American Life In The Summertime #12 - Malawi

21 April 2008


With a stomach full of all the best viruses the Nile had to offer, I discovered the only flight from Uganda to my next destination, Malawi, left at 5am, requiring my presence at the airport at 3am, requiring me to leave the hostel at 2am.  Now I'm not sure how busy they expect Kampala airport to be at 3 in the morning but the "2 hours before departure for international flights" rule was not to be waived, and so I presented myself on time the next morning at Kampala airport, and as expected proceeded to sit around for the next 2 hours until my flight was due to depart.  Malawi is a small sliver of a country sandwiched between Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia, and I arrived in the capital Lilongwe half-asleep and arguing with the immigration official that my Yellow Fever booklet was in fact up to date and perhaps the manual gear-operated computer he was using to check it was actually the problem.  After a few days travelling via the beautiful Lake Malawi, I made it to the southern city of Blantyre which is Malawi's biggest city and commercial centre.  Blantyre was a useful launching pad for my next destination, Siavonga in Zambia, but did not have much to offer in itself apart from the local Carslberg brewery, which conducts free tours with copious tasting of the product.  Now, there are obviously other ways to get to Zambia so I would hate for you to think that I am so shallow and lowbrow that the only reason I went all the way to Blantyre was because of a brewery, but in fact this is so.  However, upon arrival I discovered that the brewery tour only runs on Wednesdays.  It was Saturday.  In addition, the very simple looking road which went almost exactly from Blantyre to Siavonga also went through through Mozambique - not a problem - and.....Zimbabwe.

There were elections in Zimbabwe the week before and Mr Mugabe was genuinely looking like losing power for the first time in 28 years since independence. I asked around at the hostel and spoke to a guy from Zim who said that, right at the moment, for the first time in 10 years, he would recommend against going into Zim at all: potential election violence, hyperinflation of 160,000%, inability to get money, food, fuel, large chance of being mugged by desperate unemployed locals etc.  So, unfortunately, I was forced to make what was becoming an increasingly disturbing trend of sensible decisions to not go into Zimbabwe at all.  This was a little disappointing, as the road from Blantyre was almost a straight line between where I was and where I wanted to be, and would allow me to tick off 2 new countries which weren't otherwise on the itinerary:  Mozambique and Zimbabwe.  However the trip would involve a minibus from Blantyre to the Mozambique border, another bus across Mozambique to the Zim border, then a bus from the border into Harare for the night, then the next morning another bus from Harare to the border with Zambia at Siavonga.  Arriving in Harare for the first time at maybe 2am with no direct transfer to your accommodation is a good way to get robbed, or worse.  So unfortunately it looked like there was no overland option to Zambia from Blantyre:   I could fly, or backtrack all the way back up to Lilongwe, cross into Zambia from there & come down to Siavonga that way.

I checked around and was told that the flight options to Zambia were around $700 USD, and that was the end of that:  I'd gone as far as I could in Malawi, couldn't get were I wanted from Blantyre, and had no choice but to head back up to Lilongwe and get into Zambia that way.  In the meantime I resigned myself to 5 days entertaining myself in Blantyre until the damn brewery ran its tour.

Thankfully, this is never much of a problem in Africa. Staying at the hostel was a Dutch woman who was on a 12 month journey with her dog to drive a tractor to the South Pole.   She was travelling in the tractor and had stopped off in Blantyre on the way, and been in the hostel for some weeks already by the time I arrived.  She was collecting peoples dreams, and at the South Pole after arriving in her tractor was going to build a snowman and leave everyones dreams in the snowman.  Or something.   Just goes to show you what can happen when a country decriminalises marijuana.   Anyway, this woman happened to be at the hostel in Blantyre when I was there, and her dog had quickly established itself having the run of the place.  The dog was everywhere: at the bar, in the kitchen, in the office, following you into the bathroom for a shower, sniffing your lunch or crotch or sometimes both (no mean feat but dogs are talented like that) as you sat around the pool.  The woman normally slept in her tractor, but one night she ended up in my dorm for some reason.  And the dog came too.  About 2am the door flies open and both her & dog enter the dorm to take a spare bed, whereupon the dog immediately starts jumping over all the beds, barking and otherwise making a nuisance of itself.  Given that this woman had been at the hostel for some time, nobody else seemed to be saying anything so I kept quiet as well and tried to sleep.

