As the above title suggests, I have eight weeks of traditional work here in the United States: carpal-tunnel-related, weight-gaining, eye-straining work. All of which pays homage to the theme of this blog, but probably won't thrill you to the edge of your chair. However, I have received emails from a bunch of you inquiring as to where they can get their weekly or biweekly dose of African adventures (which is truly, truly touching, it means a lot to me). So to honor their request, I'll be supplementing the blog until I return to Africa instead of laying this beast into a two-month wintry hibernation.
For the next eight weeks, I will try to give you ten to fifteen segments of my writings (as some of you know, I am in and out of the process of publishing a book depending on my vacillating levels of responsibility and the whims of my publisher, who is fantastic and merciful if they are reading this). It'll be a combination of my interviews with the fairer occupation of privateering soldier and glimpses into the world of the legal and illegal gemstone trade in Africa through my post-adolescent eye.
It relates to the blog, it'll keep me on point, hopefully you will find it enjoyable and the first one will appear tomorrow. So for eight weeks before I can once again convey live blogging from foreign lands, I hope you enjoy.
Check in tomorrow at your most convenient awkward moment: Instead of pretending to read nonexistent text messages, you can read inconsistent prose,
Steven
(you can even receive these posts by email)
Monday, November 28, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Blantyre and The Bus.
Lovers of Turkey, Tofurkey and Idiots,
I'm back in the US.
President Chester Arthur
Consider it a short hiatus based on a profound love of turkey, freezing temperatures and missing the beginning of the rainy season. In January, I will return to my adopted land for the next stage of work. But back to basics. Since our latest cyber render-vous, I have had the pleasure of spending an exhilarating couple of days in lovely Blantyre, center of the African tobacco trade, before beginning a long and deranged voyage back to the US.
Blantyre and its strip-mall, slumdog sister city, Limbe, are bustling traditional African cities, with a downtown of multi-story buildings, fancy banks and a collection of hotels for the wealthy. While I expected to enjoy the city after weekday meetings, I only had two days to do so when the ever-reliable Air Malawi informed me my flight had been cancelled a mere three days beforehand. Undeterred, I took moments to find pizza, play squash and eat everything from ethiopian Injera Wot to Palm leaf burritos.
To avert disaster and not miss my flight home from Johannesburg Monday evening, I found a bus company that would take me (in an advertised 25 hours) from Blantyre to Johannesburg, leaving Saturday morning and giving me a whole day to take in Jo-burg. I showed up for the bus on Saturday and immediately signs pointed to tardiness: we left three hours late, made it to the Mozambican border where there was no electricity and I got into a verbal shouting match with border officials who refused to issue me a transit visa without electricity (bribe hunters). Finally, the electricity burst back to life and we made it past the border moving at a snails' pace through Mozambique and arriving at the Zimbabwean border at 8:30, hours after it had closed.
We spent the night in the sketchiest border town, hunched in our sleeping seats like jack in a boxes. I even had the distinct pleasure of being woken around midnight by three local policemen who had heard that there was a "Mizungo" (white person) on board the bus. they asked me if I would like to join them for dinner, I said no thank you, and they said for my impoliteness, I
should definitely join them or give them a gift. Pissed off, and half-asleep, I paid them off with a stale carton of Oreos, which I told them were a delicacy (I got the oreos from an expat in Blantyre).
The next morning we awoke at 4 to cross into Zimbabwe, where we were delayed another four hours before zipping through lovely Zimbabwe and into South Africa, with numerous other attempts at any money I had. We finally arrived in Jo-burg 30 hours late, with just a few hours before my flight. Highlights of the trip include a budding friendship between me and Chief Steven Kasonga, who called himself a kind, wore a rolex and other gold chains and said that he, like me, "was reduced to the serf-like passage by bus" because he missed his plane as well. He refused to be touched at borders without customs officials asking permission of "his highness." The whole act was very comical. But, at the end of the trip he insisted on buying me a $200 bottle of spirits as we were now soul mates (different meaning than US, but not really) and he would expect me t
o await him with a royal procession when he eventually visited the US.
