Just another day in paradise...

This weekend I fell in love with Malawi. We’ve been dating for a couple of months, but I really wasn’t sure about my true feelings. Sure, we’ve had a couple of great dates. The trip to Senga Bay comes to mind. But the doldrums of daily life in Lilongwe have sort of tempered my feelings about making a real commitment.

But this weekend changed everything and I went ahead and took the plunge. Seriously, how could you look at this sunset and not fall in love?


To be honest, Malawi is an easy country to like, but a hard country to love. There are so many endearing things about it, but several things that prevent you from really making a commitment to it. For instance, life in Lilongwe is incredibly boring. There’s really nothing to do, and it gets so dark here so early that the only option really is to sit inside your house and wait for the hours to pass by. You can really go through life here just spinning your wheels. And that’s basically what I’ve been doing except for some fleeting moments out on the road or in a village that I really enjoyed. But without a car, I’ve really become immobile which is not something I enjoy.

This weekend, however, my friend Stephanie blew into town after a summer in Rwanda and gave me the impetus to rent a car and hit the open road. We ended up spending three straight days sitting on the beach in Lake Malawi just watching the tide roll in and the sun cross the sky. It was somewhere in the middle of that weekend that I realized my true calling – I am destined to build a guest house slash restaurant on a strip of land bordering some body of water. I can just see it now. I’ll wear flip flops and khaki shorts everyday. On Fridays and Saturdays I’ll get my guitar out and play Jimmy Buffett, Bob Marley, and Jack Johnson songs for the world travelers that will constantly be crossing through and staying for the night. I’ll even make Lonely Planet. It’ll say something like “When you stay at Cape Maclear, be sure to ask around with the locals to see if Texas Mike will be on stage tonight. The atmosphere is copasetic and the desserts are divine.” The restaurant will be stocked with some of my favorite goodies, including my favorite recipes, courtesy of my grandmother and Susie Webb.

Ok, maybe I won’t do that everyday. Maybe a more likely scenario is that I’ll take a development job in some big city in Africa. Then on the weekends I’ll escape to my little tropical oasis to feed my soul on warm sunsets and cool drinks. Of course you’ll all be invited to spend a day or a week or a month in paradise. Just bring back some news from the outside world and maybe some Dr. Pepper and I’ll let you stay for free.

The thing that I’ll take the most from the weekend, besides the sunburn and the life calling, is the incredible little village we found. We were in a little town on the Lake called Cape Maclear and it’s the only place where I found a tourist industry in Malawi. Most of Malawi is way off the beaten path for white people. As a result, Malawians don’t have much incentive to cater to white people’s tastes. In the big cities there’s a service industry that has sprung up in the form of security guards, gardeners, and restaurants. But not much in the way of the typical tourist things like curios, guides, etc. But Cape Maclear is the one place where enough white people congregate on a regular enough basis to actually support the entire Malawian population there. It was great to see some kind of industry available to the locals. Malawians are extremely industrious, but in most areas there is just not much for them to do in terms of commerce. It’s frustrating. Unfortunately there still aren’t enough tourists at Cape Maclear and too many Malawians. We paid for one Malawian named Elliot to make us some Banana Pancakes on the beach on Sunday morning. He said that there were about 50 other such cooks all competing for the few tourists strolling up and down the beach.

So the bad part about Cape Maclear is that we were constantly being asked by everyone to let them cook us a fish dinner on the beach, or rent a kayak or snorkeling gear, or guide us through the forest reserve. The cool part is that it is one of the only tourist places I’ve ever been in which all the local housing is literally interspersed amongst all the tourist places. So we literally lived among them for a few days. We all woke up together. They walked right out in front of us sunbathers and bathed in the lake. From our perch on the seat we saw villagers walking up and down with their laundry or the fish they caught. Some of them were going out for the night in dug-out canoes and others were working on a car. There was basically no boundary between the natives and the tourists. That was worth the price of admission itself.

So after all the beach lounging and the conversations with locals and beautiful sunsets how could I not fall for the Warm Heart of Africa? With just under two weeks to go I’m really starting to feel like I’ll miss this place. That wasn’t always the case, but is becoming more and more true with each passing day. I also just recently realized that exactly three weeks from today I’ll find myself in Texas. That’s a complete mindtrip for me. Before that I’ve got a week and a half in Malawi. Then I’ll board a bus for a 30 hour ride which will pass through Mozambique and Zimbabwe on my way to Johannesburg. Then I’ll get onto a sleeper car of a train to Cape Town where I’ll stay for about five days.

