Year 1 - Week 17: Malawi Part 1 - No Car on the Horizon

Coming back from Mambone to Machanga was eerie. Usually, when we come back from anywhere, regardless of whether we are gone for one day or two weeks, we are greeted by the smiling faces of our students. With school out for Easter break, the students have left for home. Most of the 1400 students made their way out of Machanga as soon as they finished exams, leaving a ghost town behind. Machanga is a tiny place; if 1000 students leave, that’s about one-fourth of the entire village. Instead of students, we were greeted by silence.

Soon enough, we would be gone too. We sent in our travel plans for Malawi late in the week, hoping that we would get approval for trip over the weekend or early in the week. The call never came, so we are hoping for a Monday phone call.

With no one around and not a lot to do, Richie and I did what we usually do: sit on our porch, staring blankly, throwing the Frisbee, anything to occupy our time. It felt like January all over again.

We ate our regular spaghetti dinner and indulged in a movie that Greg lent to us – “Team America: World Police.” That movie is sick. Once Kim Jong Il starts singing “I’m ronery,” a line that Richie and I often randomly sing, we just totally lost it.

The call that we were itching for came on Monday. Our program director called us, asking for the details of our trip. And oh yea, we needed to send in a formal request to leave, which we forgot about. Shit. Fuck. We got approval for the trip, all the calls were made to the right people in Malawi. All we had to do was get that approval in. With no fax machine, this was going to take some ingenuity.

I filled out the necessary info. We just needed a signature from our school director. He’s sick? What?! Shit. I would have taken just about anyone’s signature at that point. Our assistant director took the request, went to the director’s house – where he was bedridden – and had it signed and stamped. I then took a picture of the request and tried to email it to our director. We were so close, and then the gods started laughing at us. Just as I was about to click “send” on my computer, my battery died. Okay, Richie had battery, no problem. Just as I was about to click send, the network crapped out. Terrible. I called back our program director and told him we would fax over the request as soon as we got to a fax machine – that meant Chimoio, on Tuesday or Wednesday. Program director was cool with it, and we were good to go.

We packed our bags, and by mid-afternoon, we were crossing the river, again, to Mambone. Getting out of site from our side of the river sucks. It’s much easier to cross and head slightly southwest to the main road, even though it is slightly out of our way for going north. We met Greg and his friend Nilton at Greg’s house to make onion rings. He hadn’t experienced the glory that is our weekend treat, so we brought it to him. We also made a very sorry attempt to make corn dogs from our batter and canned mini-dogs. Bad idea. We went to bed early, preparing for travel the next day.

Neither Richie nor I slept particularly well. It didn’t matter. The travel was going to take the wind out of us anyway. We waited outside Nilton’s house for a chapa to the main road, but nothing came. So we just started walking. Of course, we knew we weren’t going to make it to the crossroads, but we had nothing else to do. Just as we passed a little shop, the heavens gave way and a light rain fell. We scampered for shelter and waited the rain out. Within minutes of the rain ending, a car came. Okay, we’re in business.

Phase one complete; now the trickier part of getting a ride north to Inchope. We sat waiting, listening to our iPods, hoping for a car to come. We looked south – no car on the horizon. We looked north – no car on the horizon. So again, we started walking. We figured that if we walked away from the crossroads, someone would pick us up just out of sympathy. We walked for two and half hours down that narrow strip of asphalt. The occasional car or truck passed, but for the most part, there was nothing. There are few things that are more discouraging than being absolutely alone on the road that connects Mozambique’s two biggest cities.

Finally, a very nice South African couple picked us up. Richie busted out “the praying move”; clearly, we found a believer. We got into the couple’s very nice, leather-seated, air-conditioned XTerra, and we were rolling. We were just happy to be in a car; we didn’t expect to get pampered. The wife offered us an ice-cold bottle of water and chocolate marshmallow Easter eggs. Score! The car hauled ass and we made it to Inchope in no time flat. We walked for time than we were in the car.

From Inchope, the rest of the trip was easy. We met Bryan, our partner in crime in Mangunde, at a restaurant, and headed into Chimoio by chapa. We did our regular thing in Chimoio – made dinner, drank beer, recklessly threw darts – all good fun. Sufficiently drunk, we passed out, prepared for another day of travel.

This leg – from Chimoio to Tete – was one that we did not look forward to. The road to Tete is terrible. It is paved for a good chunk of it, but so much of it is potholed dirt. We made our way out of the house by 8:00. A very nice Mozambican woman picked up three sketchy-looking, white dudes and took us to the next major crossroads. It’s usually impossible to get a lift from women, but she did not hesitate.

Once at the crossroads, we waited less than thirty minutes to get our next ride. A Portuguese man stopped his truck for us. This truck was sweet. The back had a two-seater cushion; this car was meant for boleias. The driver asked which of us spoke Portuguese. Um, we all do…Bryan and Richie chose to stay in the back, while I went to the front seat.

