Because They’re Burning Bricks

Posted By Sika on January 25, 2010

17 August

Javier, Beatrix (the Spanish students), and I ended up not going to an island because while I was busy trying out the homemade ice cream (mmm, cashew) and running into John in random places, (like ya do in a tiny town), they had been out bargaining and comparing deals and that kind of thing*. The deal they worked out was much cheaper (a good thing), on a dhow instead of a motor boat (a good thing), and went to beaches on the mainland instead of out to the islands (possibly not so good).

The first place we went to was Carrushka, which was just a nice beach where we could swim and pick up take-away lunches to eat on the way to Veranda.

Back on the water, the wind was wild, crashing waves up high and tilting the dhow nearly perpendicular to the horizon. We had to switch over to sitting on either gunwale whenever the waves or the tacking back and forth hauled the dhow up onto opposite sides.

This didn’t make me nervous.

One of the guys bailed the dhow out with the bottom half of a water bottle, which he used to fill the bottom half of a jerry can, which when full, he would empty into the sea. But y’know, after all the bailing the boat wasn’t really taking on that much water.

So this didn’t make me nervous either.

When they started to hammer shims into the rudder handle just after leaving Carrushka, I became a bit nervous. Javier and Beatrix, however, thought I was paranoid**. I wasn’t sure what would happen as we cruised aimlessly on the current back to the shore. Eventually they got the rudder and rudder handle back in place to their satisfaction, and we headed to the natural pool at Veranda.

The tide was coming in so strong at Veranda that there was no visibility for snorkeling. When I tried to get out from the barely submerged ledge we were snorkeling from in the hopes that clarity would be a better away from the silt getting tossed against the rocks, I was swept up in a current that looked fast, but not as fast or deep as it was. That was about 35 seconds of pure panic while I told myself not to, y’know, panic and to remember that you get out of a current not by fighting it, but by working your way out.

So, that seemed like a bad thing to keep doing.

Plus, the ground kept bubbling up underneath us. It was probably just clams, but Beatrix and Javier were unwilling to dig them up to either to check what they were or to eat for dinner, and I wasn’t entirely willing to discount the idea of Kraken. While looking for a place to lay out or swim that would neither be potentially fatal nor washed away in 4.5 seconds, Javier climbed over this big dune and then called Beatrix, who called me over.

On the other side of the dune was the ocean, and playing in the surf were hundreds or thousands of crabs, all dancing on a stretch of beach at least a mile long.

At first I thought the crabs were anxious*** about being left behind by mama ocean. But then, after watching them for a while, most of the crabs would get tossed onto the beach, then scurry back towards the water a bit (sideways, natch. Funniest. Design flaw, er feature. EVAR) and then crouch down and wait for the waves to come and toss them back onto the beach again. They were bodysurfing! I swear I heard some crab giggles.

Eventually one of the dhow guys came to get us and said we had to leave agora (now). He seemed aggravated and in a hurry, which we didn’t understand until we got in the dhow and instead of taking us out through the cove, they started pulling the dhow between the bushes that lined this tiny inlet. The current that tried to take me on a trip to an unknown destination wanted to go for the whole boat now, and avoiding it was going to be tricky.

When we finally broke free from the bushes (after the sail caught on the rocks, a rope loosened, and the boom and sail came down–knocking one guy’s hat into the water and almost taking him with it) the current caught the stern and spun us around until we scraped up onto a sand/rock bar. Eventually, we got out on the ocean instead of spinning around like the dhow was about to vomit pea soup, but the water was so rough they stored all our katundu under the pilot’s bench. Despite my misgivings. everything stayed dry. And it wasn’t that bad of a trip–watching the sail look more and more like oil cloth every time it dipped into the water was somehow more fascinating than worrisome. There were a few big splashes, but nothing too major.

By the time we got back, it was nearly 4 and I was sunburnt, tired, thirsty, caked with sand and salt, and exhilarated.

*I know you’re thinking: Dude, how’d she get other people to do her leg work for her? I’m lucky, what can I say? And really, could you not say “dude” so much? When do you think you are?

**Which just goes to show, no matter what country you live in, you (meaning me) don’t get any better at dealing with the vagaries of another country.

***Why yes, I am quite good at anthropomorphizing, why do you ask?

Category: Mozambique, Travel | 2 Comments »
Tags: carrushka, COS trip, crabs, Ilha, Mozambique, surfing, veranda

Posted By Sika on January 23, 2010

I walked from the hotel in Nampula, in search of the minibus going to Ilha de Mozambique. This was made difficult by the minibus stand being in a completely different place than what my map said, and necessitated stopping to ask some construction guys (not actually doing any construction) for instructions. When I got to the minibus stand, there was a French couple on the minibus. I was perturbed:they were the first white people I had dealt with since I got into Mozambique–they were perhaps the first two I had seen.

When another white guy got on the minibus, I was even more perturbed about what Ilha de Mozambique was going to look like, although also gratified that the conductor quoted him the same price he quoted me and was just as unwilling to bargain with the white guy as he was with me.

When the minibus finally arrived in Ilha–after a trip that, while long, was not nearly as tortuous as I was worried about* in spite of the jump seat in front of me cutting into my leg space–the minibus driver was nice enough to take all us touristy types to the places we were staying.

