A Taste of the Life

At the request of an anonymous source,

Today, I went BACK to the Reserve Bank of Malawi. I failed to previously record the gloriousness of this institution. The RBM is the only noticeable "skyscraper" in Lilongwe. It is probably 15 stories and looks like an upside-down concrete mason's (?) wedding cake. Brutalist architecture flipped like a waffle. Imagine your life with legos as a young one, except you were deranged, all the legos were grey and you pretended to be an ostrich all the time, with your head in the ground. 

I went to acquire a document today. To give a brief description about how you do any business at the RBM. You arrive at the mammoth ode to prisons everywhere and enter through rotating doors (which are probably imported from whatever era laid claim to the first rotating doors). Arriving swiftly at the security stop, you unload your pockets into a bin to put through the metal detector. However, both all the metal detecting objects are broken, so the security guard just hands you back your stuff once you pass through the artificial security apparatus. 

Next is reception, where you state your business, the person you are meeting etc. After which, you are quickly pointed in the direction of some couches in the corner with various people waiting. 

This is where it gets good. There is a table with a phone in the middle of the group (just like the Matrix) and you wait until it rings, many times. Then someone picks it up (really whoever has the hutzpah) and listens to who is calling and then asks the group who is here to meet the telephonic person. Just to reiterate: there is a secretary desk with like ten secretaries, but instead management has decided it is more fun to group telephone tag.

On top of it, to enter into the "secure" areas of the building (right next to where you are sitting) there is a wall of glass (definitely not bulletproof, it has cracks all over it) interspersed with "portals." Each of these portals is out of a 1960's sci-fi movie with a fingerprint scanner (which I tried last time and registered me, as a first timer, as an employee) and a rotating orb of glass which you need to step into when it opens and wait for the other side to open. Think a mix of one of those cleansing stations scientists dealing with radioactive material pass through mixed with Star-Trek.

Classic. 

Finally, the man I met today's name was Grem.

I assumed it was short for Gremlin.

Live Long and Prosper,

Foxy

A Long One

Blogosphere,

Hiya, its been a busy week here as I’m sure it is for each of you languishing in lazy American summer heat or… doing something else.

I thought for this particular post I would describe some of the more day-to-day aspects of life in Lilongwe. Life starts at 6AM with the sun blasting my eyes like a 6-year old with a watergun. Our house is a three-bedroom mini-palace in Area 3 of Lilongwe: think the Beverly Hills of a city on the scale of Omaha. In addition to the location, we enjoy the unbelievable amenities of two bathrooms (although only one shower until I recently fixed the other one from wee-person size to normal human size), with hot water, a back up water tank, a refridgerator! a washing machine! a microwave! and then the mandatory “staff” (as our friends from the UK call them) of Matthews, our gardener and day guard, and Mwale, our night guard.

To defend this neocolonialist lifestyle I must justify a few points: the guard and gardener are required by our sweet landlady (and former Bostonian) and are the norm for houses here. In fact, our poor neighbors had their house broken into recently and it has only made me warier. As much as I’d like to pretend it is not the case here, being white and living in a nice house doesn’t lend yourself to universal peace and love. I had previously lived in a dungeon of doom/Spartan lair with the tarantulas and mosquitos as my only bodyguards—it was a nice spot.

Work begins when I awake, turn on the hot water button (like a hot tub, except it takes 40 min to heat up, I ain’t complaining) and get down to the computer: shifting through the virtual library of information we have compiled here in Lilongwe for snippets relevant to the various enterprises we have undertaken (there are only 3).

The days consist of meetings at various ministries, NGOs, IGOs and private companies around town often in the back of a minibus crammed with goats, chickens, sacks of corn, charcoal and rice, and occasionally some people. Public transport: saves cash and the environment.

I have a spectacular car, Madge, which I have referred to lovingly in former posts, but I only take her out if I have a long way to go, she needs a hosing down or just to strut her around town so the ladies look.

I usually lunch at the various establishments around town, although they have been raising prices because of currency devaluations here, so I am become perturbed by the $5 gigantic plates of food instead of the usual $3. Sometimes I just eat angry peanut butter sandwiches and mutter about the good old days.

Afternoons and evenings consist of sports, dinner and occasionally a weekday jaunt to one of Lilongwe’s nightlife scenes to make new friends. For sports: it is to the richest (but not whitest) place in Lilongwe: the Lilongwe Golf Club, where I can enjoy any of the fine preppy sports that one might find at Augusta National: tennis, squash, snooker, billiards, pink pong, swimming, football and of course, golf. Squash most nights: I would say, not to brag, that I am a top 20 player on the Malawi squash scene. Did you just make that exhaling snort of someone who has been impressed?