Altogether it has been a nice week 51 hours by boat, 7 hours by bus, 55 hours by bus, 23 hours by plane = 136 hours. Glad to be back. More to come next week on my return to Africa.
In the spirit of Celine Dion, the blog will go on.
Happy Thanksgiving,
President Chester ArthurThursday, November 17, 2011
The Ilala Ferry
Friends and Followers,
I have arrived in the commercial capital of Malawi, Blantyre, but not without first experiencing the long and tedious Ilala Ferry: Malawi's #1 travel option! I began this journey on Monday evening, preparing for the ferry to arrive around noon and depart at eight in the evening. I was assured I would even have time to do a night dive as the sun set at 6 and still board the boat in time for its departure. Lo and behold, by 6, the ferry had still not arrived and the shouting and dancing queue ready to board it had grown tiresome after hours of pre-ferry dancing and shouting.
The night dive was incredible. We wound through massive underground rock sculptures with a posse of dolfinfish (three to six feet long blind barracuda-like fish) following our every move, eager that we might lead them to prey. Which we did, playing Poseidon, I would shine my flashlight on a sleeping fish and watch the dolfinfish snap it up, feeling it out with the electric current around their buddies and making an electric snap when they caught it. It was unreal.
But as we finished the dive, I began to grow concerned for the boat as it still hadn't arrived and it was already past 8. Timeliness is not always the priority here. When the ferry finally arrived at 9, it didn't take off til 2:30. It is a hefty, thick bottomed boat and when traveling it makes 12 stops and has three distinct classes: Cabin, First Class and Economy. The experience is like an early 20th century cross-Atlantic voyage, combined with a truly African atmosphere that is the only reminder that you are in the modern age. Each stop took minimum four hours as rafts came out to swap passengers and sacks of produce from the shore with those on the boat. I slept on the top deck (First class) under the stars on hard, ancient wooden planks. But there was a fine bar, and a dismal "saloon" with a leering, hostile waitress who I had the displeasure of having to eat in front of while she stared at me like the bane of her existence.
The trip took 51 hours, was 21 hours late to its final destination, and I hopped on midway through. I ventured down to the economy class twice during my sejour: Once when boarding the boast, shoving back at the men women and children carrying vast sacks of grain or stalks of bananas and pushing, scratching and biting to claim their spot in the rat infested bottom level (I got bit by a little kid, not a rat). The whole place was an advertisement for overwhelming body odor and the finer things in life, like drunk men throwing up on their pregnant wives or rastafarians lighting up and blowing into the face of goats.
I saw a lifeboat with 25 people sink (they all survived), a man do a triple backflip off the top deck (impressive) and a plump, inebriated irish grandmother sat on my face while I was sleeping,
Next, a few days in Blantyre working before a 26 hour bus trip to Jo-berg because Air Malawi "withholds the right to cancel flights up to three days before."
Time to change my shirt,
Steven
I have arrived in the commercial capital of Malawi, Blantyre, but not without first experiencing the long and tedious Ilala Ferry: Malawi's #1 travel option! I began this journey on Monday evening, preparing for the ferry to arrive around noon and depart at eight in the evening. I was assured I would even have time to do a night dive as the sun set at 6 and still board the boat in time for its departure. Lo and behold, by 6, the ferry had still not arrived and the shouting and dancing queue ready to board it had grown tiresome after hours of pre-ferry dancing and shouting.
The night dive was incredible. We wound through massive underground rock sculptures with a posse of dolfinfish (three to six feet long blind barracuda-like fish) following our every move, eager that we might lead them to prey. Which we did, playing Poseidon, I would shine my flashlight on a sleeping fish and watch the dolfinfish snap it up, feeling it out with the electric current around their buddies and making an electric snap when they caught it. It was unreal.