With that I’ll leave you with a few of the scenes from around the Lake.

Gratuitous plug and some pictures

This past week I had the good fortune of visiting ten primary schools over the course of three days. It was a much needed break from the office, especially for this teacher-turned-development worker. It reminded me that there is life beyond the cubicle if I can just get somebody to pay me to go out and play with kids in Africa. Any takers???

In our classes and in various discussions in DC and in Africa there is a lot of skepticism if not downright cynicism about the work that the US government (through USAID) is doing in poor countries. People always ask the question, Have we really accomplished anything? The skeptics (realists?) always point out that Africa is actually poorer than it was in the 1960’s, measured by the size of the economy. But I’m convinced that that’s a poor way of looking at this thing we call “development”. Just because an economy does good or bad does not mean that I am developing or not. Real “development” takes place on an incremental level in households. When economies grow, that usually only aggrandizes the wealthy. But when education improves or money goes towards health, it benefits everyone. My grandfather was big on education. He used to say that it’s one of the few things they can’t take away from you. And, barring frontal lobotomies, that’s mostly true.

I think that’s why the trips out to these schools were so good for me. We’re spending a lot of (but not nearly enough!) money on primary school education. It’s a long-term commitment that won’t yield returns for maybe 20 years. But there is real progress taking place in primary schools in Malawi. The projects that I visited in rural parts of Malawi have all been going for about 3 or 4 years now and every school I visited was so proud of their progress in that short amount of time. One of the biggest improvements came in the methods teachers use. From my own experience I know how easy and inefficient it is to try to stand up and lecture to students. That’s what we see in college, so that’s what we know. Well, when you’re staring at a classroom of 100 first-graders, that’s not really going to be very effective. So USAID has been training teachers to break the classes up into small groups and encourage more hands-on learning. The results were stunning. After visiting several schools that were not using this technique, it was amazing to see how much progress was being made in the teacher-trained schools. The kids were speaking nearly perfect English by 7th grade and were dictating to me the parts of the ear and fractional math. And with the kids learning more, the parents were taking a renewed interest in their kids’ schools and donating more money for building construction and maintenance and teacher salaries.

Probably the most interesting part of my entire trip to Africa also happened during my tours around Malawi’s schools. There’s a secret society in Chewa culture here in Malawi called the Gula Wamkulu (pictures below). Induction into the group is so secretive that even your wives and mothers are not supposed to know that you’re in it. When they go out in public they wear ostentatious and brightly colored costumes. The group kind of carries on the traditions and morals of Chewa society. It’s kind of the traditional glue from one generation to the next. Kind of like Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve in America.

I encountered this group because up until a couple of years ago they were actually encouraging kids to stop going to school because they saw no benefit for the kids. They actually chased kids away from school in their scary costumes while wielding clubs. So when USAID went into these rural areas and started improving schools, one part of the program was to show the community the improvements and how they’re helping kids learn. Soon the Gula Wamkulu was on board with the new program and turned about face in their policies. Now there are actually pictures of them chasing kids towards school. You should see the scared looks on the kids’ faces as they’re being chased by men dressed up as roosters and sheep. In those areas school enrollment almost doubled, along with the attendance rate. Now that’s a truancy officer. On my visit the Gula Wamkulu were hosting a fundraiser for local schools in which they performed their native dances for the villages and received donations. I was the only westerner amongst a crowd of about 500 watching this dance. I can’t hope to describe what I saw, but I did take several videos which I can show you when I’m back.

Ah, but here’s the rub. The US Congress has limited how much money we can spend on education in Malawi. Most of the money from the US government has to go to health because Congressmen like to say they’re giving money for health. So as a result we’ve only been able to implement these projects in 4 of the 26 districts in Malawi. So we’re only barely making a dent in a huge problem in Malawi. So feel free to write your Congressman to get some more money for programs like this in Malawi.

So that’s just a recent perspective I’ve had here in Africa’s warm heart. In the midst of all that I thought that I had contracted malaria, but it turns out I just picked up some other random virus in one of the dozen or so villages I visited among the hundreds of hands I shook in my time out there. Blood and urine tests came back negative, so God only knows what it was. Unfortunately it took 3 painful pricks into my veins to draw enough blood from me. (Note to self: don’t give blood in the middle of Africa)

I’m now under three weeks left in Malawi before I head off again for some more overland travel across Africa, and, I’m sure, more fun African travel stories. Before then my friend Stephanie comes to my little country this weekend to experience the joy of Lake Malawi. I would say time is flying by for me, but in reality it seems like it’s moving at a normal pace. Not too fast; not too slow. Just like Malawi.

