tanya- blantyre

(yes we have left malawi but there will be more blog updates to come since we didnt have internet the last week of our journey. lots to explain and reflect on! -becca)

Blantyre, Be Mine

This past week visiting Blantyre has perhaps been one of the most exciting weeks in Malawi. More fun than work and we all learnt A LOT! Blantyre is a small cosy little colonial town nestled in the hills. It reminds me of the countless hill stations in India. The weather is cooler, the culture and character of the city compelling and the place is just more compact and delightful than Lilongwe. It seems that Blantyre has more interesting people per square kilometer. Then again, that could have been because we stayed at Doogles, a backpackers lodge run by a white Zimbabwean woman. When I say that the room had bare necessities, I am not making a feeble joke. The room had four bunk beds and a light. The beds had hard wooden slats covered with about three blankets that served as mattresses. Still, since it is a backpackers lodge the people (although mostly foreigners and mostly white) are hardy outdoorsy kind of people and do not complain. However, the real fun was a short ten steps outside of our room at the well-stocked bar. Over there, outside amidst cheap Carlsberg beers and Malawian vodka one could hear stories about hikes up Mount Mulanje or volunteering at Queen Elizabeths Hospital (we did that too) Iti s heroic eelng to sit amidst other people from the developed world who have seen its joys and wonders and still chose Malawi to be their home.
Over the past week, I have met some of the most interesting peoel in my life. There is John, the rakishly good lookng 24year old Canadian who majored in math and business and discovered he did not want to psend the rest of his life in a business suit. So he traveled to India and then to Maozambique and finally Malawi. He volunteers at the Home of Hope and eats nsima (local food) with the orphans. The man walks as long as his legs will carry him on he dusty highway hailng a ride when he is tired. He also told us that buinesswomen in Lilongwe look most amused when he walks down the street without shoes (just because he feels like it) Because of this rather Calrkie habit of walking without shoes, he and his girlfriend both have sandworms in their toes and they can actually see them move from time to time! (For your knowledge, the man is perfectly unperturbed about this and casually mentions it in passing) We talked hungrily because he said he had not spoken to a non-Malawina fo al ong time and it fwlt good to have people understand you. In doogles we met friendly old Jeff, a gentlemanly English man whom we watched cricket with. He had lived in South Africa before Blantyre and enthralled Shohini and I with tales of how he had met the South African cricket tea. There was also Vick the Indian man from Chennai another cricket maniac who has to his fame having watched all 38 matches in the previous Cricket world cup in West Indies. He bonded with Kim over this. In addition, Jef told us just how diverse Blantyre was. And Indeed, as people dropped by for a quick drink and stopped to say hi to him we found Austrians., Bolivians, South Africans and Dutch people who had all made this lovely town their home and enriched the city by their presence. The men sit there watching rugby and drinking and cursing for both the South African Team and the English Team. There was a lot of jostling and teasing as diaspora from both countries came by to watch. Doogles, even the terribly uncomfortable beds, remind me of memories my mother talked about of India in the 1970s and 80s where a good time and a sterling conversation were for very cheap if not for free. The next morning, we were up and trekked down the old colonial street to visit St. Marks Cathedral which was built by Livingstone. It has been certified as a National Historical Site by the Department of Antiquities (what a lively quaint name!) In Blantyre, it seems that people houses and buildings are just tucked into the hill creating a very cosy feeling. So anyway, we walk down to the church that is BEAUTIFUL. I have no words to describe it and my architectural vocabulary is quite limited but the entire church is really small and yet really ornate with gothic style spires and peaks making it look like a splendid toy castle amidst a patch of rolling green lawns. The church compound seems endless but a walk around will reveal, that the compound randomly bleeds into people’s houses. Gorgeous colonial houses that make me think I am in some quaint railway colony in India. The sense of security is so inbuilt that many people have pretty thatched bamboo stalks as their fences! I felt like I was walking in a story book. Kim and I were particularly interested I seeing the graveyard. For those of you unaware of my fascination with colonial graveyards, I must explain. I felt this way even in India seeing Some soldier buried randomly in the middle of Gujarat. Because they are so far way from home, the gravestone really does tell a story..a story that in this post colonized (maybe) era no one pauses to appreciate the sweet poignance of the fact that some random British soldier died in this strange, hot land believing he was dying for the Queen and the country even as greedy oily merchants and plantation owners made a profit of the system of colonization. It is fascinating because in imperial ambitions, one sees the beginnings of colonization and colonization os avery important part of my identity now..the fact that I am Roman Catholic and that English is my first language. So, I just find all of this very fascinating. So Kim and I visited the Commonwealth graveyard and so Graveyads as old as the 1700s of British soldiers who had died in ‘Nyasaland’ the British colonial territory to which Malawi once belonged.
More on our super exciting journey to Blantyre later…