I spent most of the trip looking through my guide book, trying to decide where I was going to stay (reservations are for, um, not me), and eventually decided on Casa Branca. The solo white guy was getting off there, too. I crossed my fingers and hoped I wouldn’t regret failing to make reservations.

There was only one room. Which made sense, given that there were only three rooms total. Wish I had noticed that earlier. Sigh. John (the solo white guy) and I introduced ourselves to each other, and I asked John if we needed to fight for the room. He told me since I was on the minibus first, I should get the room. Which was, y’know, probably not nicer than I would be, but was nicer than I wanted to be.

While I was waiting for the room to be cleaned, a couple of students from Spain came out and asked if I wanted to split a dhow trip with them. Having been traveling for 5 days straight**, I told them it would be fine if we went the next day, but I wasn’t up for that day, and they said ok.

The room was sweet: a four poster bed with the best looking mosquito net I’d seen in a while; windows that latched open so that I could see, hear, and smell the ocean (a bit of a mixed blessing at low tide); a big, clean private bathroom across the hall, which only had a cold water shower, but water could be heated for a bucket bath. The staff seemed nice, but the charges for laundry were exorbitant, and there were signs saying that I shouldn’t wash my clothes in the large bathroom. The bathroom with the plastic corral of clothespins. Hmm.

Ilha reminded me a lot of Stone Town in Zanzibar, only smaller and more manageable. I stopped using the map in the book within about 15 minutes, which is pretty impressive for someone as directionally challenged as I am.

I spent the rest of the day wandering around, looking where I wanted to go when it wasn’t a Sunday, letting John copy my map when I saw him also wandering around, and eating homemade ice cream.

*One of the other passengers bought me some raw cassava, and then was surprised when I knew how to eat it. It’s niceties like these, even when you don’t speak the same language, that make a long, cramped trip seem less long and less cramped. Also time to forget the whole process of regaining feelings in your toes.

**One day from Zomba to Liwonde, one day from Liwonde to, um, Liwonde, one day from Liwonde to Cuamba, one day from Cuamba to Nampula, and then this day.

Category: Mozambique, Travel | No Comments »
Tags: COS trip, Ilha, Mozambique

Posted By Sika on September 30, 2009

In knitting we say, “It’s only sticks and string” to indicate to newbies that it’s all manageable. Well sailing a dhow only uses sticks and strings, too, but it’s far more impressive. Out on a dhow, watching how it is manoeuvred, I couldn’t help but think that my grandpa would love to see how it all works.

There are no pulleys on the dhow, but they are simulated in several places by rope hinged through other loops of rope or bits of wood. For instance, the main rope, used to raise and lower the sail, is looped through a stick nailed to the stern. The stick acts as a pulley, enabling one person to raise or lower the sail with control. Or, rope is looped through another rope, fastened to the mast, which acts as a pulley when changing the direction of the sail.

The oars are big sticks with planks shaped like the ace of spades lashed to them with more rope. The oarlocks are sticks jammed into carved holes, used only when needed. The oars themselves are then braced against the sticks, the face of the oar and the face of the oarlock grinding splinters off one another.

Different rope is tied to the benches for moving the boom from one side or another, more sticks used to help stabilize and mark where the boom should be. Even the rudder is just sticks of a sort.

And that’s it.

There’s only one sail, in one shape. If they want it full open, they someone runs to the bow and flips it around so it can billow out grandly, almost tipping the dhow onto its side. If they want an angled sail, one of the crew actually holds it at the angle. Or else they flip it around the mast again, so the sail catches against the mast, and then play out the sail—allowing the mast and the wind itself to change the shape, size, and angle of the sail. If they just want the sail to not run as full, they tighten the rope so that the sail doesn’t change shape or angle, but the mast keeps it from kiting out completely.

The only hitch in the smooth and nearly wordless running of the dhow are the passengers, who are always move too early or too late.

Sticks, string, the human body and mind. That’s all they need. I’m amazed.

Category: Mozambique, Travel | No Comments »
Tags: COS trip, dhow, Ilha, Mozambique, sail

Posted By Sika on September 15, 2009

The train was meant to leave at 5am, and so I had to wake at O’Dark-thirty. I pulled on my traveling clothes (because what’s the point of dirtying new clothes every day when all you’re going to do is sit and sweat and then have dirt and grime stick to the sweat?). My jeans—chosen as part of my traveling attire to lighten the weight of my pack—were thick with dirt and I grimaced a bit to have to pull them onto my (cold) showered skin.

There was little life on the streets with the sun not yet up, but about 7 other people from the pensao were also going to the train, so we walked together. I asked someone where the second class cars* were, and got a vague hand-wave in the general direction of the train. I didn’t see any indication of class on the outside of the cars, and so I climbed up into a car and decided to see what I could see inside.

I had been told and had read that the third class cars were horribly cramped, smelly, and dirty, with livestock everywhere and people’s katundu everywhere the livestock wasn’t. What I saw when I got on the train, in the light shining dimly from cell phone screens or in early dawn light bouncing haphazardly through windows, was something that looked a lot like the Liwonde train. In fact, the cars were made by the same company. But the seats were nicer, looked more comfortable, and, so far at least, were not overcrowded. In my mind, that might be enough to make a car second-class. Even at 4:30, all the window seats and 2-person benches were full, and I kept walking further onto the train, crossing from car to car over links of varying stability (even on the unmoving train) and past doorless toilets already reeking of urine, and sometimes bumping up against some man in the process of using one.

