I have just finished reading ‘A Kestrel for a Knave’ by Barry Hines. It’s a brilliant book which nearly reduced me to tears.
When I stumbled across the Sainsbury’s Sports Relief Mile, during a coastal bicycle ride two weeks ago, I could barely talk as my throat wobbled with emotion. There's something very special about seeing everyday people determined to achieve something so pure, and endeavouring to do so in a shared public space. It seems ridiculous to me, even in the moment, but open access running events touch me so deeply, that I can barely control my emotions. The simple beauty of human achievement just bowls me over.
In 2005, I accidently stumbled across the end of the Berlin Marathon. I sat on the terraces at the finishing line, at the hugely symbolic Brandenburg Gate, and wobbled in exactly the same fashion.
It appears that emotionally, for myself as an onlooker, there is little difference between watching an exhausted female supporting her wounded male partner in the final stages of a 26 mile run, and hearing an announcer applauding a two year old for completing just one. They are both great achievements for the people concerned. To me, they are both quite magical to behold.
I hold back the tears for the row of smiling girls, tied together at their ankles, jogging in unity. I try to swallow the lump in my throat for the woman running with a small infant on her shoulders, with hands firmly wrapped around his small bouncing ankles. I cry for the 83 year old man as he completes his 26th mile.
I feel silly. I accidentally stumble across running events and something inside me just melts.
Thirty one years after writing ‘A Kestrel for a Knave’, Barry Hines wrote an ‘Afterword’ for it. The book became a film, and the novel a set examination test. He says:
“I’ve sometimes considered sitting the examination under an assumed name to see how I would get on. Perhaps my interpretation of the book would differ from that of the examiner and I would fail. Who can tell? I sometimes think that people read too much into novels and seek hidden meaning where none exist.”
I was always put off studying English Literature for this very reason. Barry Hines has perfectly summed up an opinion that I’ve held for more than twenty years. I love to read, and books influence my thought processes and emotions, but if there are secrets lurking behind the words as they stand, they are generally lost on me.
If a story is good, then I will enjoy it. When a book is really special, some startlingly moving word formations will absolutely blow me away. They will blow me away because of the way they read, and because of the picture that they paint. They won't blow me way because I’ve miraculously deduced that they're actually an allegory for something terribly profound.
I find it difficult to believe that writers, unless they are immensely pompous, would want to tell a secret story and hide it behind another. Why would they do that? Don’t they have the necessary skills to tell the story that they want to tell properly and maintain interest? Don’t they want people like me to know the all so important hidden message? If it's that important, make it clear. I’ve always guessed that in many cases the hidden meanings in books, that are studied for exams the world over, don’t exist. It’s easy to find a hidden meaning in anything if you look for it.
If you spend all of your time looking for hidden meanings, you might miss out on the magic of the story as it stands.
Barry Hines continues to write:
“I received a letter from man with a similar background to Billy Caspar [the lead character], who wrote that the book made him realize it was possible to achieve something in life however difficult the circumstances.”
That’s how watching everyday people complete a marathon or a mile long run makes me feel. Achievement doesn’t need to be fame, fortune or a successful career. People succeed in much more important endeavours every day. Achievement is often overlooked when it is at its greatest.
Saturday, 29 March 2008
Tuesday, 25 March 2008
Gig Review: Tales from the Back Passage: The Flesh Happening and Other Adventures in Space
There’s been no lack of live music in The Land of Fabpants during past couple of weeks or so, and the good days are set to continue. I’ve seen two artists singing about excrement, and I’m not sure what that says about me, my tastes and my friends. But, do we give a shit? No, we never give away our shits.
On the 14th March, I was signed into a ‘private members’ gig at The Cowley Club. For those of you who don’t know it, The Cowley Club is a libertarian social centre run by volunteers. The members, when they’re not doing whatever it is they do, spend long afternoons discussing how to instigate social change and sowing small revolutionary seeds.
‘Private members?’ I hear you cry. I know, it simply screams out ‘we’re inclusive’, doesn’t it? The revolution is only for those that have spent three months, at the very least, sharing the social responsibility of recycling tetra paks in a communal space, don’t you know? Everyone else gets shot. Actually, it’s easier to sell alcohol in a private members bar, and they’re all addicted to vodka. Or maybe they’re just scared of having their ideals diluted by outsiders. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell.
It was at the Cowley Club that I saw ‘The Flesh Happening’.
Did the flesh happen? It sure did.
It started as a synthetic novelty and became increasing asexual as the night disrobed. Yes, the lead singer, Oliva Spleen, a thin towering giant, lurched into the room adorned in a cheap suit of foamy flesh. Yum. The flesh did happen. Primark really do think of everything these days.
Oliva’s face was filled with dark feigned torment. Wayward gothic tears pretended to fall from his large shallow eyes.
Someone has been stealing at ‘Claire’s Accessories’, I heard a policeman telling the staff at Rounder Records two days earlier. All the clues are there. ‘Getting ready is half the fun’ is their tagline. Surely, they know that their proposed ethos includes shoplifting? Don’t they? Teenage girls and men like Mr Spleen need a hobby. They need more than just a flesh suit and legal purchases. There’s a reason that Oliva changed his name.
I wanna be adored, no sorry, he wants to be adored. You adore him, you adore him, he wants to be abhorred.
Oliva Spleen is the fetish version of Justin Hawkins, with short black hair. While, the band may turn in their beds to read such comparisons, Oliva and dear old Justin may well have come from the same attention seeking womb. One came out with the voice of a screaming girl and the other erupted as a screaming queer; both in love with being stared at in tight bodysuits. Extreme vanity does like to be nurtured.
Before long, artificial flesh, ripped and ragged, revealed whiter flesh in a tight leather leotard. Yum yum. Do I have to write ‘not’? Oliva reeled about on the dirty floor, and a wooden spoon came out of his anus, or was that just a rumour? “Shit on Me, Shit on Me” indeed.
In the music, fans of wailing punk might delight. The lyrics were not thought provoking or clever, but they were provocative and a little obsessed with one topic. Yes, abolishing the Monarchy. No, subverting the mass media. Yes, burning down the immigration centres and setting the people free. Okay, none of the above. “You were a shirt lifting, deep fisting, cock sucking, fudge packing, friend on a bender”.
Sung with enough angst to give the impression of artistry, I’m sure that their songs will gather a strong following of dedicated fans. Provocative ditties for an alienated subculture have often done well, especially with an extreme front person. The voyeuristic upper middle class love that shit too. ‘Oh darling, did you see that sausage protruding from his poo hole?’ Forget the Dead Kennedys, they forgot to leave their brains behind, this is the Sex Pistols with an asshole obsession.
But, to say that they are a pure punk band would be wrong. Some of the songs were sweetly melodic, such as ‘One Up the Wrong’n’ and ‘Hitler and Jesus’. Still Oliva tries too hard to inject meaning into the words, and they end up sounding painfully contrived. There’s no denying the entertainment factor. I’m still convinced that they were conceived in an 80s squat, and got lost in the basement for 30 years.
