American Life In The Summertime #13 - TIA

3 May 2008


There is a saying you hear a lot here in Africa: "TIA", meaning This Is Africa.  It is an all-purpose expression to indicate that things don't necessarily happen here the same as in other parts of the world.  It may apply when things take many times longer than necessary for no apparent reason, for undertaking an action which would seem absurdly life-threatening in any other circumstance, or hooking up with someone who may raise a few eyebrows back home (typically white tourist girls with local rafting guides).  To achieve the appropriate effect this saying should be delivered with a shrug of the shoulders and an accepting expression to indicate that This Is Africa and you should just go with it.  TIA perfectly summed up my Malawi experience, and certainly applies to this next edition of ALITS.

You may remember I was sitting in the airport in Lilongwe, happy that Malawi was behind me, waiting to fly to Lusaka in Zambia.  Some 2 hours after the flight was due to depart, there is no sign of the plane, I have seen and become good friends with 3 shifts of cleaners at the airport, and the newsagent is sick of me browsing through every publication she has available.  Homing pigeons are being mustered to locate our aircraft, and smiling locals are walking around shrugging their shoulders as if this is not unusual which, I suppose, it is not.  Finally, a flurry of activity announced the arrival of our plane and we all got on.  Malawians employ much the same strategy on planes as on buses, and one extremely large woman was soon struggling up the aisle carrying 4 ridiculously oversized bags, with a long line of other passengers banking up behind her.  The flight attendants informed her that the bags could not fit in the cabin and would need to go underneath, whereupon the woman refused to part with her luggage - which probably contained more valuable handrails - and demanded to be upgraded to first class so that her luggage would fit.  Kalahari bushmen with no prior experience of mechanised transport could have told her than she herself would not fit in first class, let alone her luggage, however after taking on Tractor Woman I just didn't have the heart for another "discussion", and so I stood quietly in line with everyone else waiting for yet another African issue to be resolved.  Eventually negotiations concluded with the woman consenting to her handrails being stowed in the baggage compartment, and everyone could begin to move forward to find their seats.

Soon after a buzz went around the cabin and news spread that we would no longer be flying via Blantyre at all - we were going straight to Lusaka before the plane continued onto Johannesburg.  How and why these decisions are made still escape me but it certainly makes flying in Africa a stimulating experience.  Given the experience of getting here, and my annoyance at discovering I could have stayed in Blantyre and caught the plane there, I allowed myself a wry smile at this news and, happy to finally have something go my way in Malawi, settled in with my 47 magazines from the airport newsagent to enjoy my short hop to Lusaka.

I hope by now you realise that things don't always happen the way you expect here.  About 5 minutes after the news that we were going direct to Lusaka, before we have even taken off, the pilot comes on the intercom to inform everyone that due to people having to make connections in Johannesburg, our flight from Lilongwe to Lusaka via Blantyre would now be going via Johannesburg.  Johannesburg is almost 2,000 kms in a direction which could be described as "not Zambia".  2 1/2 hours there, 2 1/2 hours back, plus the turnaround time on the ground.  I have since learned that the local name for Air Malawi is Air WhereAreWe?, and this now seems rather apt.  Having no choice and knowing that somehow this was still not over, we strapped in for the first leg to Johannesburg.

It must be said that African pilots do rather like to fling their planes around.  In Australia, I am used to planes taking off, flying in a relatively straight line from where you started to where you are going, and landing.  However in Australia, the cruising altitude is generally well above any cloud base, whereas in Africa the clouds routinely tower well above the level of the plane, drenching some part of the African savannah, and rather than fly through them pilots are always climbing, diving or banking to dodge them, with the result that your flight ends up going via, at a guess, Helsinki and Guam.  Thus the flight was well late by the time we finally got to South Africa.  The passengers actually connecting here have long since missed their onward flights anyway, meaning that the entire experience of diverting to Johannesburg has been useful for nobody, least of all me, who was still, almost 2 days after leaving Blantyre, very much not in Zambia.

Upon landing in Johannesburg we were greeted with a very disconcerting squealing noise when the brakes were applied which, somehow, continued for some minutes after the plane had actually stopped.  Knowing that I still had to ride this fine aircraft back up to Zambia, I surreptitiously checked under the seat for my life jacket, and was bemused to discover that not only did my seat not contain a life jacket, nor did any of the other seats I checked for some rows both forward and back.  For the remainder of my time on the plane I busied myself counting the rows to the emergency exits and wishing that the large woman still had her handrails in the cabin, which would at least give me something to hang onto should things go awry.  I subsequently discovered that Air Malawi ceased flying the week after my flight.  I finally arrived in Lusaka 3 hours after the bus would have got there, and paid about 3 times as much for the journey.  TIA.

The main attraction in Zambia is, of course, Victoria Falls (shared with Zimbabwe), and after a few days in Siavonga (where I wanted to get to from Blantyre in the first place) I arrived in Livingstone, on the Zambian side of the falls.  Victoria Falls is simply unbelievable. In the local language it is called Mosi-oa-Tunya - the Smoke That Thunders - and this is a perfect description:  from miles away you can hear the awesome rush of the water and see the spray from the Falls rising in a huge mist, often the only cloud in the Zambian sky.  When you visit the actual Falls themselves, you are soaked - soaked - as if standing in a very strong continuous shower.  After what seemed about four years trying to get here from Malawi, I needed it.

Obviously not being aware that I had already spend all my poker winnings getting here, the English and Scottish girls from Blantyre had also made it to Livingstone, and one night we went out to a local "club".  At the club, the girls, as they do, wished to dance.  The rule from St Patricks Day in Uganda was bad dancing only, which obviously suited me perfectly as I am capable of no other kind, and Kampala witnessed plenty of Australian favourites such as the Lawnmower, the Sprinkler, and Stacking The Shelves At The Grocery Store.  I decided to implement this policy at the club in Livingstone, as well as some slick new moves I learned from the Brits like Dodging The Bees and Wearing The Hive.  Some poor local girl, thinking this was some cool new mzungu craze, starting copying us, and as the idea of my being responsible for establishing any sort of dance trend still amuses me greatly, I will retire here well ahead for having introduced the Lawnmower to Zambia.

I was still a couple of weeks short of starting my volunteer project back in Johannesburg, and, having already been there unwillingly with Air WhereAreWe? only a week before, I was in no great hurry to return.  Fortunately, the hostel in Livingstone also housed about two dozen Norwegian nursing students on work experience, which appeared to chiefly involve lying around the pool all day in bikinis.  However eventually even Zambia threw up a cloudy day, and the resulting absence of Norwegians meant it was finally time to move on.  I made the more or less random decision to hop the next bus to Namibia, my seventh country, but that's another story for another time, so as always: 'till next time, take care of yourselves.....and each other.