First we found out way out to the main road and
waited three minutes or so for a mini van to pull in and offer us a space. We’re heading to Limbe. In Limbe we can get a cab to Blantyre. The wife and kids up inside first into the
back where a woman sat with a child. I
sandwiched in beside a young man whom I assumed was off to work, with his
tucked in white shirt. The driver soon pulled
over and I wondered why. A question to
the salary man by my side from the driver who’d walked over to our window and
now he was pulling up a large jug of gasoline from below his knees. I thought about things like insurance
policies and the temptation of fate and precisely how it was that gas
explodes. This was how I used to travel
all the time, knees pressed up into my face, backside contorted, uncomfortable
after a few minutes. Excruciating after and hour. The ride from say, Djenne to Bobo-Dioulasso,
bouncing along for six hours questioning for most of the ride, why it was one came to do these things at all. Limbe was
only a few kilometers away and soon we were out stretching our legs, looking for a cab in the
crowded Limbe market place.
Blantyre seems less than a
small city, and more like a few roads that met somewhere. Still on the outskirts I suppose, we head to the cultural
center without ever really reaching a town. The center is closed. It’s the first day of Ramadan, but the gift shop and the restaurant are open. The setting is
lovely though and we have a breakfast out on the porch. Our objective is to meet a former student of
mine who’s made it down from Blantyre from the capital of Lilongwe. I explain to him from the outset that I have
so many questions about Malawi.
Later that day it is still
overcast and chilly. Everywhere we have
been is chilly; the hills of Ethiopia, the winter of Malawi. What did we know
heading to East Africa in June? I
assumed it would be scorching. All I
have is a thin sweater two sizes too small. We should have planned for “Autumn
in New York.” We are on the main road
now, driving up towards lake Malawi.
On
the trunk road we pass small roadside villages reminiscent of so much of the
developing world: rudimentary road stalls, children running out, women carrying
bowls stacked to impossible heights, women carrying their body weight in wood
upon their shoulders, men, somewhere else. I take the front
seat for a while and shoot snaps of village after village. Outside Malawi has so many more mountains
that I’d assumed. Up to the left my
friend suggests is the grand Mount Zomba, which we’ll take time to visit on the
ride back home.
Monday, 06/26/17
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