The seats started to get more and more uncomfortable, so I figured I was headed to, if not already in third-class, and found a seat. The idea that I was not getting the train ride I had paid for occurred to me several times, but I couldn’t figure out who actually worked for the train, and the only thing that really concerned me about the car I was in was the toilet. Since I had already planned on starving and dehydrating myself for the 12 hour journey, I wasn’t overly worried about that either.

After about 2 hours, the train started getting crowded and looking less like a buy-your-specific-seat situation and more like a cram-everyone-in-minibus sort of situation. Luckily, just then the ticket-takers started coming around. I handed over my ticket and she looked at me like, “white people are so stupid” and found someone to take me to the second class car. The aisles were full enough of people and katundu that I couldn’t put my pack on, and so I had to try various positions to find one that wouldn’t destabilize me, wouldn’t beat up the crowd, and that I could manage as I walked back through all the cars I had gone through looking for a seat, and then through two more.

The second-class car was so obvious—if I hadn’t gotten on the train after it, I would’ve known where to go. First of all, the toilet had a door, or at least the potential for a door (I didn’t look too closely). And an actual toilet, rather than places for your feet around a hole in the floor. And then there were compartments. Each compartment had four bunks and then two shelves for luggage. The top bunk could be folded down to give room to sit more comfortably, or kept up so everyone could lie down. In some of the compartments, like mine, two extra people were sleeping on the luggage shelf. But still, I had a whole bunk to myself. The bunks are a thin layer of foam over a metal shelf, covered in cracking green vinyl. Some of them have been re-covered in improperly fastened and peeling away blue vinyl. What makes it really worth the fare, though, is the two windows to watch the scenery from. If the bunks aren’t converted, you really can only lie down or stand, but you can easily do both, and standing doesn’t lose you your seat.

I hadn’t missed much, because for the first couple hours the landscape was pretty Malawi-like, and the seats only became uncomfortable and the cars too crowded in that last 15 minutes.

Only two of my cabinmates talk to me—one a Mozambican karate instructor, on his way back to Maputo from Lichinga, where he had been at a conference. The other, once she wakes up, is his wife—a Cameroonian named Gladys who is so happy to have someone to talk English with, she buys me a packet of biscuits. She came to Mozambique speaking no Portuguese and none of the local languages. She now speaks some Makua, but finds Portuguese frustrating—it’s similar enough to French that she feels she should have a handle on it, but too much, including the grammar, is too different. When her husband asks why she is speaking in English instead of Portuguese, she says only, “maybe next year.”

The train pulls into villages with these great shuddering stops that rattle the bones, and the villagers throng around the train, peddling their food, drinks, and any other items they think may be wanted by people on the train. The train windows are high, and the ground often slopes away from the tracks, so buying things often involve the vendors standing on tippy toe, using a stick to transfer the item, or simply finding someone taller to facilitate the transaction.

The train then moves on, starting out jerkily, but gaining smoothness with speed. Sometimes people jump on the train as it is leaving. Once, two older boys jumped on and tried to sneak into second-class, causing an unscheduled stop so they could be ejected.

Despite the karate instructor’s insistence that we would get to Nampula by half-two, we arrived around 4, the sun dipping low in the sky—Mozambique is all in a time zone more appropriate to Malawi, and so out by the coast the sun sets and rises quite early. The train station is filled with people, and I don’t need a book’s warning to check that all the pockets on my bags are secure, that nothing is in my pockets, that my passport is safe and concealed.

As I walk down the street, a young man, thinking I may have put something in the pockets of the sweater tied around my waist, tries to see what he can get. I dodge away slightly, causing his body to curve toward mine as his hand automatically follows my pockets but his feet continue forward. I can’t decide how to feel about this, my first experience in Nampula; my annoyance is tempered by the amusing picture of his body curving like a parenthesis, him having to catch his balance again, almost tripping over his desire to get something for nothing.

*This was my first mistake, assuming there were carS, plural.

Category: Mozambique, Travel | No Comments »
Tags: COS trip, cuamba, journey, Malawi comparison, Mozambique, Nampula, train

Posted By Sika on September 14, 2009

After that was another, longer, hotter bike taxi ride up several hills, with a surprisingly wide lane considering the nearly complete dearth of motorized traffic. The lane was unsealed but in most places pretty smooth, and lined with trees, although the shade they gave was more theoretical than actual. The bike taxi dropped me at the chapa (minibus) stand; while waiting for the chapa to fill and leave I bought some water and crédito for the mcel sim card Kelly had given me.

The road to Cuamba was very wide and smooth. At first I thought it was an unsealed road, and so was very impressed. After some time I started seeing remnants of tarmac and realized this wasn’t an unsealed road, it was an ex-sealed road. Which may explain why the chapa driver could go so fast, slowing down only for large lorries going the opposite direction. Because the road wasn’t sealed, each passing vehicle sent up swells of dust, against which the driver rolled up the windows every time we had to drive through. Traffic was very sparse, which was good because the one time we got stuck behind another vehicle, the air became powdery and metallic with dust and visibility reduced to about 20 feet. The ride wasn’t very visually interesting: the huge, frequent clouds of dust turned all the grass, shrubs, and trees terracotta, rendering it into a mostly uninteresting sepia photograph.

