Blogs from Monkey Bay, Southern, Malawi, Africa - page 2

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

Christmas in Malawi (Monday 24th Dec - present) My christmas in Malawi - 8pm Christmas Eve - 4am Christmas Day - Venice Beach, Malawi (yes, you heard me right!). We drank Kuche Kuche and once again tried to dance to Malawian music. Christmas Morning - I opened my present (thanks mum and dad), with the help of the 3 other volunteers (we were sharing the love). I followed this up with a wee dip in Lake Malawi where I ended up playing ball games with some of the local kids. They sang a little Christmas song to us afterwards. I have no idea what they were saying but it sounded nice. Christmas Lunch - Fried Chicken and chips (I know you’re jealous) followed by a Mars bar that I have been saving for a special day. ... read more

“God Is Taking Pictures” - this is what the Malawians say when lightening strikes. I guess god has been rather busy with his camera lately because there has been a LOT of lightening. The rainy season has kicked in. This brings with it an even larger number of bugs than usual. There have been nights when we have wanted to go outside to see a storm but we have been unable to open the door due to the masses of insects. I have also been running on “chicken time” (another one of the Malawians’ many sayings, which is connected to ‘the early bird catches the worm’ and means an early bedtime) on a fairly frequent basis due to the fact that my mosquito net is a haven from them all. The amount of wildlife here is ... read more

Blantyre--Monkey Bay, Thursday 17 November 2005 We caught a minibus from Blantyre to Monkey Bay, from which the 54-year-old famous ferry Ilala will take us all the way to Nkhata Bay up north. From there we plan to make our way to Mzuzu, and then Karonga, which is situated around 120 km from the Tanzanian border. After staying the night, we will cross the border the next day and go to Mbeya, a village through which most freight transport passes on its way from Dar Es Salaam to Zambia (west) or Malawi (south). From Mbeya we will catch the train on the classic railway Tazara (Tanzania Zambia Railway) to Dar. Monkey Bay by night Leaving Blantyre early seemed sensible. We would arrive early in Monkey Bay, thus avoiding the dangers of the night. However, we miscalculated ... read more