But as we finished the dive, I began to grow concerned for the boat as it still hadn't arrived and it was already past 8. Timeliness is not always the priority here. When the ferry finally arrived at 9, it didn't take off til 2:30. It is a hefty, thick bottomed boat and when traveling it makes 12 stops and has three distinct classes: Cabin, First Class and Economy. The experience is like an early 20th century cross-Atlantic voyage, combined with a truly African atmosphere that is the only reminder that you are in the modern age. Each stop took minimum four hours as rafts came out to swap passengers and sacks of produce from the shore with those on the boat. I slept on the top deck (First class) under the stars on hard, ancient wooden planks. But there was a fine bar, and a dismal "saloon" with a leering, hostile waitress who I had the displeasure of having to eat in front of while she stared at me like the bane of her existence.
The trip took 51 hours, was 21 hours late to its final destination, and I hopped on midway through. I ventured down to the economy class twice during my sejour: Once when boarding the boast, shoving back at the men women and children carrying vast sacks of grain or stalks of bananas and pushing, scratching and biting to claim their spot in the rat infested bottom level (I got bit by a little kid, not a rat). The whole place was an advertisement for overwhelming body odor and the finer things in life, like drunk men throwing up on their pregnant wives or rastafarians lighting up and blowing into the face of goats.
I saw a lifeboat with 25 people sink (they all survived), a man do a triple backflip off the top deck (impressive) and a plump, inebriated irish grandmother sat on my face while I was sleeping,
Next, a few days in Blantyre working before a 26 hour bus trip to Jo-berg because Air Malawi "withholds the right to cancel flights up to three days before."
Time to change my shirt,
Steven
Saturday, November 12, 2011
The bush, the beach and the breed-by-mouth fish
Greetings Comrades,
I come to you from Nkhata Bay, Malawi. This little rocky paradise by the water is a fantastic collection of local busy life, alienating rastas selling everything from wooden carvings to headphones to heaps of marijuana. There is a vibrant tourist life here, but I have spent a mixture of time with the other whiteys and then venturing off along the coastline to look at warm springs that are fantastically interesting as potential sources of improving the miserably inconsistent electricity here.
Before getting ahead of myself though... After arriving in Mzuzu a couple of days ago I went deep into the bush near the border with Zambia and had a chance to use my hardcore camping and defeating the Heart of Darkness equipment. I even had my shovel/pick-axe out for a while as we took samples off a rock formation. If I haven't blogged it before, my tent (which I prefer not to use) is called: The Coffin. It looks, feels and is starting to smell (from being at the bottom of my bag) like it's namesake. I spent two nights in the bush listening through my slot in the Coffin, it was as pleasant as it sounds. But the days were fantastic as we trooped around talking up the locals, learning about thermal anomalies as a result of the Rift Valley etc.
Finally we left the bush to arrive here in Nkhata and I have been sweeping around town and out of it without the coffin as my home. I'm staying at a nice little community and besides work I've taken in the rest of Nkhata underwater. Diving in Lake Malawi is one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen. Giant catfish and blind dolfinfish that use electricity fields around their body to navigate come darting out of crevices all around me. The water is like a bowl of fruity pebbles with all of the different brightly colored fish (cichlids). But by far the coolest thing I've seen is the "Mouth Breeder:" a bigger cichlid which protects its school of babies by swallowing them when it senses danger and then releasing them again. It's like watching some artsy movie about regurgitation. But its with brightly colored fish.
By Monday I am off again down the lake by boat until I arrive in Blantyre, the commercial capital of Malawi. Expect my next post then, wait with baited breath.
Yours truly,
Steven Eugene Remmer Fox
I come to you from Nkhata Bay, Malawi. This little rocky paradise by the water is a fantastic collection of local busy life, alienating rastas selling everything from wooden carvings to headphones to heaps of marijuana. There is a vibrant tourist life here, but I have spent a mixture of time with the other whiteys and then venturing off along the coastline to look at warm springs that are fantastically interesting as potential sources of improving the miserably inconsistent electricity here.
