Face to Face with the Black Doctor!

I decided to take the scavenger hunt seriously, which meant that I had
to find one of the real challenges: a snake stone. First I had to
find out what it was. Apparently it is a stone that you rub on your
skin if you’ve been bitten by a snake. Where to find it? The only
place I coud think of was at a witch doctor’s. So my big quest of the
day was to find a witch doctor. We came across a sign that said:
Welcome
Face to Face
With the Black Doctor.
Dr. Mushasweni
I knew I had found my man.
We rode down the dirt road: Dave, Nate, Claire and Jolie-Ann were at
my side, and we came across a ton of mud huts, women working, kds
playing, and endless livestock. It turns out that the great Dr.
Mushasweni was an 80-year-old doctor who specialized in local
medicines and surgeries, but was not a witch doctor. I’m not certain
where the difference lay. We learned all about him as his wives
served us tea and bread with honey. He looked to be in his
mid-fifties, had five wives, four mistresses and 62 children. The
village around us were all his family. Nate asked what his secret
was. He said he planted lots of maize. I think that code for sowing
his seed.
Riding with the Lonely Planet guys was great fun. We had managed to
ditch sweep in the morning, and wanted to do the same in the
afternoon, especially since it was Eric – the most reprehensible guy
on tour. When we saw a cute little beer garden, we veered off. The
fellas contemplated getting a haircut. Cartoon pictures were drawn on
the outside wall of the barbershop, with the names of the different
cuts. We had almost convinced Nate to get “The Potato”. It turned
out that was a full head shave.
When we got into camp (our rest day) I was fully depleted. My blood
sugar had dropped, and none of us noticed as we almost zipped right
past the camp. Nate actually had to go and catch David. I headed off
to the mall and actually was able to get money out ofa bank machine.
it was our first mall since Sudan, and the fact that there was a movie
theatre was very exciting. That night I went out to dinner with
everyone – I had walnut and blue cheese salad and steak with gruyere
cheese and mushroom sauce, and a really lovely wine. It was the most
exciting meal I’d had in ages. It was for all of us. We went out to
some clubs with painfully bad music, and went to bed late.
When I woke in the morning I ran into a still-drunk Nick. I helped
him get to the mall (he had sprained his ankle the night before). I
filled him with breakfast and water, and we went to a movie together.
I got him even more water. Siobhan was being quite mean to him. It’s
strange, she’s taken to acting like a nagging mother, though they’re
only about 5 years apart. I figure that it’s his life, and he’s
managing to ride every day, and is always pleasant. Letters from home
got me down, and I spent the rest of the day chilling out, reading and
doing not much of anything.
On the next morning we headed off to Mazabuka. It was only 158 km. I
got off to a bad start. They moved the wake-up time by a half-hour,
and I thought it was a full hour, so I woke up when it was still dark.
At first I couldn’t find my watch, so I grabbed my headlamp and the
batteries were dead, so I grabbed my camera and used the light from
the display to find my watch, and then noticed that my watch batteries
were dead, so I grabbed my broken odometer which was only good for the
clock on it to see what the time was. Welcome to Africa. I got out
of my tent, packed everything, walked ten paces and fell into a hole,
twisting my ankle. It wasn’t a serious twist, but it was painful
enough that after 30km I jumped on the truck. Cars veered to try to
push us off of the road, and the tall grass on either side of the road
provided a double hindrance. First, it didn’t let you see any of the
views (or possible predators), and second, it got into your shorts
when you stopped to pee. I hate tall grass.
We stayed at the Honeymoon Camp. I set up a time-lapse from the top of
the truck since I was there early. They had newly opened a bar there,
so that night we got to hear endless motorcycles coming in, and the
occasional brawl.

I Pity Da Fool!

Leaving Nkhotakota was hard. Getting back onto the bike after beach life is not easy. Fortunately we were headed into a rest day. My credit card didn’t work at first. It turned out that when they called in to have it approved they had a bad connection, so rather than saying ‘Please call back’, the fellow simply declined the card. Fortunately, the woman at the desk was used to this, so she tried again. The bad thing was that we found out that Erin’s wallet had been stolen when she went to look for her card. It must have been when we were doing yoga. We had been lulled into a false sense of security, and while my stuff was still locked in the safe, hers was accessible to anyone who went into our room. The only time that could have been was when we were on the little strip of beach in front of our room. After many searches and much frustration, the manager would not even bring us to the police to report it stolen. Unless we paid 30$. Jerk.

We wound up hitching a lift to the road where we caught a metatu – a van with 10 seats which they managed to cram 21 people into. We drove to the flooding which had prevented the riders from going that route. It was easy enough to walk across – we went down a ways through a field and then crossed where the flood became a trickle, but there was quite a string of vehicles waiting to shuttle people back and forth. It had never been that the bikes couldn’t get across, it was just that our trucks couldn’t. Too bad for them.

We switched into a new Metatu, and bought freshly dug-up peanuts and ladyfinger bananas through the windows. We didn’t get to eat anything proper until we got into Lilongwe, where we ate terrible beans and rice, wiping away all of our good memories of the dish.

