Round the World

With apologies for the delay in updates, there will be a couple now-ish and then probably none for 6weeks or so, when you will get lots and lots in a short time frame. I have no regular intenet access, and lots of things to do in the short time I have left, so most will have to wait until i'm on the boat before i write any more, and back in Europe before they get uploaded. I'm sorry, but live with it!

Though I have been traveling for years and been to any variety of places and cultures, i've never really had culture shock. There are only 2 occasions that I can recall that even come close, and they totaled less than an hour. The first, was as late as 2005 and I was in Gangneung, South Korea. It was my first visit to Eastern Asia; I had spent the previous 6 weeks or so in Siberia and had arrived in Korea unexpectedly and after a hellish journey on a knackered and sinking ferry in typhoon. Though I had been in Korea for a few hours, it was only when I went for a walk to find food that evening that it hit me: For maybe 30minutes or so, I was like a kid in a candy store gazing at this mass of advertising lights – or, really, any amount of light at all – and all these strange symbols that form the Korean alphabet, plus such amazing curiosities as a restaurant called McDonalds....

The second occasion in was 2006 and was a very brief 10second whammy. I had just arrived in London having been and out of Europe for most of the previous 18months or so, and had just got on the tube when I was suddenly hit by the realisation that of the mass of people all around me, not one was speaking English. I don't know why it was such a shock – London is one of the most multicultural cities in the world – but suddenly being back in an English speaking country for the first time in 18months and not hearing any English was just crazy for a short instance. Then I heard an announcement telling me to Mind the Gap, and all was good again.

I have always put the fact that I don't tend to get culture shock down to the fact that i don't fly. If you get on a plane in London or Stockholm or Atlanta and then get off 8-10 hours later in somewhere like Delhi, Tehran or Lagos your get such a sudden blast of new sensory inputs that your brain struggles to cope, especially if it is your first visit to such surroundings. However, if you have spent weeks or months getting there by surface, you have generally already adapted by that stage. There are very few places where by just crossing the 100m or so of no-mans land, you arrive in utterly different scenery or surroundings. It is a more gradual change and you have had time to adjust.

I'm not sure what I expected of Zimbabwe, but i blatantly was not prepared that first evening. It had admittedly been an early start and a very long day, but after being picked up by the lovely Dilly, my first CS host in Africa (it has been a frustrating continent to travel from that score) and taken to her apartment, my brain went into semi meltdown. Her apartment is a spacious and well kept place in a nice area, and was entirely western. I would go a far as saying swanky, and the sort of thing that i would be hugely impressed with if it had been in Munich or Stockholm, let alone Harare. It would not have looked out of place – inside or out – in London or any other Western city. It had electricity, hot running water, curtains, a cooker and more.

But what really got me was walking into the bathroom. As well as a toilet, it had a shower (yes, hot water with pressure) and a separate bath, plus, wonders of wonders, a washing machine. Admittedly not the most modern, but a washing machine. I haven't seen such an appliance in over 6months. so i stood and just stared at it, almost transfixed for a few seconds.

Though I still have some time left before I have to retreat to what some people laughingly call the real world, and have much to see, explore and experience before that moment, I suddenly realised that the end is rapidly approaching and i am now back in what Westerners would class as civilisation.

This will take some serious adjusting to.

About the only thing that seemed oddly comforting and, well, African, was the neighbours. I was solemnly and very seriously told that under no circumstances should i consider walking on the other side of the road here. Apparently the neighbours don't like it, and I would be shot on sight. And seeing several (often drunkenly staggering) guards with guns wandering around convinced me they weren't necessarily pulling my leg. 'Why', i asked out of curiosity? 'Dr. Robert Mugabe lives there'.

Leaving Malawi we had been delayed for well over an hour, and by the time we left for the 5km trek through no man's land, we were 3 passengers short. By the time we finally crossed into Mozambique – after a 3hour plus period between arriving at the Malawian border and driving into Mozambique – the bus was again full. The largest of the trio had returned without a large interesting looking bag he had been carrying, and my neighbour grumbled loudly about 'those damned people again' causing me to inquire what he mean't. And as he's said it in English, I was probably supposed to.

The trio had been part of a larger group of about 10, all guys, and all with Malawian papers. Apparently the larger man with the bag was paying off the Malawians to let them through (or get dodgy passports from them, i'm not sure which) and was a well known people smuggler, who regularly made this trip with young men who wanted to get to Zimbabwe or South Africa for a better life/opportunities. Whether any of this was true, I don't know. What I do know is he returned minus the bag, was definitely the leader of the group, and carried himself with a kind of cocky self confidence that suggested that he had nothing to worry about from anybody. And he was at least partly responsible for the delay which caused to sit in the sweltering heat waiting.

