(( some random things that happened in some random country ))
01 December 08 - 09:53
Friday 7th November
We set off from zomba to cape maclear on the axa bus nice and cheap and quick we arrived at monkey bay around 1.30 – 2 finding that no transport was around to go to cape maclear unless your hired a taxi, we were tired, hungry and I wanted a beer so we decided to just get a taxi from monkey bay to cape ma clear along one of the worst rounds I’ve ever been down it’s the only one in and out of cape maclear one of the biggest tourist attractions in Malawi and they have no transport in place to take people from monkey bay to cape maclear. Anyway finally arrived at cape maclear booked into fat monkeys, at finally had some lunch and a nice cold beer. After that we went into the lake and did some swimming well I did some swimming melvis just sort of flopped around in the water. After swimming we lay around on the beech and drank beer after a long day we headed to bed.
Saturday 8th November
Woke up early and headed to the bar ( no not to start drinking again) the original bar is being refurbished so they converted the restaurant into the bar, so we headed down there for breakfast which is very expensive. After breakfast we had organized to take a boat ride out to Thumbi Island for snorkeling, a fish BBQ and feeding fish eagles. We got in the boat and set off along the shore and stopped to pick up the fish, next stop along picked up the snorkels next stop along the grill for the BBQ next stop along some life jackets why they couldn’t do this before the picked us up I don’t know. So we set off for thumbi island, when we got there we had a big sign painted on a rock telling us there were no toilets here. We started off snorkeling I think I only half drowned myself about twice, I kept seeing pretty things further down and went down to see them and carried on breathing forgetting I was underwater and got a mouth full of lake water which cant be healthy. There were so many fish around and such bright colors blues, purples, oranges, reds. There were all these bits around me which to start with a thought was dirt or algae or something and that it ruined the whole beauty of it but then I looked closers and they were thousands of tiny fish. It was really beautiful out on Thumbi Island. The fish BBQ was beautiful really really nice after that we tried catching fish with out hands using bait and the local was really good caught one every time me and melvis were totally useless at it. After that we went to feed fish eagles, the local made some strange whistle and the eagles came out the trees and started circling the boat so we fed them wasn’t that interesting really got some good pictures though. Having been swimming all day and snorkeling I have serious burnt my back and legs and it really hurts. In the afternoon we watched the Wales Vs South Africa rugby match I thought I’d better support Wales it was only me and one other guy named tex who was actually from Leicester crazy stuff anyway after the first half the south African supporters said that the Wales supporters were very quiet, I did point out we were only supporting Wales by default.
Sunday 9th November
This morning I hired one the dug out canoes to play with, tex who I met yesterday said he tried it and it was very hard and they were very unstable. I actually took to it very quickly, on the lakeshore the locals use these canoes for everything the transport materials and equipment up and down the villages, they use the for fishing as well, but I found it quite easy the turn very quickly and its a lot harder the control them than the canoes im used to in England but as for stability I found them no more unstable than the one I paddle in England so that was fine tex was complaining he kept falling off, it was a lot more unstable when there was 3 of you in the canoe but still very fine to paddle. We paddled down the shoreline towards eagles nest having to stop every 10 mins to empty the water out of the boat, typically Malawian style. Then we stopped at the chiefs house, well not the chief because Steve is the chief of the village at cape ma clear but his sister is acting chief when he is away (which he is a lot) so we visited her and she was very happy to see is and gave me a bag of rice then she visited us at fat monkeys later, we were heading out to have a BBQ dinner on the beach further up the beach so she escorted to make sure we were safe. Then after we went to a bar called hiccups it was empty when we arrived apart from the owner and his friend the owner is a completely insane south African / Malawian who owns a lodge in liwonde 2 in Kenya one in Namibia and the bar at cape maclear, very very friendly and was very interested in my work his friend was a girl from America runs a lodge at cape ma clear as well beer flowed freely and I think he brought me more drinks than I brought myself including countless rounds of shots of sambuca. It was a very good evening
Oh also I got the news that my friend john in Blantyre has given birth to a baby girl, well he hasn’t his girlfriend has.