For dinner, we cook at home a lot and recently built a homemade grill in the back. It is made of bricks and cement and will be my sole legacy in this land in 10,000 years when after many attempts no one is able to uproot it (It probably weighs 700 pounds).

Finally, an anecdote consistent with the jaunting out into the night: Last weekend, I agreed to join two of my more local Malawian friends in an adventure to Chez Ntemba: a Congolese Nightclub chain which has two location in Malawi. Upon arriving, we chanced upon a mutual friend who I will call P-raj for anonymity. P-raj owns a family restaurant on the other side of town, likes to tell terribly boring stories about the golf courses he has played at and talk about his kids: think typical, yuppie, family man. Chez Ntemba is a LATE nightclub which doubles as a homework assignment for every prostitute, predator and overall creep in town. If you trip in Chez Ntemba and fall down, male or female, people will start to jump on you like a football pile-up and gyrate accordingly: believe me, I witnessed it and felt like calling in the Marines.

Either way: Family Man + Night Club = Bizarro. Upon asking my friends what he was doing here, I got a vulgar response alluding to his tendency to bed the local ladyfolk. P-raj pretended not to notice me and quickly fled the premises, as I giggled and pointed like a child. The next day, we saw him and his wife on the golf course.

Moral of the story: In Malawi, I guess you can be whatever you want to be... except good at soccer, they are just awful at soccer.

E Plurbius Unum,

Steven

A Long One

Blogosphere,

Hiya, its been a busy week here as I’m sure it is for each of you languishing in lazy American summer heat or… doing something else.

I thought for this particular post I would describe some of the more day-to-day aspects of life in Lilongwe. Life starts at 6AM with the sun blasting my eyes like a 6-year old with a watergun. Our house is a three-bedroom mini-palace in Area 3 of Lilongwe: think the Beverly Hills of a city on the scale of Omaha. In addition to the location, we enjoy the unbelievable amenities of two bathrooms (although only one shower until I recently fixed the other one from wee-person size to normal human size), with hot water, a back up water tank, a refridgerator! a washing machine! a microwave! and then the mandatory “staff” (as our friends from the UK call them) of Matthews, our gardener and day guard, and Mwale, our night guard.

To defend this neocolonialist lifestyle I must justify a few points: the guard and gardener are required by our sweet landlady (and former Bostonian) and are the norm for houses here. In fact, our poor neighbors had their house broken into recently and it has only made me warier. As much as I’d like to pretend it is not the case here, being white and living in a nice house doesn’t lend yourself to universal peace and love. I had previously lived in a dungeon of doom/Spartan lair with the tarantulas and mosquitos as my only bodyguards—it was a nice spot.

Work begins when I awake, turn on the hot water button (like a hot tub, except it takes 40 min to heat up, I ain’t complaining) and get down to the computer: shifting through the virtual library of information we have compiled here in Lilongwe for snippets relevant to the various enterprises we have undertaken (there are only 3).

The days consist of meetings at various ministries, NGOs, IGOs and private companies around town often in the back of a minibus crammed with goats, chickens, sacks of corn, charcoal and rice, and occasionally some people. Public transport: saves cash and the environment.

I have a spectacular car, Madge, which I have referred to lovingly in former posts, but I only take her out if I have a long way to go, she needs a hosing down or just to strut her around town so the ladies look.

I usually lunch at the various establishments around town, although they have been raising prices because of currency devaluations here, so I am become perturbed by the $5 gigantic plates of food instead of the usual $3. Sometimes I just eat angry peanut butter sandwiches and mutter about the good old days.

Afternoons and evenings consist of sports, dinner and occasionally a weekday jaunt to one of Lilongwe’s nightlife scenes to make new friends. For sports: it is to the richest (but not whitest) place in Lilongwe: the Lilongwe Golf Club, where I can enjoy any of the fine preppy sports that one might find at Augusta National: tennis, squash, snooker, billiards, pink pong, swimming, football and of course, golf. Squash most nights: I would say, not to brag, that I am a top 20 player on the Malawi squash scene. Did you just make that exhaling snort of someone who has been impressed?

For dinner, we cook at home a lot and recently built a homemade grill in the back. It is made of bricks and cement and will be my sole legacy in this land in 10,000 years when after many attempts no one is able to uproot it (It probably weighs 700 pounds).