Well, enough of all that.
Who else have I seen? Well, here’s a summary. I’m too lazy or busy to write much more.
They Came From the Stars (I Saw Them), 15th March 2008
An alien band, who initially sounded a bit too like an experimental jazz outfit (that’d be the sax) and then progressed into some fun psychedelic dance tunes. They wore nice white outfits and couldn’t sing. The songs were great when no one sang. I danced. The record company boss (“I’m a one man outfit, please buy something”) tried to sell me their album of six songs for £10. I offered him £6. He said £8. I asked him if the band’s singing was better on the CD. He said ‘no’ and walked away.
Stanley Brinks (aka Andre Herman Dune), Freschard and The Purple Organ, 18th March 2008
A-fucking-mazing. I’m not sure I should say anymore. It might break the spell. A-fucking-mazing. That’s it. I’m leaving it there. Go off, investigate and discover.
El Guincho, 23rd March 2008
‘Are you a looper?’ This guy is. He loops and loops and loops. Repetitive? No, never. Okay, yes. Very. With his left hand he twiddles a vast array of knobs to play samples, beats and wonderful Latino freckled grooves. With his right hand he plays a solitary drum and generates captivating tribal rhythms. With his voice he chants. What he chants, I have no fucking idea. Maybe it’s Spanish; he is. I danced. When I got bored of a song, I danced some more. And one by one the loops began to fade and die. It was like a microcosm of life.
On the 14th March, I was signed into a ‘private members’ gig at The Cowley Club. For those of you who don’t know it, The Cowley Club is a libertarian social centre run by volunteers. The members, when they’re not doing whatever it is they do, spend long afternoons discussing how to instigate social change and sowing small revolutionary seeds.
‘Private members?’ I hear you cry. I know, it simply screams out ‘we’re inclusive’, doesn’t it? The revolution is only for those that have spent three months, at the very least, sharing the social responsibility of recycling tetra paks in a communal space, don’t you know? Everyone else gets shot. Actually, it’s easier to sell alcohol in a private members bar, and they’re all addicted to vodka. Or maybe they’re just scared of having their ideals diluted by outsiders. Sometimes, it’s hard to tell.
It was at the Cowley Club that I saw ‘The Flesh Happening’.
Did the flesh happen? It sure did.
It started as a synthetic novelty and became increasing asexual as the night disrobed. Yes, the lead singer, Oliva Spleen, a thin towering giant, lurched into the room adorned in a cheap suit of foamy flesh. Yum. The flesh did happen. Primark really do think of everything these days.
Oliva’s face was filled with dark feigned torment. Wayward gothic tears pretended to fall from his large shallow eyes.
Someone has been stealing at ‘Claire’s Accessories’, I heard a policeman telling the staff at Rounder Records two days earlier. All the clues are there. ‘Getting ready is half the fun’ is their tagline. Surely, they know that their proposed ethos includes shoplifting? Don’t they? Teenage girls and men like Mr Spleen need a hobby. They need more than just a flesh suit and legal purchases. There’s a reason that Oliva changed his name.
I wanna be adored, no sorry, he wants to be adored. You adore him, you adore him, he wants to be abhorred.
Oliva Spleen is the fetish version of Justin Hawkins, with short black hair. While, the band may turn in their beds to read such comparisons, Oliva and dear old Justin may well have come from the same attention seeking womb. One came out with the voice of a screaming girl and the other erupted as a screaming queer; both in love with being stared at in tight bodysuits. Extreme vanity does like to be nurtured.
Before long, artificial flesh, ripped and ragged, revealed whiter flesh in a tight leather leotard. Yum yum. Do I have to write ‘not’? Oliva reeled about on the dirty floor, and a wooden spoon came out of his anus, or was that just a rumour? “Shit on Me, Shit on Me” indeed.
In the music, fans of wailing punk might delight. The lyrics were not thought provoking or clever, but they were provocative and a little obsessed with one topic. Yes, abolishing the Monarchy. No, subverting the mass media. Yes, burning down the immigration centres and setting the people free. Okay, none of the above. “You were a shirt lifting, deep fisting, cock sucking, fudge packing, friend on a bender”.
Sung with enough angst to give the impression of artistry, I’m sure that their songs will gather a strong following of dedicated fans. Provocative ditties for an alienated subculture have often done well, especially with an extreme front person. The voyeuristic upper middle class love that shit too. ‘Oh darling, did you see that sausage protruding from his poo hole?’ Forget the Dead Kennedys, they forgot to leave their brains behind, this is the Sex Pistols with an asshole obsession.
But, to say that they are a pure punk band would be wrong. Some of the songs were sweetly melodic, such as ‘One Up the Wrong’n’ and ‘Hitler and Jesus’. Still Oliva tries too hard to inject meaning into the words, and they end up sounding painfully contrived. There’s no denying the entertainment factor. I’m still convinced that they were conceived in an 80s squat, and got lost in the basement for 30 years.
Well, enough of all that.
Who else have I seen? Well, here’s a summary. I’m too lazy or busy to write much more.
They Came From the Stars (I Saw Them), 15th March 2008
An alien band, who initially sounded a bit too like an experimental jazz outfit (that’d be the sax) and then progressed into some fun psychedelic dance tunes. They wore nice white outfits and couldn’t sing. The songs were great when no one sang. I danced. The record company boss (“I’m a one man outfit, please buy something”) tried to sell me their album of six songs for £10. I offered him £6. He said £8. I asked him if the band’s singing was better on the CD. He said ‘no’ and walked away.
Stanley Brinks (aka Andre Herman Dune), Freschard and The Purple Organ, 18th March 2008
A-fucking-mazing. I’m not sure I should say anymore. It might break the spell. A-fucking-mazing. That’s it. I’m leaving it there. Go off, investigate and discover.
El Guincho, 23rd March 2008
‘Are you a looper?’ This guy is. He loops and loops and loops. Repetitive? No, never. Okay, yes. Very. With his left hand he twiddles a vast array of knobs to play samples, beats and wonderful Latino freckled grooves. With his right hand he plays a solitary drum and generates captivating tribal rhythms. With his voice he chants. What he chants, I have no fucking idea. Maybe it’s Spanish; he is. I danced. When I got bored of a song, I danced some more. And one by one the loops began to fade and die. It was like a microcosm of life.
Thursday, 20 March 2008
Rape Crisis Support in Crisis
On the 8th March, 2008, I headed up to London to take part in the International Women’s Day "Million Women Rise" march and to hear the speakers in Trafalgar Square. Two parts of that day have made a lasting impression on me.
The first is so important, that I must urge everyone that reads this blog to think on it, take action and ask others to take action too. This is the first time in my life that I’ve directly asked others to rally around a cause I believe in. I’m not one for imposing my views, so whilst I’ve ‘urged’ you, you can still ignore my request if you like. I won’t mind.
