Busing to Blantyre

Nathaniel’s organization has been waiting, literally since April, for Malawi’s National Fortification Alliance meeting to take place. Transatlantic trips have been taken and weddings have been missed (not by Nathaniel, luckily) in the name of attending this meeting, which has been continually postponed and rescheduled. Finally, the meeting is happening today! My current classification as housewife means I’m able to travel along, so here I am in Blantyre while Nathaniel conferences it up. : )

Our car is still tied up in paperwork hassles, so our plans to “self-drive” as they call it here were stymied…thank god! As we discovered on the bus ride, the roads are good here, by African standards, but they are still narrow, with some stretches of dirt, lots of foot and bike traffic (even along the major highway) and multiple police check-points. Probably best not to challenge ourselves to navigate all that at the same time that we get used to driving on the left.

We hop on the bus Wednesday afternoon in a large, dusty parking lot that is, as promised “between the Metro Cash and Carry and the Pacific Hotel in City Center”. The bus route takes us south through areas of Lilongwe that are clearly the equivalent of Roxbury and Dorchester – huge, bustling neighborhoods where rich white people rarely go. Most amazing is the Lilongwe “Ikea” – a lengthy street packed with furniture, coffin and metal window bar manufacturing sheds, with said items arrayed for sale out front. Finally we discover where Malawians actually buy their furniture! Looks like we’ve figured out where we’ll be taking our truck Saturday when we furnish our new place.

Leaving the city proper, we travel through village after village – perhaps not surprising as Malawi is one of the most densely populated countries in Africa. I am struck by the extent to which local custom and skill results in a variance of architecture from village to village – homemade “fired” bricks exposed with thatched roofs vs unfired bricks plastered with metal roofs, grass fences vs. brick walls vs. living yucca field borders. Popping vividly out of even the smallest, poorest looking villages are fuchsia colored “Zain” buildings – we’re impressed by how much pink paint the cell phone and wireless company has employed in the name of advertising.

The “people don’t go out at night” rule doesn’t seem to apply to the country in the same way. As night falls, traffic remains brisk. People and goats congregate in front of tea houses and grocery shops. We pass through one incredible market with stall upon stall lining the road, each lit by guttering torches and packed with people. The bus also makes multiple stops (despite promises of direct transit). Some are seemingly related to the police check points, which we are mystified by – the guide book claims they rarely ask for bribes and they seem to just wave people on at each point. The driver re-boards at one with a large bag of potatoes, at another a floppy cabbage but does not seem to have actually spoken with the guards. Produce perk? Pee breaks?

And again, I am struck by the incredible power of globalization. Once it’s fully dark, the bus stewardess pops in a copy of Tyler Perry’s Medea Goes to Jail – one of his darker, raunchier and more violent films – which doesn’t seem to bother the supposedly conservative Malawian population on the bus in the least. Varsha, it’s true – it wouldn’t be the way you remembered it at all.