The taxis that ran between the border and the Malawian immigration office at Mchinji had to be loaded in strict order, according to how they were lined up. No jumping of the queue was allowed. The taxi I caught looked truly amazing. It was painted in five distinct colours: the boot was the same blue as the front doors; the bonnet was red, the roof white, one back door green, the other silver. It was an old-model Toyota, with holes in the dashboard – in fact, the dashboard was just a shell – no inside panels on any of the doors, no upholstery on the ceiling, and the windows could not open because there were no winding handles.
Obviously the jalopy had to be jumpstarted. The true fun began when the engine eventually started running. There was a heavy rattling sound as if metal was turning on metal. It felt as if there were no shock absorbers at all and, although we were on a tar road, my back was absorbing all the bumps and potholes in the road surface. As the driver increased speed the rattling became even louder. The noise got so bad that it would hardly have been surprising if the whole contraption had fallen apart under us. The only positive thing was that the smoke our taxi was spewing was not black but ultra white. A good sign, I thought. Another comforting thing was that, despite the racket it made, the taxi was moving very slowly. I doubt the driver had any option.
With that rattling sound in my ears I wondered yet again why the border posts were so far apart. But we made it. At the Malawian immigration office I was asked to produce my yellow-fever certificate, which I did. After stamping my passport, the immigration officer looked straight into my eyes and said, ‘Welcome to the warm heart of Africa.’
It was back to the shaking and rattling for another two kilometres before, a bit worse for wear, I slid out of our multicoloured taxi at the Mchinji taxi rank opposite Joe’s Motel. From there I caught a minibus taxi to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi and its second largest city.
In general, the roads in Malawi and the houses along the road were of better quality than in neighbouring Zambia. En route to Lilongwe we passed through two roadblocks and at neither did the traffic police raise any objections to the overloading of our taxi, which was carrying 21 passengers and a chicken, in addition to the driver and his assistant. Even more amazing was that we were stopped at an army roadblock just outside Lilongwe and our driver, in broad daylight and in front of everyone, handed one of the soldiers some money. I am sure this had something to do with our load. I couldn’t see how much it had taken to convince the soldier that we were observing safety regulations, but almost immediately we were given the green light to proceed. It looked as if the Malawian army was doing the work of the traffic police, while the latter were not quite sure what their function was.
Eleven hours after leaving Lusaka, we reached Lilongwe, just before sunset. People were walking home in their hundreds. Wongani, my crisply dressed, bushy-haired, English-speaking neighbour in the backseat of the taxi, had promised to show me to a taxi that would take me to a budget hotel in the city. After finding our way through the loads of people at the taxi rank, we finally got to the taxi. Wongani asked me for my postal address and gave me his.
The first two budget hotels were fully booked. As in Lusaka, I ended up in a guesthouse. If I had thought the guesthouse in Lusaka was bad, I was totally mistaken: the one in Lilongwe looked more like a ghost house and reminded me of my boarding-school days with its long, uncarpeted corridors with doors on both sides and the bathroom right at the end. The linen was so bad that I had to use my sleeping bag. Even the mosquito net, which smelled horrible, had a big hole in it. Whenever I moved or turned during the night the springs of the mattress screeched.
Since there was no possibility of sleeping, I spent the night wondering what would happen if a Zambian paid a short visit to a friend in Malawi who happened to live in the area between the two immigration offices. He would be stamped out of Zambia and go to meet his friend in Malawi, but would have to go to the immigration office to get a stamp before returning to the friend’s house … the same thing when, a few days later, he wanted to return home.
In the same way, a Malawian who lived in this ‘no man’s land’would have to go to his own immigration office to get stamped out and then turn back, past his own house, and proceed to the Zambian border post … the same rigmarole in reverse when he returned from Zambia.
