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Published: December 2nd 2006
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The Fancy Dress Party
Three little maids from school are we!
We travelled into Malawi over a couple of days and stayed in Chitimba on the Northern shores of Lake Malawi -the lake is vast and could be taken for an ocean. After a bartering session for some Malawian furniture (Mums expect a dining set to turn up in the next couple of months!) we headed down to Chinteche with a brief stop at Mzuzu to buy some dodgy Afrian threads for a fancy dress party the following night. The local rag market was a totally crazy experience. It was pretty hilarious for about 5 minutes and then got seriously full on - word of our visit had spread like wildfire and we were completely surrounded having the most hideous garmets ever created thrust in our faces, and some wandering hands in our pockets - cheeky blighters! It was worth the experience for the hysteria at the fancy dress party the next day.
We arrived at Chinteche where upon first impressions it looked like a posh retirement village (actually it would have been more exciting being in a retirement village - there was sod all going on!) Attempts were had to up the fun by having a few beers in the bar.
They Seem Like Nice Boys!
L-R: Brad, Drew, Cam and Shane Eventually, the excitement got a bit much for Becs and she headed to bed. Both Jo's then got stuck in the bar when the heavens opened and the most extreme thunder storm any of us had ever seen began overhead - perhaps not the best time to be trapped in a tent! Becs spent the next couple of hours cowering in the tent in rubber soled shoes sure she was going to die whilst Jo and Jo watched other people from the truck running for cover in the bar as their tents were flooding. At its most intense it seemed like a bolt of lightning struck the ground only 100 yards away sending the bar into darkness and everyone into shock. Bored of waiting, the Jo's decided to make a run for it (Whit loosing a flip flop in a boggy marsh along the way) At the tent Jo Whit thought she'd lucked out but then realised her roll matt had a new use as a lilo. Smithy and Greeny got through the night by clinging onto each other for dear life perching on the top of their rucksacks eagerly awaiting the sunrise to bail the sieve of an abode
out. The next day pretty much nothing happened. Jo and Jo went to town and Becs went on a village walk to visit a missionary.
The fancy dress party coincided with a girl on the truck, Candy's, birthday. Outfits were exchanged at 6 pm - too ridiculous to explain but lots of photographic evidence - although think Mama Africa meets Wilma Flintstone and escapees from the circus and you'll get the gist. Needless to say, much fun and frivolity ensued, including Coyote Ugly style dancing on the bar and Smithmeister hanging like a bat from the rafters, a good 10 foot above floor level!
The following morning another worldwide truck leaving the campsite to head north issued an early morning alarm call, penetrating our heavy heads with its horn as it drove boisterously away. To ensure that nobody was able to drift back into their stupor, half a dozen Malawians and a German couple spent the morning chasing a stray Rotweiler away from the grounds. The next source of amusement came after Cam had come over to one of our tents to have his make up removed; and so the three of us (Cam, Jo and Jo) had the exquisite
Lake Malawi
Boat on the lake shore pleasure of watching Greeny hot footing it across the encampment dressed in last nights Bet Lynch leopard print number, all the way back to the wrong neighbouring tent before striving to enter it. This vain attempt to stealthily avoid the walk of shame will be a spectacle as revered as the Cheetah kill!
That day was spent wandering to the beach and back to the tent and to the beach and back to the tent and so on! In the evening we went to the local village for some very dubious dinner and to watch the locals sing and dance. It was a bit like organised chaos and the singing had us in fits. Think Dill freestyling to Amazing Grace and this is what they were doing to When The Saints Go 'Mosha' In. Smithers got up for a boogy and got her stomach muscles working for the first time in 2 weeks! Proceedings were nicely interrupted at a typically quiet point by Jo Smith's Sex and the City ringtone shrilling out as her mother tried to get hold of her. All in all it was an interesting experience and actually something to do, but we were quietly relieved when it was time to head back to the camp.
Ahead of us is a long drive over the border into Zambia.
Laters
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