Then the coughing started.  Every 5 minutes, loud, assertive, throat-clearing coughs indicating some advanced malady, for the entire night.  By the Dutch tractor-dog-snowman-dream woman.  Now, I have been sick in hostel dorms before, and it's a pretty bad feeling - you know you are inconveniencing everyone and keeping them awake, but you just can't stop coughing or sneezing - and as a result you do everything you can to be apologetic and not disturb people more than you already are.  You do not cough as if silencing the room to announce the arrival of some dignitary.  And on top of that, you do not wake everyone up by bringing your dog into the dorm and letting it annoy people as well.  After several hours of this, sometime during the night after being woken up yet again by the woman or her dog, I got up for a bathroom visit and, upon returning to the room, as I made my way back to my bunk, the dog growled at me.

Now, I am not the world's most patient and tolerant man in my best moments.  But being growled at in my own room by a dog who shouldn't even be there and whose owner has let it run around pestering the other occupants all night, not to mention coughing loudly and keeping everyone awake, was some long way past my very short limit.  In a massive breach of hostel etiquette, in the darkness of Doogles Backpackers in Blantyre I challenged Tractor Woman : "That dog *better* not be growling at me".

I had nothing against the dog, you understand, despite (or perhaps because of) keeping its nose buried in my crotch for the better part of a week, but Tractor Woman did not seem to be taking what I considered appropriate measures to keep it under control on this particular night.  There was a half-second of silence, and then a few chuckles and one guy actually cheered. Now that it was established that nobody else was sleeping either, Tractor Woman began to sense that her majority was perhaps looking a little thin, and assured us all that there would be no further nonsense.  We agreed it would be best if that was so.  I didn't hear another peep out of either her or the dog for the rest of the night, and in the morning by the time I got up she had made the decision to move on from Blantryre and was already gone, presumably to collect more dreams.  Most satisfying.

After finally participating in the brewery tour, on my last night in Blantyre before heading back up to Lilongwe I caught wind of a pretty large local poker tournament at the local casino.  Several of the guys at the hostel decided to enter and I ended up winning, putting me around $500 USD in front, which, combined with my last night in town, clearly required a night of celebration.  A group of English and Scottish girls at the hostel had cleverly encouraged me to promise to shout drinks the entire night if I won, and so at 6am the next morning I dragged my sorry self to the bus station for the long trip back up to Lilongwe.

There are 2 types of bus in Africa.  The first are luxury long-distance coaches which are actually quite safe, comfortable, air conditioned, run reasonably on time and are frequented predominantly by white tourists wanting to get where they are going with a minimum of hassle or fuss.  For convenience, we shall call these "Buses Which Go Nowhere Near Where Craig Wants To Go".  The others we shall call African Buses.  My bus back up to Lilongwe was an African Bus.

I'm not sure I have the entire operating procedure figured out, but African Buses appear to operate like this:  everyone who wants to pay for their journey turns up before the scheduled departure time, pays the correct fare, and takes their seat.  At around the scheduled departure time, the driver, who has been sitting around doing nothing for the past half hour, begins to make a series of encouraging about-to-start-the-bus-and-leave movements, however rather than actually departing will exit the bus and decide this is an ideal time to buy, say, wrapping paper to beat the Christmas rush.  Some time after this scheduled departure time (around 40 minutes seems average), the driver will return and actually start the bus.  This is the signal for everyone else in the bus station who also wants to be on the bus but doesn't want to pay to surge forward in a large crowd, rendering the vehicle unable to move with the result that all these other people are then also crowded on for free or none of us will be getting anywhere, with all their luggage, children, chickens, bike wheels etc.  The bus is now carrying approximately 752 passengers.  Per seat.  You sit next to an old man who turns his head toward you every 17 seconds to cough tuberculosis into your face.  Several people have carried live chickens on board, tied at the feet so they hang upside down at about the level of your head, and every so often one of the chickens will also lift its head to look around and sneeze Avian Flu in your direction.  Satisfied, it will then drop down to hang dead-like for another half hour or so before popping its beak back up again periodically to top up your dose.

And then you are off.

