No need to get up early. Nothing to do but wait the weekend out. Early morning the rain started and lasted up until about 8am. It is amazing how green the continent is at the moment. It is lush lush green with trees like flamboyant and frangipani in full blossom. The fields are ploughed and farmers are planting their crops. Malawi is ultra poor and one of the poorest countries in the world. They make up for it with their friendliness and even in the city people are warm and a smile is always lurking on their faces. The properties are massive and I guess a normal house plot must be no less than 3000 sq meters.

Heard this afternoon that diesel has run out in town. It apparently happens often and we can only hope that by the time we are ready to leave (hopefully no later than Wednesday morning) that fuel has arrived in town.

In the camp there is a group of nearly 70 American young Christians doing missionary work in Africa for a period of one year. Most of them just came out of the bush where they did not have showers, mirrors and other basics for months on end, so when they got here they bee-lined for showers and mirrors. Lovely kids, full of life and adding a nice flair to the atmosphere in the camp.

Also ran into a Flemish couple who is travelling with their 2 young kids through Southern Africa for some 6 months while the mother is giving the kids schooling while on the road. She told Arina she hopes she is a better mother than a teacher! They are driving an old Series 3 Land Rover and they broke their front leave springs and bought the last pair available in Lilongwe.

5 December 2010

Another lazy day that started at 5am when the grounds right across from us erupted in music, singing and instruments. A tent was erected at some stage and a church was started and when I left to go to town for some photocopying and getting bread, the church service was still going strong - 9 HOURS LATER!!!!

I just made it back in time before a serious downpour of rain. Everything in the camp was muddy in seconds but the Americans made the best of it and started a mud fight. No man off course can resist women in a mud wrestling fight and soon some 15 of them were covered in mud from head to toe.

Also met a German lady, who immediately resembled Arina in her life-style, who leaves her Series 3 Land Rover in Africa and every year returns for some 3 months to travel all by herself through some part of East or Southern Africa. Brave woman as well. She landed today from Frankfurt and brought her sister along and will take about a week to get her Landie ready before heading off to Tanzania.

Arina is fed-up with crackers and cheese and having Chicken ala King for dinner. I had a mediocre fried chicken for lunch but enjoyed the environment of eating with the locals in town. I am wondering if Arina is having the same camp chicken which was trying at some stage to roost on the Landie when it was still in the camp and the same chicken who then roosted in the bathroom sink.

Tomorrow we will see if see if the Landie will be ready but I have my doubts and planning to depart only on Wednesday and with the diesel crisis, who knows.

As my brother Adrie wrote on the Message Column, I am wondering how many nuts and bolts won't find their way back into the Landie. Fortunately John (Methuselah), the mechanic, is rather meticulous so most should find their way back.

The German lady told us about a German, Paul Graetz who drove from Dar Es Salaam to Swakopmund in 1906!!! Yes, 1906. There was no fuel in Africa in those days, so he sent a team ahead who buried huge containers every so many kilometres with a cross on the mount. At rivers he had to dismantle the car and carry it across. Somewhere along the line the engine blew so they walked back to Dar Es Salaam and sent a message to Germany to send a new engine and carried it back to where the car broke down. And at one filling point in Botswana the fuel container leaked empty while buried and he had to get oxen to pull the vehicle to the next filling point. Now that is a man with guts!!!