What compounded the problem, to my mind at least, was what would happen if this Malawian wanted to go to Mchinji and Lilongwe, which are both further east in his country: he would have to go ‘through’ his immigration offices but could not be stamped into the country because he was neither leaving nor entering. It would be easier just to climb back and forth through a hole in a fence out of sight of the immigration officer, I thought.
It is my nature at times to be obsessed with how things work in practice. Being of a practical mindset, I have learned, can cause you not to enjoy life; people who live without worrying about how things really work have fewer cares. I am sure that to the Malawians and Zambians in their no man’s land this matter would be a non-issue, but to me it was one of those mysteries of life.
The following day, while changing money and sending emails to friends and family, the taxi driver who had picked me up from the ghost house and driven me to the internet café in the city centre disappeared – with my backpack. For a moment I didn’t realise what had happened because I was so thrilled by my fiancée’s having ended her email with the words I love you lots, my sweets – something she would never say to my face.
Coming back to my senses, I could not believe how much I had trusted a man I had only just met. To make things worse, I had paid him all his money, including the money for the trip we were yet to make. Then I remembered that we had agreed that he would pick me up in two hours’ time. I decided to wait and see and to remain as calm as best I could.
I did not plan to stay long in Lilongwe – my mission in Malawi was to visit the lake. I would have loved to go to Cape Maclear, but I was not prepared to go that far south. I had heard that the sunsets alone make a visit to Cape Maclear worthwhile, not to speak of Lake Malawi National Park, proclaimed a World Heritage Site in 1980, of which Cape Maclear is part. Instead, I had decided to go to Senga Bay, which meant first taking a taxi and heading in an easterly direction to Salima.
Because of my anxiety my time in the internet café in City Centre in Lilongwe was not a peaceful or a happy one. Lilongwe itself is a two-in-one town, composed of Old Town and a much newer city centre. The banks, embassies and business offices are in City Centre (also referred to as Capital City); the bus rank, dusty, uneven pavements, cheap hotels, the market and the crowds are to be found in Old Town. Old Town started as a small village along the Lilongwe River that grew into a town. Because of its central geographical position Lilongwe replaced the colonial capital of Zomba in 1975. Lilongwe has kept its capital-city status, but the economic centre of Malawi is Blantyre, which is in the southern part of the country.
After a tense two hours, I was greatly relieved to see the taxi driver returning, as agreed, to pick me up from the internet café. Still suspicious, I asked him to open the boot; I wanted to check if my backpack was intact. As we headed off for the taxi rank it became very clear to me that – probably because of where I come from – I had grown not to trust anyone. It dawned on me that I was forever looking over my shoulder and thinking that people, just because they are poor, are criminals. In fact, the more I travelled in Africa, not only in Malawi, the more I discovered that although (or was it because?) people were poor, they were honest and trustworthy.
At Lilongwe’s very disorganised taxi rank, where one narrow lane was used as both entrance and exit, 32 of us were crammed into a 22-seater minibus under a mountain of huge red-blue-white striped plastic carrier bags and enormous black suitcases. As I tried to make myself comfortable I wondered why we Africans never travel light.
It took our driver about 20 minutes just to manoeuvre out of the taxi rank into the main road. Taxis entering the rank did not want to reverse to
allow others to exit, and vice versa. So, everyone ended up hooting and no one moved. It was the first real chaos I had encountered on my trip. But, at last, I was on my way to the lake.
Along the 140 kilometres to Salima we encountered two roadblocks. Again, the driver paid his way through. From Salima I took a matola (an old bakkie) to Senga Bay. It took half an hour to travel the relatively short distance. Jammed upright in the back of the matola between crates of beer and soft drinks, bulging boxes held together with string, more red-blue-white carrier bags, mattresses and travelling bags, I struck up a conversation with Wilson. His uncle, he told me, had a speedboat and if I wanted a trip on the lake he could organise it for me at a good price.
Wilson also showed me where to jump off the matola. As I jumped, six guys who had been sitting under a tree came up to me and said they would like to help me with my luggage and show me the way to my hotel. As the matola began to move away Wilson shouted, ‘Trust them. They are good guys, my man.’