I was absolutely ignorant in not knowing about the following, so when I heard about it, something deep inside me shuddered.
What was it? Well, Rape Crisis Centres have been closing all across England and Wales and many more are under threat. There are now 38 Rape Crisis Centres, when once upon a time ago there were 68. Three out of every four local authority areas have no services for victims of rape, and up to half of the remaining rape crisis centres face closure because of severe funding problems.
This means that the vast majority of people who are raped do not have a rape crisis centre in their area. There are no rape crisis centres in the whole of Bedfordshire or Suffolk. Eight centres have not yet secured funding for 2008-2009, and sixty-nine per cent report that funding is ‘unsustainable’ for the future. There is no national helpline. If you’ve suffered rape and don’t live in the right area, you may have NO ONE with professional training to turn to.
Even if you do live in the right area, the services are overstretched. In Croydon, telephone records showed that one woman had to try 978 times to get through to a helpline. There are only two telephone lines and they’ve had 87 people trying to get through at once. Figures vary on rape statistics, but, according to the Home Office, 5% of women and 0.4% of men experience rape in their life time. Every 34 minutes a rape is reported to the police in the United Kingdom. There were 13,000 recorded rapes in England and Wales last year. Of course, many go unreported
Rape Crisis Centres haven’t been closed due to a lack of demand, but because of a lack of long term funding, and the absence of a strategic approach from the government. Rape isn’t like having your mobile phone nicked. Rape is one of the worse crimes known to humankind.
After much campaigning by the Women's Resource Centre and Rape Crisis, coverage by radio stations and articles in the press, yesterday, the Minister for Women, Harriet Harman, announced that up to £1 million in emergency funding will be provided towards keeping some of the Rape Crisis centres open.
Is this enough? Of course not. How far will a million pounds go to support struggling Rape Crisis services across England and Wales? The combined annual income of the Rape Crisis Centres that have managed to stay afloat (just) is just over £3.5m. That’s when they’ve been dropping off like flies. A million pounds may prevent more closures for now, but it’s a small plaster for a big wound. To put Harman’s announcement in context, Victim Support received £30m from the Government in 2005-06.
I have found two online petitions that are asking the government to take further action. One is heavily marinated in New Statesman sauce (the self publicity seems a bit full on, but the campaign is no doubt coming from the right place). The other neglects the fact that men are raped too. That said they are both trying to secure funding for Rape Crisis services, and every little helps.
Petition for Rape Crisis Services
Petition Against Violence to Women
You can also email kiran@wrc.org.uk with your name and address if you want to add your name to this letter written by the Women’s Resource Centre:
Letter to Gordon Brown about Rape Crisis Centres
So, that’s my rant over.
What was the second part of the day that made a lasting impression? The stupidity of some radical feminists. Some radical feminists appear to hate prostitutes.
Firstly, one of the speakers was gagged just before she was about to get up into the stage. Two of the organising committee members did not approve of her speech and they actually stopped her from making it. Terisa Mackay, of the Solidarity 1st Coalition to Decriminalise Prostitution, was going to propose an open dialogue about the decriminalisation of prostitution in Ipswich. For those of you with hazy memories, Ipswich is the place where five prostitutes were murdered in 2006. It might be controversial, but an open debate could be very useful.
As I stood watching the stage, I could see a disturbance breaking out. People were not happy about the decision. Someone came to the microphone and asked for security to come to stage. Women were not united. Members of organisations, such as the English Collective of Prostitutes, Women Against Rape, All Africa’s Group’s Campaign and the Black Women’s Rape Project, were trying to get to the stage to announce their outrage to the crowd. There were scuffles. There was women on women violence. Girls holding the English Collective of Prostitutes banner in the crowd looked scared, scared of a general backlash, but they held firm. I really admired their spirit and determination.
Secondly, during the march, unbeknownst to me at the time, phone boxes were ransacked and prostitutes’ calling cards were ripped up. Or so I hear. Someone has to replace them, and in the meantime, prostitutes are out of pocket.
The tagline of the march was ‘together we can end male violence against women’, but what about female violence against women? What about ending violence full stop?
By the way, prostitutes get raped too.
The first is so important, that I must urge everyone that reads this blog to think on it, take action and ask others to take action too. This is the first time in my life that I’ve directly asked others to rally around a cause I believe in. I’m not one for imposing my views, so whilst I’ve ‘urged’ you, you can still ignore my request if you like. I won’t mind.
I was absolutely ignorant in not knowing about the following, so when I heard about it, something deep inside me shuddered.
What was it? Well, Rape Crisis Centres have been closing all across England and Wales and many more are under threat. There are now 38 Rape Crisis Centres, when once upon a time ago there were 68. Three out of every four local authority areas have no services for victims of rape, and up to half of the remaining rape crisis centres face closure because of severe funding problems.
This means that the vast majority of people who are raped do not have a rape crisis centre in their area. There are no rape crisis centres in the whole of Bedfordshire or Suffolk. Eight centres have not yet secured funding for 2008-2009, and sixty-nine per cent report that funding is ‘unsustainable’ for the future. There is no national helpline. If you’ve suffered rape and don’t live in the right area, you may have NO ONE with professional training to turn to.
Even if you do live in the right area, the services are overstretched. In Croydon, telephone records showed that one woman had to try 978 times to get through to a helpline. There are only two telephone lines and they’ve had 87 people trying to get through at once. Figures vary on rape statistics, but, according to the Home Office, 5% of women and 0.4% of men experience rape in their life time. Every 34 minutes a rape is reported to the police in the United Kingdom. There were 13,000 recorded rapes in England and Wales last year. Of course, many go unreported
Rape Crisis Centres haven’t been closed due to a lack of demand, but because of a lack of long term funding, and the absence of a strategic approach from the government. Rape isn’t like having your mobile phone nicked. Rape is one of the worse crimes known to humankind.
After much campaigning by the Women's Resource Centre and Rape Crisis, coverage by radio stations and articles in the press, yesterday, the Minister for Women, Harriet Harman, announced that up to £1 million in emergency funding will be provided towards keeping some of the Rape Crisis centres open.
Is this enough? Of course not. How far will a million pounds go to support struggling Rape Crisis services across England and Wales? The combined annual income of the Rape Crisis Centres that have managed to stay afloat (just) is just over £3.5m. That’s when they’ve been dropping off like flies. A million pounds may prevent more closures for now, but it’s a small plaster for a big wound. To put Harman’s announcement in context, Victim Support received £30m from the Government in 2005-06.
I have found two online petitions that are asking the government to take further action. One is heavily marinated in New Statesman sauce (the self publicity seems a bit full on, but the campaign is no doubt coming from the right place). The other neglects the fact that men are raped too. That said they are both trying to secure funding for Rape Crisis services, and every little helps.
