Malawi, Paradise

The first thing I noticed in crossing into Malawi were the coffin stores. They are everywhere, a sign of the scourge of AIDS and other diseases that have ravaged this country. Men carve the coffins by the side of the road under the shade of trees, and judging by the number of stores, do a good, albeit morose, business. And the tendency for people to ask for handouts when they see mzungu is even worse here than it was in Zambia.

Even though on pure economic measures Malawi is poorer than Zambia, for some reason it doesn’t feel that way to me. Many survive on subsitence agriculture, growing maize and living in huts made of brick that they themselves make by mixing clay with water and hardening the shapes in a fire. The people generally seem happy, friendly, and quite outgoing. Rarely do you walk by someone on the street without first pausing to say hello and then introducing yourself. The roads are excellent—two-way, paved highways that are even painted. Occasionally you forget you’re driving in one of the world’s poorest countries, but you’re brought back when you have a near miss with a bicyclist (cars definitively have the right of way here as in Zambia, and it’s not uncommon for drivers to force bikers off the road and to see them tumble off their bike as a result), or tree branches on the road, which is the Malawian signal that there is an accident or trouble ahead on the road.

The other thing you run into on the roads here, about every 25km it seems, are police roadblocks. Usually you pass by without incident, but at one point we were asked to take out our passports by a policeman who was stoned out of his mind and seemed to be sizing us up for a bribe. There is a history of corruption and greed in this country, like so many African countries, that goes back to the days of independence. The former president of Malawi, Hastings Banda, declared himself President for Life, ran this place like it was his personal bank account, and pocketed millions of aid dollars that were meant for his destitute people. A Malawi friend of mine needed to get a passport, and naturally had to bribe the officials to shorten the normal two-year wait. Just the normal way of doing business here: corrupt officials taking advantage of their position of power, and the people they are meant to govern suffering as a result. The nicest house in the town that I’m staying in now would be a nice house even on the shores of Lake Washington. And it belongs to—wait for it—the police commissioner. The relative difference of the mud huts that the people live in and the palacial digs of the police commissioner is palpable.

But things are looking up for Malawi. This is the second year in a row of a bumper maize harvest. This year they grew enough maize to sell some to the crook next door in Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, who in six years managed to turn the country that was once the bread basket of Africa into a recipient of food aid.

If I thought the missionaries were successful in Zambia, it was only because I had yet to make it to Malawi. 75% of the population here is Christian, but it’s usually the fire and brimstone flavor that’s full of fervor and zeal. I bought a local paper yesterday and thought you might like to see some of the headlines (in bold), and in some cases the captions beneath the headlines. All are verbatim.

-“Some People Hate Lawyers
If some lawyers go to heaven, then hell will be empty.”

-“God is in Control, the Devil is Not in Control
The call means the President realizes that God is in control. God can solve whatever issue human beings fail to solve. The Devil is not in control. God is in control but Devil is trying to take control. Human beings have problems all the time.”

-“Dangerous Sphere of Truth
History bears witness to the fact that telling the truth is not only problematic but can at times lead to unutterable problems.”

-“Prayer for Malawi,” by Rev. Keith Banda

-“Demons in Life, Angels in Death”

-“Government Looks to Biofuels” (first real article I’d seen…about Malawi looking to sugar cane as a potential export and source of hard currency. Sadly, small and poor Malawi could probably never compete with Brazil in this market)

-“Bottom Power is Not Forever – Chief Lacks Mandate”

-And, “Clinton [Bill] Back in Malawi Friday”

I got a serious chuckle out of the headlines and I hope you do, too. It's sad that this country is so wrapped up in religion in sorting out its affairs though. There was one article in the paper titled “Who is Telling Our Story?” that was basically a rant wondering why the foreign press insists on writing about negative things every time in writes on Malawi rather than about the beautiful things that are on offer here. I can’t help but wonder the same thing—this country is beautiful.
As you drive north the harsh, flat grassland gives way to gently rolling, green hills that are covered in pine trees. Pine trees! I haven’t seen an evergreen since I left Seattle. And nearly the entire country is bordered by the beautiful, blue Lake Malawi.

I’m now in the northern part of the country in a town called Nkhata Bay, at a beautiful oasis of a backpacker’s resort called Mayoka Village. I have my own chalet up on a lush hillside overlooking the lake below. It is truly a paradise—all for $15 per night. I think I’ll stay here for a few more days before continuing north to Mbeya, Tanzania, where I’ll catch a train to Dar es Salaam. I met a lovely Dutch girl, Zoe, who I honestly think I fell in love with only to have her leave two days later. I’ll need a few days here just to lick my wounds if nothing else. In other news:
-I have a piece of wood lodged in my big toe that got stuck there on the climb down to the Zambezi River in Zambia. It seems to be working it’s way out, but I’m worried I might lose the toenail less than a year after it finished growing back.
-My camera seems to be on its last leg, and I think I’ve got the sands of Sossusvlei chunking around in there
-I just realized, courtesy of my doctor friend Maria, that calcium counteracts the absorption of my malaria pill, Doxycycline. This would have been good to know many weeks ago, since I have been taking a multi-vitamin full of calcium alongside my malaria pill every morning. Whooops. Keep your fingers crossed for me that I don’t get it.
-I’ve still got a mild case of the trots, which makes the travel more, um, adventurous

Hope you all are well.