King of the Monkey Butlers

March 30, 2007

Just click the heels together……

I don’t know what I expected really - a “yeah sure that sounds great - just let me know when and I’ll make a plan” response?

Well there’s lots of little details I guess - but in the end I figured the offer of lakeside living, sunshine and sand, hammocks and boat trips.... along with building our own business - that would be the kind of opportunity you don’t think twice about.

But the girl is not so sure.

“Forget University, leave your country, your job, your family, your friends, way of life - even daughter for a time - and come to Africa and we’ll build an empire on the lakeside - maybe - and no baby there’s no lions and no baby it’s not living in a jungle and yes baby there will be water & electricity - by the bells of St.Chris we’ve got wi-fi sitting out on the shore..... we run the shop, the bar, the chalets, the restaurant, the water project, the boat trips.....it’ll be what we make it....”

Yeah, that’s a lot to take in.

Though Jakarta is an unbelievable shithole - it is still a shithole called home.

She’s got her father to look after who’s 75 and not doing so good - she’s got the good job going places as a P.A to the director of an intl Cement company - she’s got the part time teaching thing......

But she’s also got the daily struggles and the constant buzz of congestion, pollution, corruption, poverty, decay, earthquakes, floods...... and no me either.

And me no her.

The best way to be together is this - any other possible place on earth we’re talking sky-high costs & visa problems - culture clashes and employment issues - UK? Holland? would be a fucking nightmare to sort that out - and lord knows it’s not likely I end up back in Jakarta anytime soon - here in Malawi, Paul can organise all we need and the life will lend itself to the slow-slow as we find our way.

I ask myself “what’s to think about?” but for me jumping countries and snap decisions are common practice - put me in her shoes and I guess I can see where she’s coming from.

So for now I’m making plans to start without her in December - can’t see past the issue with her father - family first - especially in that part of the world.

But neither the lake nor I are going anywhere.

So there’ll always be a day should she want to make the jump - figure that photo’s and conversation can’t do it justice - she’s got to come and SEE the possibilities I’m talking about.

The folks back home seem to be taking the change of plans pretty well.

If silence on the matter can be taken as indication as such.

Guess they’re just taking all that info in - the whole resigning, selling the flat, new job, career, country, no guarantees it’ll all sail type thing.

I’ll wait till I get back to UK before I mention the Tattoo I think.

Spo | March 30, 2007 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Malawi

March 29, 2007

Don’t Drive Dusk till Dawn………

The future very nearly didn’t take place driving back from the lake on Sunday - we got caught up in the day, so while sitting having late lunch we decided that we didn’t really want to leave - it’s hard to leave the lake - and it’s not hard to think of an excuse - so we informed the girls but it turned out they really needed to get back - school teaching commitments etc - basi - ok then - lets get going.

Unfortunately leaving around 3pm means that after you’ve got petrol and dropped folk off, the tail end of the journey back takes you into the night - and driving at night in Malawi is a very, very bad idea - especially on the last leg Zomba-Blantyre road.

The whole journey had been a bit of a nightmare - the gargantuan storm that crashed upon us on the Saturday (loudest thunder I’ve ever heard in my life) had seriously damaged the road back and it also seemed that Sunday had brought out a particular brand of stupidity in the majority of Malawian road users. Once the dark had set in around 6pm things jumped up a notch in terms of difficulty and pressure.

The Variety of obstacles in our way included:

• Cyclists who don’t know how to cycle.
• Pedestrians who don’t realise that walking in the middle of the road is a bad idea.
• Cars and trucks with either one light or no lights at all.
• People driving with full beam headlights continuously, indicating for no reason.
• No ability to see pot-holes or the lay of the land for upcoming corners.
• Also the human element in most of these situations is usually under the influence of Chibuku (a rank local alcoholic concoction made from Maize that comes in cartons and looks and tastes like vomit).

Basically driving at night is a fucking nightmare and you have to concentrate as if you were dismantling a Nuclear weapon at all times.

So Paul was in one car (initially with all the girls) and in the other there was myself, Manyana (fantastic name), Nicole and an eeway Anton wanted us to drop somewhere - after dropping the Gecko girls we intended to drive convoy style from Zomba but meeting points got missed and as I thought Paul was ahead of me I tried to speed up to catch him - in fact he’d dropped the last of the two girls somewhere outside of Zomba and was behind me some way - then the phone reception cut out too.

I had a battle with a car full of Indians driving around with their lights on full beam behind me for 10 minutes - I used the Malawian adage of indicating left to say “pass” and indicating right to say there is “something coming” and nearly sent them head first into a maize lorry - just missed. I let them pass and then full beamed them all the way back to Blantyre. Generally there wasn’t a moment when I could relax - every step of the journey was bringing a new brand of mechanised chaos and the relief upon seeing the lights of Limbe was immense.

Arriving Blantyre with only Manyana and myself left at this point, we headed to stock up on Jungle Pepper Pizza and then go round to Paul’s for the ritual of end of the weekend drinks - that’s when the phone rang and Paul informed he’d been in accident.

Coming up on a corner, a huge truck came hurtling towards him on the wrong side of the road - no choice but to dive down the gully to the left and into the maize field - the truck continued on it’s storming run and didn’t stop for a second - meanwhile Paul ploughs the field a while until coming to a halt - miraculously avoiding anything larger than a fence or two and a batch full of maize.

As ever in such situations, folk appear from nowhere - where ever there is an incident in Africa people will appear in seconds surrounding the scene to either see what is available for salvage or generally stand around staring doing nothing in particular - so with a bit of direction and info as to whether the wheels were shot, Paul was able to chunk it into 4x4 and get back up onto the road and back to Blantyre where several strong whiskeys were the order of the day.