Because of the speed the road allowed, we got to Cuamba fairly quickly once we got going, around 3:30pm. I had left Liwonde at 7am. Cuamba was not exactly what I expected. There were no sealed roads, but the avenues were wide and there was a lot of traffic for a place that felt so village-y. There were buildings with multiple storeys, which, in Malawi only happens in the bigger cities, but the town seemed deserted.

I went to Pensao San Miguel, where the rooms were considerably more than I was expecting to pay (Mt 750), and sort of depressingly basic—the ensuite bathroom made the whole room somewhat moist, and the buckets of water collected in case of water outages and also to flush the toilet provided a very nice breeding ground for mosquitoes. It was also my first experience with what was to become a common experience—cold water only showers. But the staff was very nice and by enlisting 3 or so staff members, one who spoke a bit of English, one who spoke a bit of Spanish, and one who spoke a bit of Chichewa, I was able to communicate pretty well.

When I asked about the train schedule, they were ready to send someone over to inquire for me, and when I said I wanted to go to Hotel Vision 2000, someone walked me over, even though it was just at the end of the block. I went to both places though, as I thought sending people back and forth as I thought of more questions would be sort of mean.

In the end, I found out that the theoretical Cuamba-Nampula flights hadn’t existed for ages, and that, as I suspected and feared, the second-class car for the train had run that day and so wasn’t running the next. I thought about catching the 4am bus (but you have to get there at 3 para sentado bem) to Nampula the next morning, and my friend from the Pensao told me where he was sleeping so I could knock on his door and have him walk me if I decided to go. In the end, I couldn’t make myself commit to a 12-hour-plus bus ride on bad roads and decided to wait until Sunday, when the second class car would run again.

PRACTICAL NOTES FOR TRAVELERS: There’s nowhere to change money in Chiponde. There are a million voraciously enthusiastic moneychangers, wandering the streets, but technically it’s illegal to use them. There also isn’t a nearby ATM to get cash in Mandimba (Although I’m sure one exists, but it’s not on the way to the minibuses to Cuamba.)

The minibus costs about Mt100 or 150, I don’t remember exactly. The bike taxi(s)—if you’re not careful you’ll be hiring a bike taxi only to the border, which is only a couple of km downhill, and will then be hit up for money again at the border to take a bike taxi the 6ish k(or so they say) to the town of Mandimba—you can pay in kwacha or meticais, and in Cuamba there are a million ATMs.

If you do get to the border without meticais, it’s probably better to wait til you’re over the border to change. I paid for my visa in dollars (kwacha not ok) and got change back in mets at a bank rate. I was then offered to change money by several people tooling by my bike taxi on their own, unencumbered bikes.

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Category: Mozambique, Travel | No Comments »
Tags: bike taxis, Chiponde/Mandimba border, COS trip, cuamba, journey, Malawi, minibus, Mozambique

Posted By Sika on September 13, 2009

But first I had to clear Malawi immigration. The immigration guy called me in front of 4 or so other people, I think because I am white and looked confused and stupid white people are dangerous to leave wandering around all willy-nilly. He asked me why I couldn’t approximate how much I spent in Malawi. I said, “In the last two years?!?” Eventually he looked at my visa for the third time and saw that I’m a sorta-resident (I think that’s the legal term) and let me through.

I asked where I could legally change kwacha to meticais, and as there was nowhere, and a big sign said changing kwacha to metacais was illegal with any of the thirty money changers outside. But, either the immigration guy was really nice or corrupt because he arranged to have some moneychangers come and change enough money to get me to an atm. I figure corrupt, because the rate they gave me was poor—although it was nice not to be mobbed while dealing with money, and perhaps I was just paying for that pleasure.

Generally I find that the best people to get prices from, especially in tourist gouging situations, are the people who have nothing to benefit from giving you azungu-price. I asked Salady, one of the moneychangers, how much for the bike taxi, and he gave me a price significantly lower than the ones the bike taxi pedallers had been giving me when they and the moneychangers were mobbing me. Turned out he got me again, though, because the was just giving me the price to the border, and I had to pay his friend separately to actually take me to Mandimba.

I got on the back of the bike while other bike taxi pedallers tried to insist that no, I had agreed to go with them, some of them even trying to take my pack to cement their ownership of my custom, until I said, loudly and firmly, “Don’t touch me.” That’s the nice thing about Malawi, though: every single one of the people bugging me backed off and some of them even helped Salady.

I tried to trust Salady enough to keep my feet on the pegs, which is more difficult than it sounds, especially when you’re not moving yet and every instinct you’ve trained into yourself says bikes that don’t move forward fall over. I tried to keep my hands on the seat, off Salady’s butt, and unentangled in the seat springs, ‘coz I figured that would hurt. It added to the oddness of the situation when a friend of Salady’s, running behind us, pushed us up a few of the hills. Also, I’d never heard of that, although I had heard of walking up hills that are too steep for the bike taxi to continue up.