I decided I needed just one guy to help me. As I walked with the one guy, who was carrying my jacket, we were followed by the other five, as well as by three more scruffy-looking young men who had been sitting under another tree. So, I had nine guys walking either next to or behind me towards some trees. At that moment those trees looked more like a forest into which a stranger could disappear without a trace.
Before long, my pseudo bodyguard told me that they were actually businessmen (read ‘tour organisers’). They proposed a two-in-one tour for me to ‘lizard island’ and a hippo tour, including lunch, which they called a barbecue. It sounded like a good idea. As we walked on I started to relax, realising, once again, that these were honest people who were only looking to do some business with me.
We walked through the gateway of my budget hotel and I caught my first glimpse of the lake. As with Swakopmund, it was love at first sight. I could not believe my eyes. The lake had waves! While I was checking into the hotel the receptionist told me that Lake Malawi is referred to as the ‘calendar lake’ because it is 365 miles long and at its maximum width is 52 miles. This, of course, cannot work in a metric system.
My tour guides were still waiting for me outside the reception area. We soon agreed on the price and time for the tour and they (now my associates) asked me to pay a 60 per cent deposit. Since I did not have change, and neither did they, I ended up paying them 100 per cent. One of the guys reassured me with the words, ‘Trust us, we are business-people, my friend.’
We confirmed the time that they would pick me up the following day, and that I could spend as long as I wanted on the island before being ‘transported’ to see the hippos. All the transporting from the beach to the hippos via the island was going to be done by speedboat. I must admit I was worried, but they managed to convince me that everything would be fine.
As soon as we had agreed on the tour, one of the guys opened his bag and showed me key rings he had made from wood. He wanted to do other business too. I, reluctantly, agreed to buy ten key rings. A split second later, another guy opened his bag and showed me paintings that were done by his sister.
At that moment I understood why so many people had followed me from the matola stop. Each one was hoping to sell me something.
That night I had beef curry while listening to the waves breaking on the shore and, later, whisky on the verandah. From the verandah I could see boats going out to fish overnight on the lake. The breeze from the lake was refreshing and the whisky good company. It was one of those ‘life’s good’ moments.
While having yet another drink, I was joined by two couples from Durban – obviously, white – who were on a five-week 4x4 adventure tour through southern Africa. It made me think that while people from Gauteng are busy making money, Durbanites are on holiday and Capetonians are staring at the mountain and wondering what all the fuss is about, and people in the Free State are probably still waiting for Jesus to be born in Bethlehem (in their province). I wondered how, with the Supreme Court of Appeal located in the Free State, efficient administration of justice could be expected from a place still stuck in BC.
With this thought in mind I decided to go to bed, being just compos mentis enough to realise that the whisky had attacked my nervous system again. Instead of a single room or a bed in a dormitory at the hotel, I had opted to sleep in a caravan, which was slightly cheaper than the other options. I tossed and turned all night wondering whether my associates, to whom I had already paid the full fee, would pitch up the next morning.
When I stepped onto the beach just after sunrise, eight guys were waiting for me. One thing about so many associates, I never knew exactly who my tour organiser was. Everyone talked equally, and after we had covered about 100 metres, I found I had about 12 guys accompanying me.
As we were walking towards the motorboat, Rasta, who was part of the crew from the previous day, tried to sell me some ganja.‘Malawian ganja is the best. South Africa’s is very weak. Don’t you want to try the real stuff once you get back from the island?’ he asked.
I turned him down politely, but he was not going to give up easily. ‘Maybe you can be my merchant back in South Africa. Introduce brothers in South Africa to the real ganja and we will both be very rich.’
I turned down that proposition too. By then we had reached what I was told was a speedboat.