Petition for Rape Crisis Services
Petition Against Violence to Women
You can also email kiran@wrc.org.uk with your name and address if you want to add your name to this letter written by the Women’s Resource Centre:
Letter to Gordon Brown about Rape Crisis Centres
So, that’s my rant over.
What was the second part of the day that made a lasting impression? The stupidity of some radical feminists. Some radical feminists appear to hate prostitutes.
Firstly, one of the speakers was gagged just before she was about to get up into the stage. Two of the organising committee members did not approve of her speech and they actually stopped her from making it. Terisa Mackay, of the Solidarity 1st Coalition to Decriminalise Prostitution, was going to propose an open dialogue about the decriminalisation of prostitution in Ipswich. For those of you with hazy memories, Ipswich is the place where five prostitutes were murdered in 2006. It might be controversial, but an open debate could be very useful.
As I stood watching the stage, I could see a disturbance breaking out. People were not happy about the decision. Someone came to the microphone and asked for security to come to stage. Women were not united. Members of organisations, such as the English Collective of Prostitutes, Women Against Rape, All Africa’s Group’s Campaign and the Black Women’s Rape Project, were trying to get to the stage to announce their outrage to the crowd. There were scuffles. There was women on women violence. Girls holding the English Collective of Prostitutes banner in the crowd looked scared, scared of a general backlash, but they held firm. I really admired their spirit and determination.
Secondly, during the march, unbeknownst to me at the time, phone boxes were ransacked and prostitutes’ calling cards were ripped up. Or so I hear. Someone has to replace them, and in the meantime, prostitutes are out of pocket.
The tagline of the march was ‘together we can end male violence against women’, but what about female violence against women? What about ending violence full stop?
By the way, prostitutes get raped too.
Wednesday, 19 March 2008
Fabpants in Africa: The Last Six Days
The past is here, so read it first:
Fabpants in Africa: The First Three Days
Fabpants in Africa: Days Four to Seven
Fabpants in Africa: Days Eight to Twelve
Fabpants in Africa: Days Thirteen to Twenty One
Well, this blog is being written in England! I’ve been in England since 6th March, and I’ve been very slow to update the world about my last few days in East Africa. I’ve been busy. I turned 36 years old the day after my return. I’m now officially closer to 40 than 30, and I’m still absolutely in love with life. To celebrate my love of life, I’ve been partying. Perhaps, I’ll tell you all about that later. That’s if I’m not high on crack and dancing on the rooftops.
Most people in Africa guessed me as a twenty something. One day my face will catch up with my years. One day, I’ll dream of being the person that I am today. For now, let me take you back to Saturday 1st March, when I still looked young, and lightly sun soaked. It’s time to turn my scrappy notes into typed words. Now where was I? Oh, that’s right. I was in Lusaka, where the green tomato chutney is simply a delight.
I was about to head out of Lusaka. To avoid the touts and a long wait at the bus station, tickets for an early bus had been bought in advance. Early buses leave on time and I had a long way to go. It was a great plan. It was a great plan until I walked out of the dorm and marvelled at how light it was. Fuck, it wasn’t supposed to be light. I hear that African’s don’t oversleep. Well, very tired English people do. What I was thinking? Four hours of sleep in a noisy room is the perfect set up for sleeping through an early morning alarm. What was that? No, of course I wasn’t wearing earplugs when I needed to hear the beeping of my restless clock. Me, never!
Okay, so I’m mentally retarded. But, I’d like to see you trying to sleep through the sound of drunken travellers, as they wail along to the worst possible kind of 80s rock, without wearing some sort of ear protection over (or in) your delicate auditory pits. I’d like to see you get up at 4.30am after three weeks of country hopping and shut eye deprivation. I’d like to see your miserable morning face.
To top it all off, a taxi drove me into Lusaka bus terminal as ’my’ bus drove out. The eager taxi driver kindly tried to stop the bus, but the touts had seen white skin and circled the car like vultures. It only took four hours to fill the next bus. Four hours, and a sermon later, and I was on the move. To be honest, I didn’t really care. I didn’t really care about the wait or my screw up. I felt very relaxed and at ease. I’d only overslept and I had a feeling that it would all work out. The tickets were still valid.
I was about to travel on the worst road in East Africa and a little optimism was needed. Paradoxically, the worst road in East Africa is called The ‘Great’ East Road. There’s pride in them there potholes. As for the toilets, they’re a delight too. At Luangwa Bridge, we stopped to use some toilets of the fee paying variety. Most girls just nipped around the back of the building and pissed in the open air. I braved the real toilet, but despite the porcelain unit, it was nasty. I had to hover pee with the door open, and in full public view, as I tried not to touch any part of the room. Back here in England, I feel bad for slipping past the payment desk (a dirty wooden table) on my way out, but at the time evading the small fee felt like a small victory. I now know that nice girls pee in the open air when the alternative is a small building soaked in poo.
Luangwa Bridge is a small settlement that’s grown up around the trucks and buses that pass through, and the envitable need to pee. The streets are lined with stalls selling freshly cooked fish, baskets and straw hats. As I stretched my legs and took some air, two small boys walked towards me. Behind them two toy lorries, attached to long strips of perfectly white string, glided along the ground. The lorries were beautifully crafted from milk cartons and cardboard boxes. They were the best toy lorries that I’ve ever seen. Full stop. There was no doubt that the boys knew what treasure they had. They held their heads high as they proudly trundled their homemade vehicles along the edge of the hard and dusty road.
Needless to say, the views of the Luangwa River from the bridge itself were spectacular on a far grander scale. Okay, I was more touched by the roadworthy wagons fashioned from cardboard and plastic, but that’s just me. The Luangwa was certainly a feast for tired eyes and there’s no denying that. Following recent rains, the river was wide and vast, filling a large trough of the low valley; a valley that it’s carved just for itself over a fuck of a fancy of eons. We crossed via a three hundred metre long cable bridge that stands in stark contrast to the raggedy roads that meet it on either side. Whether the tarmac path from Lusaka and Chipata will reach the bridge, without getting washed away, is a daily mystery; the bridge is more of a certainty.
Much of the journey was interspersed with small thatched huts squatting low amongst the tall rainy season grass. One small community of huts was dominated by a mobile phone antenna mast. Others hosted wooden football posts and sweet fields of maize. The road was strewn with potholes, and the bus hurtled along at great speeds. At one point the bus leaned deeply and I contemplated the laws of physics and my chances of surviving unscathed in a toppling bus. I was blasé by the time I realised that we were driving through the rain with no windscreen wipers. You just have to trust that it will all be okay or your head might explode.
