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Hey Everyone,
Well I have managed to find reasonably priced internet in Zambia, much to my surprise. However, it only exists in Lusaka, so I'll see how much I can get done in one day.
Malaria. I was taking a drug called Larium (Mefloquine) weekly which is supposed to stop the parasites from maturing and thus infecting you with full-blown Malaria. It doesn't always work, which I already knew, so I usually try my best to be covered in DEET when malarial mosquitoes are around, but I got sick anyway.
The "cure" is a course of 3 tablets of Fansidar, which I took and now I'm feeling back to normal. I'll still have to have another blood test done to make sure that I've completely killed it, since many strains of Malaria are somewhat resistant to Fansidar as well.
Since arriving in Malawi I have met several people with hookworms, 1 person with jiggers and several people who have had Malaria. Bilharzia, a waterborne parasite exists all over East Africa and I will have to get a test for that when I return home as well. It is another parasite that burrows through your skin and makes it's way to your liver where it can cause long term damage.
Hookworms burrow through your skin and you can see them crawling around under the skin very slowly. They eventually make their way into your intestinal tract where they reproduce. Treatment is a 3-day course of drugs, but they leave scars for several months. They cause a lot of itching. One German guy I met dug one of the worms out himself with a swiss army knife, then got the drug treatment later.
Jiggers are black-fly larvae and they occur when a black fly lays eggs under your toenails. The maggots hatch then burrow into your skin and eat it causing a terrible itching. The guy I saw with jiggers had them dug out, treated and his foot was bandaged up. He could barely walk.
Despite all these little nasties, it's still a lovely place. Lake Malawi runs down half of the country and mountains rise out from the west side in several places. The views looking over the azure blue lake are extraordinary.
One of the first places we stayed in Malawi was called Lukwe Permaculture camp which is set up on some cliffs about 1000m above the lake. The huts you sleep in are on stilts and dangle out of the forest and over the cliff giving you a view of the lake and a nearby waterfall. The area is stunning.
The owners of Lukwe, Kevin and Sue, have done all kinds of engineering to capture rainwater, conserve water and grow their own food. Most of your meals come right from the garden and you shower and drink rainwater. They have managed to create fertile areas for growing vegetables that do not need irrigation and without cutting down the trees that were already on the land. They also use compost toilets which they use to enrich the garden as well as saving water. They are much like outhouses without the smell and without the flies. Quite nice, really.
Kevin, Sue and Lisa (who runs the garden) spend a lot of time educating the local people on sustainable farming practices and it seems to be really making a difference in this area. Permaculture involves quite a lot and is very interesting, so if you are curious I suggest doing a search on google for "permaculture" and taking a look at the resulting pages.
All this agricultural education has helped the people in the north, but you may have heard (or maybe not) that Malawi is experiencing a famine right now. I always thought that a famine is a shortage of food, and it isn't, really. It's a shortage of money.
There is plenty of food (Tanzania had huge surpluses this year), but Malawians are just too poor to buy the food. Most of them do a bit of subsistence farming and do a bit of work to buy the food they can't produce themselves. This year, for the second year in a row, drought has devastated the subsistence crops so people need to buy food.
But they don't have any money. The reason? Bad government and corruption, as usual. Last year the government had huge surpluses of Maize (the staple here) stored in warehouses but the government sold it all off and then spend the money on ridiculous projects. When the crops failed this year and the Malawian people could have used the maize or the money, neither was available. International organizations are now trying to gather that US$250 million needed to buy the food to feed the population.
What does this mean for me? Nothing. I've got money. But let me paint a picture for you. Imagine a fat-cat Malawian government official chowing down on a thick t-bone steak with veggies, potatoes and gravy while sitting in a fine restauraunt. Outside, a small child lies face down in the dust moments away from dying of starvation while a vulture stalks ever close, just waiting for the right moment for some fresh food to dig in to.
The government official and the vulture dine together. How does these people sleep at night, I wonder???
