Lilongwe Strikes Back!

Lilongwe must have a close relationship with Rumphi, maybe it didn't like the way we pre-judged Rumphi, we should've sent an apology to Lilongwe too, lesson learned. Either way, Lilongwe must've been upset at us. You'd have thought we were safely back in Lilongwe, said our good-byes with Moya and should have had a nice quiet night before flying out the next day. Boy, were we wrong.

On the bus, Dan mentioned receiving a message about an incident back at the house with his roommate and a Rasta front-man son of the landlord. Details not really important, we'll get back to that. Malawi wasn't going to let us go quietly:

After spending the entire day on the bus traveling back to Lilongwe, we were hungry so we decided to go to a restaurant for dinner that Dan had mentioned previously. We took a cab from the bus depot to the restaurant. The restaurant was not located in an area from which it would be easy to hail a cab, so we asked the cab driver to return in about an hour to drive us the rest of the way to the house. I don't think the cab driver understood what Dan was saying. Anyway, I don't remember what the specialty at the restaurant is but once we walked in the doors, the power went out, Lilongwe was laughing. (Fortunately, they had some food cooked, it was something).

We waited around awhile after dinner for the cab driver to return. He never did. So we made out on our own. On the way out to find a ride, Katy puts one foot in a gaping gutter and fell flat on her face bruising both knees and scraping up both hands pretty bad. Katy fought back tears.

Dan negotiated with the driver of a flat-bed truck who was parked next to an adjacent gas station to take us the rest of the way to the house. It worked out pretty well actually.

So this brings me back to the incident at the house while we were away. Like I said, details of what happened aren't too important, I really don't remember. The important part is that there was some sort of altercation and the guy from the VSO who was renting the house decided, without consulting Dan, to move everything out of the house, including all of the mattresses. Lucky for Dan, he had locked his door and there was still one twin mattress.

After all of that, we thought we would have to sleep on the linoleum floor without blankets or any other cushion for our last night in Malawi. Very compassionately, Noel, who worked at the house, lent us a foam mattress and blanket for the night for Katy, Ryan, and me. He insisted his family didn't use the mattress themselves, but I have my doubts. Thank you Noel!

Malawi had one more surprise in store for us, however: our flight from Lilongwe to Joburg. Someone wasn't feeling well on the flight before us, not feeling well at all, not feeling well at all and sitting in the last row. We were sitting in the 2nd to the last row. It didn't smell very good, like the smelly guy sitting on the bus but a little worse. (RS: They threw a blanket over it and sprayed some air freshener, but that was about it. Jon, Katy, and I were sitting as close to the mess as anyone on the plane could sit.)

Later Lilongwe.

Tail Between Our Legs

It's been such a long time since I've put together a post, I've forgotten where we left off, maybe someone will refresh my memory ...

Oh yes, that's right, we're still in Rumphi, we're still hours from Lilongwe, it's now Saturday and we need to get back for our Sunday flights. We're fine, we have the entire day ... what was that? Shoot, I forgot we don't have a vehicle.

So here we are, still in Rumphi, merely a couple hundred miles away from Lilongwe, we got up super early to start our day, we'll be fine. First leg, Rumphi to Mzuzu.

If anyone has been in a developing country, you've probably seen them, the small mini-vans that whiz around towns, packed to the gills (I had to look up the origin of this expression, amazingly, not in Wikipedia), yes, I know you've seen them before, I have too. We've all seen them but how many of us have actually been in one? Wow, I'm impressed. I've never been in one myself, not until this day.

Let me back up. The night before, we were discussing our options with how to return to Lilongwe. Since another rental was not an option, it was down to public transportation, either bus or even possibly renting out and entire mini-bus for our trip. What we decided to start was we had to at least get to Mzuzu, a slightly large city that has a bus depot and then figure out our options from there.

So here we are, with our bags bulging out the back, we pile into the bus, the 5 of us and 15 others for a total of 20. We were like clowns in a VW Bug. And I thought our prior sleeping arrangement were close quarters, at least it was only for an hour. Here's a look inside:


That was taken from the last row, me and Dan are sitting in the opposite facing seats, like the seats in the first couple rows of a Southwest flight, except much tighter.

We arrive in Mzuzu and are delighted to find that a bus to Lilongwe was still at the depot. The night before, we thought the bus would depart too early but we discover that much like traffic signals, bus schedules are suggestive too. The buses depart only when full and fortunately, it wasn't full but close enough that we didn't have to wait too long. About an hour later, we're on our way. Here we are in our seats, in the very rear of the bus:





Did I mention the engine was beneath our seats? It was rather warm but we did very well, just happy to be heading in the right direction. We met some people on the bus, played some cards and made fun of Ryan.

RS: Playing cards without a table:



7 hours later, we finally made it back to Lilongwe sans Hilux.

We did have to say good-bye to Moya. I don't know where we would've been if it wasn't for Moya.

Thank you Moya!

Moya and Daniel