3/21/08
It feels so odd to be “back in civilization” again. We got a lift in the University vehicle from Mzuzu to Lilongwe, the capital city, and arrived around 5pm the day before yesterday. Lilongwe has about 400,000 people, give or take a couple hundred thousand(Malawi is getting ready to conduct it's first census soon), so it is a big city, although I don’t think there are any buildings with more than about 10 stories and there are probably only a handful of those. Nevertheless, we were saying yesterday that we feel like a couple of country bumpkins here.
We rented a car from Sputnik again, yup, that’s the name alright. We’ve used them a couple of times and they deliver the car to you, and will let us drop the car at our hotel in Mzuzu for a $70 drop off charge. We figured we could use the car in town for our errands and work, then drive up to Nkhotakota with Steve and Mary Ellen, and then continue on to Mzuzu and it would be so much easier than trying to find taxi’s (there are only a few and are all private cars so you have to negotiate for fare as well) or arrange any other kind of transport – getting around is such a challenge, and is so expensive. Just for gas and oil, it cost us close to $200 to be driven to Lilongwe – the University vehicles are 9 passenger SUV’s so they get bad mileage.
The traffic seems much worse than it did the last 2 times we drove in Lilongwe, but maybe it is worse because of Easter holidays and tourists, from within and without of Malawi. I said to John yesterday, "did everyone in Lilongwe get a car since the last time we were here?" Anyway, we were stunned by the amount of people and the number of beggers that we didn’t see the last time either. On the main drag, the blind beggers and their escorts stand in the middle of the road and then the escorts walk up and knock on your windows – we do not remember that happening the last time. But mostly we are stunned by having a TV in our room at the Korea Garden Inn (which is an $80 per night hotel with a swimming pool, and feels very much like a western hotel when we are used to the tiles peeling off and the rats in Mzuzu – although I think the Mimosa Court in Mzuzu is a nicer hotel for $40), and in the restaurant area which has 10 or 15 channels. 2 of the hotels in Mzuzu have TV but only one channel.
Then when we were in town, we went to a photography place that develops digital film and were able to do our prints in 4 hours – Mzuzu has a few photography places, but none that do digital. The Shopright grocery store is the biggest culture shock. It looks kind of like a US grocery store and has everything including jars of spagetti sauce and various kinds of pasta. And I was beaming for the whole day yesterday because they had packages of spagetti bolognase sauce mix to add to hamburger (or mince as they call it here). They even had boxes of “Mince Mate” made by Knorr which would be like Hamburger Helper – I passed on that, as we can only get mince in Mzuzu periodically and I'm not that fond of Hamburger Helper anyway. While the food we get is very good and fresh, I’m getting very tired of the constant menu of stewed chicken or beef with whatever is in season vegetables and rice or potatoes. It was all quite shocking and we walked up and down the many aisles (the store in Mzuzu only has 3 aisles and is about the size of a 7 eleven or smaller) getting things that we can’t get in Mzuzu.
I’m noticing that I feel more stressed out here too, and said to John on the way back from breakfast this morning – “where are the chickens – I need my chickens!” – and he said he was feeling the same way only missed sitting and watching the clouds in Livingstonia too.
I know I’m also stressed because we need to get about 130,000 of Malawian money from the cash machines to cover our expenses until we get to Mzuzu where there will be a cash machine again, as no one takes credit cards and we will be needing money for gas, hotels, food and safari’s at Nkhotokota over the next few days. So what if the cash machine is broken or limits withdrawls to 2000 or 8000 which they often do – and the normal limit is 20,000? John’s friend Justin is coming later today, and it will be wonderful to see him, we are paying for his hotel room too, as he would never stay anywhere this expensive. Then Steve and Mary Ellen arrive tomorrow, we hope, as they are making a very tight (illegal connection in travel terms meaning less than the recommended time for a connection) to an Air Malawi flight, and we know that Air Malawi is having major problems and is down to one working airplane according to the papers we got in Mzuzu (we can’t get newspapers in Livingstonia either so catch up on the news when we come to town) – so who knows if the luggage will make it even if they do make it. If they do get delayed, it messes up all the rest of our arrangements since we have our hotel reservations in Nkhotokota and Mzuzu, along with our transportation booked back to Livingstonia and the headmaster inviting students and teachers to meet Steve as soon as we arrive back in Livingstonia. It sounds silly to worry about all those possible contingencies, and it is, but on the other hand, none of those things was easy to arrange with lack of phones (or spotty operation in some cases) and transport.
So I guess there are reasons to be stressed – I need my chickens!!
It’ll all workout however it’s going to and we’ll deal with as we need to – we’re getting good at that!
No picture this time as Lilongwe just isn't that pretty and this internet connection is really slow.
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