Close one indeed.

Lord knows I’m never driving any such distances at night again - around Blantyre it’s Ok due to the street lamps and general knowledge of the lay of the roads - but next time round, if the day has gotten away at the lake and we’re still debating as to whether to do the journey, methinks we’ll definitely stay for another beer or two rather than go through all that again.

Spo | March 29, 2007 | Comments

March 28, 2007

Marked For The Future……

So yeah - I got a tattoo - Gecko style - he’s a little monster - burns like hell at the mo - Henani and the man with the needles turned up at Paul’s Monday and after a few stiff vodka’s and boiling of all the necessary, they went to work.

Hardest part is sitting in the same position for that long - it stings a bit when you get near the nerves and bone, but overall it didn’t really hurt at the time - over an hour or so it just feels like someone slowly dragging a razor-blade across your skin - which, although that actually sounds really bad, is not something that is so painful once you get used to it - that makes me sound like a masochist - who knows - but then again I’ve bounced off and onto so many things in life so far that my tolerance to pain is pretty high - I’ve been scraped, scratched, burned, bitten and broken enough times not to flinch at a tattoo.

Spiders on the other hand.....

The issue now is keeping it clean and clear - Vaseline/moisturiser 3 times a day - don’t get it covered in dirt or tea (hard in my job) - don’t scratch or scrape it at all - itchy, gooey, black, inky, blood stuff coming out all the time - can’t go swimming or get it seriously wet in any way - meaning no lake or pool shenanigans for 2-3 weeks......

But I’m very happy and have named him “ojeni”.

He shall now be with me forever more.

Spo | March 28, 2007 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Malawi | Pictures

March 26, 2007

Eeeesh…..

After canceling Friday and running off to the lake all wknd, I had to continue the charade about being ill and not in fact disgracefully hungover - it really has become a tangled web of lies.

The story of my supposed Thursday possible food poisoning leading to early doors escape meant that people were concerned for my well being and wanted to call me to verify that I was ok later on - the slightest cold or flu symptom here could be Malaria you see - but of course, they couldn’t get through as my provider has no coverage at the lake - so when my boss asked, I explained I left the phone on charge but didn’t realise I had not turned on the charger - and as the phone didn’t ring I just assumed no one was trying to get through.

But the natural thing to do when someone who may have malaria doesn’t pick up their phone, is to go to their house and be sure-sure they are ok - I thought ahead to this and explained that as Beth doesn’t work the wknd, I stayed at a friends so I was not alone during my weakened suffering.

Now people have been phoning this morning to check I’m fine.

I can spin the tale of woe pretty good on the phone - especially due to my usual Monday voice of post lake hungover suffering.

Face to face the sun burn is harder to explain however.

Spo | March 26, 2007 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Malawi

March 23, 2007

This Day is officially CANCELLED…..

How the fuck did this happen?? I was out in the tea fields, running around, driving the 4x4 along roads of no return and pulling off audacious overtaking manoeuvre’s, doing deals and taking care of business - earning my money - then I drive back around 530pm - Paul calls, he’s sitting with John - they need to discuss something with me - so I call round.

Next thing it’s 130am and we’ve all drunk a bottle of vodka, finished the JW black and done a bottle of Po10C.

On a school night.

I remember when it was the breaking point as well - 11pm and we decided to go out and get cigarettes rather than call it a day - and I said at the time “look we may as well keep going and finish it - take the pain in the morning - it’ll be worth it”.

It is so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so not worth it.

I’ve come to work and played the food poisoning card and am now going home to bed before driving to the lake later around 3pm (or when ever I wake up and don’t feel like I’ve been run over and shot)

Fuck it.

My queen has her exams today - decides if Yuni does Uni or not - big day for me too - if she passes maybe she stays in Jakarta - if she doesn’t she’ll be more open to come live with me at the lake - I know she will be so happy if she passes the entrance exam but.........

Have not heard from Anna for months and months - miss her so much........

.....Rambling now - need to go put myself down for a while......

and finally Hanh emailed me this - best email I read this morning - although I have ignored a lot:

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a tatol mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Right - bed and lake

Spo | March 23, 2007 | Comments

March 22, 2007

Monkey See, Monkey Free……

I love the internet - type in ”Arctic Monkeys Brianstorm Mp3” and google finds a download link for the new release of the califragifuckinglistic Monkeys track released in April some when - a true monster of a track, the video isn’t half bad either - choosing to focus on women in hotpants rather than the monkeys themselves - definitely a good plan.

Right click and save target as here - courtesy of splendid source of all things musical and genius - Wolf Notes

Be quick though - don’t know if it’ll be there long.....

Spo | March 22, 2007 | Comments
Film / TV / Music | Videos & Links

March 20, 2007

“Rock Under The Sun Trampy…..”

Unfortunate list of casualties from St Paddys night include:

•Phone (admittedly an annual occasion at some point)
•Another pair of knock-off Sunglasses
•several lighters
•15000 Malawi Kwacha
•1 bottle of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey.
•Plot for several hours.

They will be missed.

Those reading whom I’ve lost details for, pls email your number using the usual mail/link on the side there and I’ll restart the book on when I am next likely to lose my new phone from today (I’m still on the same number btw).

The thing with losing a phone is not the phone - it’s all the numbers of folk you’ll never get in touch any other way than calling when you are next in their neck of the woods.

