Its been, I believe, more than two months since I last sent an email of
substance about our trip. My eyes have been filled with so many sights and my
head filled with so many thoughts that my pen hand has been frozen, like a boy
who has taken too big a bite of an apple, whose jaw is stuck clenched around
it.
Whereas the first few months of our trip can be described as nomadic and
arduous, the last several weeks have been marked by the slowness of time and
seeming randomness of events. However undirected our travels initially
appeared, they were, in fact, pretty direct. We travelled northwards through
South Africa, straight into and through Zimbabwe, meandered around Zambia and
then entered Malawi. Look on a map and you'll see that it's pretty
straightforward. But everything changed once we hit Malawi. We were tired. No,
let me rephrase that. We were haggard. Months of spartan, itinerant living had
taken its toll. We reached beyond the breaking point days before when we got
stuck driving across a river purportedly infested by crocs and hippos. Forced
to set up camp, we spent that night alone in the bush among the animals of the
wild.
Fortunately, we were towed out the next day. We are not, and never will be,
the same. Thus, we looked upon passive little Malawi, known alternately as the
“Warm Heart of Africa” and “Africa Light”, as the cure to
our ills. We welcomed with pleasure the conveniences of Blantyre, Malawi's
largest commercial city, and the soothing atmosphere of Doogles, Southern
Africa's hippest backpacker lodge and Blantyre's coolest pub. Like
Cheers, everyone knows your name and they're always glad you came. With
tracks of David Gray (our new favourite crooner) playing in the background and
good food served all day, our frayed nerves slowly eased.
The list of characters flowing in and out of Doogles runs long: there was a
merry band of travellers calling themselves “Hot Rocks” in the midst
of a 3-year expedition circumambulating the globe in a enhanced Mad Max-style
truck from England (check out their site at ;
there was a British couple riding their BMW motorcycle (the ride was so smooth,
claimed the husband, that his wife could read when sitting behind him) around
the world, financed by rental payments received for the use of their home;
there was the lycra-clad professional journeyman on a continuing mission to
circle the earth by motorbike who likened himself to James Bond, carried little
other than albums containing clippings from travel magazines depicting his
life's work, and never tired of describing his latest blaze through the
pre-truce Congo (days after I last saw him, I caught the tail end of a Travel
Channel episode telling his tales); there was the lanky used car salesman born
and raised in Blantyre who showed up every night for beers and conversation;
there was the British med student who came alone but quickly found company;
there was the reunion with Maria and Oliver, a German couple with whom we
formed a quick and comfortable friendship days earlier in Zambia – they beat us
in Pictionary 🙁 – there was a British jack-of-all-trades who rolled in to
Doogles with three 18-wheelers and stacks of used tires, all shipped over from
England and ready for sale to any interested buyer; there were Swiss
travellers, Dutch, Irish and Israeli, French travellers, Aussie, American and
Kiwi, just to name a few, checking in and out, dining by the pool and quaffing
beers in the moonlight; and, of course, there were Souli and Servanne, two of
my favourite travellers and half of our meandering quartet.
Travelling is as much a skill as it is an art and Servanne ranks among the
best travellers I've encountered. Always upbeat, forever a team player, she
has an unquenchable thirst for the sights and sounds penetrating the world. A
Frenchwoman, she also speaks English, a smattering of German, Spanish, and
numerous esoteric languages that she has picked up from travelling in, out,
through and around the world's most unique places. At about 5'1″
and 103 pounds (just a guess), she may be, pound for pound, the world's
strongest traveller, and, I can assure you, the most energetic.
Souli, short for Souliman, is a Lebanese-born German dentist who is the
oldest of ten children. When we met him, he was stuck in Blantyre waiting for a
parcel containing a headlamp to make it through Malawi's lethargic postal
system. This guy was finishing up a nearly 14-month bicycle journey from
Germany to South Africa (check out his website at www.radflimmern.de). Why, with less than two
months left on his trip, did he suddenly need the headlamp? I never could
understand it–something about needing it while he rode through the bush in
Botswana–but it kept him hanging around, so that was good enough for me.
For me, Souli was a breath of fresh air. As a German, he proudly rooted for
the plucky U.S. soccer team when the two countries faced each other in the
World Cup. Germany advanced, so he cheered wildly for the heavily outmatched
South Koreans in the semi-finals. Why root against his countrymen? Those soccer
stars were too cocky, he told me. Souli's soft-spoken affability combined
with a limited attention span for all things outside the domain of his interest
left me continuously in stitches. To dismiss someone as a nuisance while making
him feel good about it is a skill the guy has mastered. I don't mean to
sound callous, but in Africa locals approach foreigners for various reasons.
These encounters are precious to all travellers, but they also tend to be
draining. Souli had a knack for pleasantly nipping those unpleasurable
encounters in the bud. Perhaps most of all, I was fascinated by his physically
challenging and mentally gruelling trip that brought him, ever so slowly, out
of Europe, through the Middle East and across Africa. Along the way, he
re-established family ties in the country of his birthplace, found spiritual
rejuvenation in the kindness of strangers and dealt with uncommon frustrations
like flat tires in the Sudanese desert and rocks thrown by children in certain
locales.
The four of us–Servanne, Sali, Souli and I–made a good team. Sali and
Servanne enjoyed conversing in French, pondering things European and talking of
literature. Souli and I shared an interest in poorly played Chess and laughter
at life's trifling events. After a few days together at Doogles, we set out
on a camping trip in Malawi's Shire Valley. Uninterested at the time in
anything touristy, we pitched our tents in a dry riverbed on the outskirts of a
simple village. We spent three days cooking, sunning, laughing and interacting
with locals in what were very ordinary conditions–lots of sun, no electricity,
a borehole providing freshwater one kilometre away, villagers with small plots
of land that produced a variety of vegetables, a population rapidly diminishing
in numbers due to the onset of AIDS.