The road to the city had been hot and sweaty. Erin had the ticket-taker squashed into her lap, and I had a metal rod jabbing into me the whole way, but we made it, and as soon as we got into town we were lucky enough to see some of the riders walking around. After getting to camp, I set about picking up money from the Western Union. Between charges on Rob’s end, charges on my end, and the exchange rate, I wound up losing about 300$, and would then lose even more the following day when I tried to trade it for American. Gah. The city was agog with the rush of Madonna-fever, locals wearing t-shirts with ‘Adopt Me!’ written on the front. Paparrazzi were everywhere.

In the evening I caught up with Erin. She and I had been plotting for April Fool’s. We decided we were going to pull a few pranks. And then Ted joined in. I forced him to swap the contents of Bruce and Tim’s lockers with me – the two are best friends who came together on the trip and are virtually inseparable. While I was in the washroom, he chatted with Erin, and convinced her that we should turn around everyone’s seats. I was dead-set against that one, but after a while I got swayed into being devious. It was also very exciting. People were asleep in their tents, and we were turning their seats around virtually inches from where their heads were. When we finished with that little prank, Peter joined us... basically, he caught us, so we let him in on what was going on. There were a few people’s tents who we tied the flies shut on, so they would have to crawl or pull their pins to get out in the morning. And then the toilet paper! We had to use the bright pink toilet paper on the Canuck school teachers’ tents. We wrote up that there had been flooding on the Zambian border crossing, and to see Shanny (tour director) for more info. We moved all the cooking supplies into the chair storage and vice-versa. We decorated the trucks. The piece-de-resistance, though, were Bruce and Tim’s tents, which we unpegged, swapped positions, and then watched as they, totally drunk, got really confused when they went to bed. The funniest was that they had been sitting not so far away from their tents when we did it.

I woke up after only three hours sleep. I was like a kid at Christmas. It took everyone about a half hour to figure out it was us. Apparently our faces gave us away. I don’t know how. I guess neither of us can lie. They didn’t catch Ted or Peter, though. Now I know never to trust those two.

I spent the afternoon swapping my three inch thick wad of Malawian cash for American. I figured I’d get Zambian at the border with the rest. Big mistake. The funny thing was that in the hunt for money I was turned down at every foreign exchange. I wound up getting piecemeal bits – a fifty here, a twenty there. Africa is not investing in American money until the financial crash starts taking an upturn. At least, that’s what the bankers are saying.

I went to dinner with Peter that night, and we shared in a few bottles of wine, making the following day’s ride look like a nightmare. We were incredibly intoxicated on the way home. So much so that a sympathetic local stopped to give us a lift.

I woke up in the morning with a head as heavy as a stone. The ride was nice, though the headwinds made it tough. The scenery hasn’t changed much in a while, so people are starting to complain. Every time they complain, all I can think is, shit, we’re riding in Zambia. The same sparse trees dot the mountainside, and you can see much of the surroundings because the tall grass is all around us. It whistles softly as we ride by. And we’re riding in Zambia.

The border crossing into the country actually came at about 30km away from the end of the day. I was so hungry – the pangs of post-hangover munchies, but as there was no exchange at the border, I was stuck waiting until we got into town. Grey took over the sky just as we were getting in, and the minute we walked into the Forex, the skies opened up. Sheets of water came down. By the time we exchanged money, it had slackened off, and once we got to camp it was gone entirely. Since we had showers, I washed my clothes. Throw everything in a bucket and stomp on it while getting myself clean, then take it out of the shower and rinse until the water is no longer murky brown. It’s never really clear at the end, but I like to call it ‘Clean enough’.

I hung everything up to dry, and ten minutes later the rains came again. A final rinse.

I was happy to know that I was not the only one suffering on the ride that day. If Peter was hungover, he didn’t show it, but Nick had also gone out that night, and he was a wreck. Because he still had his EFI status, Tarin and Allan went over to the hotel where he was staying, put him in a cab and got him back to camp. Meanwhile, folk had taken down his tent and thrown his stuff on the truck. It was a mix of people helping him out and people being angry at him because he was, as they called it, being irresponsible. I think he’s been looking at the ‘EFI status’ as a bit of a curse for a while now, as he keeps trying to lose it and people keep pushing him back on course. I laughed at a few people who felt the need to lecture him. I’m glad I had time off from the group.

Living Yoga, I Presume

What is the first thing you do on a holiday? Sleep in. We did. Until 6:15. After months of waking up at 4:30 – 5:30, it was wonderful. And the rest of the day? Yoga! Hot showers! Omelette Breakfast! Adventures in town! Food, food and more food.

The breakaway from the group was exactly what I wanted. There were no schedules to be followed, and we even had a fighting chance of seeing the pace of life in one place. Maybe even talk to someone local. This trip is nothing like my other trips. I definitely notice the change of pace. It feels more like I´m watching a movie, rather than really getting to know any one place.

During yoga I felt everything that I had been doing to my body for the past couple of months. Bends which used to be so easy were now impossible. Slowly everything started opening up, and by the end I felt a million times better. A swim in the warm lake just made it that much better.