Before I sign out, here are some more fun tidbits I picked up about Malawi during my travels. While visiting schools I was surrounded by Malawians all day with no Westerners anywhere to be found, so I got to learn some more about the culture:

-Driving down the ol’ M1 in the Northern Region of Malawi we passed by an official-looking road sign that read “CAMEL” just off the road. My driver informed me that the owner of that house brought the first camel to Malawi just a few years ago so they put a sign up in front of his house. Apparently he uses it to sow his fields and ride into town.

-If the Gula Wamkulu was the most incredible thing I saw in Africa so far, this is number 1b. There’s a boy named William who read a book in a library (donated by USAID) about wind power. William was 14 at the time and had dropped out of school because his very rural parents could not afford the school fees. As William read about windmills he got the crazy idea in his head that he could build one and provide free electricity for his very rural house. So he did just that, in spite of the crazy looks he got from his family and friends. And to everyone’s amazement, it worked! Having never left his rural village and with no knowledge of electricity other than what he read in that book and another one on Chemistry he built a real working wind-powered electrical source. He even invented his own type of outlets and switches. And all of it was made with junk that he found laying around local villages. William’s house today has a tv, dvd, and ipods, all donated by a wealthy American and powered by this amazing boy. He’s now building a second windmill that will power a water pump and allow his family to irrigate an entire field. William is 19 now and has been given a scholarship to a prestigious school for future leaders of Africa in Johannesburg. This is a picture of William's mom (on the right) and the two windmills.

-With so many animals living basically on the roads here in Malawi, I’ve been wondering what happens if you hit one of them. This week I found out the answer – you must negotiate with the owner a fair price for the animal. I got an estimate from some of my guides. If you hit a chicken you pay about $10. If you hit a dog (the local guard service) you pay about $15. And if you hit a goat you pay $25. You can also negotiate whether or not you get to take the animal with you for food.

-One of the local delicacies in Malawi is field mice, which they serve either boiled or fried, and sell on sticks along the sides of the road. Not every Malawian eats them, but the ones that do eat them eat the whole thing, starting with the head and working their way down. The tail is supposed to be the tastiest part of the mouse. It is said a good wife is one that serves a field mouse with the tail attached and a bad wife will cut it off.

(this guy lit himself on fire during his dance)

(These guys are supposed to be sheep. The belief is that once you put on the costume you actually become that creature.)

(This guy came and stood about 5 feet away and stared at me long enough for me to get my camera out and snap a picture.)

(Imagine this guy chasing a bunch of 1st graders to school)

The few, the proud, the muzungus

(after three spectacularly unsuccessful attempts at adding pictures to this blog, I am posting it sans photos until such time as the internet gods deem my sacrifice worthy)

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I set off this past weekend with my new friends Emily, Andrew, (the veggie-twins) and Amy (the “I wasn’t born in Texas but I got here as fast as I could” Texan) to test my mettle on a mountain. It was one of those moments when the potential for adventure overcame sound reason and good logic in my mind. There were a lot of things that could have gone wrong with this trip, but, obviously since I’m writing this, I ultimately survived…or did I? (DUH duh duh)

The destination of our journey was a giant granite rock in the south of Malawi called Mt. Mulanje. Although the rock climbs high above the clouds at 3100 meters, it is hard to call it a mountain. In technical terms it is actually a massif, which is French for “giant whale”. Just kidding. I don’t know what it means, but it’s basically a huge rock formation that stretches for miles (200 miles squared to be exact), with a series of plateaus and one sharp peak. The lure of climbing such a giant rock is obvious. What’s less obvious is why anyone would want to race up the mountain. But every year in July an event takes place called The Porter’s Race. Porters are those locals who carry all of your gear on their heads and walk with you up the mountain. They demonstrate incredible feats of strength, not the least of which because they are usually climbing with flip flops or no shoes at all (see below).

So I and a couple of other muzungus thought it would be a great idea to attempt to race alongside these abnormally gifted men and women. As I mentioned, there were several things that could go wrong on this trip. For instance:

-I haven’t run more than 6 miles since my marathon over two years ago. The Porter’s Race is 15 miles up and down a mountain.

-The entire race, in fact the entire country is at high altitude, which isn’t great on the lungs.

-Even in my runs through Lilongwe I haven’t climbed a hill more than 100 feet high.

