Okay… please don’t be put off by the size of this post, if you have to then read it over multiple days, but please read it as I want to share with you the most amazing weeks of my life!
As I told you in the last post, we were going to go to Blantyre on Thursday morning after our lessons had finished, we left our little village at around 10am and started the ridiculously long trip to the far south of Malawi. After only 3 hours we were in Mzuzu where would catch the night-bus all the way to Blantyre, but first we met with the other northern volunteers and ate some rather wonderful food – I had an ice cream which was the first ice cream I have had whilst in the country. At 4:30pm we all bundled onto the night-bus (which did remind me slightly of the night-bus in Harry Potter) and got our seats for the 13 hour long trip. I ended up sitting next to English Anthony which was good as he also couldn’t get any sleep so instead we sat up all night and watched Bill Bailey on his iPod! After multiple stops for food and water we made it to Blantyre at around 5am in the morning, I was quite impressed with myself as I had managed to go 18 hours without going to the toilet at all! We all stumbled off the bus and walked to the resort that we would be staying at called Doogles which was about a minute walk from the bus. Doogles was a lovely place with many big dorm rooms, 2 bars, a TV, swimming pool and of course a pool table! It didn’t take long before the other volunteers from across the country started turning up and we sat chatting to them and discussing everything Malawi. Within 30 minutes I had remembered why I got on well with so many of them, as well as remembering why some of them annoyed me completely!! After a quick dip in the pool and lunch in the city we got the call that Hannah was on her way so we all hid behind the trees and jumped out of her when she arrived which worked pretty well and she really didn’t have a clue about her surprise party! After yet more chatting and swimming in the pool we got the alcohol out… in Malawi you can buy sachets of spirits that are 30ml and supposed to be 40% alcohol costing around K20 each (5p), so you can guess we stocked up well on those. After drinking only 4 of them I was fairly drunk, along with many other volunteers so we aren’t entirely sure they are actually 40%!!
Saturday was another chill-out day with lunch in the city (this time a pizza – my first in 7 weeks), randomly walking around the cities markets. I found a material shop selling a vast array of bright cloth and I thought it would be amazing to try and get a tailor-made shirt for me… so I picked out the brightest material I could find and then went to a street vendor who took my measurements and told me it would be ready in 3 hours. After 3 hours I went back to the man with great excitement and he handed over the shirt, which in return I gave him K1,500 for (£6). The shirt is perfect, a pretty collar shirt with pockets and everything – not bad for £6 eh? So good that I decided to go back on the Sunday I get another one made, this time it cost £4, pretty pleased with those purchases.
The Saturday and Sunday passed without too much happening, just more chatting and swimming and general relaxing. However on the Sunday evening they were showing the African Cup of Nations final in Doogles so of course I had to stay up and watch it. I had been 7 weeks without watching a game of football and my god how did I miss it! Everyone in the bar was supporting Zambia as they are on the border to Malawi so I felt as if I should follow the crowd, also Zambia were huge underdogs and the British love an underdog! The game was fairly boring but the crowd seem to cheer for anything, even everytime Zambia got a throw-in there were cheers from the 40 people in the bar. Well eventually the game went to penalties which were so entertaining, particularly when Ivory Coast missed their 2 penalties and Zambia went on to win. I was jumping up and down with Claus and the rest of the bar, singing and celebrating a great win, cars were hooting their horns and flags were being waved – I LOVE AFRICAN FOOTBALL FANS!
