Flies and Foundations

Sat in the dappled sunshine under the trees on the guesthouse terrace. Having a work laptop at my disposal now saves me from the dingy internet cafes to write this blog!

As predicted life has got a bit duller since staying put here in Lilongwe and the jackanories are few and far between. Have got into a routine of an 8-5 job with a meal and my book providing the only means of entertainment at the end of the day. Yawn.

We did have our Christmas do on the 16th Dec however. It was to be a non-alcoholic affair, when I asked the severe Swiss woman who was organising the do why this was I got an icey stare and was told that it had been decided, end of chat. To be fair a lot of people don't drink in the office due to some orthodox Christian views. We had to make our own food and piled round someone's house for the event. A very strange do which was somewhat different to my experience of drunken office dos in Newcastle. A loud DJ played all night and it was compulsory to dance to the 'Zambian beats'. This I found difficult having only had a sugar rush of Fanta throughout the night, and obviously danced like a white man and was duly shown up by the black majority who had no qualms pointing and laughing at my moves.

The office has closed for 2 weeks over Christmas which allowed me to get away for a week. I could not believe how excited I was to leave Lilongwe for a while, this I guess tells it's own story. I was going to Likoma, a remote island in Lake Malawi closer to Mozambique than Malawi. The only way to get there was to catch the Illala, a ship that takes a week to sail up and down the lake stopping off at a dozen or so places enroute. I headed out on the bus from Lilongwe late afternoon towards the port a few hours away where the ferry was due to dock at 10pm. On that bus a priest saw me looking at my ferry schedule and we got chatting. He was convinced that the ferry left at 4pm and phoned his friend at the port who confirmed that it had already left. b*****. Arriving at an unknown town in the dark with no further destination is not a good idea in Malawi. Luckily the priest gave me some advice on hitchingand reckoned I could still catch the ferry at the next port of call in Nkhotokota. And so at sundown I was clambering into the back of a pickup truck with a group of locals heading in the same direction. As we bumped along the dirt road I watched the sun go down and looked up as the stars came out. I had no idea where I was going but felt a smile come across my face I hadn't experienced in weeks. The simple things. We picked up a dying man along the way who inconsiderately bled all over my rucksack but I was content. I was advised to leave the truck at a random petrol station along the main road and told to get a bicycle taxi into the port town. As the fare was only 50p I assumed that the town was about 1km away. I perched myself on the back of a bike and we descended down a very dark lane. Very spooky, it went on for ages and I seriously doubted where we were going in the dark. It was so far that we had to walk for a bit as the cyclist was getting knackered, yes I've put on some pounds! We finally came to the 'port' which was a beach by my reckoning. A random guesthouse was positioned on the beach and managed to get some good dinner and a beer whilst waiting for the ferry to show up. Met a nice South African couple, Dave & Maryana who were also waiting for the boat so my confidence increased that I might eventually get on this boat.

The guesthouse restaurant closed at 10pm and threw us out to wait for the ferry on the beach. What a surreal experience- no moon, no lights, just a black beach with huddled black shapes of people sleeping on the sand waiting for the boat to come in. No jetty, no office, nothing. Eventually at 2am the lights of the Illala showed in the distance on the lake. People began to move and a few small long boats appeared on the shore. A guy in the boat wanted 50p to get in his boat, I paid together with a few others. We travelled 100m and then there was a 22 capacity larger lifeboat from the Illala waiting for to take us to the ferry. What I didn't realise in the pitch black was that most people didn't want to pay the 50p for the long boat and had waded out to the lifeboat up to their chests carrying bags above their heads. Trying to get off one boat into another in the pitch black with a big rucksack whilst the 'waders' were also trying to get in was somewhat tricky. I managed to take a header into the lifeboat and as the boat rocked to and fro it filled up with over 40 people with others still trying to get in. They were pushed away and the motor started but the boat was severely overloaded on one side and we listed badly on the journey taking on further water. I was convinced we were going under and was preparing how best to get out of my heavy rucksack when I went in. We hit a sand bank and got ourselves stuck. This as it turns out was quite fortunate as we had to redistribute our load a bit better before we got ourselves pushed off. We finally made it to the ferry where everyone climbed over each other to clamber on board. Absolute chaos. I went up on top deck away from the masses in 1st class and watched the lifeboat appear out of darkness every half an hour ferrying people from the beach. It took a couple of hours to get everyone onboard by which time I was fast asleep on the metal deck.

Waking up the next morning the ferry seemed conversely civilised with nice food being served in the restaurant andpeople chatting whilst admiring the lake views. It was stunning, the embarkation seemed like a distant dream, had it actually happened? Dave and Maryana confirmed that it had. It was joy to travel once on the boat and the 12 hours it took to get to Likoma Island zipped by.

Found a cool place to stay in Likoma which had a handful of backpackers there. Simple beach hut right on the beach with a beach bar within spitting distance. Perfect. And relax... Was planning to see another place along the lake but ended up staying a week and celebrated Christmas there. A good group of people, the week consisted of exploring the island and its friendly inhabitants, swimming and snorkelling, playing various beach games like volleyball, chilling in the sporadic sunshine with the book, and feeding on the plentiful mangoes that fell from the trees. It was whilst I was helping myself to a mango that I bumped into a group of kids. They were shaking a mango bush and then waving saucepans at the resulting black clouds that formed from the bush. The black cloud was thousands of minute lake flies and the saucepans were wet so as to catch as many as possible. The kids would then scrape the flies off the saucepan surface and collect them in another pot. They had a bowl full of this black mass. They would then take the flies home and their mothers would make them into patties and fry them up for dinner. Lush. I've never seen anything like these flies, when the kids shook the bush you couldn't breath with all the flies,. You could also see huge black clouds of them over the lake containing billions one would assume. Apparently they seldom came to shore but fisherman had been know to suffocate whilst passing through the clouds. You can make your own minds upon that one!

Christmas was fantastic, although rainy in the morning the sun came out for the BBQ on the beach, lots of beach games all with a bottle of beer in hand. Drunken antics followed in the evening with chilli vodka being downed, all very good, I'd tell you more if I could remember or chose to remember!

After the fantastic week it was a bit of a downer to be leaving on boxing day. Caught the ferry back to the mainland with no such stories as both ports had jetties which made things easier. Back on the mainland the next day and straight back down to Lilongwe so that I could be in the office Monday morning...

I'd originally planned to be away for 2 weeks but cut it short because my batik workshop project due to hit site on the 28th. Very important to be on site that Monday I was told to set out the foundations, so there I was waiting in the office for my pickup. He never showed up deciding to show up on Tuesday instead. Not impressed, but this kind of thing always happens here. People aren't just an hour late for a meeting, they are a day late, and then don't even call you. I've spent the week twiddling my thumbs for the most part, utterly frustrating as I could of been on a beach for another week. Not a lot of people seem to give a s*** which beggars the question why I should be. I could go on but the blog would degrade into stinking chat. Suffice to say that my patience is running thin.....

Went to the office New Year's party round someone else's house, fortunately beers were allowed this time to which I took full advantage. We had speeches before midnight and were asked to tell the person next to us that 'God loves you'. It was a good job I had a few beers. Fireworks were then let off haphazardly and zipped horizontally across the garden getting everyone to hit the deck. More dancing ensued, and of course my dancing was much better after some Carlsberg, well less pointing that I noticed anyway!

A happy new year to one and all. Lets see what 2010 brings..........