I think maybe most are stored on the sim card I have in Holland though.

But It’s also all the pictures and video you have on there.

Especially the ones from Jakarta

ahem.

Friday and drinks in the tea district turned to meeting Paul and the girls at local den of funk named Twigga - there were a few of the younger crowd out and about on a fisherprice-my-first-night-out type of affair - 15 year old girls hurling in the corridors while young guys try to start fires with their eyes type stuff - gets in the way of people actually having a good time when the bar looks like kindergarten, so we moved on to the hip-hop cave of Tuska.

As people tired we dropped them back at Doogles before John and I moved on out to Kambaa - local den of iniquity - I got myself into trouble dancing with some girl who I was one sentence away from taking back to my place and leaving John where he stood - luckily the image clicked into my mind of Yuni dressed up as Rock chick after that Jakartan Rolling Stones night and I resisted the considerable temptation that was practically pole dancing before me and said my goodbyes.

I tell you - that night back in 2005 - Yuni wearing slashed up Rolling Stones shirt with rope-laddered tassles up the back - rock chick hair - eye liner - denim short-short skirt - Fuck-me Knee high boots - Tequila shot belt with bottles in the holsters.... that’s when I fell in love with that girl - that night - sure-sure.

I had a picture on my phone......

That was an image I had to conjure again when we returned to Tuska around 4am and ended up dancing with a girl from Mozambique called Antoinetta - who accompanied us to Sunnyside where we danced on chairs again. I again made my plea for escape and we moved to some locals bar in the middle of nowhere - I was truly wasted by this point - normally I’ve levelled out by this time of the morning - sort of drunk myself sober - done the round trip so to speak - but I was in the hurt locker and vision was an issue - it was the sort of place Nic Cage finds himself in from that Sierra Leone scene in Lord of War - I also think it’s one of the few times in life that someone could say I was drunker than John - that’s proper drunk - to be drunker than John at 8am is like a higher plateau of drunkeness - box2 drunkeness almost.

When we made it back to Pauls, (after arguing with the Doogle’s door staff about the time breakfast should be served) it was too early to wake him so I could crash on his couch and it was simply too much of a mission to consider driving back to my place in Blantyre, so I curled up in the sun on a rock outside Johns house, as he passed out in his doorway.

About as far away from a picture of sobriety as you can get - that’s cross the road and throw-small-change-at-me-alcoholic-reprobate really isn’t it? not good.

I don’t think the drinking here is like Jakarta though - in Jakarta I think indeed I had a problem for a little while - it was daily and it was at home and on the big nights out it was too concentrated in short spaces of time - but I came to my senses and it passed - here, although the whiskey flows freely and the wknd nights last till dawn, we dance while we drink so you never really get too fucked up beyond all recognition - although falling asleep on the rock is obviously a bit trampy, I offer the simple excuse of an exhausting drive home and tiredness in my defence.

Which may not stand up in court but it’s all I got at the mo.

It’s a red-flag then - ”No more excessive drinking to the point of sleeping on rocks in the sun at 830am” - would the honorable judge of karma duly note that last admission in writing and offer it for referral if there is anymore such tom-foolery in the near future.

I say “near” as it doesn’t do anyone any harm to drink all night and sleep on a rock every once in a while.

Builds character.

So then came St.Patrick’s day.

The wknd at Gecko when we had that big party had led to me being asked to sort the music out for a St Patrick’s shindig that was taking place in Blantyre - small venue, but well set up with a good crowd and Paul helped out with hiring an amp and speakers. Once I had woken from a snatched couple of hours sleep in the afternoon, we headed over to Adele’s place and set up shop - broken as I felt, I soon was back on something resembling form after getting a good feeding at the Bar-B-Q and indulging in the rather potent green punch that was filled up in one of the water coolers (genius idea - remove water - add punch - self serve green evil). I was presented with a packet of Benson’s and a bottle of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey for my pay and then I set about playing from 6pm till 4am - messing with the computer hooked up to the amp and twiddling equalizers and volume control’s while playing the best of what I had.

All was going really well until around 11pm when I was passed a ready rolled joint of some very potent Mari-Jo - I pretty much stopped smoking the delights of Mari-Jo back in 2000 when I came back from Malawi the first time around - you see, once I came back from 6 months of no longer smoking it, my tolerance level had disappeared and I no longer kept pace - also I just generally preferred being sharp and able to think again - getting stoned on Mari-Jo no longer felt the way it used to - now it just put my head in a cloud of confusion and seemed to make me less sociable and more withdrawn, so I just figured I’d had a good innings up until then and left it at that.

So as I knew that my smoking days were over and my tolerance levels are now around zero, I left the J sitting there on the mixer for an hour or so until I did what any half wasted individual would do - said “Ah fuck it” and smoked the whole damn thing in the time it takes to smoke the average cigarette.

Initially no problems - nicely rolled, mellow buzz, sweet taste - but then 10 minutes later it was like a Pirate Galleon to the back of the head and my mind went to Mars - absolutely spoon-faced.

What ever the fuck was in that joint, it’s not what should of been on the menu upon re-entering the world of smoking Gods greenest for the first time in a mighty long while.

Suddenly Moonbatted out of existence, I had considerable difficulty messing about with track listings, playlists, mixing faders and equalizers - Paul had also explicitly explained that when the beat ratio ojeni went up into the red light area ojeni, I was supposed to turn the volume down a bit to make sure the whole thing didn’t automatically shut itself off - I had been pretty good about this so far - but now I couldn’t really focus on the lights any longer.