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The Light Fiasco

So I have said many times that you pay money for competence. Competent people are always in demand. The smart, quick to catch on, efficient people in the service sector will always do well for themselves. Seeing this, it is no wonder that on our student budgets, incompetence is something we encounter on the daily here in Malawi. From the sketch waiters in K-Lodge, to IC miserable (Incompetent Miserbale) in Doogles who botched up the simplest of orders (three fried eggs and one scrambled). Our latest addition to this group of IC’s has been L Dawg alias Louis who is the jaunty incompetent receptionist at P Lodge where we are currently staying in Lilongwe. We have always been suspicious of Louis with his smart alec smile. The first time he met us, he was positively lounging in a little arm chair and absolutely REFUSED to move an inch as he answered the question s we had about the lodge. To this effect, Kim and I were sitting in our room today and we discovered that the one tube light that powers the room was out. So Of course I brace myself for the incompetent journey of my life as I search for someone to change the lightbulb. It was surprisingly easy. Louis looking dapper today in slacks and a full dress shirt comes in, inspects the lghtbulb with a smile and strides out to get the job done. Kim and I breathe a sigh of relief (or apprehension) because Louis doing any job usually is either hilarious or bad news. At any rate, he then wrestles a massive ladder into the damn room. I am listening to Kiss me Through the Phone on my computer at this point and look slightly hesitantly at L-Dawg. “Umm..Do you want me to Move” I ask L-dawg. “No no problem” Ok, I still move to the other bed to be cautious. This man..please believe me when I tell you that he refuses to open the ladder but instead LEANS IT ON A BRICK WALL…IN A ROOM THAT HAS A SLIPPERY TILED FLOOR. Kim and I are by now looking very wary and are fully aware that the air is regnant with incompetence. I suggest with an action that Kim fishes out her camera to catch on tape this priceless moment of Louis incompetence. At this moment, Louis who by now is up on the ladder with that silly, aggravating little smile on his face CRASHES down on the floor. As he falls, he pulls onto my mosquito net for support pulling it with him and there is a resounding crash as the light bulb breaks into a million pieces. Kim shrieks and I am proud to note at this time, that Kims first concern was for L-Dawg by now tangled up on my bed in MY sheets and mosquito nets and light bulb shards. Are you okay? Ofcourse we don’t merit an answer. L Dawg sits up with pieces of glass firmly sticking to his face, brushes himself and moves on quite ignoring the fact that by now our precious artifacts that were on the desk have been crashed by L Dawgs descent from the ladder. Fool! You would think that one should know how to open the ladder. Kids at crisis nursery would know how to open the ladder. As he is brushing himself off he fancifully flings the mosquito net towards Kim who by now is in a deep state of shock ( there are precious few times Kim ever gets speechless and I suggest if you are ever privileged to such moments you savour it with all your heart) Mind you, this mosquito net that I speak of is FULL OF glass shards and he casually flings it in Kims direction to her horror. She gives a terrified shriek and I truly feel a mixture of laughing at this idiots incompetence and then slapping him soundly for throwing these dangerous pieces of fine lightbulb glass on Kim. Blindly, I reach for my phone and think this is a moment to call Shohini and inform her of this. Especially since by know Kim has “git it together” enough to note that Shohinis precius wooden carving that she bought for her mother is broken. She tries to tell this to Louis who ignores her and walks out o the room wheter out of shock or sheer incompetence it is not known. My phone dies on me and I wlak to Shohinis room to breathlessly narrate the happenings. Let me tell you al ittle about Shohini. She as an attitude and when things hapne her atttide does nto rain, t pours. The girl walked out with a face that could either kill someone or curdle milk. She strides towards L-dawg puts her hands on her hips and demands an explanantion. Louis by thus time, has wied the grin off his face btu sil has the jaunty attitude. We have figured out by now, that he has no fear whatsoever of being fired or anything. At this pont the mixture of the whoel drama that had ensued and Shohini’s attitude on a rampage has got me severely cracked p. I follw our little entourage of an angry Shohini, a calm becca and a terrified Kim and watch the fun. Wedemand a new room from L-dawg and are given a much shittier room but one that is glass fre nevertheless. At this point , our entire suitcases, shoes, clothes nd bedcovers hae had glass shattered all over thm, Ah, it yet another eventful, cincompetent evening in good ole dusty in Lilongwe.