Anyway, we woke up Monday morning knowing that we didn’t have to go back home this week as it was our half-term holiday but we didn’t actually know what we wanted to do. There were a couple of suggestions of hiking up Mount Mulunje and going on a safari but no one seemed overly keen on anything. After about 3 hours of planning in the morning we decided to go and visit Mount Mulunje, but probably no go hiking as it takes a whole day! We got someone to drive us to the mountain and found a guide that would show us on a little walk to some waterfalls. The walk was lovely and peaceful but incredibly hot and it wasn’t too long before shirts started to come off. We came across the waterfalls after about 30 minutes of walking and we were instantly amazed, they looked to beautiful. We were told we could go swimming so one by one we all stripped off and jumped into the deep water which was so cold and fresh that it was perfect for swimming. There were 7 of us in total there, the 2 Anthony’s, Claus, Rakesh, Ebony, Jess and myself and we asked the guide if he could take a few pictures of us jumping off the rocks. I reluctantly handed over my camera and had to look away as he jumped from rock to rock to get a good view of us and the waterfall… we then spent the next hour posing from different rocks around the place and jumping off while he was taking the photos. After inspecting the 300 photos that were taken we were very happy and went off back down the mountain!
We got back to Doogles and checked on Sarah who was sick with malaria and unable to join us on our trip, I felt so sorry for her as we came back all ecstatic from our adventure. So to cheer her up I let her cut my hair – something she had been asking to do all weekend! When I asked how much experience she had with hairdressing she replied with a simple, “None…” Excellent. Everyone gathered around to watch the mayhem unfold with my hair but she was too nice and didn’t want to mess it up. Before I knew it the scissors were in Marcella’s hands – she was less sympathetic to the situation I was it and decided to obliterate my hair with help from Jess and Ebony. By the time they had finished I was left with about 6 bald patches and hair so short I looked like I was from This Is England. Thanks girls. I was up at 6am the next morning and straight down the barbers to sort the mess out… he was quite amused with the condition of my hair but did an excellent job to fix it up.
On the Tuesday we still didn’t know what we wanted to do, some of us wanted to go back up north whilst others wanted to stay in the south for a little while. I decided that I was going to stay with Marcella, Jess and Sarah for the week as their plans seemed to fit mine but we couldn’t leave until Wednesday as Sarah was still feeling a bit fragile. No matter, this gave us an extra day of planning what we were going to do on our exciting adventure. Marcella wanted to go to a wildlife reserve; Sarah wanted to go to Cape Mclear whilst we all wanted to go on the ferry on Friday morning from Monkey Bay… we just needed a way to fit all of this into 3 days! Easy…
On Wednesday morning we were up at 5am and ready at the bus station at 6. Today we were going to Liwonde National Park which is about 3 hours drive from Blantyre. Once we arrived at Liwonde we phoned the safari camp we were staying at and they came down to give us a lift. They arrived in a 1940s war-like car that was all metal and clunky without any roof, it was brilliant! Riding around town in style! The safari camp was a 30 minute drive up a dirt track which immediately made us feel like we were in Africa. The camp itself was perfect with a big lounge area that had a wonderful set of furniture everywhere, a self-serve bar (something that really wouldn’t work back home), and 19 beds to the 4 of us as it was out-of-season! We arrived at 12 and within 2 hours we were back in the car on a safari! It was my first real safari (I add the word “real” in there as I have been to one in Animal Kingdom in Florida) and I wasn’t disappointed. There were animals everywhere, baboons, antelope fighting, lizards and many other animals that I don’t know the name of! Unfortunately we didn’t see any elephants properly; they were far in the distance but close enough to get us further excited. After 2 and a half hours we headed back to our lodge and had cottage pie for dinner (yes, my first cottage pie in 7 weeks too!) We were back up bright and early the next morning at 5:30 ready for a canoe safari at 6 in which we hoped to see some hippo’s. We had 2 canoes between us, Sarah and I in one and Marcella and Jess in the other along with a man to canoe us. We immediately found a problem as there was a small hole in the bottom of our boat and water was trickling in, however when we saw the girl’s boat we realised that we were lucky as they had about 4 holes around the boat. Despite the holes we set off up the stream, passing huge birds and beautiful sites as we went. Then we came to an open space in front and over the other side were a collection of small black dots coming out of the water. We headed for them very slowly and the small black dots turned out to be huge, fat hippos. There were around 12 of them and we kept of sailing closer and closer until we were about 15 metres away… at this point my camera was in overdrive as I was taking as many photos as possible of the creatures. Everywhere we went from then we found more hippos, we must have seen about 30-40 of them during our 3 hour canoe session. The whole thing was completely amazing and well worth the $20 that we paid!