Monday 10th November
After being informed the only transport out of cape maclear today apart from a taxi was a truck leaving at 5.30 so very tired and very hung over we crawled out of our room and boarded the truck to start with it wasn’t to full I was standing up near the front but as we slowly made out way through the village it got fuller and fuller and we were packed together so tight and when there was absolutely no more room at all they piled more people in.
Now remember I have seriously bad sunburn on my back and shoulders and I had one girl who had a very tight grip on one shoulder every time the bus moved she grabbed harder someone was holding onto my waist and some else had hold of the other shoulder I was in so much pain and every time the bus jumped they all grabbed harder I was almost crying when we got to monkey bay another truck pulled up saying they were going mangochi so we jumped on to that truck which was pretty quick and as soon as we got to mangochi a bus for zomba pulled up and we climbed into that so we were very lucky for transport on the way back a bit more expensive but quicker. As I was walking up to Makwawa from songani one of my employees came to talk to me about something he wasn’t happy with and I just thought im not in back at the campsite yet and already have work issues. He was complaining that he works everyday Monday-Sunday wheres the cleaner works Monday – Friday but they both get paid the same but he didn’t want me talking to shay about it because, when he had told me he wouldn’t be able to get into work one day because he was ill, shay had really told him off and shouted at him saying that you must never talk to Sam about things like that, which is no surprise I have been sensing some hostility from shay about things like that so it just confirms what I thought, shay doesn’t handle his employees well but im quite upset he said that to me behind my back but ive heard other rumors of a similar nature. Also the toilet block that we were building when I left, me and shay had discussed it before I was leaving and I said he could wait until I come back to finish it and he said oh no no no I must finish it today it will be all completed by the time you get back I promise, okay then. I thought. I get home nothing it has had no work done on it for 4 days. I wouldn’t mind if this was a one of thing but it happens every time and I am fed up of it, I understand if he could have completed it but the fact he promised and then has quite obviously not done a single bit of work on it and it happens every time I leave he makes a promise to do something and I come back and absolutely nothing has been done. So I dunno I guess I’l just take some deep breaths I suppose.
Wednesday 12th November
Left to Lilongwe today to get some advertising done around the tourist sites in the city, melvis’s brother gave me a lift up to ntcheu and also let me drive at one point then took the wheel back again I dunno why I thought I drove quite well. Jumped out at ntcheu and caught a mini bus to Lilongwe it was probably to smoothest easiest bus journey I have had since arriving in Malawi I mean the backseat is the slightly bigger than a normal car and there were 6 of us crammed into it and huge bags of maize underneath my feet so I was sitting in a ball but apart from that nothing went wrong which amazed me.
Arrived in Lilongwe quite early and went about doing some work got a a Makwawa t-shirt printed , I had asked Steve to get George a load of adverts printed while he was in England with George but did he no
Want to why
Because he didn’t ask George to print the adverts on his computer he asked George for money for advertising and you know why they ask for money don’t you, because what they do is they give a quote which is considerably more than they actual costs and then what they don’t use disappears. Its like magic ive seen it happen
How am I supposed to do my job properly if no one else can do there’s a few pieces of paper printed was all I asked for is that really quite such a big thing. But no steve had to try and get money from him for it when there was no reason just once can someone think about the campsite BEFORE he thinks about their pocket. Anyway I was supposed to leave the next day for the wood badge training course with the company car. But of course being the clever guys they are they decided before the travel they need to repair the car which is fine having had months of notice about this course plenty of time to have it repaired right? So when do they decide to fix the car?
