Malawian Style Wknd…….

February 26, 2007

It’s been quite a weekend in the warm heart of Africa - Friday drinks in the Thyolo tea district ended with me driving back to Blantyre (about 50 or 60 km) around 8ish - I got caught in one of the fiercest rain storms I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter - the rain flying horizontally towards the windscreen like a thousand spears - I could see about 2 or 3 metres in front of the car and that was it - I was driving eyes wide, looking like a rabbit in the headlights indeed - think it was part of the cyclone that has recently swept through Mozambique and arrived here announcing itself with torrential downpours and lightening that lit up the whole horizon across the valley - awe inspiring sight if you are sitting on the veranda watching the show - but driving into it inspires a little more fear and trepidation.

The the thing I like about the weather in Africa is that it’s honest - it gets things over and done with pretty quick - you know where you are with it - when it rains it really rains - none of that 24 hour not quite rain but not quite mist nonsense that perpetually falls upon English shores.

However, the force and power of an African rainstorm can be devastating and getting caught slap bang in the middle of such an event is definitely worrying because you see so much evidence of the after effects - huge sections of road just washed away and villages are submerged in seconds if built in the path of flood waters from the hills - combine this with the general uselessness of the average Malawian road user and running around in such conditions is a recipe for disaster.

Never the less after doing about 10kmph for 50 mins or so I’d escaped the worst of it and came out the other side - I headed straight to Paul’s and put a dent into his whiskey collection to calm the nerves.

Saturday morning and I was up bright and sparky to get back out to Thyolo and help out with the 4x4 rally taking place across the tea fields - all the tea planters get involved and there were around 15 packed cars entering - it all has a treasure-trail question and answer element to it, but essentially it’s go from A to B and try not to crash - which is a tricky thing after the rains of the night before.

The Gods were still bailing out the heavens when I arrived to meet Roy at around 8am, but it wasn’t as bad as the night before and i could see the road ahead of me - that was a vast improvement. I had been specifically told by the higher powers of my company that I was not allowed to enter the rally due to the expensiveness of the vehicle and my rather chequered history at the wheel - therefore I signed up for Marshalling duties meaning that we’d set up at the halfway point and see the cars through, checking times and distances etc - we would also be in charge of cooking up a storm on the Bar-B-Q and handing out the beers - the promise of which was kind of why I got out of bed at such an ungodly hour on a fucking Saturday to go stand about in a muddy field in the pouring rain watching insane folk drive 4x4’s around an impossible circuit - a large quantity of free beer and fried breakfast will make me do pretty much anything I guess.

I volunteered my car to take us to the spot and we loaded up the back with all the necessary and set off - I soon discovered that driving these muddy trails between the tea bushes is no easy task and as we headed over one hill and round a bend I lost it completely, as the car span to the right and we ended up suspended over the trail that was fast becoming a muddy river way beneath us. I jacked the beast into 4x4 and felt the power surge immediately - I had instantaneous grip and even the rivers of mud pouring around us proved no problem - scary thing is that you get too confident with such an animal under your control - the devil inside woke up and started to whisper in my ear that all this Colin McCrae-type monkey business was no problem at all - Roy was worried for his tea bushes around us, so I toned it down and returned back to reality - remembering the words of the higher powers about not crashing the company car and also remembering that we had nearly stacked it not five minutes before hand.

We set up at one of the leaf collecting points, but the bamboo roof was not going to keep either us or the cooking safe from the falling rain - we needed a Tarpaulin cover so I set off back to Roy’s and while on the way he rang to say I’d need to get the food as well - seems as though we only remembered the beer when actually setting out first off - after a bit of back and forth we got going and the morning shot past as cars came and went with drivers tales of woe and a few fuck ups ending in 90 degree right angle ditch malarkey.

The afternoon was spent sitting out in the sun watching the final stages back at the sports club where the field had been turned into a 4x4 assault course - drivers with a bucket on their head are navigated around by their co-pilot as they try and stay within the lines and keep the car upright when trying to take the sharp corners across the grassy verges. The course ended with a giant pine see-saw where the participants have 3 minutes to balance the car level for 15 seconds - with cold beers in hand it doesn’t matter how many times you see someone attempt this feat - it never gets dull.

