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