Before getting ahead of myself though... After arriving in Mzuzu a couple of days ago I went deep into the bush near the border with Zambia and had a chance to use my hardcore camping and defeating the Heart of Darkness equipment. I even had my shovel/pick-axe out for a while as we took samples off a rock formation. If I haven't blogged it before, my tent (which I prefer not to use) is called: The Coffin. It looks, feels and is starting to smell (from being at the bottom of my bag) like it's namesake. I spent two nights in the bush listening through my slot in the Coffin, it was as pleasant as it sounds. But the days were fantastic as we trooped around talking up the locals, learning about thermal anomalies as a result of the Rift Valley etc.
Finally we left the bush to arrive here in Nkhata and I have been sweeping around town and out of it without the coffin as my home. I'm staying at a nice little community and besides work I've taken in the rest of Nkhata underwater. Diving in Lake Malawi is one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen. Giant catfish and blind dolfinfish that use electricity fields around their body to navigate come darting out of crevices all around me. The water is like a bowl of fruity pebbles with all of the different brightly colored fish (cichlids). But by far the coolest thing I've seen is the "Mouth Breeder:" a bigger cichlid which protects its school of babies by swallowing them when it senses danger and then releasing them again. It's like watching some artsy movie about regurgitation. But its with brightly colored fish.
By Monday I am off again down the lake by boat until I arrive in Blantyre, the commercial capital of Malawi. Expect my next post then, wait with baited breath.
Yours truly,
Steven Eugene Remmer Fox
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Golf, Charlie and Pumpkin Eater
With this post I believe I am caught up in my delayed posts. Congratulations to me.
Life in Malawi continues to be a success. After crossing the border I spent the night unexpectedly in Monkey Bay, a picturesque spot on Lake Malawi (and apparently not even close to the most beautiful place in Malawi). I had the entire hostel to myself except for an ex-mercenary and his wife. The coincidence was creepy especially after we named some mutual acquaintances. But he was an interesting chap and got utterly plastered before I even showered up and he revealed his great dream of owning a crocodile farm.
He would then wade into the water (which you are not supposed to do at night because there are crocodiles that attack, more than 20 attacks in this spot each year), and shout for his little "croc breus" to come to him. Delightful.
I continued on to the capital city of Lilongwe where I had business and got to explore this sprawling green city. The city is surprisingly developed into a suburban stripmall in some places, beautiful armored ex-pat houses in other places, a deadening commercial center and then vast African marketplaces and lean-to housing. The combination is bewildering.
But I made the most of it, I made a friend at the US embassy who is helping me out in a major way to gather information on who is doing what in the industries I am most interested in. We capped off a day there by playing 18 holes of GOLF! at the Lilongwe Golf Club, which is basically a country club for the expats and rich Lilongweans complete with squash courts, tennis and a pool. I had a fantastic caddy named Charlie who has improved my game and the whole experience cost $28. Gotta love it.
I have now headed north and arrived in Mzuzu where I met a silly little artist who legally changed his name to Pumpkin Eater (he showed me his ID card). And I have met up with a geologist. He and I are off into the bush tomorrow to look at some hot springs and geothermal activity, but I'm also hoping to get in at least an afternoon at a nearby national park.
Pumpkin Eater is asking if I want him to make a wicker basket in the shape of my whole body,
Steven
Life in Malawi continues to be a success. After crossing the border I spent the night unexpectedly in Monkey Bay, a picturesque spot on Lake Malawi (and apparently not even close to the most beautiful place in Malawi). I had the entire hostel to myself except for an ex-mercenary and his wife. The coincidence was creepy especially after we named some mutual acquaintances. But he was an interesting chap and got utterly plastered before I even showered up and he revealed his great dream of owning a crocodile farm.
He would then wade into the water (which you are not supposed to do at night because there are crocodiles that attack, more than 20 attacks in this spot each year), and shout for his little "croc breus" to come to him. Delightful.
I continued on to the capital city of Lilongwe where I had business and got to explore this sprawling green city. The city is surprisingly developed into a suburban stripmall in some places, beautiful armored ex-pat houses in other places, a deadening commercial center and then vast African marketplaces and lean-to housing. The combination is bewildering.