-And perhaps most dangerous of all, Mt. Mulanje is believed by many Malawians to be inhabited by evil spirits. In fact, the highest point of the mountain, Sapitwa, literally means “Don’t go there” in the native Chichewa. There are stories everywhere you go in Malawi about people disappearing on the mountain. Three years ago a Dutch girl tried to climb Sapitwa on her own and disappeared without a trace. Professional search and rescuers from the Netherlands showed up to try to find her. They brought dogs up the mountain to sniff her out. Traditional healers were sent up along with local church leaders. But nary was a trace found. In mountain climbing circles, this is very rare except on the highest of peaks.

One rumor of the mountain is that it is still inhabited by an ancient civilization called the Abatwa, a small, light-skinned race that supposedly settled this region before the Bantu migration brought the current inhabitants. Their legend, however, has grown such that, according to Wikipedia, it is believed that:

“The Abatwa are tiny humans said to be able to hide beneath a blade of grass and to be able to ride ants. They are said to live a nomadic lifestyle and are continually on the hunt for game.
Legend states that if one happens to come across an Abatwa, one will typically be asked a question like, "From where did you first see me?" One must reply by saying one saw them from a mountain, or some far away area. They are said to be extremely sensitive about their size, and if one answers by saying that one only saw them right then for the first time, the Abatwa will try to kill them with poison arrows. Stepping on an Abatwa by accident is also said to be a death sentence.
Due to their shy nature, they will only tolerate being seen by the very young (said to be anyone under the age of 4), by magicians, and by pregnant women. If a pregnant woman in her seventh month of pregnancy sees a male Abatwa, it is said that she will give birth to a boy.”

So, needless to say, there were lots of things to watch out for during this 15 mile trek across Malawi’s highest point.

Before we left for the trip I was walking out of the USAID building down a flight of stairs in my hiking shoes when I completely lost my footing and slid down an entire flight of stairs, only saving myself with a quick grasp of the railing. Not a good sign when you’re about to race up and down a mountain. Then, as we were approaching the mountain in the dark, completely unaware of our surroundings, the dirt road we were traveling on suddenly disappeared about 5 feet in front of the car. It turns out that they were building a bridge that had not been completed yet, but had failed to put up a safety sign. TIA. There were at least 5 more uncompleted bridges we had to try to avoid on the way up to the forest lodge where we were camping for the night.

So on to race day:

5am – Up early to register for the supposed 6:30am start time. The only people there are 3 porters wearing t-shirts and either flip flops or no shoes at all. We hear that the race probably won’t start until 7:00.

7am – We show up back at the starting line and a large crowd has gathered. We are surrounded by around 100 other runners, most Malawians with about 7 other muzungus. I am floored by the footwear, as well as the women in wraps that are gearing up for the race. When we walked up everyone was frozen stiff by the brisk morning air. Suddenly, they get the PA system to work and they start blaring some rhythmic African music. Instantly the entire crowd (with the exception of the 10 muzungus) begin to move in unison. This is all the warm-up they will need for the race.

7:20 – Race time is fast approaching. All of us muzungus are filling up our water bottles and packing some high-protein, high-carb snacks for the long run. The Malawians are all buying pieces of bubble gum which is all they can afford and all they will eat during the race.

7:30 – The race starts! 100 of us begin our ascent up the mountain. The lead pack of Malawians are on a dead sprint from the start, probably at around 4:00 mile pace over the only flat terrain of the morning. Within ½ mile we reach the climbing portion of the race.

7:45 – I’ve been climbing for 15 minutes and I’m immediately regretting this decision. My pulse is beating at max heart rate (180 beat/minute maybe?). The steep climb is the same inclination as a flight of stairs. How old do you have to be to have a heart attack?

8:00 – still climbing…I’m working my way up with 4 barefoot Malawian teenage girls who are hardly breathing.

8:15 – The barefoot Malawian girls have long surpassed me when we come to the first water station. It consists of two buckets and four cups. One bucket offers water and the other offers orange soda. All the competitors share the 4 cups. This would be the pattern through all of the water stations. Sanitation is the least of my worries at this point as I feel that battery acid is now pulsing through my legs.

8:30 – still climbing…

8:40 – Finally reach the top of the plateau and another water station. I have just scaled 3 rocky miles in just over an hour and I’ve got 12 more miles to go. Little did I know the plateau would continue to be a gradual climb, peaking at over 2200 meters. That’s a mile and a half straight up.