When I got to the border I had to stop and chat with the gate guards. One of them asked if I had brought him anything and I honestly couldn’t tell if he was making a joke or asking for a bribe. So I offered him a carrot. That started a whole discussion of what a carrot is, since the guard didn’t know the English word, and then when I showed him, a discussion of how the words are the same in Spanish and Portuguese. I asked him if he really wanted the carrot. He looked at me strangely, said yes, took the carrot, looked at it strangely, and then put it on the bench beside him.

The only trouble getting my visa at this crossing was waiting 10 minutes for the bwana in charge of stamping the visas to get back from tea. And then waiting for 20 minutes for him to place the stickers, stamp things, record other things in books, stamp more things, stare into space, and then stamp and write some more. There was a Mozambican little girl irritating the hell out of her brother or uncle, who was just trying to get their passports sorted, and that kept me entertained while I waited. The bwana handed back my passport with the visa in before he ever asked about money, and I sort of idly wondered what would happen if I just took off with a free visa. But saving $20 was not really worth being shot at, so I didn’t find out.

Category: Malawi, Mozambique, Travel | No Comments »
Tags: bike taxis, Chiponde/Mandimba border, COS trip, cuamba, journey, Malawi, minibus, Mozambique

Posted By Sika on September 12, 2009

I called Debbie from the train back to Liwonde. She very graciously said I could stay and sent a co-worker just leaving work to come and pick me at the station. I was very happy that the return trip from Nayuchi was considerably shorter than the trip out—about 3 hours. So I even had time to wash the ground in grime from my face and body before dinner. Since the power was out when I got to Debbie’s house, I felt like I was at home, just like in Zomba.

The next morning Debbie and her driver gave me a lift to Ntaja. They were willing to give me a lift to the Mangochi turn off instead, but we figured Ntaja was closer to the border at Chiponde, which should make up for any slower traffic. For the most part it worked: I waited about 5 minutes for the minibus that said it was going to Chiponde to fill a bit more, and then we were off. Only because the minibus wasn’t completely full, I had to switch minibuses in Nselema.

The minibus driver in Nselema went back and forth over the same 300 meters repeatedly, trying to convince us he was just about to leave while waiting to fill some more. Apparently the bus stand boys got fed up* because they started yelling, “nthawi yatha!” (time is up!). The bus stand boys and all the legitimate male passengers disembarked and stood around, pretending there was more traffic they could threaten to get on instead. It worked, in spite of the obviously bluffy nature of the manoeuvre. I got to Chiponde, finally, about 2½ hours after leaving Ntaja. Almost immediately I was approached by someone ready to take me on a bike taxi over to Mandimba.

A note on bike taxis: For over two years I have avoided taking a bike taxi anywhere. I have even walked 6km to avoid taking a bike taxi—something about riding pillion at the mercy of someone you don’t know just struck me as a BAD IDEA™. But here I am, still in my first week of not being a Peace Corps volunteer, and I have to get my butt on the back of a bike taxi.

*My guess is they weren’t going to get any more money for staying in the minibus all morning than they would for 30 minutes.

Category: Malawi, Mozambique, Travel | No Comments »
Tags: bike taxis, Chiponde/Mandimba border, COS trip, journey, Malawi, minibus, minibus deception, Mozambique

Posted By Sika on September 11, 2009

What was that I said about having enough time and just letting the trip unfold, and not stressing? Yeah, well, even though I know that to be best, after today I’m tempted to give up the whole trip.

I got off today just fine: Kory was concerned this morning that since the bwanas are in Chikwawa, there would be no transport out of the park. But we had only been waiting for a minute or so when the Escom lorry came through, headed for town. Kory had the gate guard ask them to give me a lift. After I hauled myself up into the back, the driver got out to make sure I was safe with all that equipment* or perhaps that all the equipment was safe with me. I said I was fine. “Sure?” “Ay.”

The men cracked jokes about me I couldn’t quite get, but they also stopped me from getting off the lorry when I first saw the train tracks—3km early. I enjoyed their confusion when I started talking in Chichewa, basi.
After disembarking from the lorry and telling them all, “Muyende bwino,” I got directions from a couple people, including one woman when the station was in view, I just didn’t know that was it. Well, part of the reason I asked her was to fend off another bike taxi who wanted to shuttle me 50 feet.

Once on the train, I attracted the normal azungu attention, annoying as it can be. Although it also helped me befriend Brenda, Robina, and a guy whose name I never got, but who bought me a mandasi and offered a rice-filled samoosa as well.

When I pulled out my knitting, Brenda grabbed it and started working on it. I found feeding her yarn and watching the labour-intensive way she managed the sticks and string almost as distracting as knitting it my own damn self.

Eventually, after about 5 hours, I got to Nayuchi.

The Malawian immigration people told me they’d let me through, but I couldn’t get into Mozambique because they were “double-sure” there are no visas given at Entre Lagos. I tried to invoke Sarah’s name coz she told me the border people can be difficult, but they told me she doesn’t usually cross the border, and when she does it’s allowed because she’s only going to Entre Lagos and only for an hour or so. Sarah’s traveling East Africa, so I had no way of checking with her, but based on what she told me, it seemed plausible.