After a quick breakfast at the safari camp we were back on our way again – this time to Cape Mclear which used to be Malawi’s top tourist destination but now it has been taken over by Nkhata Bay. We arrive about 5 hours later feeling quite angry as we had been ripped off at every stage of our journey to the cape but we were immediately calmed once we saw where we were staying. We had booked a cottage at a place called Fat Monkey’s which cost K2,000 each (£8), I went straight over to the fridge that was in the kitchen (my first fridge in 7 weeks!) and had a photo with it. We then decided to go for a little walk, 20 yards from our front door was the beach... beautiful golden sand and a view to die for! We met a Swedish couple who we had got talking to back at Doogles a couple of nights before and discussed how weird it was to be staying at the same place once more. After only 10 minutes we were approached by a man with a list of activities that we could do, and only 30 minutes after that we were on a boat heading for a little deserted island where we could go snorkelling and feed an eagle. It was my first time snorkelling but I soon got used to it and soon loved looking through the crystal-clear water to the thousands of coloured fish that swam beneath me. We boarded the boat again just as the sun was setting and I got a few decent pictures of the sun disappearing into the lake. Once back on shore we had dinner and continued chatting to the Swedish couple about our plans. We realised we never found out their names properly but we think the guy was called Moss and we have named the girl Ulrika because it sounds Swedish!! We arranged we would meet them for breakfast the next morning at 6:30 which would give us enough time to make it to Monkey Bay.
The ferry from Monkey Bay left once a week, at 10 on a Friday morning so we arrived with an hour to spare and bought tickets. I bought a 1st class ticket to Nhkotakota where I would be getting off and meeting Anthony, Jen and Julia, whereas the girls were going all the way to Nkhata Bay which would take nearly 2 days! Before we boarded the ferry I had just about enough time to buy my mum a present which I saw and knew she would like. It is a wooden frog that makes a noise if you play it’s back… I paid K1000 (£4) plus some dirty boxers that the guy wanted for some reason! Bargain, means I don’t have as much to wash now!! The ferry was beautiful, it looked like it was straight out of the 1930s with a steam funnel and dented, black metal-work. First-class just meant the deck of the ship, we didn’t have any beds or rooms but at least it was open and spacious. There were around 12 of us on the top deck with a bar and multiple chairs and benches. We set sail just after 10am and I was due to arrive in Nhkotakota at around midnight – perfect… a day of utter relaxing! There wasn’t much to do on the boat, except read, write and sunbathe in the beautiful hot sun – something I did a lot of! Whilst docked at one port we asked if we could go swimming, once we got the thumbs-up we decided that we were going to jump off the boat into the lake. I thought we were going to jump from the lowest deck but then one of the South African passengers managed to persuade me to jump from the roof… it was about 15 metres high!! I was joined by Sarah on the roof and we both were unsure of it so decided to hold hands and run for it however as we ran to the edge I suddenly stopped with fear but Sarah continued and jumped straight into the lake. She was not best pleased with me and it took me 4 attempts to trick my mind into jumping off the roof, so glad I did it in the end!! After the excitements we all sat together and chatted as we watched the sunset over the lake whilst passing many small islands and drinking beer… the day was wonderful. In the evening we joined the other passengers onboard and it reminded me of a scene from The Boat That Rocks as we all sat in a circle and talked about past experiences. The boat trip was perfect and was over far too quickly for my liking – at 2am I had to jump into a lifeboat that would take me to land. The whole thing seemed quite Titanic-y as it was chucking it down with rain, lightning, thunder and I looked over my shoulder at the boat I was saying good-bye to.
On the Saturday Anthony and I were reunited and we were soon joined by Jen and Julia who showed us around their town. We went to some hot springs that were indeed very hot, I dipped my toe in for a second and burned them! We then had a relaxing time on the beach and finished off the day by eating a delicious cheese-cake… lovely!
