The holiday begins

Thursday morning brought the repeat of my SEMS lecture and then I was FREE!! David rounded off the term with an attempt at getting the students to link activities to Physical and Mental and Cognitive milestones and I walked back through the streets of Chilomoni to Mitsidi to collect my belongings and the hired Land Rover, and set off on the first leg of my journey to Kamuzu airport, north of Lilongwe to meet Rose and Joe for their two weeks' holiday in the warm heart of Africa. At first all went well and I finished my packing with time to spare. But, and so often there is a 'but' in Malawi, no Land Rover appeared. Eventually I rang the Torrent Office to find out where it was and was assured that it was on its way, but as it was then another whole hour before it showed up I can only conclude that they came on a very scenic route and not the 15 minute, direct drive I was expecting. I've not driven this Land Rover before and some of them are pretty hard work, but fortunately this one started off pretty amenably and I was on the way to Ntcheu to spend a night with my new friend Amanda who is a nurse working in health education in the villages around Ntcheu. What a beautiful country Malawi is! The sun was shining and the air was clear. There were lovely mountain views all along the way. There has been an unseasonable amount of rain lately and everything is brilliantly green. Indeed in some instances too green. The maize should be drying out on the plant and leaves turning brown now, but it has rained so much that some of the crop is rotting on the plants. Peter told me, when I described the kernels spread out to dry on maize flour sacks in the sun, that this is not usually necessary, but is a desperate attempt to save the maize and have sufficient nsima flour for the next year. I hadn't realized when I wrote about what I had seen that this is not standard practice each year.

By the time I reached Ntcheu I was an hour and a half behind schedule and it was only 20 mins short of nightfall. Amanda was beginning to wonder whether something dreadful had befallen me, but it was a combination of late Land Rover and miscalculation of the time it takes to drive from Blantyre to Ntcheu. We met in the hospital car park and then trundled my suitcase on its little plastic wheels down the road and along a very muddy track to her house. By Malawian standards it is a very good house, set behind a brick wall, in a pleasant garden, but it made me realize how lucky we are to live at Mitsidi, where we have a beautiful setting, swimming pool and luxuries such as company, hot water and meals prepared for us. Amanda's is a three-bedroom, three-shower room house, but it is a bit damp and dismal with bats in the loft, which can be a bit smelly and only a little two-ring electric hot plate just like the one I have in my own house. The sitting room is furnished comfortably with enormous sofas and arm chairs and she made me very welcome. We were very British and had tea! As she is normally confined to the house after dark, feeling it is not safe to be an azungu woman alone on the streets at night, we decided to make the trip to a local restaurant for our supper. As we left she said to me, 'We shall have to hold hands, we can't risk losing each other in the dark.' I thought she was exaggerating, but she was not. It was a cloudy night, so no moon or stars; very little light came from the other houses. There was a light drizzle. I stepped straight in a deep puddle, but fortunately was wearing crocs with no socks, so dried out quickly. We retraced our steps to the main road, which is the M1, therefore the best kept road in Malawi. Suddenly we found ourselves walking on tarmac, rather than mud and realized that we were in the middle of the road. I suppose that had any traffic been approaching it would have had lights and therefore we should have seen it, but it was worrying nonetheless! We crossed over and then plunged down a dark alley between a couple of shops, then into a dim courtyard and hence to the restaurant. It was deserted apart from a friendly waiter who seemed very pleased to see us and presented us with a typical Malawian menu, chicken, meat or fish, with nsima, rice or chicken. We ordered chicken and a couple of passion fruit Fanta's. Amanda then looked upwards through her eyelashes at the waiter and enquired whether it would be OK with him if we added to our Fanta's the contents of a bottle which I had in my handbag (Malawi Gin!). He had no objection so we poured a generous measure and continued a delightful, getting to know you conversation, by the end of which I certainly felt I had gained a friend. I hope she did too! She is off for a holiday in South Africa with her daughter, and I have two weeks to look forward to with Joe and Rose, but after that we shall certainly meet up again.

The next morning I was up at 5.30 am and on the road by 6.30 am. Again I thought this was plenty of time to reach my destination in time for the flight but I didn't reckon on such appalling weather. The rain was torrential, I was well up in the level of the clouds and to cap it all, the windscreen wipers of the Land Rover were not working. I persevered, preferring to continue at a reduced, but steady pace rather than stop and hope the rain would cease. I made the right decision. I was two thirds of the way to Lilongwe before the sun struggled out and I missed all the lovely views towards the Lake from the mountains around Dedza. As usual I managed to get lost in Lilongwe, but with the help of a charming lady, with excellent English, I managed to find the airport road and arrived with about two minutes to spare, despite allowing an hour for the unexpected in my schedule! It was so exciting to see Rose and Joe more or less first through the barriers. Six months is such a long time. I think the longest I have gone without seeing Rose since she left home 7 years ago is about four months, and of course for Joe it is much less than that, probably not much more than a couple of weeks.

With Joe reading the map we found our way back through Lilongwe without getting lost again. As usual there was a petrol shortage in Lilongwe and there were queues of cars and minibuses everywhere, but we managed to get diesel at the same scruffy looking garage where I was lucky last time, and it was not long before we arrived at Dedza Pottery where we stayed for a couple of nights. We spent the intervening day visiting the Rock Art sites in the locality. As Joe said, 'If you are impressed by the fact that they are 2000 years old, they are worth seeing, but if you're not they are just scratches on rocks!' They were however in beautiful countryside, with splendid views. Indeed the first site was the best place for wild flowers that I have been since I arrived in Malawi. I took loads of photos. I really must get myself a wild flower book and identify some of them.

The next day we moved on to Cape Maclear on Lake Malawi. Our Lodge was right on the Lake shore, the weather was fabulous, the Lake was warm and blue. The first day we walked in the National Park, climbed on the rocks at Otter Point, saw lots of baboons and vervet monkeys, and the second we went on a boat trip involving snorkeling, feeding the Fish Eagles, bird watching, eating an excellent lunch of barbequed chambo, cooked for us by the boatmen, and generally had a sun-soaked and enjoyable time. Yesterday we moved on again to Liwonde National Park for 24 hours of safaris. We saw loads of birds and animals including an exciting and slightly worrying encounter with elephants in the dark, for photos see Facebook in the next couple of days.

Today, after our return to Liwonde town, where we had left the Land Rover we had a somewhat too exciting trip home, due to trouble with the Land Rover. Fortunately we were able to get it going following advice from Derrick, the valiant chief mechanic from Torrent, and a mercy mission by Malcolm who drove towards us as we limped back to Blantyre, prepared to pick up the pieces if we didn't make it all the way. So now begins phase two of Rose and Joe's Malawian Trip. We've done the exotic African holiday bit, now begins a week of 'Find out what Mum's life in Malawi is really like!'