I closed my eyes and looked a second time. A dhow with a motor! It was not a comforting sight. I had to wait a couple of minutes while the other guys were trying to organise the pots that were to be used on the island for my barbecue. Meanwhile, I was introduced to the captain of the speedboat, as well as my two guides, David and Spearman. It was the first time I had seen these three guys.
The pots eventually arrived and we were ready to roll. After pushing the boat from the beach to the edge of the water, my companions and I jumped in, just before the motor started – and that was when the trouble began. Although the water was not rough, the motorboat could not cut through the waves, so we went up and down with every dip. This was not only making me seasick but was also scaring me to death, especially because as a result of apartheid (read ‘no access to a swimming pool and swimming lessons’) I cannot swim. The prospect of capsizing was worse even than the anxiety of being in a small aircraft going through turbulence.
David must have picked up that I was uncomfortable. He tried to comfort me: ‘Don’t worry, my friend. You are not going to die. We will die first, before you do.’ I’m sure he meant well but, for me, the idea was not reassuring. In fact, it made me even more anxious.
‘Imagine if you die here. What will we say to your family and Thabo Mbeki?’ he continued. By then I was close to shitting in my pants.
The trip to the island took about ten minutes but it felt like an hour. When we got to ‘lizard island’ I realised that the island was actually just a few gigantic rocks which, from erosion over a long period of time, had been segmented into smaller rocks. We docked on the rocks and I was free to start exploring the island. I soon discovered what lay behind the name ‘lizard island’: in my entire life I had never seen so many lizards in one place at one time. Some lizards were too big for my liking. I also did not know that lizards came in such a variety of colours – black, electric blue, green, brown, some almost transparent.
One of my guides, Spearman, told me that to have the best view of Senga Bay and the lake I had to climb to the highest point on the island. With Spearman leading the way, we began to ascend the rocks on ‘rocky island’.
Although I have not yet climbed Mount Everest, I thought to myself that climbing Mount Everest could not be as bad as climbing ‘rocky island’. After squeezing ourselves through a very narrow gorge, we finally reached the summit. By then I was sweating profusely and welcomed the cool and refreshing breeze at the top. Pity I was not carrying the SA flag.
Spearman was right. The views of the fishing village, shoreline and the lake were breathtaking. Owing to an abundance of ants, however, our stay was not long. Within 30 minutes we w
ere back at base camp and that is where the waiting for the barbecue began. David had just started the fire when Spearman took one of the pots to collect water from the lake.
‘Don’t worry, my friend. This is a freshwater lake,’ he assured me. While the water for the rice was boiling David started cutting up the tomatoes, which I had already spotted three lizards nibbling on. In the meantime, the captain was bathing in the lake.
‘Don’t you want to take a bath? Water from this lake chases away all the evil spirits,’ he informed me.
Does it look like I am engulfed by evil spirits, bru, I felt like asking.
Since there was no shade at base camp, I was sitting in the open on the rocks, sweating. While David prepared the barbecue, I had a very interesting conversation with Spearman, who, it turned out, was a conspiracy theorist. For instance, he told me that the real Kamuzu Banda had died overseas while studying medicine. The man who came back to rule Malawi was actually Richard Armstrong from Ghana. Spearman told me that Richard had studied with Banda. He knew that Banda had left Malawi at an early age and figured out that, after years of absence, Malawians would not be able to detect the difference. That is why, when ‘Banda’ came back, he could not speak his mother tongue.
I dared not ask him if it was true that Banda, known for his resistance to decadent Western fashions and influences, had banned the Simon and Garfunkel song ‘Cecilia/I’m down on my knees/I’m begging you to please come home’ because his relationship with his mistress, named Cecilia, was going through a bad patch at the time.
Spearman was a real vested guy. He knew things about South Africa I did not even suspect. For instance, that reggae star Lucky Dube was South Africa’s ambassador to Jamaica. Naturally we also talked about women. Among other things, Spearman commented, ‘Food in South Africa must be very delicious. That is why South African women have big bums.’
Dark Continent my Black Arse Page 7