But I made the most of it, I made a friend at the US embassy who is helping me out in a major way to gather information on who is doing what in the industries I am most interested in. We capped off a day there by playing 18 holes of GOLF! at the Lilongwe Golf Club, which is basically a country club for the expats and rich Lilongweans complete with squash courts, tennis and a pool. I had a fantastic caddy named Charlie who has improved my game and the whole experience cost $28. Gotta love it.
I have now headed north and arrived in Mzuzu where I met a silly little artist who legally changed his name to Pumpkin Eater (he showed me his ID card). And I have met up with a geologist. He and I are off into the bush tomorrow to look at some hot springs and geothermal activity, but I'm also hoping to get in at least an afternoon at a nearby national park.
Pumpkin Eater is asking if I want him to make a wicker basket in the shape of my whole body,
Steven
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Last Time Frosting, This Time the Cake.
North American Coterie of Steven Fox Readers,
I apologize for the shortness of my last blog and I'll try to have this one fill in some of the details, especially of the non-work stuff. After leaving Inhambane on the coast (See last post about swimming with Whale Sharks, we also swam with sailfish and marlins which was scarier because they move very quickly), I made the long trip up to Beira, the industrial capital of Mozambique and Zimbabwe's major access to shipping. There, I met up with a friend from Richmond, Zach Lager, who has been living 1000 kilometers from the city in a poor village and working on his own NGO helping the community with sustainable agriculture. It is a neat project and we spent a couple days in his neck of the woods biking around in eighth-hand bikes, under the blazing sun.
We then followed the coast north through Quelimane and Nampula (towns about the size of Boston) to Mozambique Island, a spectacular slice of paradise located 3 km off the coast. The city combines a historical significance, culturally diverse and unique vibe and stunning set of views that are new to me. We arrived late on our first night after getting into a series of arguments and getting dropped in the middle of nowhere by two local bus drivers and finally hitching a ride with a manager on the island and commercial diver. Along the way to the island we also picker up the victim of a vicious accident and helped load a poor bloodied motocycle driver who collided with a bicyclist into the back of the flatbed truck. The island can only be reached by a one lane bridge spanning 3 km, or by taking a local dugout canoe or swimming. It was the capital of Portuguese Africa and of Mozambique for many years and is home to a massive fort, historical churches and mansions, the oldest western hospital in Africa and a host of off coast shipwrecks.
The place is awesome, tiny 3km (in perimeter), holds 7000 locals, has limited tourists, good eats and snorkeling, diving, fishing etc. It is a paradise for all ages. Tell your kids and grandparents. I'll be back.
I've since gone back through the depressing city of Nampula (more like a central Africa with grimy halls for transient laborers, a steady group of chinese eating and chain smoking in their own restaurants), where we got up for the 3AM train to Cuamba. It took 12 hours but we got there, spent the night and even found popcorn. Now I have crossed the border into Malawi (quite sketchily, with a motorcycle, a truck over a dirt road and a couple of lame attempts at extortion) and I'll be able to update you next time from the shores of Lake Malawi/Niassa.
I think I'll play nine holes of golf tomorrow,
Steven
I apologize for the shortness of my last blog and I'll try to have this one fill in some of the details, especially of the non-work stuff. After leaving Inhambane on the coast (See last post about swimming with Whale Sharks, we also swam with sailfish and marlins which was scarier because they move very quickly), I made the long trip up to Beira, the industrial capital of Mozambique and Zimbabwe's major access to shipping. There, I met up with a friend from Richmond, Zach Lager, who has been living 1000 kilometers from the city in a poor village and working on his own NGO helping the community with sustainable agriculture. It is a neat project and we spent a couple days in his neck of the woods biking around in eighth-hand bikes, under the blazing sun.