It was dark when I hit Chipata, the border town. It was dark when I crossed the border. It was dark and misty as the Malawian countryside rushed by. A Zambian girl travelled with us in a private cab. Her Mum is living in Salima, Malawi and it was visiting time. The girl was shy and surprised by the hospitality of tourists. She was attentive to the behaviour and words of those visiting her part of the world. I knew I was being studied but it felt good. Our new friend was getting a free ride. The next day she would excitedly show us her mother’s lodge; a lodge for local travellers, but remarkably similar to the backpacker establishments. I met her aged grandmother, and aged grandmothers are rare in Zambia and Malawi.
In the Lilongwe night, a wildcat ran across the road; apparently that’s a rare sight too. It was a big lean cat with muscles to envy; a loner caught in the headlights. Arrangements were made to hire a car from a man that lives in a house not dissimilar to those in the village where I was raised. It felt odd to see such a house so far from home. I imagined old Mrs Durrant living there and growing sweet cherry tomatoes for visiting children, like me. That was my childhood and not theirs.
I was back in Malawi’s capital, and back at Mabuya Camp. I was where I had been so very briefly during my first day on hot soil. I had travelled more miles than I’d been counting and although I’d only spent fifteen hours in Lilongwe, I felt as though I’d come back to a place that I knew well. The atmosphere was warm, friendly and welcoming. People engaged in real conversations and no one played, let alone sang along to, ‘Sweet Child of Mine’. Mabuya entertained none of that.
I met several people from Norfolk and had more reminders of home. Us folk from Norfolk like to get about. Mother’s Day was a few sleep-filled breaths away. Someone in Norfolk would never get my Happy Mother’s Day text.
I was not integrating. Although I felt at ease at Mabuya Camp, the small world of backpacker lodges frightens me. The sweet Zambian girl, on her way to Salima, had come to stay for the night too. Overwhelmed by the white enclave, she slipped away to her room. In the morning, she admitted her surprise at how white travellers live. The ground around the small thatched buildings was wet and muddy. Dogs ran around with excitement.
Mothers Day, Maize Day, Martyrs Day; this was bank holiday Malawi. This was ‘reclaim the streets’, ‘critical mass’ and party time. This was a weekend of local celebration. It’s normally busy in Salima. It’s a flat town and bicycle taxis are rife. The bicycle taxi is a normal bicycle with a seat on the pannier rack. Most bicycle taxis are functional, with minimal padding, but a few look temptingly luxurious. Bicycle taxis carried women in fine dresses, adults clutching children and sometimes two heavy men at once. When we passed through Salima, the roads didn’t clear. People on bikes and people on foot were everywhere. For 400km or more there would be people. You know humans with a heart, a mind and a road to travel. In the towns, it was like driving through a thick drunken crowd at Glastonbury Festival. People don’t get days off work at Bank Holiday time but they still celebrate with vigour.
March 3rd, 1959, is a day that resonates through the warm heart of Malawi. What happened? Well, we did. Our nation’s ancestors were complete and utter bastards, or so it seems, and particularly so on the 3rd March. Before dawn hit the new day, British soldiers set out in the middle of the night and arrested Nyasaland African Congress members, local chiefs and those leading the ‘fight’ for independence. They arrested everyone in the heart of darkness, like the underhand swines they were, and then, when daylight came and word got out, they proceeded to gun down any protesters. Twenty six Africans, who had come to seek the freedom of the prisoners and the freedom of their country, died. For many years later the 3rd March was not celebrated, instead it was commemorated in a sombre manner. People stayed indoors and radios were turned off. Independence came some five years later, and one of those arrested, Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, became the first president of Malawi.
These days, when Martyrs Day falls on a Monday, just after pay day, the country goes mental for the entire weekend. Gone is sobriety. Well, that was how it was while I was there. People didn’t hide indoors in silence; they went out, drank Kachasu, a local brew that’s ninety percent proof, and tried to get knocked down by a hire car. During the drive from Lilongwe to Nkharta Bay, we made two excursions from the drunken throng on tarmac. Take a break. Tiredness kills. Tell that to the staggering fools on foot.
I can thoroughly recommend both excursions. They were both other worldly and out of keeping with the wider East African world. The road-filled mass was instantly forgotten as I marvelled at the scenes about me.
The first was a visit to the Mua Mission (KuNgoni). It’s truly an oasis hidden away in the hills. It’s a missionary that’s developed as a centre for wood carvings and cultural programmes. It hosts fine buildings, landscaped gardens and beautiful spacious toilets. Adorably carved toilet roll holders dispense soft luxurious paper.
The second was Nkhotakota Lodge. Nkhotakota Lodge is on the edge of Lake Malawi, with green grass, a gourmet menu and toilets almost as inspiring as those at the mission. Nkhotakota Lodge also makes and sells fabulous pottery onsite. The crockery on sale takes the animals of Africa as inspiration, but in a truly charming way. Oh fuck, I’ve gone all upper middle class.
More importantly, Nkhotakota provided me with my first real taste of Lake Malawi. Soft sandy beaches sat at the edge of a beautiful fresh water ocean. I could see Mozambique. To be honest, while the pottery was a great distraction, the Lake was everything. The Lake is absolutely amazing.
At Nkharta Bay, where I stayed, I spent many hours of the morning transfixed by it. Here the Lake is greeted by rocky banks, instead of sand, and canoes take people from one side of the bay to the other. I watched a girl as she prepared to swim to work and then glided through the vast blue waters like a giant fish; ‘it’s quicker and easier than walking’, she said. At night, I watched lightening and fishermen with kerosene lamps out at sea.
An old man, a local, showed me photographs of his son, his brother and his father; his dead relatives caught on camera. He spends his evenings selling chocolate bars to tourists at the backpacker lodge and watching them with an anthropologist’s eye. He visits the western world every night and goes back to his African bed at night. His back was slightly bent and his walk was slow. His legs were stolen from man twenty years young. He is a town elder, respected and wise. The chocolate is his friendly ruse.
The long windy path to the lodge at Nkharta Bay had been washed away by the rains. It was fiercely bumpy and not made for the average car. Was that the route the old man walked? It was steep and uneven and an energetic climb for anyone. It was a steep climb up the steps to use the toilet and the wonderfully hot open air shower. It was a steep climb to bed.
Nearby, I visited the vibrant town of Mzuzu, its market place and Asian run shops. The Asian boys looked like wide boys and walked with a laddish gait. A young Asian man, with a slightly deformed face, walked arm in arm with a large black man. I’ve heard that Asian’s are unpopular in Africa, but all I saw was the friendship and love of two jovial friends.
Was it all a show? Was the Asian boy a simpleton; a mentally impaired fool that laughed while threats were being made on his life? The streets were busy with both Asians and Africans. Not one person batted an eyelid as the two men laughed and sauntered by. Can there be hate for a race but love for the people? I remember the racism of my childhood and the words of a girl at the school bus stop. ‘My dad says he’s not a racist but he’d never let me marry a nigger.’ It worked the other way too, ‘I don’t like niggers, but Joe’s okay. I know Joe and he’s more like us.’ That was in rural England in the 1970s. Was I told lies about African hatred for the Asians and their successful businesses? Generalisations always gloss over the detail. I wasn’t a racist in the 1970s.