Finally, an anecdote consistent with the jaunting out into the night: Last weekend, I agreed to join two of my more local Malawian friends in an adventure to Chez Ntemba: a Congolese Nightclub chain which has two location in Malawi. Upon arriving, we chanced upon a mutual friend who I will call P-raj for anonymity. P-raj owns a family restaurant on the other side of town, likes to tell terribly boring stories about the golf courses he has played at and talk about his kids: think typical, yuppie, family man. Chez Ntemba is a LATE nightclub which doubles as a homework assignment for every prostitute, predator and overall creep in town. If you trip in Chez Ntemba and fall down, male or female, people will start to jump on you like a football pile-up and gyrate accordingly: believe me, I witnessed it and felt like calling in the Marines.

Either way: Family Man + Night Club = Bizarro. Upon asking my friends what he was doing here, I got a vulgar response alluding to his tendency to bed the local ladyfolk. P-raj pretended not to notice me and quickly fled the premises, as I giggled and pointed like a child. The next day, we saw him and his wife on the golf course.

Moral of the story: In Malawi, I guess you can be whatever you want to be... except good at soccer, they are just awful at soccer.

E Plurbius Unum,

Steven

A Long One

Blogosphere,

Hiya, its been a busy week here as I’m sure it is for each of you languishing in lazy American summer heat or… doing something else.

I thought for this particular post I would describe some of the more day-to-day aspects of life in Lilongwe. Life starts at 6AM with the sun blasting my eyes like a 6-year old with a watergun. Our house is a three-bedroom mini-palace in Area 3 of Lilongwe: think the Beverly Hills of a city on the scale of Omaha. In addition to the location, we enjoy the unbelievable amenities of two bathrooms (although only one shower until I recently fixed the other one from wee-person size to normal human size), with hot water, a back up water tank, a refridgerator! a washing machine! a microwave! and then the mandatory “staff” (as our friends from the UK call them) of Matthews, our gardener and day guard, and Mwale, our night guard.

To defend this neocolonialist lifestyle I must justify a few points: the guard and gardener are required by our sweet landlady (and former Bostonian) and are the norm for houses here. In fact, our poor neighbors had their house broken into recently and it has only made me warier. As much as I’d like to pretend it is not the case here, being white and living in a nice house doesn’t lend yourself to universal peace and love. I had previously lived in a dungeon of doom/Spartan lair with the tarantulas and mosquitos as my only bodyguards—it was a nice spot.

Work begins when I awake, turn on the hot water button (like a hot tub, except it takes 40 min to heat up, I ain’t complaining) and get down to the computer: shifting through the virtual library of information we have compiled here in Lilongwe for snippets relevant to the various enterprises we have undertaken (there are only 3).

The days consist of meetings at various ministries, NGOs, IGOs and private companies around town often in the back of a minibus crammed with goats, chickens, sacks of corn, charcoal and rice, and occasionally some people. Public transport: saves cash and the environment.

I have a spectacular car, Madge, which I have referred to lovingly in former posts, but I only take her out if I have a long way to go, she needs a hosing down or just to strut her around town so the ladies look.

I usually lunch at the various establishments around town, although they have been raising prices because of currency devaluations here, so I am become perturbed by the $5 gigantic plates of food instead of the usual $3. Sometimes I just eat angry peanut butter sandwiches and mutter about the good old days.

Afternoons and evenings consist of sports, dinner and occasionally a weekday jaunt to one of Lilongwe’s nightlife scenes to make new friends. For sports: it is to the richest (but not whitest) place in Lilongwe: the Lilongwe Golf Club, where I can enjoy any of the fine preppy sports that one might find at Augusta National: tennis, squash, snooker, billiards, pink pong, swimming, football and of course, golf. Squash most nights: I would say, not to brag, that I am a top 20 player on the Malawi squash scene. Did you just make that exhaling snort of someone who has been impressed?

For dinner, we cook at home a lot and recently built a homemade grill in the back. It is made of bricks and cement and will be my sole legacy in this land in 10,000 years when after many attempts no one is able to uproot it (It probably weighs 700 pounds).

Finally, an anecdote consistent with the jaunting out into the night: Last weekend, I agreed to join two of my more local Malawian friends in an adventure to Chez Ntemba: a Congolese Nightclub chain which has two location in Malawi. Upon arriving, we chanced upon a mutual friend who I will call P-raj for anonymity. P-raj owns a family restaurant on the other side of town, likes to tell terribly boring stories about the golf courses he has played at and talk about his kids: think typical, yuppie, family man. Chez Ntemba is a LATE nightclub which doubles as a homework assignment for every prostitute, predator and overall creep in town. If you trip in Chez Ntemba and fall down, male or female, people will start to jump on you like a football pile-up and gyrate accordingly: believe me, I witnessed it and felt like calling in the Marines.

