Just Smile and Nod

Hi all,

I’m sitting here at my desk about to leave for the day, almost halfway through my 7^th week in Malawi. The sun is setting on my first rainy day since my arrival, and currently I smell burning garbage and hear a chicken being slaughtered outside my window. Ohhh, Africa.

My friends and I had a great long weekend on the coast of Lake Malawi. We stayed at a spot called Kande Beach, where we got to lay out in the HOT African sun, swim in the lake, eat delicious food, and horse-back ride through the bush (which my leg muscles are still thanking me for). Saturday we hit up a wildlife reserve in the hopes of being able to track and see some elephants. The most we saw, however, were their footprints and their poop. We did manage to spot several baboons, bushbuck and crocodiles though. AND I got to pose with the ranger’s M-16 for a photo… who knew guns were so heavy?

We had an interesting night Saturday night as we had driven a bit down the coast to a town called Nkhotakhota, to find a lodge closer to home and make the drive a bit shorter for Sunday. It took about two hours from our initial arrival, countless kilometers up and down rocky dirt roads in a rental car that kept stalling, a tense but hilarious scene where my friend Margaret and I were literally acting as human bulldozers in the pitch black of the African night- hurling giant boulders into the bush in order for the car to make it down the road, and about 5 stops at various lodges, for us to find accommodation that could offer us both dinner AND beds. It’s amazing what hotel staff would tell us on the telephone just to get us to their lodge… promises of hot water, delicious food… when in actual fact most places had neither. When we finally found a place with beds (our 4^th lodge), we also found a power outage, and a “Sorry only rice and beans”. Since we had been driving all day and had not eaten anything since breakfast hours before our 3-hour nature hike in 30 degree temperatures, rice and beans were just not going to cut it. We booted it back to our car, had a lovely dinner at another lodge 14 km down another rocky dirt road, (who had food but no beds), then drove the 14 km back to our lodge, only to find the power was still off, would not return “until morning” (untrue- it didn’t even come back on the next morning), and there was no hot water. Let’s just say we bargained the already outrageous room price down to a more reasonable figure the next morning.

Life in Africa can be frustrating, but of course it’s nothing like Canada! We’re halfway across the world… the cultures are different, attitudes towards hospitality and service are different, language is different. “No” can mean “Yes” and “Yes” can mean “Are you nuts? Of course not”. But if I’ve learnt anything from my time here, it’s that a sense of humour and a smile can conquer most any situation. Malawians are hospitable, accommodating people, and throughout our crazy journey up and down Lake Malawi we met so many wonderful people who, despite our refusals to pay full price, or our demands for buckets of hot water, were warm, welcoming, and happy to see us.

Love to all,
Jacqueline