There was a big whitey on the horizon and I fucking knew it - in such situations to avoid ”pale-face porcelain-god praying in the form of upchuck”, there are three main answers:

1) Water
2) Chair

3) and finally - stop drinking fucking strong Irish whiskey for a bit.

You see my initial theory upon head-caving was that if one type of fuckedupness fought and overpowered the fuckedupness of another type, then I would go back to being whiskey-drunk instead of super-stoned.

This Doesn’t Work.

It’s like trying to put out a fire with alcohol.

Just makes a new monster that’s more difficult to control than the first situation.

It’s like kicking a Gremlin in the ass and have him turn into Godzilla.

It’s high end stupidity.

But it made total sense at the time.

So once I’d picked up the pieces of my mind and put them in some form of order, I hoped no one had noticed that the songs had been pretty much sorting themselves out at random for 30 mins or so and got back to the job in hand.

I hadn’t really enjoyed being so wrecked you see, it was like I’d tipped my mind into and abyss and had then spent the next hour or so abseiling down into the darkness to try and find it - when what I really should of done was enjoy standing around with a stupid grin on my face while relaxing into the music that I was (supposed to be) playing.

Later I finished off the Jameson’s as 4am rolled around and I decided to go check out what was going on elsewhere in town - there had been a big bash for 300-400 people at Doogle’s that the girls had gone to - sure enough, upon arrival I found Rose and Ziegler still going amongst the remains of the party before me - we gathered up a few other stragglers and headed to Tuska and on to Sunnyside for dawn - where people danced on chairs - again.

Unsurprisingly, this 4am to 8am period is when the sunglasses and phone met their doom.

Last call Doogle’s for fry-up breakfast - and then I made a bed out of some uncomfortable metal chairs.

Slightly trampy.

But not rock under the sun trampy.

Spo | March 20, 2007 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Malawi | Personal

March 16, 2007

The Reason to Move to Malawi…..

As long as I’ve got the HTML code correct, clicking the above should also take you to the flickr version where you can click the “all sizes” icon and access the full size shot (1440 x 2560) as well.

Spo | March 16, 2007 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Malawi | Pictures

March 15, 2007

Midget Mania……

Question: Is there anything funnier on this earth than a Midget?

Answer: Only More Midgets.

Midgets - funny little fuckers aren’t they? - never seen an old one though - Half the size, half the life I guess - and not many Black or Chinese ones either..... in fact, generally I think there used to be a lot more of the little blighters around than nowadays - like they got one midget and digitally duplicated him for the new Charlie Chocolate Factory thing - maybe they couldn’t find enough Umpa Lumpa’s like they could before?

Hope they aren’t dying out - that would be awful - but apparently in the same way that if you killed all Donkeys in the world they would not be extinct as two horses can still fuck and make a donkey, the same applies to midgets.

Not Horses making midgets though - people can make midgets apparently - two people can make a midget - so they will never die out.

Thank god - a world without midgets would be a world without laughter.

Their little squeaky voices and little Tyrannosaurus arms - Oh midgets!

One of my greatest ever TV moments was the Littlest Groom hosted by Dani Behr (who used to host the Word on C4) - it was like the Bachelorette thing except this little man midget had to choose a wife from 12 other woman midgets - the best part being they went on specific midget style dates like shetland pony riding and very-mini golf - and then they introduced three tall playboy bunny bikini babes into the mix and little midget dude went for a hot-tub with them looking literally like a child at Christmas - the midget girls were spitting fury at that one.

Oh midgets!

Click here for Midget Mania - a collection of clips of the greatest midgets of all time.

Click here for the Legendary Tucker Max’s story of fucking a prom queen midget at the little people convention.

Spo | March 15, 2007 | Comments

March 15, 2007

Galimoto update….

“Look after my car OK? I had no problems with it the year I was here - should be fine - you’ve got previous, so take it easy”

Robins words to me before leaving Malawi.

Since January, when he left the car in my hands, it has needed the following:

• 1 new tyre after it blew out in first week hitting something during a rainstorm
• 2 new fan-belts
• 1 new battery.
• 1 missing piece of ojeni off the front bumper.
• 1 tow & service after cooling system broke down Friday night and car nearly exploded on Saturday morning - Mechanic’s wide eyed exclamation of “he was actually driving this thing in this condition!!??!?!”.

How else did he expect us to get to the bar?

So, not bad so far.

I’ve not actually crashed yet.

Spo | March 15, 2007 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Malawi

March 14, 2007

No Surprises…..

In the Last Kiss, Zach Braff’s character explains that nailing Rachel Bilson was down to looking ahead in life and seeing the turning 30 mark - the job, the wife, the kids - and suddenly there’s no surprises - so he did something arguably very stupid and made a mistake - although Rachel Bilson is a rather splendid mistake to make - I mean if you are looking at weighing the pain and heartache to come against a night of sheer unadulterated Bilson banging, then you can see why many a man stronger than Mr.Braff would say it’s worth it - she mighty fine indeed.

Furthermore you’d know you were doing wrong, so you’d really make sure you savored the moments - As Ron Burgundy would say “go to pleasure town” - you’d be wheelbarrowing Bilson around your apartment, fucking burrowing to China from dusk till dawn, getting her into every uniform you can think of, one for each room of the house, Bilson ass bouncing off the walls running round the show in a whipped cream bikini and ending the night sweating more than a blind lesbian in a fishmongers.

And then you’d go home and get in trouble with the future wife and sleep on the doorstep for three nights.

But you’d always remember Rachel Bilson’s look of surprise in the mirror as you flipped her over and went down like you were trying to wear her as a hat.

