
the sink tap. Nor could I flush the toilet or turn on the shower. We tried the
next room – same problems – and finally settled on the room after that. As
Banet was going to cook for some guests, I managed to use the kitchen so I made
some soup for my late lunch. I debated walking to Lilongwe Wildlife Centre but
it started raining just as I was considering it so that was that then.
I went out for a walk around the
neighbourhood at 5 p.m. and noted that the neighbourhood was indeed affluent. I
met with the owners and had to endure their explanation about my booking –
about them having to pay booking.com and that I must top up so that they could
forward it to booking.com. (And just a few days ago, booking.com emailed me to
say that the guesthouse had notified that I did not arrive. Seriously, WTF? I emailed
back booking.com to say that not only did I check in and made to wait an hour
before I was given a room, I even met the owners later that afternoon. Booking.com
then apologised on behalf of the guesthouse and informed it would share my
response with the property.)
I returned and decided to have a
shower. The water came out all yellowish before it turned clear gradually and
the water was spraying everywhere. It wasn’t a satisfactory shower at all and I
had a quick shower, which turned out to be a good idea because the lights went
out shortly after. The blackout lasted more than an hour (there was a brief
power outage in the afternoon too for all of ten minutes) and Banet came after
a while to distribute candles. When the power came on again, he came around to
spray our rooms.
I had another early night as I needed
to get up early again the following morning.
To be continued
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