Roadside Villages Reminiscent

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