The night a mistake.

But not a regret.

I’m 30 in June and also look ahead to the future and have to admit that as surprising and califragafuckinglistic as the places I’ve ended up over the last ten years have been, I do look ahead and see no surprises - I mean it’s an office life in Rotterdam with a ceiling of responsibility - doing a job that although I know very well, hasn’t sparked a flame of interest for about three years now - going through the motions. Future travels will be curtailed by the movements in the company currently taking place - in every corner of the world where we are represented, there’s now a guy stationed in each that’s likely to be there for the foreseeable.

I do appreciate what I have - but I don’t think it’s what I want.

So when Paul says come run the Gecko show at the lake - to invest a shareholding - further develop on the island opposite - the new shop - the chembe project selling Cape Mac water - and Yuni says she needs to get out of Jakarta as soon as possible and she’s run places like this already......

I look at the current jobs security of an established career, it’s 9-5, it’s pensions, it’s insurance, the schools for future kids, the stability and I compare to sunsets, hammocks, lakeside drinks, swimming in Nyasa waters, Kampango fish on the barbecue, music playing, making people happy......building a resort reputation of note.

I could be about to make a mistake indeed.

But I don’t for one moment think it will be a regret.

And it could very well turn out to be the leap of faith that keeps me waking up smiling for the rest of my days.

Much like I imagine Zach Braff’s character does when he thinks about that night with Rachel Bilson.

Spo | March 14, 2007 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Malawi

March 12, 2007

So Dead they’d have to bury me twice……

Monday afternoon and I’m 18 minutes from 5pm and making a break for taking my broken self home and bringing the salvation of food and bed.

I had a little surprise burp earlier and a sneaky little bit of sick came up.

Nice.

Every Monday in recent memory has been a broken one, but this one has been particularly punishing - the Gecko Girls came to Blantyre and indulged in forbidden fruits such as restaurants, bars, swimming pools and TV - such things denied out where they are based teaching in the Milosa schools on the foothills of Zomba plateau.

Friday and the bar with drinks in the pool till near dawn wasn’t the kicker - neither was the whole waking late for work at midday Saturday - finding myself with no phone and a car overheating to the point of explosion and having to get to work and taste a blend - the killer was the Saturday night.

After the Italian meal at Hosteria, Rose, Ziggy and Abbi crashed at mine, leaving myself, Cate and John to head over to Paul’s and drink till around 2am - this malicious mix of vodka, whisky and Po10c propelled the three of us to end up in a locals club off the beaten track called Kambaa - worried that unwelcome paws would be clawing at our beautiful blond English queen, we made sure to keep an eye on the prize and head off any fishing eeway’s at the first attempt - however, upon making my way across the dance floor I realised it was in fact myself who needed protecting - those women were like the vampires from Dusk Till Dawn - hands appearing from all angles - belt being pulled - arms grabbed - and they went for the money shot as well - I’m talking more than a tap - proper cuppage - shy they were not.

Time ticking on and the drinks flowing through us freely, we needed to dance and while Kambaa had character, we decided the place to move to was Tuska in town - walking in it’s nothing special - wooden viewing balcony over concrete dance floor - bar on the right - but such places just need the the right mix of music, the right people and the right amount of alcohol coursing through their veins - and we checked all boxes.

Playing a blend of local Kwasa Kwasa and hip-hop, the night kicked into gear - Cate owned the floor and drank what ever came her way, John seemed to know everyone and the DJ played some floor movers despite his drunken mixing - I was doing a fine job of destroying their stocks of JW Red till I danced into a hole in the floor and twisted my ankle - looked like a spoon for a second and then kept dancing - alcohol foolishly allowing for such things, as the next days swollen foot taught me.

We danced until the dawn broke through the door - always a sign that time has got away from you when the daylight is so bright outside and you never even had the savvy to see the sun sneak up across the way.

This should usually have acted as a big sign saying “home and bed” - but John (who by this point was completely and utterly fucked up beyond all recognition) decided that there was a place in Chilangoma village somewhere and we could carry on there - another guy called Mavuto dressed in sharp suit and shades was also a member of our pack by this point - I make a point of mentioning this as “Mavuto” is chechewa for “trouble” and find it amusing that anyone would name their child ”trouble” as soon as they arrived on Gods Green Earth - he was a bouncer of some description and I bought his shades off him for 1000mkch due to the sunlight becoming an enemy to my eyes as the morning developed.

They’re Gucci’s.

And they cost 4 quid.

Real deal, honest Guv’nor.

After waking up a none too impressed friend of ours called Patrick and establishing that, no, he didn’t want to come drinking at the bottle store round the corner at 730am, we then had a few more drinks at this hole in the wall John directed us to. It was not long before Cate and I decided that John was beyond broken and needed to be put down as soon as possible - we also needed to crash sometime soon ourselves - We said our goodbyes and drove back to Limbe, where we deposited our drunken dreadlocked achemwene on Pauls driveway before heading for home.

Of course we couldn’t return not bearing gifts, so we went to the bakery to stock up on savoury delights for the others - drunkenly jumped the queue outside and started ordering various cakes and muffins to be added to a bulging bag of goodness - once finished I asked the fellow for the bill and was shocked to hear it came to 7040mkwch ($50)- “punishing” I thought to myself but reasoned “suppose maybe doughnuts are expensive here” and started doling out the cash - Cate stopped me when she realised I was being a tool and had just misheard 740 rather than 7040 - good intervention, as I would rather of just paid and left than have a wasted conversation about the price of bread.

