Malawi at last

I have now been one week in Malawi. The journey here was quite long with a lot of stops... flew from Finland via London via Nairobi with a stopover in Lusaka Zambia until I reached Lilongwe in Malawi. The crew on Kenya Airways were friendly and even the food was good :)

After a bumpy landing I found a couple of other travelers to share a taxi with from the airport to the city center of Lilongwe as taking one by yourself was just too expensive. On the way to town we figured out why.... there were loooooooong long lines of cars to the gas stations... Malawi has currently a fuel shortage. The guys would stay in the fuel line for days until the fuel truck would come and fill up the tanks. Hence, the price has gone up incredibly and there is even a black market where to buy fuel at ridiculous high prices. The whole issue of  the fuel shortage is due fuel coming from other countries and they do not want to sell their fuel for Malawi Kwacha, which is the local currency, as it has a very low value in other countries. They are like "what will we do with these Kwachas? we can't get anything for it elsewhere". This and other political problems has started a small crises with fuel shortage. Well, I think that this is just the beginning of the oil shortage that we all will face soon as we run out of oil and there will be lack a fuel. So we better hurry up and invent some alternative fuel methods before there will be war everywhere! Anyways, enough talking about this, I just had to mention it as everybody here is talking about it and is affecting everybody's day to day life.

On that taxi ride I also realized that WAAAAAA I AM IN AFRICA!! How nice isn't this?? I could not believe I was in Africa! Africa has always seemed distant to me and faaaar away while actually it is just around the corner, especially from Europe. It is even in the same time zone! So hmmm why have I not gone here before? Well now I am!

So there I was in the taxi, sweating like hell, looking at all these black people walking on the side of the road in the heat carrying stuff on their heads and biking with dead chickens hanging from the handles and I was like YES FINALLY I MADE IT TO AFRICA! I was all smiling and excited as my fellow travelers in the taxi, a guy from New York and an older couple from Wales.

I had booked a dorm bed at Mufasa Backpackers Lodge, which was run by a South-African guy and his German wife and their kids. A nice place in the middle of the city where I met tons of other volunteers and expats. All Westerners here are basically volunteering or working for a charity or NGO.  On my first day I already got loads of contacts and invitations to work on various projects. I also got to enjoy a night out at a local night bar called the "Shack", where I had a fun time with other travelers from around the globe and local dudes. I was really surprised to see so many "white" people among the locals and they all seemed to get a long just well. But I have to say it, Malawians are just the nicest and kindest people.

After a late night at the Shack I took the morning bus up to Nkhata Bay. This 9h ride turned out to be an 11h sauna trip. Waaaaa it was hot and I was sweating probably stinking like a pig at the end. I had chosen to take the lake shore bus, which runs along Lake Malawi until you reached Nhkata Bay in the north. The scenery was beautiful and the more north we came the greener it got. We made endless accounts of stops in every little village as people was getting on and off. The bus made more stops than usual as the smaller minibuses were not running due to lack of fuel.

I was lucky enough to meet Josie on the bus. She is one of the owner of Butterfly Space Lodge, where I was going in Nhkata Bay. I got a lift with her to the lodge from the bus station, which was great as there had just been a power cut in the village and I could not see anything but darkness when getting of the bus. She had also ordered dinner for me and her at the lodge so when we got there, there was a plate waiting for me :) That just made my day and yummie it was good too (rice with grilled vegetables and a salad)!

After arriving in the darkness it was a nice surpise the next morning to wake up in this paradise of Butterfly Space. The lake was just right there on the tip of my feet, palm trees and bungalows and even a small beach. Ah, nice! One can easily stay here for weeks at Butterfly Space. It is a very beautiful place right outside the city (or village) center, about a 20 min walk. It is located up on a hill and has several chalets (bungalows), dorms, a restaurant, bar, compost toilets and open air showers. You can hear the waves breaking from the beach and there is always breeze so you can cool down a bit in this hot weather.

The place is owned by two British girls, Josie and A.J and currently Jeff and Jenny is helping out running the place. Most of the guests are volunteers helping out with the various projects. But there are also other backpackers like Wout, who is biking from the Netherlands to South-Africa and Thomas and Sofia, who is making a documentary film of Malawi.

Nhkata Bay is a small town. It is located at a beautiful spot at the lake surrounded by small hills and mountains. It is mainly a fishing town and you can get plenty of fresh fish and sardines. There are many rastafaris in town blasting reggae and the locals seem to like their beers :) I am yet to explore more...but they have an ok food market where to buy tomatoes, onions, papaya, beans and greens.

There are several volunteering projects in Nkhata Bay and Butterfly is running about 5 or 6 of them if not more. They have their own nursery for 2-5 year olds, which I visited yesterday and helped out sorting all the books and spent some time with the kids. My main interest is not to be volunteering at a nursery as I think the kids are just too small. But it was interesting to see how it was set up and run. The kids were soooo cute and yes I could easily stay there and just help out with whatever they need but there is already plenty of short term volunteers helping out and well I also want to be able to communicate more with the kids than to just teach them ABC and colours. So today I went to Chikale primary school and met up with the head principal. This school is, just as the nursery, just around the corner from Butterfly, which is a major advantage as walking anywhere in this heat is a challenge. I must say that I am not yet used to this heat... it is probably around 38'C if not more in the sun in the middle of the day... will one ever get used to such heat? It is the same with -30'C, no one ever gets used to that.

Anyhow, it was a good visit at the primary school. The head principal Chuso showed me around and introduced me to some of the teachers and classes. There are around 750 students at the school from grade 1 to 8, so plenty of kids! And of course they need plenty of help. Currently there are no volunteers there at all... I don't know why... maybe the kids scared them away??

I explained to the prinipal that I do not want to teach a whole class of 70 kids but instead to be a teacher's assistant and help out in class or perhaps take 4-5 kids who are struggling outside and give them a more one on one session. He was open to this idea and told me I can do whatever I want. It is up to me. Well all the better I thought :) But before I start being with the kids, me and another girl will paint some of the walls in one of the classrooms. Will will do some ABCs and numbers and such. So that is what I will be doing (hopefully) in the coming days.

I will also try to upload some pictures. Not sure if this internet can handle it but I will give it a try tomorrow. Right now the power got cut (again) so no more internet for me. So I cannot do anything else than to go out and enjoy a lovely dip in the crystal clear water in the lake. Ah what a hard life!! The angels have defiently showed me to the right place :)

The power is back and it is the next morning :) Now I can finally upload this text to my blog.