Shortly after sitting down in the dingy dining room, an overly, awkwardly, submissive waitress brought us our fare. Kneeling on the floor and bowing her head, she clasped my hand and asked if I needed anything else. Tempted as I was to ask for a normal breakfast, I held my tongue and dismissed the woman. Hot water, a tea bag, sugar, a piece of toast, and a big plate of French fries. Disgusting! After drinking my tea plain and eating the toast with my sugar sprinkled on it, I picked at the deep fried potato strips, trying to will the greasy mess into a fruit salad smothered in vanilla yogurt. French fries, we would learn, are the staple Malawian breakfast food…gross!
The dissatisfying meal ingested (and quickly beginning to block our arteries), we jumped in the back seat of the Presbyterian pickup truck we’d travelled with the evening before. The city of Blantyre finally seemed to be within our sights.
On the way there, we learned that Malawi was less than a week away from its controversial presidential elections. Election time can be tense anywhere, but when a nation has only had 2 previous elections, peaceful democracy has the potential to break down into chaotic violence, so it’s not necessarily the most auspicious time to visit a place.
Before we could say ‘scandal and political infighting’, it was time for a quick lunch. Our ride pulled over and 50 kids ran to the windows hawking bananas and fried, shish-kebabed parakeets. Well, maybe not parakeets, but tiny birds that you were in theory supposed to pop into your mouth whole, bones and all, but in reality, I had to take in 2 crunchy parts, each speedily chased down by an entire mini-banana. Gavin had just found out in Beira that his childhood pet parakeet had died of (very) old age and I think he felt as sad about lunch as I had felt about breakfast.
Seventy-five hours after deciding I wanted to get there, our group managed to the cover the implausibly long 150 miles and finally (FINALLY!!!) arrive in the city of Blantyre. It was everything I’d wished for and envisioned it would be. The crumbling dilapidation and neglect so afflicting both Mozambique and Zimbabwe was behind us. Ahead, lay spotless avenues lined with flowering trees and streetlights, crisscrossing through a city of dazzling, modern buildings. Internet cafes, supermarkets, bakeries, banks, and restaurants bustled and beckoned. We had at last reached civilization.
Saying goodbye to our Godsent lift, we set off looking for accommodation. Wanting to recover from the accident and journey, Liam and I were eager to splash out a little more than usual at the Henderson Street Guest House, but after walking through its idyllic gardens, we discovered at reception that we weren’t the only ones with that idea; the beautiful place was completely booked. Unsure where else to go, we popped into a café advertizing itself only as “PIZZA AND ICECREAM!” for an early dinner.
“Hello! We were wondering what kind of pizzas you guys had here.” Liam said to the waitress.
A blank look was followed by, “We don’t…serve pizzas here…But this menu.”
Liam took it and chuckled, “Well, do you have any ice cream?”
“Umm…I have to check first…” replied the slow (to the point of handicapped) woman, “But I don’t…think we do.” I have found on this trip and my previous one, that Africans, in general, are intelligent and often witty, if not particularly entrepreneurial, but despite the huge percentages of English speakers in most countries, waiters and waitresses are possibly the most useless, unintelligent people on the continent. All street children speak far better English and are usually a good deal sharper.
We ordered scrumptious and, surprisingly inexpensive, chicken and rice dishes. While the three of us ate, the manager, an energetic, (intelligent) racially mixed girl named Taz came over to chat. After recalling our luckless hotel search, we asked if she had any recommendations. Running off first to call her roommates, she offered to let us stay in the guest bedroom of her home. Without more ado, we accepted the proposal, lady luck smiling on us once again. (Taz, we found out later, was not shockingly, Zimbabwean. She probably moved to Malawi just to help tourists out with free accommodation.)
After successfully making our way by minibus to her home in the suburbs, Liam told the guard at the gate that, “The madam sent us.” He let us in and we walked above 5 impeccably manicured acres to Taz’s 4-bedroom home and met our new housemates. First there was Chris, a white, very laid back, out of work, pot smoking Zimbabwean who was either playing X-Box or watching movies during the entire duration of our stay, then there was Thomas, an immense, Schwarzenegger-esque German guy who loved travelling and hiking and was stuck working in Malawi, frequently doing the latter until he’d saved enough money to do more of the former (in light of where and how he lived, he wasn’t trying too awfully hard to save his paychecks), and, the most recent addition, besides us, was Jules, a pretty German girl, and Thomas’ girlfriend of slightly less than 2 whole weeks (there was a surprisingly, and weirdly, high number of lovey-dovey couple collages taped around the house for the two of them having been together such a short time).
One by one, we abandoned conversation with our new friends for the blessedly running water of the in-house HOT SHOWER! Whether it was exhaustion, the glorious feeling of being clean, or the marijuana fumes emanating from the living room, Liam, Gavin and I all slept like the dead.
Day 11 Budget
$0.12 Bananas
$0.42 souvenirs for girls I nannied for
$5.12 lift to Blantyre
$2.73 dinner
$0.46 minibus to Taz’s house
$6.36 oatmeal and powdered milk
Total: $15.21
French fries for breakfast? No thank you...
ReplyDeleteI generally try to at least BEGIN the day with healthier food...
ReplyDelete