Either way: Family Man + Night Club = Bizarro. Upon asking my friends what he was doing here, I got a vulgar response alluding to his tendency to bed the local ladyfolk. P-raj pretended not to notice me and quickly fled the premises, as I giggled and pointed like a child. The next day, we saw him and his wife on the golf course.

Moral of the story: In Malawi, I guess you can be whatever you want to be... except good at soccer, they are just awful at soccer.

E Plurbius Unum,

Steven

Part Deux

I lied, more than one day after. After celebrating our independence day, it was a dawn rise to book it down to Chiweta to explore another hot spring; in theory, the most promising for geothermal energy-producing potential.

Side note: I often find myself using the phrase “in theory” here. Examples: In theory, the bus ride should be four hours. In theory, we should have running water and electricity, in theory there won’t be a clutch of chickens in the internet café.

In contrast, to the hot-tub temperatures at Mkwanjenja, the hot spring at Chiweta resembled something closer to Old Faithful at Yellowstone. You could smell the sulphur from the road (although, knowing this country I was expecting it to just be a ton of raw sewage and rotten eggs). It did not disappoint at all. The water was nearly boiling to the touch and has, in theory, tremendous potential along the Rift Valley fault for a geothermal energy project.

In our little escapade we were joined by a Peace Corps friend, Brooks, who then joined us in going back to Livingstonia, the plateau-top mission founded in honor, but not by David Livingstone in 1891. Brooks is based in the farthest-middle-of-nowhere part of Malawi, Rumphi, our condolences and support to Brooks! Having made it to the bottom of the escarpment, once again in the back of a sedan (this time with TEN people), we were waiting at the bottom to hitch a ride up the daunting mountainside. The owner of the place we were staying rolled by, saying he was picking up some guests and would be by to give us a free ride if they were ok with it. 40 minutes later, he came by and a true Italian got out of the door and in a terrible accent offered to split the fare to the top of the mountain with us: $10 a person and we would have to sit in the trunk: $10 was the cost of the night there. Blown away, we all told him we couldn’t afford it. The pompous clown then hopped back in the car and sped up the mountain as the owner gave us a terrible shrug and said, “See You Later.”

Two and a half hours and a pint of sweat later, we reached the top to see our friendly Italian neighbor drinking a beer at the bar. It was an awkward evening for him.

After this misfortune, however, the weekend was a true blast. The Mushroom Farm, where we stayed, is a series of quaint huts and tenting areas perched on the edge of an ominous cliff with breathtaking views out over Malawi, the Lake and into Zambia and Tanzania. Truly gorgeous. The town itself, Livingstonia, is also a polka dot of wholesome friendliness, rare Malawian history and brick cottages, a hospital, college and series of quaint churches. It is a must see in this beautiful country. There is also a streaming waterfall dropping off the edge of the plateau almost 500 feet down. We saw it first from the edge and then climbed, with an escort of local schoolchildren, down underneath the drop-off to a series of caves under the waterfall. Stunning, inspiring and comfortably athletic it was well worth the walk up.

That said, the ride home topped off the independence week terribly. Waking to the sunrise, which was a gorgeous Manet splash of color over the Tanzanian lakeside, we threw on our packs and started back down the mountain, this time not wanting to risk not catching a ride. It was good we did so, because we didn’t see a car the whole way down until the last 500 feet of the walk, when we saw two. We then crammed into a minibus that tortured my legs and careened around mountain passes back to Mzuzu. Then in Mzuzu an ATM ate my credit card, which was retrieved by an incompetent employee 45 minutes later. This forced us onto a “Super Sink” bus back to Lilongwe.

Final highlights: The bus ride, which should take 5 hours, took seven and a half, including the terrible driver hitting not one, but TWO cows. It’s ok my animal loving followers, the cows lived and probably did more damage to the bus, although he was going at his definition of “full speed.” We got a standing ovation when we got off the bus in Lilongwe.

“The white people survived!”

Steven

Pow Pow Pow

Hello World,

I’m going to split last week into two separate posts, so prepare yourself for one today, and one tomorrow. This past Monday, Noah and I ventured to the northernmost tip of Malawi, Karonga, to conduct an amateur geothermal survey of a couple of hotsprings that we had read and heard about. IT took the whole day, 12 hours to arrive in Karonga and we got to our splendid beachside hotel, Club Marina after dark. The place had great lake food, cheap drinks and had a straight view of the beach that had been totally obscured by a massive water treatment facility. Our nights seeing the reflection of the full moon, over a crystalline beach were somewhat dampened by the hulking tin and steel superstructure and its chorus of rumbling machines.