The morning before we leave
The same day 7 at night I just left him with the car in pieces and said pick me up in the morning if you have it fixed by then
Okay we’ll pick you up at 5 okay
So I went and stayed at a tourist camp for the night and got chatting with some guy from Germany who was quite good guy really
But guys just remember ‘don’t mention the war, I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it’ then got chatting with the bartender who insisted I stayed up chatting all night I was like I don’t have any money and I got to travel at 5 so he pulls out a bottle of vodka and says well its on the house and I aint drinkin it alone, okay then you pulled my leg. The car didn’t show up until 9 anyway
So
Friday 14th November
I joined the wood badge course. For those unfamiliar with the scout movement this is the highest leadership course available to scout members. I was a member of the elephant patrol I t was a very interesting course and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I learnt a lot and still managed to run a campsite aswell. I almost got 100% out of the tasks when the pass was something like 50% but because of something which I will explain in a minute on the 3rd day we did tracking signs and it was the very basic tracking signs as this was only the first session but my group were useless the came across a cross on the ground and I told them it meant no entry but they carried on walking and found another cross and came to the conclusion that we get 5 arrows then 2 crosses I was like are you guys actually gonna listen or not. Obviously not then they came across a post box and had no idea what that sign meant so I explained. Then we returned back to the campsite. And were informed we’d missed a big section where the no entry sign was we were supposed to follow another arrow on a different path I just leaned against the wall smiling I was a bit smug but maybe next time they will listen. Anyway on Monday the last night of the camp we had a big campfire halfway through I got a phone call from mickey the camp I stayed in Lilongwe informed the puppy that had kept running out and biting my ankles had in fact got rabies and he had been trying to reach my for a few days. I must get to the hospital immediately. I informed shy and he phoned his doctor friend and said we must get there before 11 in the morning and he will get us a free treatment course we decided to leave at 5 in the morning I was s*****g myself I can tell you.
Tuesday 18th November
So 5 the next morning I was ready to go hmmmm im missing something
Usual story where on earth is shy, he was no where to be seen, turns up at 7 with no excuse as to where he’d been. Says he is just going up to the top camping site to have a quick chat with the guys
WHAT!
Fine then okay be quick
2 hours later with many angry phone calls from me he finally wanders back down its now 9 and im just pacing around like a caged lion. Then he says im just gonna have a cup of tea still holding my temper almost breaking but not quite.
10 he knocks on my door calm as anything are you ready he says. Well that was it I just lost it, I was livid with him I could’ve quite happily punched him, ive been very patient with him but today I just lost it, I had been told to get to the hospital asap and he is just pratting around like a completely clueless idiot I was absolutely seething anyway cutting out the rest of the story I got the injection and I need to have a series of them over the next month 5 injections in all.
Wednesday 19th November the rains have arrived
Never seen rain like it everything is absolutely drenched in seconds, the water pours down the mountain path and crashes against my house, the floor was flooded, nothing could get done today we haven’t had any electricity for days and the rain is relentless and pours down that mountain path with such force.
Thursday 20th November
No rain today
We were busy digging drainage ditches and shelters repairing leaks in roofs.
Okay sorry I must put a correction there.
‘we’ meaning me and crispin shy started work then took a break at 10 as we all did I was back at work at 10.20 shy came back to work on Tuesday 25th November anyway spent the morning digging a ditch around my house and the guest house (this is another of shy’s jobs he was supposed to have done weeks ago just to inform you). Mine and shys relationship is really at its lowest at the moment im still seething about the other day and he just doesn’t show up to work even though we have got so much to do. The wiring on my house has gone faulty and the switches have broken
Poor electrician
He received most of the anger directed at shy over the phone
In the afternoon I started building a shelter to cook under, just cutting down random trees to use has uprights and then building a roof with iron sheets and boarding up the sides it seems quite sturdy. Lack of nails meant most of the roof is constructed using lashings but it seems to hold quite well
Friday 21st November
This morning I had to go early to the clinic to receive my second dose of rabies treatment then back to work as we have a huge camp arriving next week theres lots to tidy and maintain would help if the manager of the site showed up for work but he’s gone to visit a friend. In the evening there was a disco held up at the Thompson hall, which was good met a load of new people.
Monday 24th November
Today I sampled some lovely Malawian delicacies.
Apparently the wet weather attracts a load of insects that come and fly around the lights and you set you some form of trap and then in the morning empty the trap and fry these insects up and eat them.
I was offered some I was like erg what? But hey what the hell so I tried one and they were actually really really nice gonna set my own trap and have some with my rice tomorrow.
Wednesday 26th November
Today as I was walking up from songani I got a call on my phone and it was from and English number so I answered it and it was sugar an old friend of mine from Devon calling me to tell me she had grown to 5 ft 2 very nice to speak to someone from England out of the blue like that.
Today a big camp has arrived from all over Malawi for the youth forum so we’ve been busy sorting out equipment and making sure everyone has got everything they need.