The devil may be in the detail, but the truth is too. As for beauty, sometimes you find it by accident. The trip to Rumphi was an accident, an act of kindness, the transportation of a lone traveller with huge heavy bags. There was beauty in Rumphi. It’s one of those places that etches itself to the back of your retinas and retains a wonderfully haunting presence there for many years to come.
Rumphi is a small town that sits in the heart of a lush valley, kindly sheltered by tall, steep mountains. At its edge, a bubbling stony river runs directly from Wales, or so it seemed. Fields of tobacco and maize grew straight and proud, towering over the average human. Father Isaac runs a school in Rumphi and the school secretary lives in a small house in the middle of a maize field. The lone traveller, I feel affiliated to after just two days together, is volunteering at the school. She's living with the secretary as I type. I wonder if she’s read the town’s Wikipedia entry. She found the job during her travels, so her research may have been sparse. The wiki interweb entry only adds to my desire to remember Rumphi well. It says that “Rumphi is noted for the kindness of the people (it's even rude to pass by someone without greeting them).” Rumphi is a swell kind of place. I fell in love with Rumphi and wanted to stay in the little house in the maize field too.
My last two nights in Africa were not spent in Rumphi, but at Kande Beach (pronounced Candy Beach). I swam in the lake there. It’s like swimming in a fresh water sea. I’ve always wished that the real sea was like that. I wish that the sea near me was a magnificent lake filled with clear waters and happy shoals of brightly coloured fish. At night, a power outage in Kande showed Lake Malawi for what it is; The Lake of Stars. A million bright stars filled my eyes and took my breath away. I thought that the stars only shone with such clarity and so wonderfully brightly in Hollywood films. We dug a hole in the sand and filled it with charcoal bought from the roadside. Charcoal production is a primary cause of deforestation in Malawi and most charcoal sold is illegally produced. Almost every meal is cooked on charcoal. Our meal that night would be too. It probably was every night, but this time we bought the charcoal ourselves.
I met beach boys in Malawi who answered to the names of ‘Cheese on Toast’ and ‘Fish and Chips’; names that stupid tourists might remember. I thought about changing my name to Nsima or Mielie-Meal just for them. I managed to eat nsima for the first time during my last night in East Africa. Nsima or mielie-meal (mealie meal) is actually maize flour and water. It’s cooked very slowly until it becomes a pap or a very thick porridge. Nsima is eaten bare handed and looks like a very white dough. To experience the full Malawian culinary experience, I ate a roadside roasted sweetcorn cob on my very last day. Corn on the cob is an expensive treat in England and an essential staple in Africa. It’s a-maize-ing. Let me take a bow.
A seven hour journey along the coast road (the lake road) took me back to Lilongwe and to my flight. It really was my last day. On the way back, I sighed as the roadside vendors sold charcoal, wood, live chickens, fresh fish and stall upon stall of neatly stacked juicy ripe tomatoes. Chickens, goats and wild dogs crossed the road randomly. Beautiful countryside rolled by. Bye, bye Lake Malawi.
A last excursion in Lilongwe let me see Capital City; the newer part of the nation’s capital. Wide tree lined streets, embassies, commercial banks, and the Banda Memorial site, smelt like money. This is the part of town built for the wealthy African and the diplomat from overseas. It lacked any kind of vibrancy and life. At The Four Seasons Garden Centre on Presidential Way, I felt like I’d walked into a mini-slice of rich rural England. The nursery offered a wide range of potted plants and several small craft shops sold toys, tea towels and the crappy kind of gifts you’d find in any National Trust shop in Kent. Buchanan’s restaurant is based at The Four Seasons and sells expensive meaty meals. They have ‘classical and jazz brunches’.
My trip ended more aptly with a hairy ride to the airport. A car coming the other way decided to overtake in our drive space. I narrowly escaped a head-on collision as a flurry of evasive off-road action took us out of its stubborn path. The icing on the cake was the thick black exhaust fumes of a lame vehicle at our bow. The smog helped us to completely miss the turning; the main airport junction marked by a mass of massive billboards. We didn't see those billboards until we came back the other way. I made it though. I made it and the flight was just perfect. I watched sheet lightening fill the night sky as we took off and after a little snooze I found myself in Gatwick. I ate breakfast at Pizza Express at 7am. Hello England.
Fabpants in Africa: The First Three Days
Fabpants in Africa: Days Four to Seven
Fabpants in Africa: Days Eight to Twelve
Fabpants in Africa: Days Thirteen to Twenty One
Well, this blog is being written in England! I’ve been in England since 6th March, and I’ve been very slow to update the world about my last few days in East Africa. I’ve been busy. I turned 36 years old the day after my return. I’m now officially closer to 40 than 30, and I’m still absolutely in love with life. To celebrate my love of life, I’ve been partying. Perhaps, I’ll tell you all about that later. That’s if I’m not high on crack and dancing on the rooftops.
Most people in Africa guessed me as a twenty something. One day my face will catch up with my years. One day, I’ll dream of being the person that I am today. For now, let me take you back to Saturday 1st March, when I still looked young, and lightly sun soaked. It’s time to turn my scrappy notes into typed words. Now where was I? Oh, that’s right. I was in Lusaka, where the green tomato chutney is simply a delight.
I was about to head out of Lusaka. To avoid the touts and a long wait at the bus station, tickets for an early bus had been bought in advance. Early buses leave on time and I had a long way to go. It was a great plan. It was a great plan until I walked out of the dorm and marvelled at how light it was. Fuck, it wasn’t supposed to be light. I hear that African’s don’t oversleep. Well, very tired English people do. What I was thinking? Four hours of sleep in a noisy room is the perfect set up for sleeping through an early morning alarm. What was that? No, of course I wasn’t wearing earplugs when I needed to hear the beeping of my restless clock. Me, never!
Okay, so I’m mentally retarded. But, I’d like to see you trying to sleep through the sound of drunken travellers, as they wail along to the worst possible kind of 80s rock, without wearing some sort of ear protection over (or in) your delicate auditory pits. I’d like to see you get up at 4.30am after three weeks of country hopping and shut eye deprivation. I’d like to see your miserable morning face.
To top it all off, a taxi drove me into Lusaka bus terminal as ’my’ bus drove out. The eager taxi driver kindly tried to stop the bus, but the touts had seen white skin and circled the car like vultures. It only took four hours to fill the next bus. Four hours, and a sermon later, and I was on the move. To be honest, I didn’t really care. I didn’t really care about the wait or my screw up. I felt very relaxed and at ease. I’d only overslept and I had a feeling that it would all work out. The tickets were still valid.