Home on the horizon and 8am ticking by there was one more stop to make.

Doogles bar and lodge where full monty English Fry up’s with all the trimmings were all that was on our menu’s and in our hearts and minds.

No finer way to finish an evening.

Spo | March 12, 2007 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Malawi

March 9, 2007

Life is like a box-2, you never know what you’re going to get……

Tuesday night I managed to lock myself out of my house again - previously I’d got back from the lake on Monday and found I’d left the latch on the door from the inside so had to go crash at Paul’s - the next morning after 8am once Beth had started work and come with her own keys for the side door, I arrived back at my place. I got a quick shower, rushed around a bit and left for auction at 830am looking a bit lake-side with my sunshine skin and 4 day stubble - I proceeded to bumble through the day, only to return and now find that in my morning whirlwind, I’d left my keys indoors - swore the gods for fucking with me when so broken and headed back to Paul’s again.

On the way there I headed up the Zomba road and spied a figure dancing down the centre of the road in front of me - carefree kind of jogging and dancing at the same time with his arms flailing in the air - seemingly singing at the top of his voice - wearing only a tatty oversized pair of white Y-fronts:

“aha” I thought to myself.

“a Box-2 on the loose again”

I got to Paul’s and he informed that the guy had been out there all day - running up and down the road - jumping on car bonnets in the rain and trying to hump the engines - he’d been holding up traffic, nearly getting run over, probably slapped a few times - just dancing up the middle of the street in his pants trying to have sex with automobiles.

The thing is that even though this is one of the more outstanding cases - it’s not a surprise.

Over in Zomba they have the mental hospital - very far away from the sunshine enthusiasm of Hollywood’s happy go lucky kooky board game playing hearts of gold - first off you have Box-39 and these boys don’t get let loose - that place must be the stuff of Freddy Kreuger’s very own nightmares - that’s a serious pit of no return and someone should be making a slasher flick about back-packers that accidentally stumble across it - we’re talking dark side of the moon barking like a dog trying to eat their own feet shit-house crazy - strapped to beds and left there cases.

Then you have Box-2 - still fucking nuts - but not in a cannibalistic kind of way - more a dribbling dancing mumbling dustbin state of affairs - usually found in the middle of the road wandering aimlessly talking to themselves with only a badly cut loincloth to cover their modesty - the box-2 is a strange beast who should be avoided at all costs - and certainly not to be trusted with animals, as numerous reports of Donkey humping incidents will testify.

They wander the hills around the asylum and often make their way to the town of Zomba and even as far as nearby Limbe - whether these day trips are officially sanctioned or whether they are the result of slack Malawian attitudes to security, I don’t know - but what I do know is that they seem like the African versions of Jack from Father Ted and are always a welcome addition to the day - you just don’t know what they’ll do next - crazy little ojeni’s.

Spo | March 9, 2007 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Malawi

March 8, 2007

Weekly Lake Zooalookalowa Bwino update…..

Spo | March 8, 2007 | Comments
Daily Life - Malawi | Pictures

March 8, 2007

Top of the evening to ya Amigo…….

Last Thursday we drove out to Mulanje to walk the golf course with the tea guys and drink a beer per hole (13 holes) - dusk was setting in over the Gargantuan Mulanje Mountain - a truly awe inspiring African Ayres Rock imitator - and the course is set upon it’s foothills.

Despite the clear blue sky, the Moon was making it’s appearance and the clouds were settled upon the beast of stone before us - there was a moment when the end rock was wearing a sombrero upon it and I snapped it with the Nokia.

God I wish I still had that Panasonic DMC FX8 that I bounced off the floor of Gecko - it’s making it’s way to UK via DHL to be fixed and returned. Until then, seeing as the local store, GAME, is a bit useless and overpriced, I’m either using the Nokia camera phone (as per shots above) or the clickers of others that I can beg and steal the SD cards from (as per recent wknd).

Problem is there’s too much out here that’s click-worthy though - I love that camera and want it back in my paws as soon as possible.

Spo | March 8, 2007 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Malawi | Pictures

March 6, 2007

Gecko Girls, Good Times……..

What can I say? well I’ll quote some random girl at 2am - “I’ve lived here for 4 and a half years and this is the best fucking party I’ve ever seen at the lake - you people are fucking amazing” - that says it all I think.

My previous intention to drive up to the lake “bright and sparky” early on Friday was foiled by the fact Lauren and I had spent the previous night drinking and dancing in Blantyre until 4am - I’d crashed (to bed) at 430am and was up again at 7am to get organised and go fetch her from having breakfast with her father - something that had seemed pretty important the previous evening as she hadn’t seen him for a while - upon arrival no one at her place thought she was even at the house - still half wasted from the previous night I stumbled through events in reverse and muttered “well..... I thought I brought her home....” as I stared off into the distance hoping a spark would ignite my memory and I’d remember exactly where I’d left her - I mean, someone says you are at their place and they get out and walk to the gate, you wave goodbye and hit reverse for home - you don’t hang around to make sure that they haven’t got out at the wrong house - they are the one that told you to stop there.

Obviously her parents didn’t seem too impressed with the whole “I thought I brought her home” statement.

Luckily the cook appeared, assuring everyone that she did in fact come home and that he’d been woken at 4am by her drunken bumbling attempts to get past a locked gate and find another way in - he’d helped her out and she was now in the spare room - I made an attempt to try and convince everyone that perhaps it had been more like 2 or 3am - but the cook assured all present it was definitely 4am - I thought to myself “cheers for digging my hole a little deeper my friend”.