After the Tete corridor and creaking bridge over the Zambesi, the Zimbabwean part of the border was one of the friendliest I have ever crossed in Africa, though the bus then got delayed for another hour or so for reasons I don't know. Add in another 2 police stops and then a puncture barely 10km from Harare, and it all mean't that by the time we arrived it was gone 10pm. Happily, the bus then shot past the nicely lit place it was supposed to stop (and where I had arranged to meet my host) and then dumped me in a very dark and dodgy looking corner of Harare city centre with some very, erm, interesting characters lurking nearby.

Hmmm. Welcome to Zimbabwe

And so to Mozambique.

5 hours later, i had left again. Pretty wasn't it?!

For reasons that I never quite understood, Blantyre was absolutely crawling with blighters that can't even crawl, but still make my life miserable. Yes, mosquito b*stards, i mean you. And their continual buzzing presence at night part explains why i was awake by 2am on the morning I left Malawi. The fact that I was already awake at this time still does not hide my frustration at the s*dding Malawian police, who have not exactly added to my enjoyment of the country.

Again, i am not entirely sure why (though i am guessing at keeping unemployment figures down, and allowing ample opportunity to try and solicit bribe), Malawian police are extremely enthusiastic with their road blocks. Whilst this is not always so much of an issue when you are in a private car, on buses it generally means long stops where everybody has to get off, and then bags are then checked: Sometimes at random, sometimes thoroughly and sometimes with such a fine tooth comb as to be utterly frustrating. Especially when they refuse to say what they are looking for, and when you had just emptied your bag on to the sand barely 20ins previously at the last road block and the bus hasn't stopped anywhere in the interim. And at both stops you were one of only a very small number to be searched.

Back to why being awake at 2am has anything to do with police; It mean't that when they randomly raided the mostly empty hostel I was in at 3am, I was already awake. They were not quiet, they were not polite. About 8 barged into our room and though all wore assorted uniforms, not one would identify themselves (except, when asked, to say 'I am from immigration': No sh1t, sherlock, that's why your hat and jumper both say immigration on them in large white letters) or say what they were looking for. Suffice to say that passports were gone over in a fine tooth comb, and then my hand luggage and anything that was left out was scrutinised deeply. They looked suspiciously at my bread rolls and jar of peanut butter. They seemed convinced that Tiger Balm was something entirely different, and for the umpteenth time seemed utterly stumped by my Doxycycline. This is not a new phenomenon: At every check, the thing that has baffled them most is my malaria medicine, and most other backpackers have said the same thing. I don't know why Malawian polie are so uniformly stupid, but surely in an area with a very high malaria rate, mzungu's with malaria medicine should not exactly be a novelty to them any more. But from how they deal with it every single s*dding time, you would have thought i was carrying plutonium pills. Or Licorice...

Half an hour later i was left alone. The Japanese girl who was the only other person in the dorm was not so lucky. She works for an NGO who keep her passport. She had with her a notarised copy (all that i required under Malawian law), but that was not enough. The olice needed to see her actual passport. And now. After chucking everything out of her back to check it, they forced her off to the police station, literally shouting at her to hurry up repacking her stuff and not even letting her dress properly. An American from the next room seemed to be having a similar discussion in the hallway and also disappeared, whilst a third person was also heard to be being removed from the premises. As there were only 5guests that I was aware of and at least 3 were removed, I could only count my lucky stars that i was still there.

The Japanese girl came back about 5.30 (without her bag), but i have no idea what happened to the other guys or her bag as I left at 6.30 to find a bus. Malawi has been pretty enjoyable in general, but it is definitely time to move on.

I had pretty much decided I loved Malawi within the first hour of my arrival. Firstly, it had the enormous plus point of not being Nairobi or having anything to do with the hospitals. But of more relevance were two small snapshots that I received whilst barreling along towards Karonga in the car we were hitching in.