I asked if they could stamp me out and let me go check. They said sure, but the train might leave while I checked. That seemed like fear mongering (which it was) but I fell for it because the last thing I wanted was to be trapped in Nayuchi until I sprung for a private car or whatever. So, I ended up waiting for the train to load for 20 minutes (enough time, according to immigration, for me to have gone to Entre Lagos and asked), climbing over hills of 50kg rice sacks, finding a seat, and writing all of this before the train even started to think of moving.

But of course now the train really will leave any second—or still in another hour, so . . . . I can’t leave to find out. I found some Malawians who are nice and sympathetic, including Debbie’s co-worker Davis, who worried I didn’t know that the train doesn’t go straight through to Cuamba and so searched me out to make sure I was ok. But they had no idea about the visas because Malawians don’t need visas for Mozambique.

*a transformer tied down in the middle of the bed and various other parts somehow related to the generation and transmission of electricity scattered below.

Category: Malawi, Mozambique, Travel | No Comments »
Tags: COS trip, escom, journey, Liwonde, Mozambican visas, Mozambique, Nayuchi/Entre Lagos border, train

Posted By Sika on September 10, 2009

Wanangwa and Kate, two Zomba friends of mine, got married. It almost didn’t happen because their ankhoswe* was late and the law books say you can only get married between certain hours, and the only reason the guy marrying them took pity was that Kate’s mum was returning to Scotland the next day.

Anyway, so they got married (yay!) and invited me to the reception. I asked if I could bring anything or get anything and since I am Zomba-ly famous-ish for my baking, Kate asked if I could bake a cake. Turned out I couldn’t decide what to make, so I baked a chocolate chocolate chocolate cake and a vanilla lavender cake with lemon frosting. I might not have volunteered though, if I had known baking the cakes included having (miniscule) duties at the reception—which lead Wanangwa to call me, worried that I not be (too) late.

But I arrived, and although I had been worried about how many people I would know, I knew a fair number of people. I talked to Moira about my knitting for the other Moira; Susannah and I talked about Erin; Emma and I discussed Dignitas and whether Acela would kill me for taking pictures of her during perikani perikani; I told Fatima her veggie samoosas were the best I’d ever had in my life . . . .

And then I got to hold the cake while Kate and Wanangwa did the slicing and fed each other small bites (thank goodness the smooshing cake on the face thing is not a Malawian custom). Next I got to slice two 9” cakes into enough pieces for 40-60 people. I should’ve anticipated since there were two types of cake people would take one slice of each and cut a circle out of the middle to double the slices. But I didn’t.

There were nice little conversation spaces made out of circles of chairs, but many of the amayi had pilfered the chairs because they preferred to sit in lines, segregated by gender, in the traditionally Malawian way. Kate and Wanangwa tried to be respectful to both of their traditions, so, for instance, they had perikani perikani, but for a much shorter time than normal. And they didn’t have thrones.

Perikani perikani is when guests dance up to the (usually enthroned) bride and groom and place small bills (usually K20 or K50) in a basket. Often the MC announces what everyone gives the couple, but I assume the couple in question nixed that particular idea. Acela and another woman took it upon themselves to change out the smaller bills for bigger ones so someone who (like me) forgot and only had K500 bills could change them out to keep the fun going. People get pretty silly with the dancing individually and in groups, and giving the money dramatically enough they could be in a Nigerian movie, so it’s loads of fun to watch.

*ankhoswe, besides being one of my favourite words in Chichewa (right up there with akhaidi, which means prisoner), is sort of a combined best man/maid of honor/witness thing. The difference is that if the marriage fails, the husband and wife need to get their ankhoswe to agree to let them divorce, and then the ankhoswe will help with all the other steps. More or less.

Category: Events, Malawi | 1 Comment »
Tags: Malawi, perikani, wedding, Zomba

Posted By Sika on September 9, 2009

We weren’t there for Health ‘08’s site announcements. Health ’06 did a great event for ours, but due to scheduling problems we didn’t get to stay in Dedza long enough for the ’08 site announcements. This year, site announcement was at All-Health, like it was for us, and so we could all be a part of them. Luckily for me, I was PCV of the week in the days leading up to All-Health. Alex and I clued the first-years in on the various things we could do—sashes or crowns with site names on them, a map with volunteers on, some kind of find your sitemate/who you’re replacing game. The first years, sad about what they had missed out on (and I didn’t even tell them about the roll of Charmin Derek passed on to Michelle in an elaborate ceremony—I think they would have cried if they knew they missed out on that), decided what they wanted to do.

Since the first-years were in their midservice sessions, and Alex and I were PCVs of the week but were often chilling out while waiting for the trainees to be in a session for which we thought we might have useful contributions, we decided to get started on the sashes. Alex is a much better artist than I am—eventually I started finding excuses for Alex to draw the pictures on mine so when they compared sashes, the trainees wouldn’t think we loved some of them and hated others. Alex labelled the appropriate sashes “Tonga Alliance”, over which Dawn, because of her jealousy over speaking Tumbuka instead of Tonga, drew the Chitipa Wrecking Crew symbol.

We were so full of stealth. When the trainees came out of their sessions, we were like ninjas—folding up the sashes* so sneakily and yet innocently there’s no way they knew we were up to anything at all. When Alex and I had to go back to the village with the trainees, the first years finished everything we started and continued with all the other awesome plans they (*cough*Judy*cough*) had come up with.