Anyway, the holiday was all but over and Sunday we planned to travel back to our home, which was around 200km away and in theory should only take about 7 hours. Instead we had a journey from hell, our bus never turned up and we caught a series of minibuses that either went slower than you could ever imagine or that broke down! Anthony lost his wallet on the last bus we got and had to stay over-night at Matt’s lodge as we arrived at midnight and there was no transport back. Eventually we reached home 23 hours after we were due to leave Nhkotakota! Fun times!!
So we were back at our placement teaching, well sort of. At the weekend we were off again, this time heading to Nkhata Bay to meet up with 15 of our friends to celebrate my 19th birthday. We met many of them in Mzuzu and travelled back to where my adventure had all begun, back to the bay! After arriving at around 4pm on the day before my birthday I didn’t waste any time and I went straight into the lake for a refreshing dip. It was such a good feeling to be back at the bay, in a strange kind of way I had missed it but I would never change back! That evening, my birthday-eve we had a nice BBQ at Mayoka Village (our home for the 2 days) and followed it up with plenty of drinking at the bar. Later on we decided to walk into the town to soak up some of the “nightlife” of the bay, whilst there Claus tried to chat up a prostitute who he thought was a hairdresser – typical Claus. Rakesh bought me a rum that I downed as the clock struck midnight and everyone wished me a happy birthday, which was nice of them!
My birthday started off in a very traditional English way with heavy rain and a full English breakfast, however I don’t normally have to take malaria tablets back at home. I opened up the cards from my parents and my gran which made me feel of home in such a nice way. Then it was time for our boat trip that we had organised… we went all around the bay, did some snorkelling, cliff jumping and played beach football with some of the locals that we found. We spent about 4 hours on the trip and it was so incredibly relaxing, however a tad cold from all the rain!! The organisers were very kind and said that I could have to boat trip free as it was my birthday – a nice saving of K2,000! Once back on land I was treated to some lovely surprises by the other volunteers… Margo and Claus bought me 10 packs of my favourite biscuits (possibly the best present anyone could give me… I am a bit addicted to biscuits over here.) Also Chloe and Elizabeth had baked me some amazing peanut butter cookies on their open fire and made me a lovely poem. Anthony bought me some new earphones as my last pair had broken, whilst Sarah, Marcella and Jess had bought me a “family bracelet” which they were wearing the same and had made me a beautiful paper chain people thing of the four of us, each one with a message from the 3 of them. Finally all the volunteers had bought me chocolate cake which was so incredibly nice. During the whole day I was amazed with how generous they had all been and I didn’t miss home once – something I never thought would happen!
My birthday was also shared by a wedding going on at the place we were staying for the weekend. The bride was a barwomen who worked there so they had chosen to deck out the place with beautiful streamers and flowers. 200 people had been invited (they had all come to wish me a happy birthday really!!) and in the evening the place was packed with a lovely mix of locals and members of the English family. There was live music played by one man and a guitar who had the most amazing voice and sung some great songs including “How big is your lake, your lake is so big, so big, so big!” which really got the crowd going. I challenged some locals to a few games of pool – I lost but I am blaming my slight drunkenness for this! All in all it was such a brilliant birthday and I was again sad to leave everyone behind. Every time we all meet up I feel that we all bond so much and I know that in 4 months time I will have to say goodbye to a lot of the other volunteers for the last time.
Back at our placement things are going well, it is coming up to exam period so I am in the middle of writing all my exams for my classes which is long and tiresome. Also Anthony and myself have agreed to help out and type up all the other teachers exams, the Chichewa exam is quite tricky to type!! The other day whilst teaching I was writing on the blackboard when my class started to laugh, I looked round to find a cow had just wandered into my classroom and one of the girls had to chase it away – this is Africa!!
Anyway I do realise I have written more than 3,500 words which is quite a few and I should probably stop now. Sorry for the massive blog post but the past 3 weeks have been simply insane… I hope you enjoyed reading it and I will keep you updated as soon as possible with everything!
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