Mwende bwino

 I haven’t written for a few days as we’ve been, and still are, on the move and on holiday! It’s now Wednesday, and I’m sitting beside Lake Malawi, looking across at the mountains of Mozambique on the other side.  I’m on the khonde of a hut on the beach that the four of us slept in last night (me, Mari, Lin and Mari’s friend Amanda).  There’s a palm tree right outside the door, which is shading me from the sun, and the lake is only about 50 yards away.  There are cormorants fishing from a boat in the bay, and kingfishers on the wooden quay sticking out into the lake.  Down the shore in one direction is a village of Yao fishermen, who are Muslims, and a roughly equal distance in the other direction is a village of Chewa farmers (Christians).  This is probably one of the most beautiful places, if not THE most beautiful place, I have ever been.

It was a long couple of days of driving and watching the country go by, as we drove up to Ntcheu to pick up Amanda, and then across to Dedza, where we stayed the first night, before driving on to Cape McClear.  The country gradually changes as we went through different areas, leaving a series of vivid images in my head:

Villages of little houses made of local brick and thatched with straws, with straw-shaded pit latrines, and round cook-houses.  People all along the roads, with bicycles laden with charcoal, wood, other people… or carrying massive buckets of water, or bundles, or once even an amplifier on their heads.  Children, even quite tiny ones, apparently alone on the side of the road, often marching along purposefully.

People selling things – vegetables piled high in interesting shapes, peaches, mice on sticks (about 12 per stick – cooked or dried, I’m not sure, and still with their tails and fur!).  Some smile and wave, others just stare, or once or twice react aggressively if Lin takes photos out of the window.

Trading centres (speed limit 50 kph) with brightly painted buildings set back from the road, usually a coffin maker next to a bar, perhaps some kind of supermarket, or a furniture store.  In front of them people lay out their veg, or make chips in little straw kiosks with a fire built on a tower of bricks.  Some beautiful trees – wide-spreading mangos with dense foliage giving good shade – often used as schools – the smaller ones covered with brownish flowers.  The occasional jacaranda, some of them now coming into amazing purple flowers.  Big fat baobab trees, like a cartoon tree, or an Ent out of a Tolkien story – bare of leaves and with shiny smooth grey bark.  If you can fall in love with a tree, I think I’ve fallen for the baobab!

Up on the mountain behind Dedza, a tree with bright red flowers or berries, and then, as we came down from the mountains towards the lake, more and more fever trees, with their weird pale yellow bark, and some others almost white or orange.