I was about to travel on the worst road in East Africa and a little optimism was needed. Paradoxically, the worst road in East Africa is called The ‘Great’ East Road. There’s pride in them there potholes. As for the toilets, they’re a delight too. At Luangwa Bridge, we stopped to use some toilets of the fee paying variety. Most girls just nipped around the back of the building and pissed in the open air. I braved the real toilet, but despite the porcelain unit, it was nasty. I had to hover pee with the door open, and in full public view, as I tried not to touch any part of the room. Back here in England, I feel bad for slipping past the payment desk (a dirty wooden table) on my way out, but at the time evading the small fee felt like a small victory. I now know that nice girls pee in the open air when the alternative is a small building soaked in poo.
Luangwa Bridge is a small settlement that’s grown up around the trucks and buses that pass through, and the envitable need to pee. The streets are lined with stalls selling freshly cooked fish, baskets and straw hats. As I stretched my legs and took some air, two small boys walked towards me. Behind them two toy lorries, attached to long strips of perfectly white string, glided along the ground. The lorries were beautifully crafted from milk cartons and cardboard boxes. They were the best toy lorries that I’ve ever seen. Full stop. There was no doubt that the boys knew what treasure they had. They held their heads high as they proudly trundled their homemade vehicles along the edge of the hard and dusty road.
Needless to say, the views of the Luangwa River from the bridge itself were spectacular on a far grander scale. Okay, I was more touched by the roadworthy wagons fashioned from cardboard and plastic, but that’s just me. The Luangwa was certainly a feast for tired eyes and there’s no denying that. Following recent rains, the river was wide and vast, filling a large trough of the low valley; a valley that it’s carved just for itself over a fuck of a fancy of eons. We crossed via a three hundred metre long cable bridge that stands in stark contrast to the raggedy roads that meet it on either side. Whether the tarmac path from Lusaka and Chipata will reach the bridge, without getting washed away, is a daily mystery; the bridge is more of a certainty.
Much of the journey was interspersed with small thatched huts squatting low amongst the tall rainy season grass. One small community of huts was dominated by a mobile phone antenna mast. Others hosted wooden football posts and sweet fields of maize. The road was strewn with potholes, and the bus hurtled along at great speeds. At one point the bus leaned deeply and I contemplated the laws of physics and my chances of surviving unscathed in a toppling bus. I was blasé by the time I realised that we were driving through the rain with no windscreen wipers. You just have to trust that it will all be okay or your head might explode.
It was dark when I hit Chipata, the border town. It was dark when I crossed the border. It was dark and misty as the Malawian countryside rushed by. A Zambian girl travelled with us in a private cab. Her Mum is living in Salima, Malawi and it was visiting time. The girl was shy and surprised by the hospitality of tourists. She was attentive to the behaviour and words of those visiting her part of the world. I knew I was being studied but it felt good. Our new friend was getting a free ride. The next day she would excitedly show us her mother’s lodge; a lodge for local travellers, but remarkably similar to the backpacker establishments. I met her aged grandmother, and aged grandmothers are rare in Zambia and Malawi.
In the Lilongwe night, a wildcat ran across the road; apparently that’s a rare sight too. It was a big lean cat with muscles to envy; a loner caught in the headlights. Arrangements were made to hire a car from a man that lives in a house not dissimilar to those in the village where I was raised. It felt odd to see such a house so far from home. I imagined old Mrs Durrant living there and growing sweet cherry tomatoes for visiting children, like me. That was my childhood and not theirs.
I was back in Malawi’s capital, and back at Mabuya Camp. I was where I had been so very briefly during my first day on hot soil. I had travelled more miles than I’d been counting and although I’d only spent fifteen hours in Lilongwe, I felt as though I’d come back to a place that I knew well. The atmosphere was warm, friendly and welcoming. People engaged in real conversations and no one played, let alone sang along to, ‘Sweet Child of Mine’. Mabuya entertained none of that.
I met several people from Norfolk and had more reminders of home. Us folk from Norfolk like to get about. Mother’s Day was a few sleep-filled breaths away. Someone in Norfolk would never get my Happy Mother’s Day text.
I was not integrating. Although I felt at ease at Mabuya Camp, the small world of backpacker lodges frightens me. The sweet Zambian girl, on her way to Salima, had come to stay for the night too. Overwhelmed by the white enclave, she slipped away to her room. In the morning, she admitted her surprise at how white travellers live. The ground around the small thatched buildings was wet and muddy. Dogs ran around with excitement.
Mothers Day, Maize Day, Martyrs Day; this was bank holiday Malawi. This was ‘reclaim the streets’, ‘critical mass’ and party time. This was a weekend of local celebration. It’s normally busy in Salima. It’s a flat town and bicycle taxis are rife. The bicycle taxi is a normal bicycle with a seat on the pannier rack. Most bicycle taxis are functional, with minimal padding, but a few look temptingly luxurious. Bicycle taxis carried women in fine dresses, adults clutching children and sometimes two heavy men at once. When we passed through Salima, the roads didn’t clear. People on bikes and people on foot were everywhere. For 400km or more there would be people. You know humans with a heart, a mind and a road to travel. In the towns, it was like driving through a thick drunken crowd at Glastonbury Festival. People don’t get days off work at Bank Holiday time but they still celebrate with vigour.
March 3rd, 1959, is a day that resonates through the warm heart of Malawi. What happened? Well, we did. Our nation’s ancestors were complete and utter bastards, or so it seems, and particularly so on the 3rd March. Before dawn hit the new day, British soldiers set out in the middle of the night and arrested Nyasaland African Congress members, local chiefs and those leading the ‘fight’ for independence. They arrested everyone in the heart of darkness, like the underhand swines they were, and then, when daylight came and word got out, they proceeded to gun down any protesters. Twenty six Africans, who had come to seek the freedom of the prisoners and the freedom of their country, died. For many years later the 3rd March was not celebrated, instead it was commemorated in a sombre manner. People stayed indoors and radios were turned off. Independence came some five years later, and one of those arrested, Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, became the first president of Malawi.
These days, when Martyrs Day falls on a Monday, just after pay day, the country goes mental for the entire weekend. Gone is sobriety. Well, that was how it was while I was there. People didn’t hide indoors in silence; they went out, drank Kachasu, a local brew that’s ninety percent proof, and tried to get knocked down by a hire car. During the drive from Lilongwe to Nkharta Bay, we made two excursions from the drunken throng on tarmac. Take a break. Tiredness kills. Tell that to the staggering fools on foot.
I can thoroughly recommend both excursions. They were both other worldly and out of keeping with the wider East African world. The road-filled mass was instantly forgotten as I marvelled at the scenes about me.
The first was a visit to the Mua Mission (KuNgoni). It’s truly an oasis hidden away in the hills. It’s a missionary that’s developed as a centre for wood carvings and cultural programmes. It hosts fine buildings, landscaped gardens and beautiful spacious toilets. Adorably carved toilet roll holders dispense soft luxurious paper.