At breakfast we chatted with two Scottish fellows. They were father and son, though the father confessed that the few months of his son`s visit were the longest they had ever spent together. For decades now, the father had been coming to Malawi to set up special projects to help the locals. He had originally come to help in a local clinic, but when the local people started approaching him with questions on how to improve parts of their lives, he became an intermediary for them. One of his current projects with them has been to bring a boat over from Scotland, rebuild it in Malawi, and then have it transport medicinal supplies to all of the villages along Lake Malawi, since most of these have no access to roads. Two local engineers were sent to Scotland to learn how to do the reconstruction from engineers there. His son, an architect, is in constant contact with his dad, so that whenever there is a question of having something built, he comes up with an answer. Even building toilets is not as easy as it might seem. At some point we got on the topic of all the people we had seen at the side of the road, whose jobs were to break big rocks into gravel by hand. He said the worst thing he ever had to do was send a shipment of gravel back to have it broken into smaller pieces. Life is not easy here.

Around lunch we chatted with some Norwegians. They were stationed here to help out with the fishing industry, but half a year later were still unsure of what their task was. The wife of one of the men came over to live with him, and she was brought on to a local hospital (being a nurse), but since they hadn`t gotten permission as of yet from the local government for her to work there as a foreigner, she was given a local salary allowance. She was currently in pediatrics, and saw over 60 patients a day.

The Norwegians gave us a lift into town, and we got to use some of the fastest internet we`d seen in months. The Norwegians laughed, saying that it was the slowest they had ever used. It`s all perspective. They tipped us off to a local beans and rice place, which was good since the hotel was very pricey in regards to food. We checked out the local supermarkets, but all you could buy were cookies, soap, milk, meat, alcohol, chips and water. Veggies were available on the roadside – local women sold them for pennies. I guess the locals buy their grains from the bulk stores.

We hopped onto a local truck – pickups wait at the edge of town and will load up with hitchhikers to pay for their gas and vehicles. With so many stops and starts and waits for more people, it took forever for us to get going, and with all of the stops at local villages to pick up more people, we didn´t get to the hotel until the sun had gone down, which meant we got to take the long, 4 km walk to the hotel in the dark. A local drunk on a bike wandered with us until he realized we were walking faster than him. He then got on his bike and kept ahead of us, but then his bike kept breaking down and he kept falling behind. He seemed very frustrated at having two women move faster than him, but we were glad for every moment that he fell behind. Finally the rival lodge owner drove by, picked us up and brought us down to our lodge.

We got in and I grabbed a quick shower before we headed to dinner. I heard someone come to the door. It was giggler. Erin answered the door, and he burst out in giggles and eventually got enough control to be able to hold up the menus.

`You want us to come to dinner?`

More laughter and a nod.

`We´ll be there in half an hour, is that okay?`

Even more laughter and a nod.

James is great. He´s been teaching us Chichewa. And we can´t see him without breaking out into a smile. Mind you, he can´t see us without breaking out into great peals of laughter.



The following day we woke up and had a really long yoga session. It´s great to do yoga with Erin. We have basically the same start, and then go into our own poses, each one reminding each other of poses we like but might not have done for a while.

Our Scottish friends were at breakfast and offered us a lift into town where we could get our beans and rice, as well as supplies for the hitch the next day. He had visited the old slave trading village the day before. He told us about Livingstone, who had come over to Africa and was appalled by the slave trade of the day. He was only one voice of many of that time, but he was the only one who had seen the trade first-hand, so he became the voice everyone listened to. On the west coast, the slaves were being shipped-off to America, and on the east coast they were headed to the Arabic countries. Headmen of villages would sell off their villagers for a handful of salt in some cases. Life was cheap. I suppose it still is. When Livingston died, they put him in Westminster Abbey, and when they were going to erect a monument for him, they decided instead to put the money into missions to help with infrastructure so that the villages would have an income independent of slavery. So many good intentions. Up until now, all I´ve known about Livingstone were my own presumptions.

After breakfasting on beans and rice and then a grocery-shop that consisted of avocados, chips and water, we headed back to the lodge quite early, having learned from yesterday´s mistake. We got a lift from a boisterous local woman, one who I felt quite justified in giving the local greeting of ´mama´ to- greetings change between mama and sistah for people here. She owned a local lodge that had a real grandmotherly feel to it. We suddenly wished we had stayed there to support her instead of some British fellow who didn´t even live in that village. Hindsight. We walked from her lodge to ours, along beautiful white and black sand beaches. We watched fishers out getting their day´s haul, and young fishers sitting in rows of three, heaving in the nets. Some men were tarring the bottoms of their boats, others were fixing their nets.

We had dinner, chatting over wine about trees, fair salaries, and whether or not to have dessert. The answer to the last was the most obvious. We went for a long walk, talking to locals along the way. They were all out waiting along the beach to buy that evening´s meal from the fishers. We played games with the kids who followed us. In the evening we sat on the porch writing in our journals and reading until the bugs got to be too much. In three days we´d had ten hot showers each – with the general argument that it might improve our chances against bilharzia, but knowing it had more to do with the knowledge that we had a long way to go before we´d see warm water again. Every day we had the luxury of fish and vegetable instead of red meat and legumes. It´s been a dream.