Blogs from Monkey Bay, Southern, Malawi, Africa
February 10th 2011
The next day I chatted to Mike for a bit before he set off back to Salima. Turns out in the storm I had broken my phone - it got wet. I sat at the breakfast table for a few hours and ended up having a really good conversation with Edward about politics, South Africa, USA, China, the future, investments etc. It was an interesting and in depth conversation. It was Grant's birthday so after wishing him happy birthday, I set off with them into town to try get my phone fixed. We waited in a tiny 'African Mobile Service' shop for about an hour while this guy took my phone apart and used chemicals to displace the water and then used a box and a light bulb to dry it - amazing, and after all ... read more
May 4th 2010
The next leg of my rather meandering Malawian travel is dominated by a ferry down the length of Lake Malawi, from the northern "town" of Chilumba all the way to Monkey Bay close to the southern tip of the lake. The Ilala Ferry is about sixty years old and like all nautical colonial relics it was actually built back in Britain first (in this case Glasgow in 1949) before being taken apart, shipped to Africa, carried a few hundred kilometres overland piece by piece and finally reassembled. Since then the boat has barely changed at all - the state of the toilets certainly suggests so - but its in fairly good nick compared to other elements of Africa's colonial inheritance that I've encountered (i.e. it still floats). Cost being of greater importance than comfort J and ... read more
June 24th 2009
Moni!!! Muli bwanji?? (that’ll be ‘Hello! How are you’? in chechewa... ) Greetings from Monkey bay, Malawi! Hope you guys are all well, apologies to James for the length of the last blog, I’ll try to keep this one down to a lunch hour, snack size! So! It’s been a while again! I left you guys with the cliff-hanger of Zimbabwe... Fortunately, I lived to tell the tale, I’ll begin.... Saying goodbye to George and Naomi was a bit of a killer. I’d lived with them for pretty much every waking hour of that month. I felt a little empty waving them off, finding myself stood staring at the back of the gate they’d departed through. That, along with the ten tonne hangover sat on my face was a pretty miserable start to any day. There ... read more
January 13th 2009
Lieve koulijers op het noordelijk halfrond! Ik zit hier nu al voor de derde dag niet van het zweet te druipen en dat is wel even lekker! Het leek allemaal heel mooi in Mangochi - wekelijkse updates vanaf gratis internet - maar dat ging dus even niet door. Nu schrijf ik jullie vanuit Zomba mijn volgende verhaal. En er is heel wat in te halen… Safari in Liwonde NP Na een weekje Mangochi ging ik met de drie andere Nederlandse meisjes - Anne Marie, Anna, Suzanne - op safari in Liwonde National Park. Het regenseizoen is niet het beste seizoen voor safari, omdat de dieren niet gedwongen naar een waterbron toe moeten als er overal plassen liggen. We hebben dan ook erg ons best zitten doen, maar geen olifant gezien. Wel waren er een hoop hippo’s ... read more
January 8th 2009
Day 58 We attempted a game drive in the morning at 6, but saw little once again, although we did see some Sable, which was one of the two antelopes that James has never seen and was determined to find. Sadly we have yet to find a Roan for him… So it wasn’t a complete waste of time, but it certainly wasn’t hugely successful, although the boys did see a Brown Hooded Kingfisher too, which was a new one for them. It was 10 when we got back to the campsite and we sat until about 1, eating breakfast and drinking tea, enjoying the fact that after the seriously heavy rain of the previous night, the sun had actually come out! At 2 we finally left, deciding to head for a resort on Lake Malawi called ... read more
September 13th 2008
Sorry to all about lack of entries, but the closest internet connection is 10 miles from where we're staying. I'm going to have to condense 2 weeks quite quickly as i'm in a bar with 3 of the other volunteers from our group waiting to use this laptop. Life here is very different from swaziland because it's a very much poorer country. In swaziland you could escape to a western style shopping mall with coffee shop and internet cafe, but not here. We drove for 3 1/2 hrs from lilongwe in a dicrepit open top landrover to get to the lake, dropping down through the hills that form the western edge of the rift valley. The lodge we stay in has no hot water, the electricity goes off every other evening for half hour and the ... read more
July 20th 2008
After a good night of sleep it was the last time to get up early to catch a bus in Mozambique. Apparently the buses in Malawi leave later. I like Malawi already. To complete the list of vehicles used in my trip the Mozambican decided to build the border 4km away from the closest Mozambican town (but strangely enough just at the outskirts of a Malawi town). to cross these last few km you have either the choice of using your own transport which we didn’t have, to walk which is no fun or to pick one of the very very persistent guys with a Chinese push bike which has a padded piece of wood attached to the back and some foot rests welded on. Lazy as I am I chose to let someone else sweat ... read more
As one Joanna departs, another one enters
Published: February 27th 2008Africa » Malawi » Southern » Monkey Bay
February 26th 2008
On Monday February 18th, I was beginning my last week of work at Monkey Bay Community Hospital and preparing to leave Malawi. That same day, I found out that a few days earlier, another Joanna arrived. Deborah, who I worked with in the Pharmacy department, had given birth to a baby girl and named her after me. I feel pretty honoured! I now have a great excuse to go back to Malawi - i'll have to see how my Malawian counterpart is getting on! For now, she is happy and healthy. I arrived back in bonnie Scotland today. I am absolutely freezing! I have just been looking at some of my videos, and texting friends back there to say that I arrived ok, and it already feels like Malawi is a million miles away. I apologize ... read more
February 7th 2008
Lots has happened in the past week. I have had good times (that have been extremely good) and bad times (that have been extremely bad). I first had my birthday. My 29th in Malawi. I had a wonderful day. It started with a soda on the Chancy Maples floating bar, watching baboons that were fighting on the rocks. I had a great Malawian lunch at a local pub next to the hospital, I swam and snorkeled in the lake & I even had homemade chocolate birthday cake. On Friday afternoon we went to an MTO attackers football game. They lost 5-3 (which was debated as much as usual) but we had a great time anyway. We taught the local kids how to do the Mexican wave. Saturday we headed to Cape Maclear with 5 new volunteers, ... read more
January 16th 2008
A Meeting with Soldier For those of you who know me (and my appearances on stage at Cirque de Soleil, dueling Piano bars, Travis concerts & the like), you will not be surprised when I tell you that we ended up on stage at the Lucius Banda concert, dancing with the ‘soldier’ himself. The story of how this happened is long so I’ll save it for now, but I WILL say it was a fun night and I am a big fan! Since I last wrote, much has happened. Our house is becoming busier as the number of guests has changed from 4 to 3 to 10 in the past few days. Steve has gone home for a couple of weeks of rest and relaxation and we have been joined by 4 new volunteers (2 Canadian, ... read more
