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Published: November 27th 2005
It's nearly pitch dark when I wake up, the room is only lit by the eerie moonlight shining through the half open window. My watch reads 2am. I curse the men shouting outside. They sound upset but it's hard to tell - I don't speak the language. Africans oftens sound more agitated than they really are. Selling tomatoes or offering taxi services may sound more like someone holding up a bank than a friendly local trying to make a living. 'Why can't they ever speak in a civilised manner,' I say prejudicely to Helene, assuming she's awake. Interesting how suddenly "I" am the civilised and "they" are the villains. I never was much of a morning person. 'It's probably nothing,' I say with a guilty look on my face, hidden from Helene by the darkness. 'It's just the way they communicate.' We try to sleep, but the voices don't go away. On the contrary, it sounds as if more people have joined in. Back home this would undoubtfully sound like a brawl, here, it may be someone gossiping over a Sunday cup of tea. 'What on earth is going on,' Helene says. In couple terminology, this means for me to get up and investigate, reporting back ASAP. Standing up in my bed, I slowly lean my head out the window. It's dark but I can see a group of people standing close to the stairs, some ten metres away. I quickly withdraw my head and report back to the boss lying in the opposite bed.
There are three decks on board. The bottom economy 3rd class deck, the middle 2nd class deck, and the top 1st class deck. On all decks people sleep on the floor or on benches unless you are a rich
azungu or white man. If so, you have probably booked one of the four cabins, situated on the middle deck. After flashing your video camera, digital camera, binoculars and expensive sunglasses at every opportunity while enjoying cold Carlsbergs in the bar, beers that each cost the equivalent of a hard day's work on the maize fields in Malawi for a local, this is the cabin to which you withdraw to get a well-deserved rest after an exhausting day.
Since our departure from Monkey Bay, the economy deck has gradually filled up. I noticed earlier the floor being crowded with people. The cabins, including ours, are situated on the middle deck, just above this bunch of poor people packed together. Including the guest cabins, some staff cabins are located on the opposite side starboard, with the dinner salon in the middle. Just outside the door to the salon are the stairs down to the economy deck. This is where the group of men are now having an argument, or so it seems.
Suddenly the lamp outside our cabin is turned on. I can hear people rushing back and forth. The voices are louder than ever; this is not a discussion of yesterday's paper but something far more serious. With a bang our outer door is slammed shut by someone. I hadn't thought about it - when we went to bed, we left the outer door wide open, attached by a hook to the wall to avoid it rustling in the wind. The inner door isn't even locked, and is hardly a real door but more of a couple of planks with a mosquito net. Already on my way out of the bed going for the key, Helene whispers and tells me to lock the door. I quickly find the key on the table, puts it in the key hole and secure the door. Looking out of the window I see the waiter who works in the salon. He's holding an oar from the lifeboat that hangs on the side just outside our cabin, pointing the oar towards the group of angry men. His lips are tight, his eyes are wide open. He looks scared. Probably he's the one who shut our door in order to protect us. Dragging the leather belt that regulates the window opening, I quickly force the window shut except for a centimetre wide gap at the top. Unable to close it any further I attach the leather belt to its metal nail in the wall. It should hold.
'They must be drunk or something. The waiter is just outside with an oar pointing towards them,' I whisper to Helene, trying to sound calm, but failing, 'maybe they want more alcohol or something.' 'They can't
afford alcohol, though,' Helene disagrees. 'I'm not saying they've been buying it in the bar. They probably had some with them, letting the bottle go around,' I argue impatiently. 'These things happen everywhere, back home too. People get drunk, someone gets pissed off by something and they start firing each other up to "do" something. Break something. Beat someone up.' 'The power of mass suggestion,' I think to myself. 'Don't underestimate it.'
The entire room shakes with a bang. It repeats. Someone is running something hard into the walls of the ship. 'They must be trying to break into the salon,' I whisper breathlessly. My muscles go all soft and shaky as the adrenalin gets going. I hurry over to my backpack in order to find my Victorinox, a sort of Leatherman multitool. It doesn't offer much of a knife, but it's better than nothing. 'Shit, they're going berserk,' I stutter to myself three times searching for the knife, each time noticing my lack of control of jaw muscles. Perhaps that's why I repeat myself. It makes me even more terrified.
I can't find the knife. 'I'm scared,' Helene says, sitting upright in her bed. 'Well, what do you think
I am,' I say in a weird mix of being annoyed and scared. Even in terror my usual "marital" behaviour persists. A window shatters, glass falling to the floor. They must have broken one of the windows into the salon. I repeat my mantra aloud, the one I said half jokingly to our friends before we left Australia: 'When people are hungry, they are willing to do
anything.' Malawi is experiencing a hunger crisis at the moment. They did not get enough rain last year to stock up enough food for 2005. Same thing is about to happen now. My brain runs at overclocked speed. No, we didn't flash our cameras on the top deck. Yes, we did have beers. Yes, we are white, thus we don't
need to flash our valuables - they
know we are rich, and indirectly - contributing to their poverty. Not us personally, perhaps, but
us representing the West. Norwegian company Yara (previously Norsk Hydro owned) sells fertiliser in Malawi. I am sure the prices could be dropped without reducing profitability too much. At the same time as the West sells fertiliser expensively, we buy raw materials at ridiculuosly low prices. Inducing taxes on enriched/prepared material/goods, we force these people to sell their stuff raw and unprepared. Then
we can enhance the products and sell them off with a much greater profit.