9:30 – The temperature has dropped and I feel mist on my face. I then realize that I am now running through a cloud. Then it dawns on me that I just ran up to a cloud. My legs hurt.

10:00 – Moisture has enveloped me and I feel the beginnings of a blister on my foot.

10:30 – The terrain is beautiful, like something out of a movie. I feel like William Wallace in Braveheart as he runs through the Scottish highlands. Or maybe more like some hunky prince in Lord of the Rings. Except that I’m running over a path of rocks and the cloud I’m running through cuts my vision to about 30 feet in front of me. I made a wrong turn at one point and soon realized that the path (marked by chalk arrows) is about 100 feet below me. As I try to walk down the bushy hill I slip on the wet rocks a couple of times. This would continue for the rest of the “race”. I haven’t seen another person for the last 45 minutes. Where am I?

10:40 – I reach the last water station before the descent. Finally a Malawian runner has joined me and we start the descent together. Each step it feels as though a hammer is driving itself into my thighs and my feet have nothing to land on but hard rock.

11:00 – The Malawian finally passes me as I have to slow down on the steep, slippery down hills to prevent a major catastrophe. I should have sprained my ankle about 20 times on the way down and torn my ACL at least 5 times. I guess today the spirits are on my side.

11:30 – How much longer? I’ve been running for four hours now. At this moment I am the embodiment of the facial expressions my runners used to give me at the end of long workouts I forced on them as a coach. In fact I start to wonder if somehow they have all conspired to mete out their revenge on me today.

11:45 – I pass by women and children balancing huge bundles of lumber on their heads while I’m struggling just to stay upright. These aren’t runners, this is their normal life. I estimate the biggest bundles at 200 pounds and the smallest at 100. The people carrying them all weigh less than 100 pounds.

12:00 – After four and a half hours I finally finish the race. I do a nose-dive across the finish line just for show. The winner today finished in just over 2 hours. I am cut, scratched, bruised, sore, dehydrated, and famished from the run. At the same time I am riding a runner’s high like no other. Occasionally the clouds broke just long enough to allow me to see the incredible beauty of the massif. I can’t describe to you the feeling of being on top of that rock looking down at the clouds and the tiny buildings way off in the distance.

Like I said, this was probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever done…and I enjoyed every minute of it…well, almost every minute of it.

Mountain or mole hill?

This weekend I'm heading out with friends to run up a mountain. Seriously. Apparently there's an annual porters race (porters are the people who carry your stuff while you struggle up the mountain) in Malawi every year. It's not quite all the way up the mountain, but it is a 22 km (12 or 13 miles???) race up and then down a portion of Mt. Mulanje. So of course I couldn't resist giving it a try. It could end up being the dumbest and coolest thing I've ever done. For the worriers out there, there's a nice hospital at the base of the mountain and they're more than used to handling white guys like me who thought it'd be a good idea to run up a portion of the mountain.

But before I leave, a few news and notes...

1) As the situation in Zimbabwe has worsened, Malawians, and most of Africa, have been trying to figure out what the President of Malawi, Mutharika, would say about the worsening situation. But he has remained curiously silent about the whole issue. This has led to some very plausible theories that he is somehow in cahoots with Mugabe. For instance: he just named a new highway after Mugabe, he is married to a Zimbabwean that is somehow related to Mugabe, there is a rumor that he's building Mugabe a house in my neighborhood of all places, there's another rumor that Mugabe has given Mutharika a farm in Zimbabwe and that Mutharika has given Mugabe a farm in Malawi. Of course no one ever knows how much these street rumors are true, but Mutharika isn't doing anything to refute them. So it'll be interesting to see how the whole issue plays itself out and whether or not Mutharika is ever forced to choose a side.

2) I thought this article was interesting: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/world/africa/11sudan.html?ref=todayspaper
It's about whether or not to indict the president of Sudan on war crimes, and then how that might affect aid organizations in Sudan. I'm not sure what the right answer might be.

3) I stumbled upon this video about a 'Sports for Development' program in Kibera, Kenya which is one of the biggest slums in the world (slums are euphamistically called 'informal housing'). It's probably the first time in my life where I saw someone's job and wished I had it. I could definitely see myself doing this in a year when I graduate. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRsU1IUJoKw

4) While researching one of these Sports for Development groups, I found the following cautionary note which I thought was funny:

POTENTIAL HARM
The negative aspects of sport cannot be discounted. Sport can lead to elitism and ex­clusion, excessive alcohol consumption and drug abuse. It can lead to inordinate com­petitiveness and nationalism that can further divide communities and nations. There is always the potential for doping, cheating, corruption and violence. The benefits of sport, however, far outweigh these potential negative consequences.

