And into Malawi we go.
Unfortunately due to changes in visa rules, it was not a quick
process. But eventually we all got visas
and headed to our first stop on Lake Malawi, Chitimba. A beautiful campsite on the lake. Although it doesn’t look or feel like a lake,
more like a beautiful beach with a freshwater sea.
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| Lee & Tony with the Egg Man |
Then to our next stop, Kande beach. It is supposed to be a beautiful, relaxed
beach area. However, on the day we
arrived it was Mother’s Day. Which in
Malawi is one of the biggest celebration days in the year. We could see the cultural differences in how
Mother’s Day is celebrated straight away.
Rather than buying a bunch of flowers and taking your mum to a nice restaurant
for lunch, Malawians descend on the beach en masse and get very drunk. I think the West could learn a few things
from the Malawi culture!
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| Mother's Day, Malawi style |
On the way to Kande I had promised everyone that I would
source a pig so that we could do a spit roast.
I had tried calling my contact to arrange for a pig to be ready for
viewing on arrival, but his phone was always switched off. I was beginning to get a bit worried that I
had made promises that I couldn’t keep…. We stopped at a local wood carving
market a few kilometres from Kande and a guy approached me and said “Hello
Em”. I was racking my brains trying to
work out where I might know this guy from.
Then he explained that he was the man I had been trying to call. He had had a problem with his phone, but
somehow word had got around that I was looking for a live pig, so he arranged
for his brother to sort it out for us.
Problem solved!
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| Andrew and dinner |
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| Our BBQ pig |
As well as having a spit roast pig the following day we also
had a Punch Off. Where Team Em &
Ciara, Team Wilma and Team Andrew each made a punch and went head to head to
see who would win the best punch award.
It was judged that Andrew made the best punch, Team Wilma had the best
presentation, and Team Em & Ciara had comedy value.
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| Andrew and his winning punch |
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| The winning punch |
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| Em & Ciara sampling the competition's punch |
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| Roberta, or is it a fruity Princess Leah? |
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| The group having a serious game of Fussball... in the dark... |
And then to our last stop in Malawi, Senga Bay. Once again on the shore of Lake Malawi. We arrived just in time for our Irish
contingent to watch the rugby match.
Sadly, Ireland did not perform as well as hoped that day and they were
knocked out of the tournament. We also
watched the Scotland Australia match that evening, where Scotland played the
match of their lives. Sadly, they too
were knocked out of the tournament because of a very questionable decision by
the ref – They were robbed!! But I
suspect Kirsten will delete this section of the blog, as being Australian she
does not agree! ;-) (editor's note - in the spirit of free speech I have allowed this to remain, however I have only one thing to add - C'mon the Wallabies!!)
And for those following the exploits of Rolandia the Rat, we can report that he met his demise in Malawi.
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| Team Rat Catchers in Tanzania (unsuccessful) |
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| Em & Steve, the Rat Catchers, in Malawi (successful) |