Or so you thought.  Approximately every 50 feet the bus will pass a human being - not an uncommon sight in Africa - which will require an impromptu stop so several passengers can alight and conduct a lengthy conversation with them.  Given that a free bus has now stopped in front of them, several new people will now also decide on the spur of the moment that they wish to go to Lilongwe, and squeeze on.  Existing passengers will use this opportunity to get off for a bathroom stop, smoke, buy lettuce, topup airtime, chat to friends or whatever.  Most of these people are of course the ones who didn't pay and so are standing at the back of the vehicle, and so have to make their way all the way to the front past every other passenger before they can hop off.  They will also decide that their valuable possessions are not to be left on the bus with the untrustworthy ones who paid, and so will lug all their crap with them off the bus for the break.  One old man who crowded on was carrying what appeared to be the handrail from some sort of childrens playground equipment - no bag, no suitcase, no briefcase or other luggage - just his handrail.  The crowd had pushed him right to the back and at every stop he would decide to join the party growing outside and begin the journey to the front of the bus carrying his handrail.  Every time it would take him around 15 minutes to push past everyone to finally reach the doors at the front, at which point it would be time to go and everyone else would start to surge back on & he would be pushed all the way to the back again.  I don't know what he wanted to get off for, but for the entire journey he appeared to simply be carrying his handrail from one end of the bus to the other so I hope it was exercise.

At some point, the driver will make an unscheduled detour many miles off your proposed route to run some errands - paying fines for previous poor driving seems popular - and once again the passengers will take this opportunity to get off and scatter.  It will take around 45 minutes once the driver returns to round everyone up again, because everybody on the bus seems to have an intimate knowledge of everyone else present and will not allow the driver to leave until they locate their cousin who has disappeared for a beer several villages distant.  And then finally, many hours after the promised arrival time, you actually arrive in Lilongwe.

It would be unfair to say that the arrival of a bus at the station is the most interesting thing to happen that day to the hundreds of people hanging around, but it is certainly the signal for them to all crowd around the newly arrived vehicle to greet arrivals or sell you chips or get on themselves or otherwise create maximum inconvenience for those attempting to get off.  Some further hours after your arrival, the crowd will finally have thinned sufficiently to attempt an exit.  When you arrive at the luggage rack, 142 people will wish to assist you getting your bag, having apparently not fully grasped the message in too many cooks spoiling the broth.  And then, having recovered your luggage and that of 3 other passengers, it is time to walk around until you find the right office to book your next bus to Lusaka in Zambia.   This will, of course, also be an African Bus, a journey of over 750 km - around 3 times the distance you have just come - and be promised at 18 hours, departing at 5.30am the following morning, and costing close to $100 USD.

I just couldn't face it.

Instead, defeated, I lugged myself to the hostel in Lilongwe to recharge and work out my next move, which hopefully would not involve another bus journey.  While sitting on my bunk whimpering and staring off into the middle distance with a slack look on my face I was taken pity on by an English girl who, it turns out, was flying to Zambia herself the next morning.  She appeared to be saying that flights from Lilongwe to Zambia were actually only around $250.  Flush with my poker winnings, this was a no-brainer.  But being already 4.30pm, I had about half an hour to rush back into town to find a travel agent to organise the flight.  With 5 minutes to spare I collapsed through the office doors of a startled agent, pulled out my poker cash and instructed her, in a tone reminiscent of my challenge to Tractor Woman which indicated there had better not be any problems, to get me on the plane the next morning.  Amazingly, the African system held up long enough to complete this transaction and I had my ticket to Lusaka.

Then, as all the details were being finalised, I noticed that the flight time to Lusaka was almost 5 hours.  It should be around 50 minutes.  The travel agent informed me that the flight actually goes via........please tell me you have seen this coming........Blantyre.  Like your new partner's history - you don't really want to know but you have to know - I took a deep breath and inquired how much this flight would have been if I had just stayed in Blantyre and got on there like I wanted to in the first place?

Now, before I tell you the answer, let us recap:   I had left Blantyre at 6am that morning after a huge night of poker and celebration, endured an 11 hour journey with chickens, tuberculosis, Handrail Man and the extended family of every resident of Malawi, without food (and many of you know what happens when I get hangry), taken detours through pretty much the entire countryside of southern Africa, rushed from Lilongwe to the hostel and back to Lilongwe in time to book the flight, and compared to flying from Blantyre where I had started from that morning all this had saved me.....$15 Australian dollars.  It appears that the $700 estimate I had been given in Blantyre was a little overstated.  And so the next morning, as I sat in Lilongwe airport waiting to fly back to fucking Blantyre, I spent my remaining poker winnings on a celebratory early morning beer and reflected on the fond memories I would take from Malawi.  And this, again, seems an appropriate time to remind you 'til next time, take care of yourselves.....and each other.