Good to know. Thanks lawyers. Look, just because I'm an alcohol abusing, overly-competitive, corrupt doper that is prone to violent outbursts does NOT mean that sports are bad for you.

5) I'm also switching houses this weekend, so I'm saying goodbye to my two dogs Cassie and Woosha and the Armed Forces Network, and I'm saying hello to my new dog Dar (a black lab!!) and South African Satelite Television. Hello BBC!

Tripppin' on a flux capacitor

This past weekend I saddled up my pony and moseyed down yonder to Mozambique for some fun in the sun. The picture to the left is the main reason I decided to fork over the greenbacks for the trip. Too much time in the office makes Michael go crazy.

I flew to Johannesburg, South Africa where I met up with my friend Jessica, the Robin to my Batman on this trip as she prefers to be called. The plan was to rent a car and travel overland to Maputo, the capitol of Mozambique to meet up with our friend Christina. It gave me an opportunity to try driving on the other side of the road, while steering from the other side of the car. After dodging a few pedestrians in the parking lot and looking the wrong way a few times to turn, we finally headed out on the road to Maputo. Well, to be exact, we camped in Pretoria for the night and then strolled down the road.

I eventually became comfortable with the driving, but I never quite became acclimated to the scenery. In fact, it was the first time that I really experienced some bit of culture shock since arriving in Africa. My guide book informed me that the small district in South Africa which houses both Pretoria and Johannesburg accounts for 10% of the wealth of the entire continent of Africa. It basically looks like any part of the US with well-kept towns and four-lane highways filled with millions of modern cars and hardly any signs of poverty. This is in stark contrast to the one-lane country roads of Malawi filled with mule-driven carts and ratted old buses plugging across a landscape dotted with tiny villages of mud huts.

Towards the end of the trip I realized why going to Malawi hadn’t bothered me as much as leaving it did. I think in my mind I had prepared myself for Africa to be as poor as I could imagine. I was prepared for people to be living out in the bush with no permanent housing and completely cut off from the world. I knew this wasn’t the case, but, maybe as a defense mechanism, it’s how I prepared myself. So every time I saw something modern like a road with no potholes or power lines, or a fine Indian or Italian restaurant I became more and more impressed by Malawi’s development. But when I arrived in South Africa it was like jumping ahead five decades. In fact, that’s a pretty good comparison for Malawi. It reminds me of what the US might have been like back in the 40’s and 50’s when the US was still a mostly rural society, at peace, and just starting to stumble upon some economic progress. It was probably what Doc Brown and Marty felt like when they hopped out of the Delorian.

Maybe that’s why people in the circumstances I find in Malawi seem so content. They really don’t know what they’re missing. They’re happy to see a new hotel being built, or, more locally, to see a road that can bring commerce to their little villages. They’re happy to have a bike when most people are still forced to walk. I hate to say ignorance is bliss, because I don’t like the word ignorance there. But I feel like if they were exposed to such development things would be a lot worse. This is why there’s so much conflict in places where there’s such severe inequality.

The trail to Maputo carried us into the small kingdom of Swaziland. Swaziland is its own country, completely surrounded by South Africa and Mozambique, and one of the last true kingdoms in the world. It was a fascinating little country, very clean and seemed to be as developed as South Africa. It actually may have been one of the favorite places I have ever been. The landscape was beautiful and it was filled with modern amenities. It was almost impossible to remember that Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the world – almost 40% of the population is infected…two out of every 5 people. In the early nineties the rate was only 3%. Jessica and I stopped at an incredibly beautiful little restaurant overlooking a garden, followed by fields of sugar stalks all set in front of distant mountains. Apparently it’s a pretty popular spot since there was a plaque that informed me that “Jimmy Carter, President of the United States of America, Stood Here”. The curious part about the plaque is that it was in the urinal. And if you think I didn’t take a picture with that, then you’re crazy.

On we traveled, and by the time we reached Maputo it was already dark. Maputo is a large, dirty city that apparently has quite a crime problem. In fact, our car had not been parked outside Christina’s apartment for 30 minutes before we had a hubcap stolen. True story. We paid a teenager to watch the car for the rest of the night and luckily we didn’t lose anything else. We dined at a restaurant in Christina’s neighborhood where I tried a cut of meat I haven’t had a chance to try before (If you’re a vegetarian or Bambi-lover skip to the next paragraph). The special of the night was Gazelle served as a kebob. And it was delicious!!! It was easily one of the best cuts of meat I have ever tasted. If you’re ever at a restaurant in Maputo and gazelle’s on the menu I definitely recommend it.

