In Lilongwe, Malawi, I hopped up into the bus and was surprised to find that church was in session. A preacher roamed the aisle yelling about the devil and hell while a video of African dancers sang about praying for a neighbor instead of coveting their wife. Everyone aboard closed their eyes and bowed their heads as the preacher waxed on revival style about keeping the devil away from our bus. Personally, I was kind of hoping he would mention something about the bald tires or lost lug-nuts, or maybe a little something about a sober driver or timely arrival, but he wrapped it up with an alter call.
After the sermon, we parted with our familiar comforts of Lilongwe, namely, the Pakistani restaurant with its butter garlic naan and chicken tandoori, Chili Peppers with its Tex Mex and mochas, and the Chinese food restaurant that served beef in a ½ hallowed-out pineapple- oh, and Nando’s wifi internet, and Shoprite’s Cadbury bars. I packed a stash of Cadbury bars, just in case it took me awhile to find my next fix. The pleasant thing was, we were also parting with the annoying parts of Lilongwe like high crime, frequent power outages, and unwelcoming locals. The “warm heart of Africa” seemed less warm after my failed negotiation for a t-shirt at the flea market. Here’s how it went down: The salesman agreed on a swap. We shook hands, and I left wearing the used shirt. Five minutes later, the salesman and his brother stopped me at the other side of the market to say they changed their mind, and in addition to the shirt I gave them, they now wanted 10x the price the locals were paying. I tried to reason with them. I left wearing my old shirt, and they kept theirs. I wanted to cuss them out, but I kept it to myself.
It was a lovely change of pace to end up in Nkhata Bay, a small town with pleasant views and kind people. We dined at H&M Restaurant where we caught up on the news happening in Egypt. We bought a hand-carved teak wood globe from Mercy, an empowered female vender, and we stayed at Big Blue Star Backpackers for $5 a night, our cheapest room yet. We even snorkeled with the tropical blue cichlid fish in Lake Malawi.
Having accomplished our goals, we made plans to head north toward Mbeya, Tanzania. As we made our way to town, we felt lucky because there was a partially-filled mini-bus heading our way (partially-filled moving vehicles are extremely rare in Africa). We negotiated a price, but when the driver opened up the rear hatch to load our bags, I was wide-eyed and slowly turned to Mark with a look like “Oh, hell, no.” The mini-bus was loaded with trays of fish. It was bad enough to be boarding a mini-bus next to body odor funks and coughing; fish was extreme, and I really didn’t want the fish smell oiled into my bags for the duration of our travels. Mark shrugged it off, “Breathe through your mouth.” I may have moaned as I contorted my body into the mini-bus. There were sardines drying on the dash, but surprisingly, it didn’t stink too much. Mark says I looked like I was in a state of shock, but I will call it my “mini-bus meditative trance.” I slumped over the backpack on my lap and observed the on-going tetris puzzle in play- “How can I fit 3 more people in this mini-bus?” It was amazing to watch. Kids spilled out, big mamas crammed in with oversized bags, everyone squished around to fit, kids climbed onto laps, men crouched in their Sunday suits, and finally, the assistant pressed in and slowly slid the door shut across his rear, which firmly locked everyone in place.
At the bus depot in Mzuzu, we were approached about boarding a bigger bus to Songwe, the border town to Tanzania. The man claimed that the bus was leaving quickly. I asserted that nothing in Africa leaves quickly, but he proved me wrong. We were off without a proper breakfast or opportunity to use the toilet.
The scenery heading north was breath-taking, like a smoky canopy over deep blue mountains and lime green hillsides. We wound around giant baobab trees, rivers, villages, and at times continued along the calm waters of Lake Malawi. For a time, the bus was entertained by a drunk man who wandered the aisle making loud conversation with himself. I felt bad for Mark because he was in the aisle seat and got brushed by the man’s peed-in corduroy pants. We bought road-side bananas and messy mangos, goat meat (with occasional hairs) and fried potatoes. I noticed a few of the babies on board were sucking on lollipops and drinking sugary sodas.
At one stop, I couldn’t find a restroom, so I just went back to my seat. An older woman, who appeared to be over 70 years old, in a fragile yet assertive grandmotherly tone asked me if I was looking for something, and when I mentioned the bathroom, she pointed me around a corner where there were 30 cent pay toilets. After I left, she told Mark she was concerned about me, so she would follow me to the restroom. And that’s how we met Margaret, our adopted travel-madre. Being a frequent traveler of this route, she was a wealth of information about locations, distances, and prices. As a few men attempted to exchange money with us at the border, she told us not to exchange it, and motioned for us to follow her, so we joked with the money-changers that “When mama speaks, we gotta listen.” Somehow, we were separated from Margaret during the visa process, so it didn’t immediately make sense when the money-changers told us our mother was in a certain shop. We eventually realized they were talking about our brown travel mama, Margaret. We smiled, thanked them, and were reunited with our travel mama who advised us that it was getting dark and it wasn’t safe to go all the way to Mbeya in the dark. She invited us to come with her to her home-town of Kyela where she was getting a hotel for the night. It sounded perfect, so we split a cab and sped off toward the lovely beach town of Kyela.
We were only a few kilometers into Tanzania, and already I was in love with the place. It felt safe, upbeat, friendly, and tranquil all at the same time. Unlike Malawi where people run home before dark, Tanzanians were socializing, riding bikes, singing, strolling, and hanging out after dark. Margaret picked our hotel which had a fan, television, double bed, clean personal shower and toilet- for only 15,000 shillings a night ($10 total). Heaven! When we ordered our supper of banana beef and rice veggie, the food arrived immediately and for only $3 total. People were friendly, the prices were low, and we were happy as could be. We barely noticed when the power went out because our hotel was one of the few places in town that had a generator to run on. We felt exceedingly fortunate to have met Margaret.
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| Mercy the Globe Maker |
Margaret arranged for a bus to pick us up at 4:45 in the morning and wrote the particulars down on a slip of paper that began, “Dears,”. She included some of the local phrases that would be helpful along our journey. We set our alarm for 3:45am, so we were shocked when we heard a knock on our door at 3:30am. “Bus!” We were confused, but quickly realized we had inadvertently missed a time change. We scrambled to get our things together and said our goodbyes to Margaret, our adopted travel madre.
The large bus was comfortable, and even in the dark, I could see the tropical green trees lining the roadway. At sunrise, I was awestruck by the beauty of the sun rolling out over the lush green hillsides. The villages were constructed in light-colored sturdy bricks, and the contrast of the villages and the hillsides was stunning. In some ways, it reminded me of rural England and pictures of Ireland. I couldn’t get over how tranquil it felt. People were happy; children in school uniforms merrily made their way to school. I could tell that people were proud of their communities because there was minimal litter and the homes and shops were well-maintained. We were making our way to the train station, but I tapped Mark on the shoulder. “I can’t get on the train. It’s so pretty here; we have to stay awhile.” And that’s how we ended up in the lovely town of Mbeya, Tanzania.
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