The second was Nkhotakota Lodge. Nkhotakota Lodge is on the edge of Lake Malawi, with green grass, a gourmet menu and toilets almost as inspiring as those at the mission. Nkhotakota Lodge also makes and sells fabulous pottery onsite. The crockery on sale takes the animals of Africa as inspiration, but in a truly charming way. Oh fuck, I’ve gone all upper middle class.
More importantly, Nkhotakota provided me with my first real taste of Lake Malawi. Soft sandy beaches sat at the edge of a beautiful fresh water ocean. I could see Mozambique. To be honest, while the pottery was a great distraction, the Lake was everything. The Lake is absolutely amazing.
At Nkharta Bay, where I stayed, I spent many hours of the morning transfixed by it. Here the Lake is greeted by rocky banks, instead of sand, and canoes take people from one side of the bay to the other. I watched a girl as she prepared to swim to work and then glided through the vast blue waters like a giant fish; ‘it’s quicker and easier than walking’, she said. At night, I watched lightening and fishermen with kerosene lamps out at sea.
An old man, a local, showed me photographs of his son, his brother and his father; his dead relatives caught on camera. He spends his evenings selling chocolate bars to tourists at the backpacker lodge and watching them with an anthropologist’s eye. He visits the western world every night and goes back to his African bed at night. His back was slightly bent and his walk was slow. His legs were stolen from man twenty years young. He is a town elder, respected and wise. The chocolate is his friendly ruse.
The long windy path to the lodge at Nkharta Bay had been washed away by the rains. It was fiercely bumpy and not made for the average car. Was that the route the old man walked? It was steep and uneven and an energetic climb for anyone. It was a steep climb up the steps to use the toilet and the wonderfully hot open air shower. It was a steep climb to bed.
Nearby, I visited the vibrant town of Mzuzu, its market place and Asian run shops. The Asian boys looked like wide boys and walked with a laddish gait. A young Asian man, with a slightly deformed face, walked arm in arm with a large black man. I’ve heard that Asian’s are unpopular in Africa, but all I saw was the friendship and love of two jovial friends.
Was it all a show? Was the Asian boy a simpleton; a mentally impaired fool that laughed while threats were being made on his life? The streets were busy with both Asians and Africans. Not one person batted an eyelid as the two men laughed and sauntered by. Can there be hate for a race but love for the people? I remember the racism of my childhood and the words of a girl at the school bus stop. ‘My dad says he’s not a racist but he’d never let me marry a nigger.’ It worked the other way too, ‘I don’t like niggers, but Joe’s okay. I know Joe and he’s more like us.’ That was in rural England in the 1970s. Was I told lies about African hatred for the Asians and their successful businesses? Generalisations always gloss over the detail. I wasn’t a racist in the 1970s.
The devil may be in the detail, but the truth is too. As for beauty, sometimes you find it by accident. The trip to Rumphi was an accident, an act of kindness, the transportation of a lone traveller with huge heavy bags. There was beauty in Rumphi. It’s one of those places that etches itself to the back of your retinas and retains a wonderfully haunting presence there for many years to come.
Rumphi is a small town that sits in the heart of a lush valley, kindly sheltered by tall, steep mountains. At its edge, a bubbling stony river runs directly from Wales, or so it seemed. Fields of tobacco and maize grew straight and proud, towering over the average human. Father Isaac runs a school in Rumphi and the school secretary lives in a small house in the middle of a maize field. The lone traveller, I feel affiliated to after just two days together, is volunteering at the school. She's living with the secretary as I type. I wonder if she’s read the town’s Wikipedia entry. She found the job during her travels, so her research may have been sparse. The wiki interweb entry only adds to my desire to remember Rumphi well. It says that “Rumphi is noted for the kindness of the people (it's even rude to pass by someone without greeting them).” Rumphi is a swell kind of place. I fell in love with Rumphi and wanted to stay in the little house in the maize field too.
My last two nights in Africa were not spent in Rumphi, but at Kande Beach (pronounced Candy Beach). I swam in the lake there. It’s like swimming in a fresh water sea. I’ve always wished that the real sea was like that. I wish that the sea near me was a magnificent lake filled with clear waters and happy shoals of brightly coloured fish. At night, a power outage in Kande showed Lake Malawi for what it is; The Lake of Stars. A million bright stars filled my eyes and took my breath away. I thought that the stars only shone with such clarity and so wonderfully brightly in Hollywood films. We dug a hole in the sand and filled it with charcoal bought from the roadside. Charcoal production is a primary cause of deforestation in Malawi and most charcoal sold is illegally produced. Almost every meal is cooked on charcoal. Our meal that night would be too. It probably was every night, but this time we bought the charcoal ourselves.
I met beach boys in Malawi who answered to the names of ‘Cheese on Toast’ and ‘Fish and Chips’; names that stupid tourists might remember. I thought about changing my name to Nsima or Mielie-Meal just for them. I managed to eat nsima for the first time during my last night in East Africa. Nsima or mielie-meal (mealie meal) is actually maize flour and water. It’s cooked very slowly until it becomes a pap or a very thick porridge. Nsima is eaten bare handed and looks like a very white dough. To experience the full Malawian culinary experience, I ate a roadside roasted sweetcorn cob on my very last day. Corn on the cob is an expensive treat in England and an essential staple in Africa. It’s a-maize-ing. Let me take a bow.
A seven hour journey along the coast road (the lake road) took me back to Lilongwe and to my flight. It really was my last day. On the way back, I sighed as the roadside vendors sold charcoal, wood, live chickens, fresh fish and stall upon stall of neatly stacked juicy ripe tomatoes. Chickens, goats and wild dogs crossed the road randomly. Beautiful countryside rolled by. Bye, bye Lake Malawi.
A last excursion in Lilongwe let me see Capital City; the newer part of the nation’s capital. Wide tree lined streets, embassies, commercial banks, and the Banda Memorial site, smelt like money. This is the part of town built for the wealthy African and the diplomat from overseas. It lacked any kind of vibrancy and life. At The Four Seasons Garden Centre on Presidential Way, I felt like I’d walked into a mini-slice of rich rural England. The nursery offered a wide range of potted plants and several small craft shops sold toys, tea towels and the crappy kind of gifts you’d find in any National Trust shop in Kent. Buchanan’s restaurant is based at The Four Seasons and sells expensive meaty meals. They have ‘classical and jazz brunches’.
My trip ended more aptly with a hairy ride to the airport. A car coming the other way decided to overtake in our drive space. I narrowly escaped a head-on collision as a flurry of evasive off-road action took us out of its stubborn path. The icing on the cake was the thick black exhaust fumes of a lame vehicle at our bow. The smog helped us to completely miss the turning; the main airport junction marked by a mass of massive billboards. We didn't see those billboards until we came back the other way. I made it though. I made it and the flight was just perfect. I watched sheet lightening fill the night sky as we took off and after a little snooze I found myself in Gatwick. I ate breakfast at Pizza Express at 7am. Hello England.