When it finally came to the end of the week and time for All-Health and site announcements, we were all thrumming with excitement. Ken was the only one who got the list of who was assigned to which site before the announcements started. I told Edith she was smart not to tell the rest of us, because I knew I’d tell—and I’m not the only one. I’m good at keeping secrets that need to be kept, but I’m no good at keeping happy secrets. Just ask my mom what happens when I get her a present early.

At first it seemed a bit of a letdown to have to hold the actual announcements after we ate chicken and sausage and cheese(!) and drank minerals and beer and had the cakes the first-years made and danced and sang along to Bohemian Rhapsody.

Eventually the site announcements were made. I think, although everyone was equally excited before, in the end only those of us being replaced or getting sitemates had that excitement satisfied. The newbies got their sites, but didn’t know what it meant, and wouldn’t until site visit.

We had regional group meetings, North, Central, and of course the best: South, so the trainees could learn more about the region at least. Bryce expounded in a Bryce-like way about why we the south didn’t need a name—like Tonga Alliance or Chitipa Wrecking Crew. He made sense, and is probably right, although he was obviously making up everything—even his position on the matter—on the spot. But it’s an irrelevant point of view. We are, always have been, and always will be, the Dirty South.

Then there was more dancing and gift giving (from Health ’07 to Edith and Cornelius) and the newbies had to go back to the village. Transport to Lilongwe was leaving for the first and second years, and for the first time I had to really say good-bye to people in my group. I surprised myself and everyone else by bursting into tears. I blame Bryce: he was nice to me. Well, nicer. Well, Bryce-nice, which is close enough. Becky thought it was hilarious and for the rest of that day and up until we got to Balaka the next day would periodically yell, “Cry, Sika, cry!” Which didn’t work, much to her disappointment.

The next day Peace Corps transport took the 4 of us going south and dropped us at the Dedza roadblock, to start hitching home.

*and later the map, which originally was going to have a little dot for every volunteer, and then just for the health volunteers, and then, eventually, just the first-year health volunteers.

Category: Malawi, Peace Corps | No Comments »
Tags: Dedza, PST, training

Posted By Sika on September 8, 2009

Edith asked me to come to PST (pre-service training) for the newbies. I was excited because I was pretty sure Zomba was getting Marla, and I thought it would be nice to get to know her a bit better. Also, I hadn’t had/taken the chance to spend more than a few hours with the Health ’08 group during their training, and I thought it would be nice to get the PCV of the week experience.

I was nervous though: I live in Zomba. I almost always speak English. There are words I learned in training I couldn’t remember now if you offered me a million dollars. And yet here I was going back to a village—one similar enough to Mterera, where I remember being out of sorts, out of my element, and always worried about being out of line.

Communication has always been a problem for me, and while other volunteers told me being PCV of the week was much better than being in training, they lived in villages. They practiced their language. Ok, maybe they were good at Tumbuka instead of Chichewa, but I wouldn’t let facts like those get in the way of a good “oh woe is me.”

But then it turned out the others were right! For one thing, I barely had time with my host family at all, much less enough to wonder how they got a 2008 Chishango* calendar on the wall. For another, I had a cell phone and service, so I could ask David his opinion on whether I should kill the spider between my mattress and the wall or allow it to continue to eat the ants that were taking apart the mat my mattress was on, one minuscule bite at a time. I could text Kris to gossip about the trainers and the newbies.

Also, I was only in the village for four days, so if I screwed up, I’d be out of their hair in no time. But, most importantly, I could hold a frigging conversation in Chichewa!** Not a long detailed one, or a complicated one, but it still helped pass the time somehow besides uncomfortable silences and staring at each other’s hands.

Homestay this time around was a breeze.

*a condom brand
**Anyone who says you don’t need to learn the language to be a PCV in Malawi is wrong wrong wrong. You don’t have to learn the language, and most of the educated Malawians we deal with speak at least some English. It is in some ways, harder to learn Chichewa because it’s so easy to fall back on English. But my relationships suffered because of difficulty in communication and I have to believe my work would have only been enhanced if I knew more Chichewa.

Category: Malawi, Peace Corps | No Comments »
Tags: Chichewa, Health 09, homestay, language, Peace Corps, PST, training

Posted By Sika on September 8, 2009

If there are people waiting with you on a minibus, and they seem too happy—dancing and singing enthusiastically to Lucky Dube blaring on the radio instead of looking like they’re tired of waiting but have nowhere else to go—and overly familiar with everyone at the minibus stand, beware. They’ll probably be paid a few kwacha for making the minibus look more full than it is. As soon as the minibus approaches a certain level of full, they’ll disembark and you’ll be left waiting another half hour or more just when you thought you were about to go.

