Malawi

Blog 6

I think he is preaching a bit too much in this blog

Getting out and away from Pomene was epic. We were to be towed to the “Red” road by Umlungu who does a daily run to Massenga for provisions of one form or another. Umlungu is the PR/Liaison bloke for the Lodge. He is a real credit to the place and has a great relationship with the surrounding villages. His daily run includes chores for the villages and lifts for various souls.

The road out is 56 km. You hit the red road about 26km from the Lodge. We were attached by a very short 2.5m umbilical cord to Umlungu’s 4*4. We were attached but not towed, the Kombi was driven under her own power, (“her” was in the back seat with her eyes closed praying to Christopher someone or other). So most of the time the umbilical cord was slackish until we hit the really soft sand when the 4*4 took up the slack and we both powered our way through the trouble. I can’t tell you the relief when we finally got to the red gravel and cut the cord and went on our separate ways, and “she” opened her eyes.

One other perturbing thing about the trip. Umlungu is a seriously educated decent person with a wife who would not be out of place in Vogue. As I was concentrating like hell on the variable distance between me and the 4*4, the next thing I see is a Coke can thrown out of his window then a packet of some sort! If top management don’t care about littering their own back yard, who is there to set an example?

Africa is a basket case.

Our next stop was Inhassoro, which can best be described as Beaufort West by the sea! A place which happens to be a convenient place to spend the night, Wagon Wheels Motel without the Wheels! The camp sight was OK, on the beach and next to a pleasant beach restaurant who had more waiters than patrons. At the bottom of the steps leading down to the beach was a structure  that resembles a double crucifix where Koos and his mates gloated over the size of their latest catch. A carved sign celebrates a record Marlin of 456kg (there or there about). I feel sick.

It was evening, the tide was out. Ewa and I walked past the Crucifix over the kelp across the beach into waist deep water with the faint glimmer of lights from the luxurious cocktail bars of Bazaruto Islands on the horizon. The sea was very shallow. To swim I lay down and sort of pulled myself along with my fingers in the sand. I was amazed. Every step I touched a Pansy Shell just under the sand, they were alive. I always thought the perfect white Pansy Shells we used to look for on the beaches of the Wild Coast had something to do with Jelly Fish, not so they are animals in their own right and when they are alive are brown not white!

There was another couple camping, a German couple called Ollie and Helgar or something that sounded like Helgar. They appear to do nothing else but travel, and while they were not travelling did nothing. Helgar the Horrible didn’t like walking. She also used the Men’s toilet. Maybe she was confused, I felt sorry for Ollie. Poor man. They were spending three nights in “Beaufort West”, when I asked them what they had been doing, they said “Nothing”!

Inhassoro to Inchope. Hot, really hot. Thank goodness for the Kombi’s Aircon. The Kombi’s Aircon works by getting the Dentist to spray you top to bottom with water from the recycled Doom bottle or some such spray bottle which she  has been hording for years.  By angling the little triangular window that one only finds on pre circa 1980 cars your leaking body is chilled by a degree or so. You can’t see much while she sprays as it fogs up the glasses, but this can be a blessing as you can’t see the bloke at the side of the road who is vending live chickens and guinea fowl by tying their feet together and holding them upside down. As you drive passed they are jerked up and down a couple of time so that their wings flap, thereby proving their freshness. Or maybe the fog would stop me having to see a flatbed articulated truck with no sides and rows of live goats (you know they are alive because they are also flaying around) chain-ganged and secured to lie down on the flatbed so that they can bake in the noonday sun.

There were other things that also made my stomach sink. Flatbed timber trucks laiden with massive specimens of hard wood on their way to China to end up as veneered furniture of one form or another. You know that none of the specimens have been replaced. Then on the other hand you see the land on either side of the road completely denuded of the self same trees only to end up as bags of charcoal for sale on the side of the road. Maybe a veneer is better than nothing!

We spend the night in what potentially could be a magnificent campsite on the Chicamba Real Dam outside Chimoio, on the Mozambique side of the Zimbabwe Eastern Highlands. We have decided to go to Malawi via Tete. The camp site seemed a very good launching spot for the trip through the Tete Province, as the books tell you that it is not uncommon to experience temperatures of 50 Degrees C in this area.

As I am writing this I am crying with laughter. Ewa really must not give up her day job! She has taken my camera to photograph a pair of beautiful butterflies. The picture is attached!!! I promise the butterflies are there, see for yourself how beautiful the Green Banded Swallowtail is! I digress. Yes it is there…you just have to blow it up a bit and it’s a lot better than the photo he tried to take!

The Manageress of the camp site showed us where to camp and proudly showed us the ablutions and cooking area. What can I say? What is it that that makes people care? Of the four loos, two male and two female, one was usable. The only other campers were a Zimbabwean couple named Steve and Rene and their very silent child Celeste. It must have had a real problem for Rene to pee, as Rene was a little ample about the hips and I very much doubt if she could pass through the opening to the loo. I say opening as it used to have a door! The lights were turned on by pushing up the circuit-breaker and the insect life was something to behold.