I knew I was in for an afternoon of conversation when he asked who spoke Portuguese. But I certainly did not think we would be touching on elementary subjects such as: the war in Iraq, prisoner release in Guantanamo Bay, the economic crash, relative poverty between America and Mozambique, and the G20 economic forum in Europe. Amazingly, my Portuguese held up beautifully. I surprised myself with my ability to keep up, and surprised our driver even further when I told him we learned Portuguese but seven months ago here in Mozambique.

Our driver took us all the way to Catandica, more or less a halfway point. We stopped for lunch and hoped to catch a car going toward Tete. But the luck we had in the morning had vanished. We sat for four hours, waiting for anything that would take us. Eventually, a car stopped for lunch and we had our ride. We forked over some cash and then we went flying, close to 140 kilometers per hour the entire away. Again, we spent less time in the car than we did waiting. Tis is travel in Mozambique.

The ride from Catandica to Tete, albeit rough on the body, is stunning to the eyes. I have seen few places with more greenery – only St. Lucia in the Caribbean comes to mind. Mountains pop out of nowhere. The only thing this place is missing is animals. It’s a shame that there is a completely lack of wildlife in most of the country. It is so easy to close your eyes and imagine lions or elephants or monkeys patrolling these areas of nothing.

We arrived in Tete just before dark. Bryan put a call in to the Volunteer who lives just outside of Tete and we had a place to stay for the night. After a quick chicken dinner – of course it’s chicken if we are traveling – we called it a night.

The first car that came our way Thursday morning stopped for us. Good luck is once again on our side. We jumped in back and made our way to Zóbuè (Zo-bway), the border town to Malawi. Finally, after days of travel, Malawi was in site. We slid through immigration with no problem, took a taxi to the Malawi side of the border after being hassled by money changers, and entered Malawi.

The only noticeable change between Malawi and Mozambique was the language. We were back to using our mother tongue of English, although most Malawians spoke Chichewa to each other. I bought a SIM card for Malawi, hoping to get in touch with our Peace Corps people, but the card wouldn’t connect. I was told later that the card had expired.

We took a mini-bus – the exact same thing as a chapa – from Mwanza to Blantyre, where we found a restaurant more glorious than anything in Mozambique: Chinese food. Not only did the food taste like Chinese food, but it came out with the speed that Chinese food usually arrives. It was beautiful.

With one leg of trip remaining, we weren’t quite sure what to do. We had to go way north into Malawi. Just our luck, there was a 4 PM bus leaving for Nhkata Bay, our final destination. We bought a bit of snack food and boarded.

The ride north was smooth, but not smooth enough to sleep. Inconveniently, we arrived in Nhkata Bay at 3 AM with no room reserved. After sitting for a couple minutes, we walked over to the nearest backpackers, paid to use their showers, and rested on their couches. We arrived, but weary.

Richie and Bryan had to get money in town, about 45 kilometers away. While they got their cash, I went on the hunt for our Peace Corps Zambia friends. These are the same people we met in Vilanculos over Christmas, so we looked forward to seeing old friends. We had an idea of where they were staying, but when we showed up, there was no reservation. Oh, no. So out I went on the hunt, bouncing from lodge to lodge, hoping to find both their reservation and a room for us. After walking through the lakeside hills of Nhkata Bay for nearly two hours, I returned to my starting point and found them! I only wanted to kill them a little bit. And again, fortune shone on us: a couple people in their group bailed, so we had a place to stay. Great success!

With the knowledge of having a place to stay, I walked back into the village to meet Bryan and Richie. As I waited, I tried yet another SIM card for my phone, but it too failed. I started to wonder if it was my phone that was the issue. Just after noon, the boys arrived. We headed back to Mayoka Village, our accommodation for the week.

Once we settled in, none of us wanted to do anything. We threw on our bathing suits and jumped into the crystal-clear, cool Lake Malawi. There were some concerns of acquiring schistosomiasis, a microscopic parasite that lives in fresh water and enters one’s bloodstream. Our fears were quickly quelled when workers told us there had been no reported cases of schisto from Nhkata Bay in years. And even if there were, we were still going in. That lake is just too tempting.

Bryan and Richie wisely bought some food in Mzuzu – the town with the closest bank – to help keep our costs down. We ate some strangely textured peanut butter sandwiches for dinner and the partying began. Even though we were absolutely exhausted, we made it well into the night.

Saturday was the first day we had to just do nothing an enjoy ourselves. Everyone had money, we were well stocked on beer, and the lake sat there, asking us to go in. Some of the Volunteers from Zambia made our way south toward a beach with some good waves. The water was a little dirtier but still beautiful.

After a quick lunch – and not waiting the standard thirty minutes – we got back into the water. A good distance away from the lodge sat a docked boat, occupied by birds. We thought it would be a good idea to swim to it. It would have been easier to relax on this little boat if it weren’t covered in bird shit.

Keeping a decent budget in tact, I was able to indulge on dinner. A restaurant in the town was cooking up Thai food. I love Thai food. I miss it dearly. There was no way I could pass it up. The food was amazing. I ate way too much, but it was worth it. Who knows when I will have Thai food again?

We have another three days to sit and relax in Malawi. It was a lot of travel for a short period of relaxation. And even though the destination is beautiful, it’s the journey there that stands out for me.