15-20 September 2009: Last Days in Malawi, part II
Posted By Sika on June 8, 2010
The next day, a Wednesday, we met Kris and Marla and Kristen from Nsanje for lunch at the evil christian coffee shop, a place that is owned by Irish missionary types who have books for sale that talk about how to convert Muslim women and about having a biblical marriage, and all that annoying crap. Unfortunately, they also have the only consistent supply of real coffee in Zomba, and the only menu with more than one vegetarian menu, and the only macaroni and cheese. People have, and will continue to, kill for that macaroni and cheese. Or perhaps the coffee—it really depends on whether you’re talking to me and David about it, or to Kris.
After lunch, mom, Marla, Kristen, and I went up to Zomba Plateau. I drove in Derek’s car, and we got a guide to ride with us and keep us from going down the wrong tracks. We meant to go to Chingwe’s Hole, where they used to dump lepers, alive, but after just going to William’s Falls, and finding out those were the “good” roads, whereas to Chingwe’s Hole there were “bad” roads, we decided to just go to Queen’s View (the Queen Mother) and Emperor’s View (Haile Selassie). Off roading was fun, especially since I had finally gotten the hang of driving on the wrong side of the car, and I was sweaty, tired, and felt like I had a major workout after. I was pretty proud of myself; some of the rough bits we looked back at and couldn’t believe I had managed to drive nearly vertically, and to not bottom out while I did so.
At some point during the day, I was talking to a gay Malawian I know about how he was having troubles in his marriage. He blamed his wife, because if she just hadn’t tried to figure out what was wrong, she never would have discovered he was having sex with men, and then there wouldn’t have been a problem. When Malawians talk about how there is no homosexuality in Malawi, this is what they mean. I don’t think they realize this is what they mean, but this is what they mean.
That night, mom wanted to take Derek to dinner, so we decided to go to Domino. Domino has very sporadic service. Sometimes it’s decent, and other times it’s awful. This time, Derek ordered a pizza, and about 45 minutes after we got our chicken and rice and the waiter had told us the pizza was coming, they told us the pizzas were finished. I was sort of glad, because that was a frustrating Malawian experience I was worried mom wouldn’t get, along with all the other frustrating experiences she was going to miss out on. Now, though, I wonder why I felt the need to make sure she saw the negative bits to have an accurate picture.
On Thursday morning, mom and I headed to Liwonde for a boat safari through Chinguni Lodge. I felt more comfortable with the car after the offroading and the increased experience with goats, and I even went fast(er) for a few km.
On the boat safari, we were able to see a small herd of elephants closer than any I saw on the game count. I learned the funny yellow trees are acacia, and elephants like acacia so much they knock the trees over. Seems very human. Kory told me once that there’s a plan to move some of the elephants because there are too many for the area they’re living in right now. I was glad they hadn’t done it yet, though, because we might not have seen them if they had.
There were a lot of poachers fishing in the Shire River where they weren’t supposed to be. The guide said they don’t report the poachers because they used to and the poachers would yell at them when they were guiding and use “very strong language,” which would be pretty upsetting to the guests. That seems like a crap reason to abet poaching to me, but what do I know?
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