Lauren appeared - has to be said - looking all for the world like someone who had been dancing on tables and drinking until 4am - and to be honest I guess I wasn’t looking much better - not a great set-up for a meet and greet the folks before a 3 or 4 hour drive to the lake and the beginning of the long wknd to end them all.

Never the less we collected ourselves and got on the road to go collect the Gecko Girls from Zomba - Abbi, Ziggy, Kate and Rose - Paul and John ahead in another car meant we had the room for all. After a few beer stops we arrived at the lake around 11 or 12ish and plans were made for the Saturday night that was brewing.

You see we’d heard of a bar up the beach that was planning a big party that night - it didn’t take us long to make a plan and that plan was basically: flier advertising around the bars of Blantyre, giving the heads up to all we know, getting the night mentioned on the local radio, Gecko girls serving a happy hour of half price drinks, as many shots of potency as possible, bar dancing, I-tunes playlists set up on the computer linked to the speakers and making sure we were stacked up full of every alcoholic drink we could think of.

We knew it would blow the other party out the water, but we didn’t expect the amount of people that actually turned up - apparently it was bigger than new year - there was around 150 people I think, maybe more - you can’t see from the pictures as we could only take a few from early on around the bar - there’s better ones to come from a guy called Dave’s camera that really show how big a night it was - as Paul said, it’s a team effort to keep things running smooth when it’s like that - in a bar of the size of Gecko, which usually accommodates 30 or 40 or so on the average busy Saturday, you need everyone on top of their game - Levi and John gathering empties and sorting lamps and ashtrays, the professor and the guards keeping regular checks on the toilets, Paul orchestrating everything from making sure people had Mozzie spray sitting out on the beach to the bar having small change notes, the girls working the bar and getting people dancing, Anton overseeing everything with Ronald working his socks off to back the girls on the money and drinks side with clean glasses and stocked fridges - not a usual thing to find a bar in Malawi that actually has it’s shit together for such an event.

Special mention has to go to the Gecko Girls - an hours worth of training in the afternoon to get to grips with prices and where things are - they ruled the roost and got things moving when things began to pick up from 7pm onwards - through happyhour at 8 to 9 and then continued to keep the vibe of the evening going from there on in. Kate was Queen and continued on after the happy hour was through - but all four played a great game - even once the Po10C took over - Abbi suffering big time the next day, praying to that white porcelain god and Ziggy forcibly removed from drink serving duties by Kate when it was evident her special blend of chaos and destruction would be of more benefit to the other side of the bar where people where dancing, rather than where money was changing hands and glass was flying around. Rose found her natural home atop the bar dancing all night easily last standing - and repeated the feat the next day staying up till 6am - girl got power.

Could of been the Po10C though.

Which, if you haven’t experienced such ojeni, is the Malawian Samsong - purple shots of power that light up the darkest of eyes and refuel the tiredest dancers - not totally sure what’s in it - all such things say caffeine - but when a drink such as this never makes it out of Southern Africa you do wonder whether the harsher inspections of the EU ingredient brigade have barred it from UK shores and the like - all I know is that if you drink Po10C all night, it’s not far off the same kind of wasted you get with that amphetamine fueled Thai Red-Bull and Samsong mix we indulged in heavily over in Ko-Phang-Nghan.

I couldn’t really appreciate how hectic it was due to being in my corner sorting the music - we’d paced the night with selections that blended well together and every tune was hitting it’s mark for about four or five hours - there was still some intervention required - such as when the Hen party needed some stripper music and it took me less than a second to throw in Stevie Wonders “Superstitious” - generally we just plucked the best from 25GB of music and changed it about to suit what was working - songs of the night being Jamie T’s Calm Down Dearest and Gnarls Barclay’s Smiley faces” & Magic Numbers “Take a chance” along with notable crowd pleaser’s the Killers, Kaiser Chiefs, Arctic Monkeys, Faithless, The Strokes, Razorlight, Foo Fighters, The Kooks, The Dears, Raconteurs, Libertines, Finlay Quaye, OK-GO, Bloc Party, Snoop Dogg, OutKast, Beyonce, Kanye West mixed with old classics from the Tribe Called Quest, US3, the Stones, Beatles, Jackson Five, Jimi Hnedrix, Paul Simon, James Brown, Isley Borthers, Kool & the Gang and some less well known funky stuff like Mr.Scruff, Thievery Corp, Rae & Christian, Nightmares on Wax and some local Kwasa Kwasa which really makes people shake their ass.

However, around 1 or 2 am it was evident people were still dancing and wanting more, the playlist created earlier was easing towards a slower state of play - this was not really the time to have to engage brain due to the vast quantities of vodka, Po10C, Jack D I’d consumed - also the generally exhausting nature of concentrating on a computer screen while jumping around the bar area for the best part of five hours actually does take it out of you a bit - suddenly being required to zip around with the mouse find and drag and drop that exact track from library to playlist all within the time of the track that was playing was not quite so easy anymore.

Folk were also fairly wasted at this point and suddenly everyone has that track in mind you have to play and knows that their song is the one that all others need to hear - this is the part of the evening when being in control of the music becomes a curse rather than a blessing - this is the part of the evening when you just want to punch people regardless of whether they are towering South African monsters, babes of note or fucking idiots asking you if you have JJ fucking Cale for the millionth fucking time - who ever the fuck JJ fucking Cale is - I actually snapped at that point and had John throw him out - I remember saying it Pulp Fiction style as well:

Say it again - say JJ Cale one more time - go on, I dare you - say it one more god damn fucking time - I double dare you motherfucker - say JJ fucking Cale one more fucking time!
but you must have JJ Cale?
GONE! JOHN! HE’S FUCKING GONE! GONE I TELL YOU!