After the camping trip, we headed back to Doogles. Eventually, Servanne
hopped on a bus to Mozambique, Souli cycled off to Zimbabwe and Sali and I set
out for a hike through Malawi's Mulanje Mountains. We anticipated a 4-5 day
trip where we would move from lodge to lodge each day, but the daily hikes were
long and tiring and we were poorly prepared, not bringing enough food and
failing to hire a porter to assist in the portage of food and supplies. After
two days, we found ourselves in a gorgeous spot and too tired to enjoy it.
That's when we met James and Hannah, lovebirds soon to be wed, who kindly
left us some of their food as they headed down the mountain and invited us to
stay with them once we returned. We decided to spend the next three nights in
the same mountain hut, enjoying its tranquillity and scenic beauty, and then
took a more direct route back to James' and Hannah's three days
later.
The next couple of weeks are a blur. All I can remember is breakfasts on
their veranda, long stretches of time spent reading, midday naps, fantastic
meals, thoughtful conversations with our hosts, evening laughter and a
rekindled relationship with television. James and Hannah opened their home to
us and we just couldn't get enough. In fact, it soon dawned on us that the
expatriate lifestyle (he's from the U.K., she's from British Columbia)
in Malawi was not half-bad. As fate would have it, the stunning home next to
them had just become vacant. With four bedrooms, two solariums, a swimming
pool, stables and beautifully landscaped grounds, this house was nestled in the
foothills of mountains, bounded by a nature preserve on one side and James and
Hannah on the other.
What could we do in Malawi, we wondered. We floated our resumes around town,
meeting several respected lawyers including the head of Malawi's bar
association, leaders of their nascent stock market, foreign consultants and
bankers, the police department's chief of criminal affairs (it's a long
story) and the dean of one of the country's two law schools. After rubbing
shoulders with these bigwigs, we became stuck on the idea of teaching at the
law school. Encouraged by the dean to seek outside funding–he expressed
interest in our services but lacked the funding to pay for them—we met
with several development agencies funded by the British and U.S. governments in
pursuit of a backer. We wrote letters, shook hands, issued pitches and
submitted proposals. Sadly, the well of funds was dry. The mighty New Yorkers
had struck out.
During our tireless fundraising campaign, we sought refuge in the crystal
clear waters of Lake Malawi on two occasions. Here, the beauty and challenges
of African life struck me more clearly than anywhere else on our trip. Warmed
by the majesty of the lake's undeveloped serenity and the unbridled decency
of its surrounding community, I nonetheless felt weighted down by the pressures
of village existence–unceasing poverty in the face of an outpouring of tourist
wealth; in the wake of the AIDS pandemic, too few elders caring for too many
children; the youthful desire for fun in the sun against the practical need to
earn and save; the inescapable fact that villagers rarely leave the at once
inviting and confining land on which their parents', their parents'
parents and their parents before them were conceived and reared, on which they
founded their families and on which they expired.
Smarting from the burn of rejection, our hearts began to wander back home.
Liz, Sali's blue-blooded high school friend, was engaged to wed Niels, a
German gentleman living in D.C., at the end of August in Virginia. Jean, my
former French neighbour in New York, was engaged to wed Caireen, a feisty
Australian, in the middle of September in the French Riviera. We checked our
budget, realized we couldn't afford trips to these far-off places, and then
decided to go anyway. We bought round-trip tickets to the States with stopovers
in London and connecting puddle-jumper flights to Nice, and we were off.
We spent practically every moment of our time back home soaking up the love
and attention of our respective families, catching up on everyone's life,
telling stories of our own, and fattening up on tasty home cookin'. In a
certain twist of fate, Liz and Niels were married in a country French chateau
nestled in a small Virginia town among their closest friends and family, while
Jean and Caireen paired themselves amidst the glitz and glamour suitable to
Hollywood's elite. While guests at the Brinton-Kusserow merger engaged in
thoughtful, intimate conversations with the bride and groom and dined among a
choice group of guests, attendees at the Bourlot-Shanahan extravaganza rocked
the night away under the stars of Beaulieu Sur Mer.
And that, my dear friends and family, is nearly all there is to tell. There
was our 3-night escapade through Mozambique and our continuing education on
David Livingstone, the Scottish missionary who introduced much of Southern
Africa to the European world while campaigning against slavery with every step
(see www.nationalgeographic.com/features/97/lantern/),
there is the sociologist/filmmaker who is tending to our car while putting the
finishing touches on his documentary of Malawian street children, there was a
week secluded in the Italian Alps following the French wedding (and the
4-train, 10-hour trip it took to get there), our inability to meet up with our
Slovenian friends in Venice, the long journey by rail to meet Liz and Niels in
Koblenz (Niels whisked his beautiful bride back to his motherland after the
wedding), our recent lesson on German beer and sausages and our grand
opportunity to sample Niels' famed plum cake (deeeelicous), but there
isn't time for all that. In a few days we will have a reunion with Maria
and Oliver and in a few weeks we'll be back in Africa steadily collecting
stories for the next briefing. Until then, be well.
Wed in September 2001, Sali and Michael left their jobs as New York lawyers
six months later and flew to Cape Town to begin a one-year travelling
expedition. Without much of an itinerary, they bought a car in Cape Town and
have been slowly working their way north through Africa, spending time in South
Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and, currently, Tanzania. Always
eager to swap travel tips, Sali and Michael would be pleased to hear from any
travel enthusiasts and can be reached via email at mrakower@hotmail.com.