As a mother of storms was about to descend upon us we decided to sleep in the dining area, but the insect life and their attraction to light caused a bit of a concern. However, Steve, a farmer, carried in the boot of his car a pesticide that was mixed by the gallon and had a scull and crossbones on the label. He sprayed over and around all openings, crevices, corners and surfaces. He assured me that nothing would pass any threshold for four months, judging by the skeletal deposits the next morning I had to admit he had a point; I was quite surprised to find Ewa alive. Ha Ha! Can’t get rid of me so easily…who’s going to dig him or push him out!

The night saw the storm descended in a massive deluge of thunder and lightning which celebrated the start of the summer rains. The cloud cover  remained and made the journey through Tete very pleasant. The spectacular countryside really took me by surprise, but the ribbon of life along the EN1 did nothing to restore any confidence in the ability of the people.

The Zambezi is crossed by a large suspension bridge at Tete. The bridge was under repair. There is no other way to cross the river. The two ferries appeared to require some mechanical attention. The traffic ran for half an hour in one direction then half an hour in the other. Only one truck was allowed on the bridge at any one time and the pedestrian traffic moved faster than the crossing vehicles. All this resulted in a line of trucks that must have been three kilometres long. The car traffic simply drove down the wrong side of the road passed the trucks, which cause little dismay to the oncoming traffic, they just moved onto the pavement! I am not sure how but I managed to take a different route that saw me behind truck number three who was to filter into the car traffic that was merging from another road that I appeared to have missed. Thanks to the only other car behind me, all I had to do was drive over the pavement around some signage, passed a couple of surprises, over the next pavement onto the road between the waiting cars. Easy really!

It was not our intention to push through to Blantyre, but it appeared to be doable and the alternative to parking on the cricket field of the Limbe Country Club was not very attractive. There was however one further test ahead of us that we sort of expected but our expectations to be exceeded. The test was the border crossing at Zobue. The usual money touts at the Mozambiquean Border were brushed aside, but then we hit the Malawian border post. I can only think that the reason for the harassment that one gets is that the authorities are in cahoots with the hustlers. I didn’t loose my cool, but it came close. Not one mile from the border post is the first police road block and the request for something spare change or something to drink, neither of which we agreed to.

We made the Limbe Country Club by nightfall.  The first President of the Limbe Country Club; TM Partridge Esq. 17^th August 1923 to 31^st August 1926 helped to establish a fine establishment visited by the Queen mother. I don’t think he allowed camping on the cricket field, but that aside I imagine the professional mix of the establishment in 1923 and the professional mix of the current establishment are very similar. The racial mix is somewhat different, but as evidenced at the bar on the night we were there, the social strata of the current establishment has change very little. Why is it then that the buildings and infrastructure are allowed to go to rack and ruin? If it has nothing to do with education, it can only be due to culture.

It would appear that African Culture is not be sustainable.Is our Western culture sustainable? What is the difference?

There are many differences, but the biggest one is the lack of long term planning, African Culture simply does not seem to think about tomorrow. They will use up their resources of any kind without a drop of consideration of the implications of the future. They will discard rubbish, not maintain buildings, overgraze land, not add oil to a squeaking wheel, have many children, take whatever aid they can get and simply use up every available resource. The only anomaly I can think of is the planning of death. Vast amounts of money are put away for funerals. There needs to be a cultural change.

The concept of planning, be it business, family or agriculture appears to be sadly lacking. Aid of any sort will certainly make a short term difference, but I see very little chance or evidence of long-term sustainability, and in the long run these efforts only create beggars.

Of all the African countries I have seen Malawi has a real chance of sustained development. There is evidence of massive aid and support in Malawi. There is evidence of diligent, hardworking, pleasant people; there is Religion everywhere, Muslin side by side with the Catholics and everything in between;

However, if all the aid agencies pulled out, would it survive? Certainly Limba Country Club is on a downward slide! 

Where does that leave South Africa? My view is that the only way South Africa can succeed is in partnerships. The government needs to embrace the skills of all its people, not by enriching the elite with BEE nonsense and creating labour laws that are completely inappropriate. They need to create genuine partnerships in all aspects of life. The African needs to be mentored.

There needs to be ownership of the land in the rural areas. As long the inhabitants of the fertile lands of the tribal areas have no ownership and title to the land, as long as wealth is counted in cattle and children, I have diminishing hope that South Africa will survive. The reason it could survive, is because the Dannie’s of this world have nowhere to go. The Afrikaner is an African without the cultural impediments.

As for the Africa through which we have travelled. There needs to be a radical change in Cultural the attitudes and beliefs that limit the development of the individual. They need to realise the consequence of throwing cans out the window. They need to care about tomorrow.