July 13 - Settling In

July 12-23

The College of Medicine guest house was our home away from home for the interim. Our room consisted of a double bed with mosquito net, small desk and chair, and an en-suite bathroom with shower. Not bad by African standards, but after four months on the road travelling through Russia and Eastern Europe for our honeymoon we were craving our own personal space - space that this guest house was very much lacking. On top of this the positively deserted feel to the place made for some lonely nights. Kingsley, the cook, who looked like nothing could raise him from his seemingly permanent semi-comatose state, would prepare a meal for us some time around 6pm – invariably chicken and chips, chicken and rice, chambo (local fish) and chips or chambo and rice – then leave us to run the place. A few others came and went, but more often than not we would be the only ones in the place. Added to this, the almost daily blackouts that lasted several hours made this place seem almost haunted. The electricity cuts were at least predictable. One evening, the following morning, then thirty six hours on before it stopped again. It is so predictable that the local newspapers have sections dedicated to advertising the power cut times.

Unfortunately the guest house was somewhat of a prison for us given the difficulty in going out at night here without your own transport. It isn’t safe to wander the streets at night – in complete contrast to the daytime – and there’s no public transport after 7pm. And taxis? Not a chance. I think this would have to be one of the only cities I have been to where taxis simply don’t exist. You can organise private drivers to act as taxis, although the comparatively extortionate prices make this somewhat unattractive. I guess the locals just can’t afford taxis, and anyone who can owns their own car anyway, so there isn’t a market for them.

Our first weekend was one of discovery, having the time to enjoy before starting work on the Monday… and it’s funny how quickly things begin to feel normal. Our first walk into town, however, felt anything but normal. In a place devoid of white faces for the most part you are acutely aware of how black everyone is, or perhaps more correctly, how white you are. It is a feeling that rapidly disappears into a warped normality, however the initial feeling is quite confronting. Yes, everyone is exceedingly friendly and always ready with a 'hello' and a smile, but you sill feel a little like a fish out of water to begin with. The fume belching minibuses that hurtle to and fro with little regard for pedestrians, dusty roadsides choked with the many too impoverished not to walk, makeshift telephone centres with cords strung haphazardly to their plastic table and chairs, banana and strawberry vendors competing with orphaned children begging for your attention and money. Everything here was new to us, not because we haven’t seen any of it before, but more because this is our new home. Perhaps the best analogy would be that of scuba diving after having not done it for a while. Initially the underwater breathing and general environment is almost claustrophobic, heightening your senses to a startling level and allowing every little aspect of your new world to catch your attention in a detail that seems almost surreal and exaggerated. Yet as you ease into your new surrounds the previously foreign stimuli become less so, and before long seem like nothing more than regular features of life. And so it was that after a few days of wandering the chaotic streets of central Blantyre, working out the minibus system, discovering the frenetic market and roadside stalls and finding ourselves a few little eateries, we became used to our new home… Malawi.

In saying that, how accus- tomed you rapidly become is a very relative thing. Malawi continues to amaze you with her unbelievable intricacies, and the longer you spend here the more you get to know them. The roads are perhaps the most striking examples of these. Boys hold out startled dogs and cats on the roadside, displaying them like fresh market produce being hawked to drivers-by. Cars meander around the roads, their drivers in their own world, completely unaware of those around them and obviously in no particular hurry. Giving way is something for the meek, and traffic lights are more a suggestion that a rule – in fact, some traffic lights are simply switched off after dark, allowing the cars free range of otherwise unsigned intersections. Not that the police could do much if you are caught doing anything wrong; most of them don’t have cars or guns, and radios are simply non-existent. Potholes are a fact of life, and many roads even in town are in a state of disrepair that is laughable. Black clouds of pollution emanate from minibuses with such tenacity that it’s often hard to see the vehicle in front. Then there’s the pedestrians – once again a world unto their own. Driving here is like taking your car through a city mall: no one expects your car to be coming through and they’re certainly in no hurry to jump out of the way. All too commonly pedestrians will wander out into the middle of a main road and be genuinely surprised to see a car bearing down on them… that is if they even bother to look at all. They use the road as a footpath, change direction or cross roads with little to no warning, and are completely unaware of what the traffic around them is currently doing. Needless to say, traffic simply has to slow down or risk killing someone every minute or so. Then there's the food, with Africa’s disturbing love affair with fried chicken and chips – although not quite as bad as somewhere like Kenya, where an entire meal can consist solely of a plate of deeply fried chipsi – and the maize-based staple, nsima, the thick gelatinous and bland polenta-like carbohydrate that adorns most plates and is eaten with the hand in vast quantities. But that’s just life here… you get used to it.