The first was barely 20minutes in, when the driver suddenly slammed on the breaks and slowed to an almost pedestrian rate. 'What's wrong?' we asked. 'A policeman with a speed camera ahead' he answered. But I quickly saw that things weren't quite right. For one thing, you could see the plug dangling down by the policeman's feet and not, as one suspects is normally required from such plugs, being plugged in. Another couple of seconds and i burst out laughing and told the drive he could speed up again if he wanted to. 'But there is a speed camera ahead' he repeated in puzzled tones. 'No there isn't', i said 'It's a policeman pointing a hair dryer at us!!! In it's way it was utterly brilliant, especially as you know that there had to be one or two real ones around the area, or else people would quickly cotton on and ignore them.

The second incident was another 20minutes or so further on, when in a brilliant display of evolution at it's finest, we suddenly saw a monkey walking along the road towards us carrying a small plastic bag of chips he was eating from, whilst on the opposite side of the road walking in the other direction was a local man carrying a large bunch of bananas. Kodak moments are made of brief snapshots like this, though my camera was sadly not to hand.

Malawi is undoubtedly a beautiful country, and generally, a very friendly one as well. Malawi is the only place in Africa that I have been where random locals would regularly come up to me on the street in the bigger towns and cities – and I am not alone in this happening to me – to shake my hand and welcome me to Malawi, without anting anything from me at all. They would say hello, welcome, shake my hand and walk away. After being in so many places where everybody who comes up randomly to say hello either wants something, or wants to sell you something, it is great to actually feel welcome for being you, and not for being a walking (or hobbling) ATM. A surprising number of the expats and lodge owners I have come across are abut my age, and I have made allot of friends amongst them and other long termers.

This happy chap had apparently been on the bar all day, and was happily dancing to whatever music happened to be playing. I could have watched him for hours

Other guests/travellers could generally be split into a few small groups: People doing medical electives (EG placements) for 1-2.5months, and just traveling at weekends or for a short period after they had finished, or living in hostel for the whole time. These tended to travel in pairs, and a large number of these were Scottish, Dutch or German. Then there were mid-term volunteers who were mostly settled location wise for 3 or 4 weeks or more: Many had been to Malawi before, and pretty much all of those that hadn't declared their intention to return in the next couple of years. And then there were the backpackers/travelers/holidaymakers of whom there were a surprisingly small number and 95%+ were couples (or at least M/F duo's). I can pretty much count the number of solo travelers I met in the 7 weeks or so I was in Malawi on one hand.

But whilst on the whole I do still really like Malawi, there is much not to like about it, and I leave with mixed emotions. I still love it here and want to come back, but it's not a clean cut as all that. As previously mentioned I managed to prevent a bag snatchingand then got robbed in a dorm. When reporting the robbery, the policeman apologized profusely and said 'this is not normal. You must believe that such incidents are very rare, and Malawi is a very friendly and safe country'. I wanted to believe him. Yet from my experience, it is not and they are not. It has been the most striking aspect of my time here, but more than 50% of the travelers and mzungu's I have met have also been robbed. And that is a heck of a lot of robberies. There is no obvious link - some have been opportunist, some have been professional, some pickpockets, some have been well known cons, scams or tricks. A few have been violent. But the end result has been the same. The thing that intrigues me is that many chose not to report it, or didn't even mention it until they heard that I had been robbed – the attitude of 'these things happen' and 'oh well. I suppose they are so much poorer than me that it doesn't matter' are very strange ones to me. Yes, these things do happen, and yes, the locals are much poorer than the average backpacker. Old fashioned and colonial as I may sound, to my mind that still does not make it right or OK for them to steal.

From personal experience, i would say that Malawi is the one place I have been (and over the years i have been to a few places) where you are most likely to be robbed. And I would never have expected that.

But more than the frustrating but often vaguely amusing TIA moments and more than the robberies, the one thing that really made me think twice about Malawi was an incident at a club in Lilongwe a few weeks ago. A large group of us had piled into back of 2 pickups (much to the amusement of the locals to see so many mzungus in one pickup), and we were going out to one of the more well known night spots in town. We were a fairly diverse group in terms of ethnicity and nationality, and two of the DJ's were friends of at least half of our group. I was looking forward to it. At the club, as we slowly paid our entrance and shuffled in, I heard the (local) bouncers suddenly say 'I'm sorry, this is a private party and you are not welcome here'. I turned to see them talking to Max, a really cheery young guy with a London accent. He protested, as did the rest of us who were still within earshot. This is just not on, we argued. Why is he not allowed in? 'Policy' we were told. The rest of our group was recalled from the club, along with some extras who were just as outraged, and we left on mass, disgusted that such a thing could happen in Malawi.

Why did this p1ss me and everybody off quite so much?

Max is a black Malawian.