In the end I bailed at around 2 or 3am and let Anton take over with his special blend of Shaun Paul and that same fucking Mozambican song which he played four fucking times in an hour.

After final few more double-drinks with Paul to summarise and survey, folk drifted away and I passed out in a chair on the veranda - the lapping of the lake sending me to dream land in seconds - job done.

Though most definitely to be done again one day - for sure-sure.

Spo | March 6, 2007 | Comments
Blogging | Daily Life - Malawi | Pictures

March 1, 2007

So what does all that McGuffin linked on the side mean?……

The hit counters for this place are going through the roof and it seems there are currently between 200 to 300 visitors a day and around 6500 since I set up mid Jan - I only know this due to the info given to me by the expression engine program that runs this place - not many folk leave comments so I don’t know who is reading - but I suppose this is due to the awkward nature of the comment system which you get to via clicking comments at the end of each post - with the email address/word verification thing it’s not as instinctive as something like haloscan which I might be able to sort at a later date - however folk saying hello via email or the comments is always welcome (Hint! Anna, Cassie, Helen, Rona etc etc )

Anyways, it was brought to my attention by a few folk that many of the visitors are not too savvy with blogging and don’t take for granted what everyone else doing this type of thing reads as gospel - for example the headers you see up top there, “posts of past” & “recently” will bring drop down menus that allow you surf back to particular months / posts - this front page only displays the last 10 written so if you want to find something older from the last two years or so, you need to use the links.

Also each post has categories they fit into - clicking on one of these should bring up all the posts under that heading - furthermore, over on the left side-bar there, scroll down a bit and you can find the full list of categories available - eg: pictures.

If you want larger versions of some of the pictures shown you should click on the buzznet or flickr badges further down the left side bar - I’m also working on a way to allow this to work from the front page here - html coding that means I can upload photo’s to flickr and then link to the posted picture on the site before you so you get the automatic link by clicking on the photo in question - currently I use photobucket and that doesn’t do that automatically, it just provides hosting for the picture at the size you see here. The thing is that in a country with faster connection speeds or broadband uploading photo’s to websites is no prob, but here it takes a while to put pics up at speed rates of 52kbps and photobucket is quicker than flickr.

The links directly to the left are for ojeni I use on a regular basis and also what’s needed for accessing torrents and watching TV / movies online (if you got the speeds for it).

For example, when in the lands of the West I use u torrent for all my downloads - torrents being links to files that folk are sharing on the net and can be anything from anti-virus software with code packs, to the latest hollywood releases - you have to download and install the utorrent program and also tweak the settings using advice from reading the same sites FAQ and also using google to search for better tips on the programs performance.

Once utorrent is installed, any torrent link you click on will be opened and downloaded to your machine using this program - the question now is which torrents are the most reliable and trustworthy and how do you find them - for this I use either hypoh.com which basically reviews and links the latest quality movie torrent releases - or I use isohunt.com and look at the zietgiest to judge what’s fresh out there and popular - (tip: seeds are folk holding the whole file and leechers are those that are accessing it at that time - more of either of those = popular and therefore worth the download, possibly) - in general there’s a lot of ojeni to learn about torrents and googling such things will bring you more - this is just a quick overview to get you started with the basics - what I do advise is that anything you click on from Hypoh.com will always be the real deal and should move pretty quick in terms of download speeds.

Using ISOhunt.com’s search facility you can find pretty much anything you want due to the fact that the site searches all the other torrent sites out there - so if you want a certain film or album/artist use that.

Now then torrent downloads aren’t exactly how the industries envisaged how people would access their work - indeed if there’s a band I love then I buy the album (eg: new Bloc Party album weekend in the city) - but my I-pod didn’t get to 25GB of music (about 6500 songs/18 days of play) by exchanging hard earned moola for such ojeni. In order to keep relative anonymity online then I’d recommend using downloading P2P guardian and also hiding your IPaddress - as you never know who is watching.

Once you’ve got the files you want then I’d say you should use a program called Nero to transfer to DVD/VCD - if you use ISOhunt you should be able to find a torrent to install it for free that will come with a code generator so you don’t actually have to pay for it. There’s also the VLC player which you can install for free and will play any file type you ask it to on your computer - more useful than things such as windows media player and Quicktime etc. If you need DVD covers for the disc’s you’re burning then there’s a pretty simple search and set up site here. You can now say goodbye to paying for cinema tickets and the latest album releases.

Now for TV and movies online the best site is AddictiveJunk.com as these types of sites usually get shut down and moved around a lot, but this link always lets you know where they’ve moved on to - and there’s also allucTV and MahTV as well. Obviously you can use youtube and daily motion as well - but getting the videos on to your computer is a different matter - for this you can use this for youtube and this for everything else.

I think the rest of the links are fairly self explanatory - I move around a lot so it’s a way for me to carry the links with me where ever I log on - including those of for fellow freinds and writers like Eric and Raspberry which you can find via the ports of call at the top right.

Right - lesson over - I’m now going to go fetch Lauren and head over to the planters club in Mulanje where the tea folk go drinking every Thursday - then bright and sparky at around 8am (well depending if there’s a hangover involved or not) we’re driving into the loooonnnnnngggg wknd at the lake - Friday through to Monday at Gecko - I’ll try not to drown and keep the bar tab the right side of reasonable..... but it is four days so.....