Advertisement
Published: February 5th 2014
Edit Blog Post
Queen of Green
Beautiful green Malawi I don't know how many shades of green there are on planet earth. But am sure that all of them can been seen in a glance out the open sided truck in Malawi....gorgeous!
Vast lake Malawi is 160km long and 60km wide and boasts up to 1,000 species of aquatic life, it is the most diverse fresh water habitat in the world.
We have taken on 4 refined, educated, 30 something Northern Europeans and the entire tone and intellectual level of the truck has improved. The literati and I paddle out to the island in the lake and are joined by an Italian biologist who is doing research on lake Malawi. An afternoon of snorkeling and interesting conversation restores my faith.
People in this region of Malawi are poor, struggling but smiling and kind...I buy too many mangoes, watermelons, pineapples, anything to help. The land is lush, plenty to eat just no money in circulation.
Dawn sees curved, womb-like dugout canoes with home made fishing nets...tattered men bring in a scant catch of tiny sardine like fish. Here naked children splash about while shy women work tirelessly pounding and drying cassava, others hoe the fields.
On
Dugout canoe
Womb like canoe with catch a walk through the village I eat fried cassava from roadside stands much to the horror of my traveling companions...so far it seems to be agreeing with me.
It's beautiful landscape but truthfully a bit depressing.....I feel helpless in the face of so much lack. Here in Malawi the people seem less monetarily poor than in Tanzania, but somehow more impoverished. It seems like wherever the big straight laced British gumboot of oppression has landed the air has been squeezed out of any 'Joi de vivre'. We do what we can, buy fruit, barter our clothes for little bracelets we don't really need... it's business not charity....no shame in that...they save face, smile and thank us, behind my sun glasses i'm moved to tears.
The Kanda beach campsite on lake Malawi, the halfway point between Nairobi and Capetown for the overland trucks becomes party central. The best thing that can be said about this is that it supports the local economy. When we pull into the shopping area (basically gas station and market) in the center of 'town' men with large bundles of second hand clothes run up to the truck....they are costumes! So if you ever wondered
Sunrise
Sunrise on Lake Malawi what happens to discarded Halloween costumes now you know....they are bundled up and regurgitated in Africa where punch drunk Muzungoes (foreigners) buy them from local hawkers, don them, become transformed into dragon slayers, harlequins, Tarzan in drag etc and have a big beer bash! I tell you 'truth is stranger than fiction' as my grandmother would say! I'd love to be a fly on the wall to hear what on earth the locals think of all this!
Thank goodness the members of my truck decide not to be part of this embarrassing madness so I'm saved from having to stand my ground yet again
Early morning finds us in the truck again charging through the many shades of green toward Lilongwe the capital of Malawi.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.114s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 12; qc: 54; dbt: 0.0506s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb