by Joanne Glynn
The parents get a kick out of Neil’s unique interpretation of where we’ve been and what we’ve seen and their frequent ‘What was that again, Neil?’ leads many times to splutters of laughter. Like Estonia National Park instead of Etosha, Neil has also been to Sangria Bay, not Senga Bay, but didn’t have time to visit Fish River Gully (Fish River Canyon, just the second-largest canyon in the world), although at Lake Nakuru he saw plenty of flamencos on the shoreline. Our hosts are particularly tickled to learn that Japanese use shit cakes (shiitake mushrooms) in their cooking and all of us, including Neil, have a good chortle when Lake Chilwa becomes Lake Chowder. But Neil is unrepentant and says later that the obvious food theme must be a subliminal reaction to the general standard of dining we’ve experienced throughout our travels.
A half day’s drive down the lake we find the Livingstonia Beach Hotel, a lovely old whitewashed colonial building, a poor cousin to the Victoria Falls Hotel in Zimbabwe. We’re the only guests staying here and have the pick of rooms. We choose a cavernous one that has TV and a little garden and the staff fuss about fetching extra pillows and re-hanging droopy curtains. We return from breakfast one morning to find the room attendant has left ‘Feel at Home’ spelt out in little flowers on a napkin by our bed.
To get to and from the Livingstonia we must pass through the town of Salima, a dishevelled, bustling place surrounded by maize and tobacco fields. Its main road is full of donkey carts and bicycles jostling good-naturedly for space, and on the footpaths a number of coffin-makers compete for business. One has a selection of very expensive-looking lacquered and brassed coffins on display while another, the Comfort Coffin Shop, has a billboard offering 24-hour service and a cell phone number. It’s noticeable here in Malawi that there seems to be no stigma attached to this most necessary of industries, or to the reason for having the industry in the first place. In other countries we’ve passed through the coffin-makers often run their businesses from behind other shops, or just have a display of their wares alongside more domestic furniture. One exception was in Uganda, where we were alerted by a slightly alarmed American Christian Aid worker that he’d seen coffins with windows. So what, I thought, until I too saw them displayed by the roadside. The windows are in the sides, not on top, and no one has been able to give a logical reason for this although I’m sure there is one.
Malawians seem a practical bunch. As well as embracing the coffin shops and umbrellas, they give their children descriptive but totally unromantic names. We’ve met Trouble, Simple, Danger and Memory, and when Neil asked Trouble’s friend how he could have got such a name the answer was perfectly reasonable: he might have been sick or difficult as a baby and his parents foresaw trouble ahead. Reasonable as well as obvious, by the look on the friend’s face.
Throughout our travels we’ve come across myriad objects carried on heads — umbrellas, hoes, metal beams, a halo of bananas, a Medusa spray of spinach, Bibles on Sundays, schoolbooks on school days, a suitcase, a metal bucket with a suitcase in it — but on the road out of Salima we come upon the best of them all: a shiny tin bathtub with a baby sitting in it. He’s enjoying the ride and has a goofy smile on his face as he gently sways about to the rhythm of his mother’s steps.
Our next stop is at the southern end of the lake in a very nice Italian-owned place, Club Makokola. With 36 rooms it’s quite a bit bigger than we’re used to, but because of the rains we’re the only guests once again. The chalets are set in grassy flowering gardens under baobab trees, and there’s a long white beach and a long white cloud that settles by lunchtime over the mountain ranges on the far side of the lake.
The managers are a white Zimbabwean couple, in Malawi to make some money and to escape the sadness and madness back home. They take us with them on a social outing to visit another Zimbabwean couple; these ones have left for good and are biding their time before migrating to Australia. They are a most eccentric couple. They live in a magical rustic cottage nestled on a peninsula in the lake, surrounded on three sides by water and on the fourth by an orchard carpeted in thick green grass. The house is under thatch and has leadlight windows and low dark rooms. And dogs. At present there are about twelve of them but the menagerie started at more than 30. There are little ones, big ones, smart ones, playful ones and a blind one, mostly strays or abandonees but all now living out a happy life. The owners brought some of them from Zimbabwe in a specially chartered plane but inherited the rest from the previous owner of the property, where the deal was that the dogs came with the house. When the dogs have all died the couple will be free and on the first plane to Perth. The family’s devotion to the mutts is total, and the dogs are allowed to eat biscuits and scones and sit on the best sofas. It’s a beautiful crazy household full of love and laughter.
Many people have sung the praises of Liwonde National Park and recommended that we visit it. They’ve spoken of its beauty and its position, bordered by the Upper Shire River and Lake Molombe at the bottom of Lake Malawi. With all that water around, it has swamps, grasslands, deciduous forests and, Neil’s favourite, mopane woodlands. It’s also reputed to be home to a great number of animals and birds. We couldn’t let this one pass us by so we’ve booked in to Mvuu Camp, one of only two lodges in the park.
It’s good and exciting to be back in a game park again. We leave the Troopy at the barrage where there is a transfer boat waiting to take us upriver to the lodge, and here we meet Angel, our guide. He takes us on game drives and river safaris and his turn of phrase enchants all of us aboard. He tells us that ‘warthoggys do need to drink oftenly’, and that the carcass of a young zebra was ‘found deaded’ yesterday. He has a sore on his shin and when someone gives him a bandaid he announces unselfconsciously that he doesn’t know ‘how to make it’. After he’s shown how to apply it he wears his bandaid like a badge and it’s still in place when we leave. Like many of the guides we’ve come across his knowledge of the local flora and fauna is self-taught but extensive, and he imparts it with generosity and humour. A bachelor herd of impalas, united in their inability to lord it over a breeding family, becomes ‘a pack of losers’, and he refers to a newly arrived group of middleaged female tourists as ‘the spinster herd’.
Accommodation at Mvuu is in roomy stone and canvas chalets (pronounced ‘tchalettes’ by the staff) and the only drawback is their proximity to each other. A small clique of Germans arrive on our second day and move in to the chalets next to ours, and in a couple of hours they quickly dispel the rumour I started in Namibia that German tourists travelled around moody and uptight. This pack goes to bed after midnight, laughing and calling to each other, waking everyone around them, then are up with the monkeys at dawn to continue the fun and games. Angel puts it down to the fact that they’re noisy boozers, something he’d been before becoming a born-again Christian.
The crack–crash of thunder is so sudden, so close and so loud that for a second we lose all sense of place. Then hippos bellow and monkeys screech, and humans all utter the same expletive simultaneously. It’s an afternoon thunderstorm, but Angel and his fearless followers venture out for a game drive in an open vehicle. With only thin raincoats we cheerfully predict an early break, a drizzle of short duration before the clouds clear. Time passes and game is thin on the ground and the folds of the raincoats channel water onto the cameras and into our shoes. Neil wants to turn back: he’s already had enough and sits dispirited beside me. But he can see that I’m enjoying myself and so are our companions, a Dutch couple from Blantyre where the husband is a visiting paediatrician. This is a rare weekend of R&R for him and anything must be better than the dark pressures of the ward, so Neil hunkers down silent and resigned, looking very much like he did the last time the Australian rugby team lost to South Africa.
The rain intensifies, and the only animals we see are a family of waterlogged warthogs. On a steep incline the vehicle slides and lurches alarmingly then conks out altogether. Like rats we scramble out and head for higher ground, slipping and sliding in the mud.
Angel looks worried. He revs the engine and burns up the hill with mud flying, splatting our arms and chests. We’re out of danger but now we’ve all lost enthusiasm so agree to head back to camp for a hot shower. At least we get a round of applause from the rest of the guests sitting warm and dry at the bar and taking snapshots of our appearance, which is more New Guinea Mudmen than Out of Africa.
Malawi is a forgotten island stranded in the middle of the greatest welfare state of them all. Not well known for its wild animals or prolific national parks, tourists don’t flock to Malawi, and with a peaceful history and relatively stable government, aid agencies don’t feel the need to throw huge sums of money at the country. Sure there are many worthy projects that have only been possible through overseas funding, and the streets of Blantyre and Lilongwe are humming with the usual number of white and shiny four-wheel drives bearing the insignias of the World Health Organization or the European Union, but the cries of the rest of Africa — in more dire straights and in immediate need — must be a compelling priority. Most of the other tourists we come across are locally employed Europeans snatching a little R&R. They don’t have a lot of money to spend and they certainly don’t drive around in donated vehicles. The Dutch paediatrician tells of the frustrations of trying to get things done in an under-funded public hospital. He concedes that there have been giant leaps forward: from having one of the highest HIV-positive incidences of any African country, Malawi has got on top of the disease and now just 15 per cent of the population are infected. But the legacy is enormous; in a country of 12 million, 1 million are orphans, and these have medical needs that the health system is struggling to manage. The number of child rapes that his hospital deals with weekly is horrific, but there is no money for counselling, post-treatment care or follow-up. In a country of calm and industrious people, things aren’t always what they seem.
PORTUGUESE TARTS
We’re heading for Mozambique so get off to an early start from Blantyre, where we’ve overnighted. As we drive out through the hotel’s gate the old security guard salutes, gives us a big smile and wishes us a very safe journey. It is hard to explain the warmth and sincerity of these oldies. They have a natural grace that wraps you in its kindness and puts us to shame. I run a theory past Neil, that somewhere along the way we in the First World have lost this generosity of spirit and the graciousness to accept life at face value. We’ve become materialistic and competitive, and the importance of friendship and family has faded as the star of consumer goods shines brighter. Neil is more circumspect and suggests that this attitude could be seen as paternalism, even racism, because it’s seeing another culture from a perceived position of greater sophistication. He’s right, of course. I’ll have to work on that theory.
Poor, sad Mozambique. For over 200 years it was under the thumb of Portugal, which bullied the people with a racist system similar to South Africa’s apartheid. This was followed by a violent independence movement, then after independence in 1975, the country was racked by civil war for another twenty years. During all this time the general population as well as the land suffered terribly and often villagers didn’t know who was responsible for the atrocities carried out against them. On top of this, drought, floods and famine hit the country with cruel regularity. The land in some provinces has been devastated and the accepted social structure of the shell-shocked peasant population has disintegrated under these assaults from all sides. Landmines still lurk in many fields, and many villagers have yet to lose the siege mentality learnt from generations of fear and disorder.
At the border the Mozambican officials are surly, bordering on rude. We haven’t encountered this before and it makes us wary. But the money they request is legitimate and we receive a receipt for all fees paid.
The contrast with Malawi is noticeable almost at once. The bad condition of the road for a start, then the huts and villages are of a different style and material, and the people react differently to the Troopy driving past them. Our early impressions are that the country is very, very poor; we drive through infertile, swampy land where villages are large and hunkered down in protective clusters, not spread out along the road. We see no churches, there’s no waving from the children as we drive past, and road sense seems to be slightly askew, with people darting across in front of vehicles or, the opposite, not moving off the road at all as traffic approaches. Held up for sale are chickens, melons, a kitten, squash of all shapes and sizes. We’re nearly wiped out by a big lorry taking a curve on our side of the road and unable to correct at the speed he’s going. It’s simply good luck that there happens to be a verge for Neil to swerve onto. I see a landmine sign for the first time but don’t understand if it means that the land behind is clear of landmines or is literally a landmine.
When we get to Tete we stop for lunch at the motel we’d earlier considered overnighting in. Despite being right on the banks of the beautiful Zambezi River, the rooms have one small window each, heavily curtained and barred, and the restaurant is an inside room with no view at all. We sit with a couple of truckies and assorted hangers-on and watch English football on a snow-bound TV while we eat. The food is good and cheap and the staff patient with our lack of Portuguese, but we’re glad that we’re pushing on.
Back on the road and cruising along at 100 kilometres per hour we become aware of a deep whine, which gets more pronounced as speed increases. We’re hundreds of kilometres from any town and the thought that the Troopy should toss in the towel here is too awful to think about. We pull over and Neil gets out for an inspection. Seeing him with his head under the bonnet, mouth open and a completely blank look on his face, is enough to lighten the situation for me. He looks accusingly at a connection or two and touches a couple of things, then drops the bonnet and dusts his hands like mechanics do. He tightens the roof racks, the Hi-Lift Jack, the shovel clamps, anything that could possibly have come loose, then off we go again. And back comes the whine. Stop, inspect, tighten, and this time to our great relief, the noise is no more. It turns out it was the shovel, slightly loose in its clamps, rotating in the wind and acting like a tuning fork as the air whipped over the blade.
Shortly afterwards we get a speeding ticket for 1000 Mozambican meticals, the local currency (equivalent to about $45), because Neil is going quite a bit over the limit through a village. The policeman shows printed proof that the fine is legitimate, and he doesn’t nibble when Neil suggests that it was more like a 500 meticals fine, in cash.
Then we run over a chicken. Then we’re involved in the apprehension of a criminal. Neil is once again driving a bit too fast through a village when we’re slowed by an angry crowd of men swarming onto the road. The air is electric; there’s a frisson that something is about to happen. In the midst of the mob is a policeman, gesticulating that he needs help and behind him in the melee a handgun waves about. Neil stops, saying that there is something in the policemen’s body language that suggests a degree of anxiety and he doesn’t think that his speeding is the cause. We reverse and see that the policeman clings to a desperado whose eyes are wide and frightened. Both men are out of breath and covered with sweat and twigs. Puffed, the policeman asks urgently in broken English if we would drop them in the next town and when we agree the mob visibly relaxes. They help the other two into the backseat of the Troopy and only then do we see the handcuffs on the felon. The crowd waves goodbye as we drive off, a strange and sudden about-face after the fierce hysteria of moments before. Judging by the conversation in the backseat, it’s obvious that both men are mighty grateful to be away from that pack of vigilantes, and they both sigh and yelp with relief.
Twelve hours and 675 kilometres later we arrive at the unremarkable town of Chimoio, just after sunset. Finding overnight accommodation in this half-light, in a junction town of busy streets and jostling buses, makes us snappy, but we settle down when we see a sign, in English, for an executive hotel. This looks promising, and we honk the Troopy’s horn at the gate for admittance. We’re shown to a tiny, airless ro
om with a big bed and just enough space for a chair to put our luggage on, but it has an en-suite, and breakfast is included. We’re just settling in when there’s another toot at the gate and a fancy car appears with two snappily dressed young men in the front seat. These must be the executives, we think to ourselves, and they seem to have brought their secretaries as well because two ladies get out of the backseat and accompany the men to their room, all four giggling and falling over each other. Soon afterwards another car with an executive and his secretary arrives, and Neil and I retire for the night with the sounds of loud music and bawdy laughter echoing around the corridors. It’s been a long, long day.
Next morning we continue on the disintegrating road eastward, bound for the old port city of Beira. People had recommended we avoid Beira. It was a dump, they said, totally run down and not recognisable as the cosmopolitan European city of its Portuguese years. This is reason enough for us to visit, for Neil to witness the downfall of the playground of his teen years. Along with all the other young bucks from Rhodesia in the early ‘60s, Neil had piled into a clapped-out VW and driven down from Salisbury for a weekend of surfing and cheap wine. A 10-litre wicker basket of Portuguese wine was a couple of pounds and if you wanted to impress the girls you’d fork out for Mateus Rosé. Now we drive in to find a surreal city, a carcass of what it once was, with chunks dropping off classic Portuguese buildings and permanent dwellings on the median strip of tree-lined boulevards. We pass the shell of the once glorious Grande Hotel, where hundreds (some say thousands) of squatters now make their home. Everywhere decay and neglect — it’s a Fellini movie of wasted dreams. Street boys with hopeful smiles volunteer small services for a coin, and a handsome proud young man with a leg blown off offers to protect the Troopy from theft while we lunch in comfort in the Club Nautico.