Category: Malawi | No Comments »
Tags: journey, minibus deception

Posted By Sika on September 7, 2009

If I said there aren’t some things I’ll be happy to leave, I’d be lying. Mostly things like stone babies and the way many men feel they own my body because I’m a woman, and being called azungu azungu all the time, and feeling like I live in a fishbowl—the only way to escape it being to surround myself with a careful selection of friends behind brick walls. Escaping Malawi then somehow feels like I am failing—but I can’t survive without going places and being places where I am not treated like every child’s, drunkard’s, and bored person’s personal freak show. I know, because I’ve been told, that I will some day miss the freak show. It also makes you famous—everything you do is fascinating and important, and people miss that. I know this, I can understand that it is probably true, but I don’t yet believe it. Sometimes it seems every day of my life here has been a failing attempt at becoming more integrated and less newsworthy. I can’t really imagine feeling any differently about it.

The stuff I won’t miss though, is not what I think of first or last. What I think about the most is the things I will miss. I keep remembering that although I will take lots of pictures when my mom comes, I don’t have enough of other seasons. That I may never see a woman cracking sugar cane over her knee again. That I won’t have impossibly sweet and creamy avocados melt on my tongue. That chickens won’t wake me at 4:30am. That I’ll have to go out in search of places with little enough light pollution that the sky can be black black and freckled with abundant stars, or where I can walk home by the light of the full moon without even a torch, playing with the reflected shadows. That people won’t walk by my windows, speaking the now familiar sounds and rhythms of Chichewa, laughing, and singing. That I won’t hear the shh shh of dirt-sweeping in the mornings, or the call to prayer of the muezzin. That I won’t be able to listen to the music of a wedding celebration throughout the day, then the drums beating the wee hours of the morning, then the PA system crackling in the morning with more Lucius Banda and Bujo Mojo. That I won’t watch the earth change from sere red-brown and cracked to abundant with green. That I will inevitably lose contact with most of my Malawian friends, who have been my rocks in the last two years.

While I am absolutely ready to move on to whatever’s next in my life, I am also greatly saddened that this new phase requires leaving the last one behind.

Category: Malawi, Peace Corps, Philosophy | No Comments »
Tags: COS, leaving, Malawi

Posted By Sika on September 4, 2009

I don’t think I’ve written about the routine of handwashing here in Malawi. I love ritual–I find it soothing–and this is one of my favourites. In Malawi, because nsima is eaten with the hands, hands must be washed before the meal and then again after to remove the last remnants of the nsima and ndiwo (finger licking, for this purpose, is unacceptable–unless you’re a crass American).

Amayi brings a basin and pitcher to the table and offers them, usually to the guest first. Sometimes this duty will be relegated to someone else. The person washing places their hands over the basin and water is poured from the pitcher over the hands.

If you’re special, the water is heated.

The washer rubs their hands together, maybe with soap, and then declares basi when done. Then they can offer the basin and pitcher to the person who helped them.

What gets me is how everyone know this routine: If a child is old enough to eat real food, they are old enough to rub their hands under a stream of water before and after eating.

It’s not just in homes. In restaurants without a sink for customers, there are buckets with spigots at the bottom and a basin set underneath to catch the handwashing water. Even at restaurants with bathroom sinks, waiters often bring the pitcher and basin to customers who are eating nsima.

Category: Malawi | No Comments »
Tags: eating, routines

Posted By Sika on September 3, 2009

I haven´t written about my last weeks in Malawi partly because I still don´t have pics uploaded for some posts I´ve already written, but mostly because I´ve been in a serious state of denial: refusing to say good-bye to people I know I won´t see again; planning multiple trips back to Zomba so I can´t know I won´t see them again. The whole process has been surreal–all I know is that I don´t know anything.

When I went to Kory´s site in Liwonde, we started talking about Peace Corps, other volunteers, and Malawi. She apologized later for talking my ear off but I told her sincerely that one of the things I have become acutely aware of is that I won´t have anyone once I get home with whom to talk about the last two years of my life.

Sure, I can Facebook my PC Malawi friends and maybe even call some of them occasionally. But there´s no easy outlet for those random, “Hey, remember that one time, with the thing, back when we had transit houses?” thoughts. 

Thank goodness my mom is coming: she´ll at least have some frame of reference We´re doing semi-bwana traveling, though. She won´t know what it´s like waiting for a minibus to fill when you know you´ve got to get somewhere in ever decreasing time. She wion´t know what it´s like worrying about how ridiculous you look clambering up into a lorry (and then realizing you should´ve been worried about injuring yourself instead of about something silly like how you look).

She won´t (I hope) have any funny stories about trying and failing to aim in a chimbudzi.

Or understand the frustration of having the power go out every day just as you start to cook dinner.  She won´t get the should I/shouldn´t I light the mbaula dilemma.

She may or may not see goats in various stages of being slaughtered, but she won´t have time to get inured to it and then be surprised and disturbed by it all over again.

She may find the turns of speech and the signs amusing, but it won´t be with the affection many of us have who´ve been here a while: I laugh when Musi says stuff like “She wasn´t all that dead. Then she wasn´t all that alive” because I love how Musi- and Malawi-like the phrase is, not because I think it´s worthy of making fun.

If my mom had come during my service, we probably would´ve stayed in Malawi and I would´ve had a house and the chance to show mom what my daily life is like. Not that any of it is anyone´s fault;I understand why no one was able to visit me during my service. It just means that those bridges, between my old life, my current life, and my future life have not been built. Without the bridges it´s hard to reconcile each of those stages with the others.

Category: Malawi, Peace Corps, Philosophy | No Comments »
Tags: COS