Someone calls the English word 'cabin.' 'Are they finally coming for us now,' I think before the flow of information through my brain exceeds whatever threshold there is supposed to be. Lifevests - just outside our cabin in a box, between our door and the mob. We can run out and take them on, but that would obviously make them aware of us. Lifeboat - it's hanging just outside our cabin. But what good would it do to jump into it? I could cut the ropes keeping it close the side of the ship but I can't cut the inch-wide steelwires holding it up. Can we get the lifevests
and jump into the boat
and cut the ropes, so that the boat will separate from the side, making it harder for them to board it? I can grab an oar and beat them if they try to jump it. But hey, I don't
have my knife to cut any rope. Shall I look for it again? Our cabin door is pretty solid. Well, that's how I remember it. I have walked through it a dozen times but never examined it. Of course. Maybe I'm wrong. We could place our backpacks against it. I visualise the mob trying to smash through it with oars. Worse off is the wooden window, being thinner than the door. It would be hard for them to enter though. A man would be able to squeeze through but maybe not when I am hitting him in the face while he's trying to. 'There is no escape,' I whisper to Helene 'but it will be hard for them to break in also.' We sit quiet in Helene's bed, both of us examining every little detail and prospective scenario.
The voices are less agitated now but we are still alert. Of course. I move over to my bed and tell Helene to go to sleep. 'If they're trying to break in, we will wake up. It's nothing we can do right now. Besides, it seems to have calmed down now,' I say. Around 4am I wake from the lack of engine noise. We're at standstill somewhere. Outside someone is preparing the lifeboat. There is a lot of loud voices. They must be entering the lifeboat. All dry in my mouth I drink a sip of water. It tastes sweet and is lukewarm. I lie on my back with my eyes open and try to imagine what's going on. Then I fall asleep.
Daylight shines through the gap above the window, its about 7am in the morning. The night seems very far away. I open the window and look out. Nobody. We dress, discussing eagerly what really took place. 'I woke when we were standing still and someone left on the lifeboat. They were very noisy, perhaps they were the troublemakers,' Helene suggests. 'Yeah, I don't know,' I say, unwilling to feel all relaxed just hours after our night of terror.
The next few hours I spend interrogating the crew. I ask the chief engineer, whom I befriended the day before. He hasn't heard
anything, even though his cabin is on the same deck as ours but on the opposite side. He suggests that I must have heard some deck boy cleaning the floor. Does he take me for an idiot? I ask the waitress in the salon. She hasn't heard anything. She has a peculiar look on her face. I ask the waiter. He hasn't seen anything. 'Well, what about the window,' I say triumphantly and point to the window. 'It's been broken already,' he says, meaning it happened "a long time ago." 'Not true,' I say, changing my sweet-talk tactics to something more Dirty Harry-like, and walk over to it. I look down on the floor to see if I can see any pieces of glass. They have wiped it up but the waiter seems to think I have found something and changes his strategy. 'We broke it last night. They key to the salon was gone. There was a spare key inside so we tried to break in. But after we broke the window someone found the first key,' he says. Problem solved. I sit down with Helene at the breakfast table and we go over the facts, or rather, our experience of the events. In the middle of the night it is suddenly so important to get into the salon that they try to smash the door open, then break the window, all the while shouting? Helene seems happy that the whole thing is "over." It annoys me. 'Well, what if the same thing happens next night? What if the bastards didn't leave the boat? You can't really believe this bullshit they're telling us, do you,' I say in a slightly aggressive tone. 'Maybe they threatened with the police. Because we were going ashore at 4am this morning, the drunks didn't have any choice. Maybe they really
did leave then,' Helene says. However many times we talk it over, we can't get closer to a conclusion, we just don't have enough evidence. At the top deck I ask another tourist who has his own business in Cape Maclear and knows the locals and their customs. He hasn't heard anything and underlines that we are safe on board. That's was not the answer I was hoping for. Or maybe I
should have hoped for it. Sleeping on the top deck next to the engine pipe there is a lot of noise and he probably didn't hear anything. My last hope is the bartender. I made good friends with him yesterday, buying him drinks all day. He hasn't heard anything (surprise). He says that a brawl doesn't sound very likely. Later the same day I ask him again, pushing him a bit. He says 'maybe the missing key story really happened,' he obviously has been briefed like the rest of the crew now, then adds ambiguously 'or maybe there was a fight.' He doesn't want to eloborate, and I leave it at that.
The rest of the trip goes on eventlessly. We enjoy cold drinks on deck and read our books, occasionally examining the shore and people and boats and huts and sometimes even animals with the binoculars. We lock ourselves up at night and are woken by the waiter at 7am for our breakfast. Finally we've arrived in Nkhata Bay.
Author's note:
At the time of writing this I am sitting at a computer in Jambo Guest House in Stone Town on Zanzibar, the paradise island off Tanzania. Just outside I hear screaming and running feet. Sprinting outside, I see a mob chasing down a young man, beating him with a whip. I ask the guest house staff, who's also keen to watch, what's going on. They explain to me that he stole something from a shop and that stealing is not well accepted on this largely islamic island. 'They will take him to the police now,' one of the staff says. 'What kind of penalty can he get,' I ask. He doesn't want to give a clear answer. 'What about the capital punishment,' I say, thinking of countries where people are killed for stealing an apple or at least lose an arm or something. 'It depends on the judge,' the staff member says. 'Maybe one year, maybe two. But not the death penalty,' he smiles.
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Snappy
non-member comment
Sounds like a nice trip!
Hey Robin, good to hear that you are having a good time. Next time wait until something exciting happens before you write your blog :) (Fuck man, africans sound a bit sketchy)