The next morning we landed at a beach two hours north of Maputo and basically became vegetables for the next 24 hours eating whatever was available on the menus (which was about half the items actually listed on the menu) and drinking cold beverages. While lounging around I learned that I could communicate with the Portuguese speakers of Mozambique fairly well with my Spanish. More proof that I could probably learn Italian or Portuguese in about a week. I also spent the whole weekend waiting in vain for the chocolate cake at the restaurant where we spent most of our time. It was mentioned in the guide book as one of the best desserts around. Those of you who know me know how much this excited me. Unfortunately they didn’t have it when we first got there. But they said it would be there in the morning. So we checked back in the morning after another beautiful sunrise (see picture below). No cake. Check back in the afternoon. But, alas, we were gone by then and I did not get my Mozambican chocolate cake. (But those of you who know me, also could bet that when I made it back to Malawi I made a chocolate cake that is delicious.)

This reminds me of a book I’m reading. The author talks about time in Africa and how different it is from time in the West. For instance, if you see a bus and ask an African “When is this bus leaving?” you’ll likely get a strange look. That’s because, to them, the ‘bus’ does not exist yet. It only exists (and leaves) when there are people on it. Without people, there is no bus, and when there are people the ‘bus’ exists and it leaves. It’s just a different way of interpreting time. So, unfortunately for me, the ‘chocolate cake’ did not exist this weekend, and by the time it came into being I was already gone.

Unfortunately the beach could not be home for long enough and Jessica and I were forced to return to our normal lives. On the way back to South Africa we took a more direct route that bypassed Swaziland. Unfortunately it was also the more traveled stretch of road because everyone is trying to get into South Africa, which meant that the line leaving Mozambique and the next one for entering South Africa each stretched about 75 meters which probably would have taken a total of four hours to get through. Luckily a guy came up to us before we could even get out of our car and said that he could cut in line for us to get our passports stamped for a small fee. Once we figured out what he was talking about we readily agreed and got through each border post in about 10 minutes. It turns out that the guys we talked to bribes the guard at the door and the agent inside to get our passports stamped early. I don’t know why they didn’t put that in my Lonely Planet guide book. Best piece of advice I could give somebody crossing the border from Mozambique to South Africa.

After some more driving through the extensive bush of South Africa (and a few extra turns along the way J) we made it back for the night and I was back on a flight to the 1950’s the next morning. The crazy part is that on the way back I realized how much I had missed Malawi while I was gone. It doesn’t have all the luxuries and amenities of South Africa and Maputo, but it’s becoming my own little corner of Africa. The trip was a nice break and a chance to catch up with friends, but in the end it made me glad that I chose Malawi for my first experience in Africa. Or maybe it chose me. Hard to say.

It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegone...

(If you don’t get that reference, you’re probably under 40)

Have I told you how quiet Lilongwe is? It’s one of the aspects of this summer that I wasn’t quite prepared for. I think I’ve mentioned that Lilongwe is set up in two sections. I heard a story that it’s like that because the Apartheid government of South Africa some decades ago paid for and designed the city. As a result, the wealthy and foreign residents of the city are housed in one section, while the native African and poorer people live in another section. In the rich foreigner section we all live in big houses with increasingly bigger fences, based on status I presume. I.e. the US Ambassador has a bigger fence than some ordinary citizen. My wall stands proudly at 9 feet tall.

The crummy part of this set up is that you really need a car to leave my section of town where there are no bars, restaurants, or even grocery stores - just miles and miles of walled-in houses. So the evenings here, which start at about 5:45pm, can get pretty long and boring. Combine that with my job kind of slowing down this week and I’ve been struggling to find things to post here.

Luckily things will be picking up in the next few weeks. Tomorrow I go to South Africa for some fun in the sun with some friends from my graduate program. We’re going to rent a car and drive over to Mozambique to relax on a beach, order drinks with little umbrellas in them, and get in touch with our inner-Jimmy Buffett. I’m going to really watch out for those pot-pots so I don’t blow out a flip flop. Then, I’m organizing some trips for work that will include visiting schools that are doing innovate things to keep kids involved, free of HIV/AIDS, and safe from violence. I’m also going to visit some summer camps for Malawians that should be loads of fun.