We then followed the coast north through Quelimane and Nampula (towns about the size of Boston) to Mozambique Island, a spectacular slice of paradise located 3 km off the coast. The city combines a historical significance, culturally diverse and unique vibe and stunning set of views that are new to me. We arrived late on our first night after getting into a series of arguments and getting dropped in the middle of nowhere by two local bus drivers and finally hitching a ride with a manager on the island and commercial diver. Along the way to the island we also picker up the victim of a vicious accident and helped load a poor bloodied motocycle driver who collided with a bicyclist into the back of the flatbed truck. The island can only be reached by a one lane bridge spanning 3 km, or by taking a local dugout canoe or swimming. It was the capital of Portuguese Africa and of Mozambique for many years and is home to a massive fort, historical churches and mansions, the oldest western hospital in Africa and a host of off coast shipwrecks.
The place is awesome, tiny 3km (in perimeter), holds 7000 locals, has limited tourists, good eats and snorkeling, diving, fishing etc. It is a paradise for all ages. Tell your kids and grandparents. I'll be back.
I've since gone back through the depressing city of Nampula (more like a central Africa with grimy halls for transient laborers, a steady group of chinese eating and chain smoking in their own restaurants), where we got up for the 3AM train to Cuamba. It took 12 hours but we got there, spent the night and even found popcorn. Now I have crossed the border into Malawi (quite sketchily, with a motorcycle, a truck over a dirt road and a couple of lame attempts at extortion) and I'll be able to update you next time from the shores of Lake Malawi/Niassa.
I think I'll play nine holes of golf tomorrow,
Steven
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Mozambique Continued
Hey all,
My internet access has been as inconsistent as the quality of roadside bananas here, so excuse my tardiness. Since I last checked in I have been making the tedious journey northward and have spent time with some analysts of the massive Cahorra Bassa Dam and checked out some cool distribution of electicity, I have made my way to the coast and swam with Whale Sharks (Google it, they are huge and amazing). I have met up with an old friend from Richmond and a geologist and now we are moving up the coast even farther north to Mozambique Island where we will spend a relalxing two days before I head inland by train to Malawi.
All is well, I will update mroe when I have better internet, but let me briefly describe the first leg of my journey northward: I was wedged between two arm-heavy african Mamisetas (code for sweet fat ladies), a goat and piles of luggage in the back of a bus for 8 hours while playing backgammon with a little kid who kept trying to bite me if I beat him. Then our back two tires blew out and we had to wait for a new bus, which we switched over to. Then another tire blew out, which we managed to replace (including all the men lifting a schoolbus together and almost flipping it). Finally we reached Beira, from inhambane and I met up with my buddy, Lager who took me around town to a strange ex-pat birthday party, into the local markets and out deep into the countryside to see his agricultural project. We drank palm beer, swam with a hundred naked children in a leech filled rural river and met a South African fellow who is making millions on a plantation.
I love this land, More soon,
Steven
My internet access has been as inconsistent as the quality of roadside bananas here, so excuse my tardiness. Since I last checked in I have been making the tedious journey northward and have spent time with some analysts of the massive Cahorra Bassa Dam and checked out some cool distribution of electicity, I have made my way to the coast and swam with Whale Sharks (Google it, they are huge and amazing). I have met up with an old friend from Richmond and a geologist and now we are moving up the coast even farther north to Mozambique Island where we will spend a relalxing two days before I head inland by train to Malawi.
All is well, I will update mroe when I have better internet, but let me briefly describe the first leg of my journey northward: I was wedged between two arm-heavy african Mamisetas (code for sweet fat ladies), a goat and piles of luggage in the back of a bus for 8 hours while playing backgammon with a little kid who kept trying to bite me if I beat him. Then our back two tires blew out and we had to wait for a new bus, which we switched over to. Then another tire blew out, which we managed to replace (including all the men lifting a schoolbus together and almost flipping it). Finally we reached Beira, from inhambane and I met up with my buddy, Lager who took me around town to a strange ex-pat birthday party, into the local markets and out deep into the countryside to see his agricultural project. We drank palm beer, swam with a hundred naked children in a leech filled rural river and met a South African fellow who is making millions on a plantation.
I love this land, More soon,
Steven
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