From Tanzania to Malawi. And now what?
After a couple of days sandpapering the hardened metal of our battered engine, our hands looks like we’ve been exposed to a toxic waste that fully blistered our limbs from wrist to fingers. Together with a new glowing spiral, this hard piece of labor has to provide us with an ever so smooth running car and to our mild surprise it actually does! This, and the fact we’re about done here in Kilangala, means we can leave now and this we tell to the managers of the missionpost, who invite us to share dinner for the last time this evening.
That evening we do indeed share a good meal and later settle in the livingroom to enjoy a cup of coffee. Instant coffee, but still. The room is slowly filling up with people, which is not uncommon; this house is one of the few with a television set, and thus, everybody comes here to see some moving pictures on the tube. But what a surprise for us when mission manager Moses tells us that all the people here have gathered here to say goodbye to us, the three strange but quite useful mzungu. Everybody wants to say his or her part, and in the end we even get a great African pimping shirt that makes us look even better than we already did and with tears in their fading eyes, the elder women ask us if we maybe could stay a little longer. “None of that…” we stumble, clearly moved by the small drama unfolding in the Kilangala missionpost created by our undeniable departure. Because although we like it here, Malawi as well is entitled to her appropriate share of the ThreeLeftHands.
Which joy is it that overcomes us, we realize when we take of the next day; never before was our presence so welcomed than it was in this small rural village. Never did people understand us so well. But then, maybe the village isn’t that different, maybe it is us who have changed. We must admit that we’re increasingly capable of dealing with the attitude on this continent that is so different from the completely to our needs and wishes tailored Europe. It just doesn’t work like that in Africa. We say; ‘If you can’t do it like you should, you should do it like you can.’ but in Africa, they’ve raised this saying in to a proper way of life.
They improvise everything with the means available, after we can utter another phrase, ‘Don’t be irritated, be amazed.’; A generator leaking oil is not fixed, but just refilled everyday. A wrongly installed solarpanel destroys a $600 battery every half year, but nobody knows why, so they just buy a new one. And when electricity is available somewhere, the neighbor just fiddles some wires around the place in order to have power himself. His neighbor does the same. And his. Continuing, till the entire village is provided by a certain amount of light and endless meters of knick-knack wiring. They just don’t know better, it is an incredible lack of knowledge creating a gap that we fill more effective with every experience. Well, in Tanzania it really seemed like people wanted to drain our knowledge and apply it themselves, which leaves quite a satisfied feeling as we leave the country.
Leaving a country also means you have to enter one, and so, we find ourself at the Malawian border, where we spend three hours. Normal travelers cross it in less than fifteen minutes. Something with unpaid taxes and three guys making scene, after which we finally enter Malawi, pick up two Finnish hitchers and clash with the authorities less than half an hour after we entered this new and promising country. We drive past some cops who appear to be waving, but, as we heard five kilometers ahead at the unpassable roadblock, actually tried to stop us. So we drive back, to apologize. But an African civil servant’s longing for exerting power and Henk’s aversion of any form of authority doesn’t make the situation any better and so we end up with a grunting cop that refuses to hand us back our car papers. The poor man doesn’t seem to realize we’re not in a hurry, and as Henk is pleading for an arrest so that this mess can be solved quick, Marten and Minne take out the teapot and start a fire to cook on. Two hours later we’re escorted to the nearest police chief and we easily talk our way out of further problems.
Our first real stop in Nkatha Bay, a perfect spot on the edge of amazing Lake Malawi, would be perfect for any realestater or any money worshiping businessman, but oddly enough, this little village has maintained much of its original authentic colors, which means a filthy patch of beach, cheap beer and the feeling you’re in a pirate hideout when at night you see all the flickering lights on the cliffs around you. We park for free, wash in the incredibly clear water of the lake, next to the rural villagers who laugh as they see that we almost live the same like them. Well, basically, they laugh at anything. They’re a happy bunch here. Maybe thats an explanation for the ‘western’ names people’ve given themselves for our convenience. It happened before in other countries, but while we could address people there with normal names as ‘James’ or ‘Amos’, here they test our serious expression with finds as ‘Chicken Pizza’, ‘Half cup of ganja tea’ and our personal favorite ‘Happy Coconut’.
A couple of days later, we find ourselves in Lilongwe, the not so exciting capital of this nation and as a growing tradition of ours, we use this time in the capital to improve our van. But, as usual, we can’t find the parts we need and we end up fixing the alternator with nothing more than a empty can of coke. While improvising our way around this feature, we hardly notice that in the three past days the supply of diesel has vanished. Not in our car, but in this country. Something to do with elections in Mozambique, was the vague explanation we got, and truckers don’t dare to cross the country which leave the country, and us, abandoned from fuel. Every now and then, a daring driver hastes himself and his precious load across the border, which creates an enormous queue in front of the filling station that was lucky enough to be provided with a couple of liters liquid gold. Naturally, you’d be able to find us on that same queue on a certain day. We wait and hobble a couple of meters each hour, until we decide it would be fun to take some pictures of this incredible scene and we get out of the car, armed with a camera. “You can not take my picture!” grunts a man before we even lifted our tool of frozen images. Certain members of the ThreeLeftHands don’t like it when they’re told what or what not to do and, not really bright, start an argument. The lack of petrol obviously blew away the thin veil of civilization that the people like to dress themselves with; after a couple of seconds we’re surrounded by an angry mob, that’s only withheld by an almost berserk Noflik who barks her lungs out. Two armed and military looking men displace us and we’re escorted to another policestation. We’re released quite soon, but still we’ve got no petrol.
Luckily, we’re close to the border and together with an empty jerrycan, we walk in the nomansland towards Mozambique, in pursuit of some contraband diesel. It’s rather easy to locate. A truck with a hose in it’s own diesel reservoir, sells to anyone who needs it for a substantial fee. Ten liters is all we can afford. Ten liters is enough to make it to Monkey Bay, where, patiently, we’ll wait till the dust thats whirling around south of us settles down. It can’t take that long, can it..?
Tags: diesel shortage, malawi, Nkhata Bay, tanzania
