Wednesday, February 17, 2016

My Parts Unknown: Tanzania And Malawi: Episode V

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