On our way out of Lukwe, we met Mick who is an Australian that is trying to start an adventure company doing abseiling, rap-jumping, and a pendulum swing on a beautiful cliff face above Lake Malawi. He needed some people to come out for a day with him so that he could take some pictures for his new brochure that he was making. I got to go for free, so why not?
The view was spectacular and I spent most of the day hanging off the side of the cliff face enjoying the view. However, when it came to take photos of the pendulum swing, I really didn't know what to expect. As it turned out, I should have been expecting complete fear. I have never been so scared in my life.
The pendulum swing involves being attached to four dynamic climbing ropes which are anchored about 50 meters horizontally from you. You abseil down the cliff face on a short rope (10 meters long) and then abseil off the end of the rope. You freefall for about 30 meters towards the trees below before the dynamic ropes become taught and then you get flung at high speed across the valley and back up the other side. It's absolutely terrifying. I'll never do that again. It was fun too. But I'll still never do it again. I hear they have a bigger one at Victoria Falls....hmmmm....
Our next stop was at a guesthouse called Mayoka Village which is nestled over Lake Malawi in the town of Nakata Bay. Lovely little huts sit right above the water and the swimming and snorkeling is fantastic. Many of the fresh water fish that exists in Europe and North American fish tanks come from Lake Malawi. The guesthouse had great food (including t-bone steaks, of course) a nice beach, free canoes, kayaks, snorkeling gear and a great library. Books are hard to come by in Malawi.
We spent a few days here waiting for the Ilala steamer (runs weekly up and down Lake Malawi) to start our 5-day Kayaking trip. The trip took us around two of the larger of Lake Malawi's islands, Chizamulu and Likoma. We camped a few days in guest houses and spent one night rough camping on the beach. The islands were beautiful and the beach we camped on was great. A local village was nearby and the women and the kids seemed to be having a great time paddling around in the dug-out canoes and just playing in the water. They seemed very peaceful and happy.
Mango season has just started as well so the price of Mangoes has dropped from about 10 cents each to around 1 cent each and I love Mangoes, so I'm eating my fair share! Our kayak guides climbed up the Mango trees on the islands and whacked Mangos down with the kayak paddles for us.
After the 5 days we returned to Nakata Bay on the Ilala where I spent some time fighting with Malaria. A good spot to get stuck, if you have to get stuck.
While in Mayoka Village I met an Israeli who had $950US stolen from his hotel room in a town called Rumphi. He went to the local Witch Doctor who promised to put a curse on the thief to help him get his money back. The Witch Doctor told him "return to Rumphi and the thief will have turned into a women and be so wracked with guilt that she will run into the street and give your money back."
I said "If that works, I'll be taking up as an apprentice of that witch doctor." The Israeli did return to Rumphi to get his money. The only way I could see that the thief it back was to put the fear of Witchcraft into the thief. Perhaps the thief would be scared into returning the money.
The Israeli had no such luck. Pretty much everyone he spoke to laughed at him. "oh well, worth a try" he said.
Mayoka Village is run by Katherine (from the UK) and Gary (from South Africa) and it is one of the best places I have stayed in Africa.. They have about 30 staff, but recently one of their barmen died of AIDS. So they promoted a watchman to barman, but there was a very steep learning curve. The people in Malawi earn less than in Tanzania and I understand a VERY good wage is about $20 per month. If you earned $20 per month, would you be out at the bar much?
Probably not, so you wouldn't know much about how a bar works. The first time we ordered glasses of wine from Phillip, the new barman, he promptly poured us two PINT glasses of wine. Gary apologized and asked if we still wanted the wine, which of course we did, since it was such a good deal (same price!).
The next day I heard Katherine explaining how to put ice in mixed drinks and how to pour a shot, etc. That night we got red wine in wine glasses, with 2 cubes of ice! Phillip continued to entertain us for days by fouling up things we just take for granted. But really, how would he know??
Well, I should probably sign off since this is already too long. Lots more has happened that I haven't mentioned, of course. It's always interesting!
Tomorrow I'll be heading down to Victoria Falls which is considerably larger than Niagara falls.
Cheers,
Jonathan.
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