However, Karonga seems a prettier transit town than most of its African colleagues—its beachfront location makes up for the usual dusty roads, poor man's strip-mallesque layout of the town and above average numbers of public boozers, orphans and prostitutes. Our work took us out of Karonga along the road West to Zambia, at all times, no more than 20km from the Tanzanian border.

Here, we found and conquered our first hot springs with geothermal potential. Not able to find a ride, we first walked 10k into the wild before a passing sedan agreed to let us squeeze into the back with 4 other passengers for the remaining 15k to our site. The site was an inconspicuous town on a small riverbed with it's distinguishing feature being the concrete bridge stretching the river.

After making various unsuccessful plunges through thorny copses (which screamed: you-are-about-to-get-bitten-by-a-poisonous-snake) trying to make our way to coordinates where we had been informed there would be hot springs, we finally decided just to wade along the riverbed. Whilst making our way there, I kept bending down to feel the temperature of the water. In one of these particularly grimy looking pools, the water was abnormally warm. Immediately, I went sprinting up the hill in search of its origin. There, we ran into two locals: Aorbi and Roosevelt. These two gentlemen helped us to discover not only the hot springs we had been told about, but also a new hotspring, which we named American Freedom, in honor of July 4. The other hot springs have been dubbed "Little Bubbler" and "Roosevelt's Hole."

With this coup, we returned to Karonga (through another bush be-trodden walk) and rested before waking to our independence day. We spent the morning schmoozing up the local District Council and gathering socio-economic info on the region before heading down to a Peace Corpalooza party at a retreat overlooking the sparkling lake. For the rest of the day we enjoyed corn hole, burgers, ameritunes, southern accents, cold drinks, bonfires and even some prematurely ejecting and maddeningly depressing fireworks.  

Debby downer though was that we had to share a tent that night with the only non-Americans there (Australian maybe). Creepiest dude on the planet: only told Chuck Norris jokes, while everyone was partying he practiced his stick-fighting and he had a large tattoo that stretched from nipple to elbow that looked like a cat orgy. 

Sweaters and Steaks,

Foxybrown

Departures and Drudgery

Hello,
It was a lengthy week. After returning from Blantyre last week, it was a week of work and engagements in the sunny-80-degree-all-the-time and less-malaria-stricken city of Lilongwe. The early part of the week was dominated by meetings and logistical business operations. On Wednesday, however, I enjoyed a trip out to the potential (and now probable) site of our giving-back project as we look to plant endangered trees to be distributed around Malawi. Our partner in this process, Dr David Mkwambisi, (check out his awesomeness) toured us around his new botanical garden and learning center just outside of town which has been put up at a tremendous pace: three years and it's probably 75% done, which here is equivalent to constructing the Golden Gate Bridge in two days. It is complete with a huge conference center, lots of land being planted with indigenous plants, a restaurant, bar and volleyball court, offices and a site in the back where we will construct nurseries for trees. I'll get you pictures next time.


Thursday was a long day. We were thrilled to attend the graduation of our friends from their NGO helping to empower HIV+ widows as seamstresses. The Minister of Gender (who I guess determines what gender you are) even showed up-four hours late; turning what should have been a two hour affair into a 7 hour marathon-we took a donut and samosa break for lunch. The MoG, as I will call her, was also probably only in her late twenties and drop-dead gorgeous. The jury is out on how she got this job.

Afterwards we had decided to throw our first party at our house, as a goodbye for our dear friend Briony who has returned to greener pastures and pursuing a degree in art therapy back in London. The bbq was a great success as we finished off a barrell of meat, a pile of salad and five cases of sodas, beers and liquors. The whole situation was added to when a SUV rolled into our compound and we looked to see four men get out of the cab and then the trunk open and eight more american girls pile out like clowns at the circus. Delightful.

Finally, stories from the weekend: Friday, Noah experienced for his first time the all-out glory of the American Pirates Casino, Lilongwe's gambling hub and home to between 20 and 200 chain-smoking, chattering Chinese expats at any particular hour. My wallet and free drinks for everyone both won, while Noah and our lungs both lost.

And Saturday we enjoyed a "full moon party" (it was a waxing gibbous, not a full moon) at Kumbali Village outside of town. Imagine a stereotyped African village by night, complete with fires, a sandpit to dance and little thatched buildings to take respite from the constant African pop and dance music. For seven hours of partying with staggering endurance. And imagine it with only white people there-TIA Sam Foster.

Glad to have you back Kevin,
Steven