From the surounding forest the crowd of villagers cheered their appreciation as a white Toyota held true for the 15 seconds required - subsequent later attempts didn’t get close - though this could be due to the amount of alcohol consumed by then - drinking since 9am, I had difficulty getting a sense of balance just walking to the bar, never mind trying to balance a giant 4x4 on a humongous pine see-saw.

I bailed to Paul’s for the football as dusk began to fall - record timing of 30 mins from Thyolo to Limbe still didn’t stop me missing the first two Liverpool goals - but two more came our way as well as Sheff Utd were thumped 4-0. Achemwene John was in residence and once Liverpool’s victory was sealed, we headed to Jungle Pepper Pizza to grab the munch necessary to see us through the next game - on the way he asked after Debbie and I told him what had taken place when we met and that over the last week I’ve rcvd three more txt msg’s from her as follows:

• A poem telling of how she still declares undying love for me.
• Two days later asking if we could still be friends.
• Two days later telling how she has a boyfriend from Italy visiting and asking if I’d like to meet him.

Good looking she may be - but shithouse rat crazy she definitely is.

Anyways evening was drawing in and I was beat - though I was at that level of drunk to want to carry on despite the lack of petrol in the tank - I headed back to get changed and go find a place to get into trouble - I lay my head for a moment to think about a plan and before I knew it Sunday was upon me.

Sunday was heading in the direction of the usual mix of whiskey, banter, football and failing to chalk off any number of things upon my list of items to take care of - such as buying a new TV to replace the one that blew up a week or so ago and a camera to replace the one I bounced off the Gecko lounge floor at gone past 1am when coherence and co-ordination had left the bar.

GAME, the South African superstore that has set up shop in Blantyre, had a sale on - a 10 mega pixel beautiful Samsung Digital camera was on offer reduced to around $480 - but unfortunately it was a Malawi style sale so the conversation I had the other day went like this:

Me: “Is the Sale advertised in the paper on today?”
Roderick the useless smiling sales assistant: “Ah, yes - it is on - certainly”
So the this camera reduced to 68’000 is available?
Ah, no - not that one - sorry
Oh - so is it coming in soon?
Maybe sir, maybe....
Perhaps not until the sale is finished, right?
Maybe sir, maybe....
Are any of the items in the sale actually on sale?
Some, maybe not all - but certainly there must be some....
So can you find out if this camera will be delivered soon? and maybe I can pay for it now at the sale price?
Ok sir - I will check for you

Roderick now disappears for something like 15 minutes - when he returns, strolling at a leisurely pace, he smiles and explains as follows:

You see the problem is this - we have this camera on stock - we have five of those camera’s upon this system for stock we have here
Ok - so you do have the camera?
Ah, no.....
Sorry?
You see the system says we have them here - but no one here knows of where these things are inside the warehouse - so therefore we cannot order more of them as we have not sold the one’s we have got
Even though you don’t actually have them?
Yes - that is correct - we have to sell those camera’s first to order more - but we don’t have them - so we cannot order more of those camera’s
Yes - I see
Yes, sorry for that.
Hmmm.... yes indeed

As I said - it’s a Malawi style sale - selling items they do not actually have nor can order for you either.

Five of these Samsung camera’s costing 68’000 each at current rate of 139kwch to the USD$ - that’s nearly $2500 worth of stock - and they don’t know where any of them are - and they don’t really seem to care that much either - meaning that someone does know where they are and they are probably smiling as wide as Roderick - except they are probably smiling for a $2500 style reason where as Roderick was smiling because he probably has some serious mental problems.

So Sunday Paul and I had headed over to his folks who have this beautiful House up on Sunnyside full of African artefact’s and a huge garden like a rainforest - I tried to sort out a blog site for the Malawian History Society Paul’s mother works for - something hampered by my Whiskey intake unfortunately - everyone seems to be holding real quality blends around Blantyre and it is difficult to refuse.

Later during the Carling Cup final Scuba Shack Lauren called out the blue at around 7pm - she’d arrived in Blantyre and wanted to be collected for drinks and gibber - I duly obliged and after Paul had retired late on we headed into town to try and find bars that were still open.

Lucked out with only one place called Twigger still just about open for serious Sunday drinkers like ourselves, so as the night headed north of 12 we took a turn to the pool back at my place...... Castle Beers in the fridge...... luck looked up again.

Need to catch up on some sleep tonight I think.

In fact with the Long Lake Weekend approaching I should be stocking up on sleep all week.

Spo | February 26, 2007

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