In the meantime, about all I could muster for this spot is an update on the political turmoil taking place in Malawi and some strange things I’ve noticed around Malawi…


Seeing all of the problems going on in Zimbabwe makes me really glad that Malawi has never had any kind of nation-wide violence like that. They had a somewhat benign dictator, Hastings Banda, who finally submitted to multi-party elections in 1994. Of course he lost, and willingly gave up power. The new president became Bakili Muluzi (muh LOO zee) who represented the Southern Region of Malawi, which is the most populous. He didn’t really distinguish himself as a very bad or very good president. After serving two terms, he tried to have the constitutional limit of 2-terms for a sitting president amended so that he could continue in power, but failed. So instead, he hand-picked a member of his party to run for him and basically be a puppet. That guy is the current president, Bingu wa Mutharika (moo THAW ree cuh). Unfortunately Bingu (as he’s affectionately and derisively called here) decided he didn’t want to be a puppet and went about being his own man. He even went so far as to create a new party, of which he is the head. Obviously this made Muluzi pretty mad and he has been scheming to get back into power ever since. He decided to make Bingu’s life a living hell until they could run against each other when Bingu’s term runs out in 2009. This is kind of like if Bill Clinton tried to get back into the White House after George Bush’s term ended…wait, never mind. That would never happen in the States.

In the meantime, like I said, Muluzi is doing everything he can to ruin Bingu’s presidency. The battle has really been heated over the fact that Bingu switched parties and convinced other members of parliament to do the same. Well, apparently this is unconstitutional and anyone who switches parties is supposed to be kicked out of office, which is what Muluzi is screaming. At the same time Bingu is trying to run the government and pass a budget and stuff. Bingu finally had to shut down parliament because he was so afraid that all of his party members would get kicked out and he would get impeached and also because nothing was getting done because of the political deadlock. (Aren’t you glad our Congress isn’t like this?!...wait, never mind.) And so now we sit, and these two heavyweights sling mud at each other and try to make each other’s lives miserable. And all the while serious problems are going on in Malawi and nobody is able to fix them. This will probably continue until the elections take place in May 2009. Everyday the parliament meets, Bingu’s people try to start the budget process, while Muluzi’s party screams about the constitution. Wild and crazy stuff.

Ok, I really needed to get that off my chest. I feel better now, and I’ll keep you posted “as the world turns” in Malawi. It’s really some great theater, so I’ll post some of the juicier news pieces such as when a member of parliament yelled called a Muslim member “al Quaeda”.

Other news and notes:

-It’s getting colder and colder here in Malawi. This morning I could actually see my breath, and I started using the heater in my room. Definitely didn’t think this would happen in the heart of Africa. Stupid southern hemisphere.

-I was talking to a coworker of mine about music in Malawi because I’ve been dying to find a guitar here I can borrow. Over the course of the conversation I found out that, inexplicably, Malawians are in love with Country & Western. But not just any C&W. Only the old stuff. We’re talking Hank Williams, Sr., Kenny Rogers, and the person they love the most – Jim Reeves! This has been verified by every Malawian I have spoken to since hearing the news. They all give me an embarrassed little smile and then tell me it’s true. Too much fun. So, of course, now I have this grand idea of bringing my guitar back here one day and kicking off my career as a traveling C&W singer in the heart of Africa. Wait, this makes too much sense. I better just move on…

-There’s a belief among Malawians here that if you are a man and you eat raw cassava plants freshly picked out of the ground, that you will inherit strength and virility. They even have a modern song about it with the chorus “Fire, Fire, Cassava. All the women get worried when they see men with cassava because there’ll be no sleep tonight.”

-And I finally hit up a very Malawian church. It was a neat experience, culturally speaking. The room had about 100 people in it, and about 60 were kids. I thought it was so cool that they just let the kids run all over the church while they played songs. One interesting thing about Malawians is that kids never seem to be a nuisance to adults. They don’t notice crying babies and pay very little attention to little kids running around. This transfers to church where kids are just running around having such a good time. I loved watching it. They all played a game of “who can stare at the lone white guy the longest”. There was one little baby crawling on the ground and I never did figure out who his mother was. He kept getting picked up by a different woman every five minutes or so. They also had a time to meet the new visitors – which was me. Their tradition is that every member of the church comes over to shake the visitor’s hand. So I sat there while 60 kids all practically jumped on me trying to shake my hand. It was a little embarrassing at first, but after awhile I enjoyed kidding around with the kids. Good times.

Happy July 4th Ya'll!!! Have some hamburges, apple pie, and sweet tea for me!!!