Oct. 17-19: Ntchisi Forest Reserve

The kids had a week off school for mid-term break so we decided to see another part of Malawi.  We booked a two-night stay at the lodge in Ntchisi Forest Reserve, which contains one of the last two remaining patches of evergreen montane forest in Malawi.  It's a three-hour drive from Bunda, and we left Thursday morning.  We'd been warned that the roads were even worse than those to Dzalanyama, so we stopped in Lilongwe to pick up a rented a 4x4 double-cab Toyota Hi-lux to save our Polo a beating.  We were glad of it by the time we got there!  After we left the pavement, the road wound through rolling hills stripped of forest and covered with a patchwork of little cornfields...reminded us of parts of Honduras, except for the thatched roofs of the little houses in the villages. 

 

 All these cornfields are ridged by hand.  People are working on that now to be ready to plant when the rainy season starts.  In this picture you see mango trees scattered among the fields, and a stand of Australian eucalyptus trees planted on the ridge.  (Professorial aside:  Eucalyptus is tough, grows quickly and straighter than many of the native tree species, and resprouts from the stump when you cut it down.  These traits have made it attractive as a plantation tree for firewood and timber, and it has been widely planted in many parts of Africa.  However, there is now some backlash with the recent awareness of invasive species, and worse it is now believed to suck up a disproportionate amount of water.  It's hard to get rid of once established, though, because of that habit of resprouting.)

 It was easy to tell where the reserve was as we approached: it was the only hill in sight that wasn't completely deforested for agriculture.

The lodge is one of the oldest buildings in Malawi; it was built in 1914 as a summer residence for the British district governor.  It's now under private management (by concession leased from the government) and has been refinished very nicely, and is set in beautiful grounds with watered green grass and all kinds of flowers.  There are gardens too, where they raise food for the lodge kitchen.  It's a step or two up from the Dzlanyama lodge, where you bring your own groceries; at Ntchisi they serve a three-course meal every evening!  (By candlelight, of course; there is no electricity, and their solar generating system isn't working at present.)

Another difference from Dzalanyama: we had no entourage of curious village children on the lodge grounds here.  It was refreshing to spend a couple of days not feeling conspicuous!

We set off for a hike the first afternoon, first driving up the road to a parking spot near the jungle so we'd be back by dark (6 p.m.).  The kids seized the opportunity to ride in the back of the truck - Joel had a big grin on his face the whole time!  He said, "You can see so much more back here!"  Emma liked it as well but decided it was too bumpy, so she dived back into the cab through the back window.  (Eric said to reassure the grandmothers that he drove extra-carefully and didn't even go out of first gear with them back there!)

 The climate is seasonally dry here so I think the evergreen montane forest can't technically be called a rainforest, but it is certainly verdant.   Massive trees with big buttress roots, strangler figs, vines, huge ferns in the undergrowth, baboons and samango monkeys, bird calls, huge butterflies... We were in awe.  Ntchisi is famous for its orchids as well but they won't bloom until after the rains start.  My little camera didn't capture the colors and shadiness very well, so hopefully Eric will put up some of his pictures soon in another post.

The birding was a little more difficult than at Dzalanyama because of the denseness of the forest, but we still managed to see some interesting birds on our walks and around the lodge, including European Bee-eaters, Crowned Hornbills, White-Starred Robin, and Schalow's Lourie.  The Red Twinspot sn't new to us but it's one of my favorites.

Friday we hiked up along a ridge through what is called miombo woodland.  This is similar to what we saw at Dzalanyama:  shortish, widely spaced trees with flat tops and fantastically twisting branches.  Emma and Joel couldn't resist the twistiest climbing tree they've ever seen.  

Crossing over a ridge sent us back into the jungley montane evergreen forest, and right before we came back down to the road we walked through pine plantation.  A highlight of this walk:  Eric had just led the way from the miombo into the montane forest.  Emma, who was just behind him, yelled "SNAKE!"  There was a 6-foot python moving slowly across the path, completely ignoring us.  Eric must have stepped over it without even noticing!  Its coloration blends perfectly into the dead leaf litter on the forest floor.  We were enormously excited and circled cautiously around trying to get a good picture, but the snake was not interested in stopping to pose... and we weren't really interested in trying to persuade it!  We didn't realize how fortunate we'd been to see it until we were back at the lodge, talking with the Malawian guide who'd been taking a German couple on a hike that morning.  He told us that he's been going up and down that mountain for years, and has never seen a python.  The lodge manager, Innocent, showed us the skin of a 9-foot python which has been killed in the area a few years before.

That was definitely the wildlife-spotting highlight of our stay, but we also enjoyed baboons, samango monkeys, and the range of unusual insect life.  Joel, of course, kept a keen eye out for lizards and geckos.

 

More than once during our stay we heard the sound of axes.  Innocent said most of that is illegal cutting (you can get permits to cut in the eucalyptus and pine plantations), but the forestry officials in charge of patrolling this national forest preserve don't do much to stop it.  The people who have the lease to run the lodge have been trying to encourage them with things like providing warm jackets so they can do random night patrols.  The lodge managers are also trying to enlist community support.  Innocent told us about a soccer league they've organized.  Each of the surrounding six villages has a team, and the lodge provides uniforms and organizes tournaments.  In return each team member is required to make a promise to not engage in illegal cutting, to help with tree planting projects in the village to give people a source of firewood other than the forest, and help fight forest fires.  The lodge is also trying to get some money from the government to take out the eucalyptus within the reserve.  Innocent thinks that will be a huge project and will create a lot of local employment, if they can only get the money.

Both evenings we walked to some big rocks not far from the lodge to watch the sunset.  The first time we were left alone, but the second evening we were followed by a giggling group of village children who found watching us far more interesting than the sunset.  The oldest girl had a little bit of English and introduced herself as Sofili.  I asked if I could take a picture and she said "Yes", so I did...and then they all crowded around to see the picture on the back of the camera.

After a leisurely Saturday morning and a bit more hiking around we loaded up and headed back to Lilongwe.  I snapped a few pictures on the way back.  We were traveling on the main highway that goes north of Lilongwe - it was busy, but not the way you'd expect!  (The highway that goes from Lilongwe south to the other major city of Blantyre carries a lot more vehicle traffic.)

I was struck by the beauty of this roadside tree, the tallest for miles around.  I don't know why it was spared the fate of so many other trees here destined for firewood or timber, but I'm glad it was.

 

October 9: Rain

Monday, Oct 9 we saw our first rain here.  We've seen a few sprinkles but this was the real thing: big dark clouds, thunder, the smack of raindrops against the tin roof.  I think we got about half a centimeter or so.  It cooled things off beautifully and cleared the dusty haze from the horizon.  

 When we took a stroll through the countryside around Bunda a few days later, we were convinced that things looked greener.

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We were surprised, as we'd been told not to expect rain until November or maybe December.  Our Malawian friends were surprised too, as it turned out.  But actually it fits in with what we've been hearing about the rains in recent years: they're getting less predictable.  We were also told this by Matt Raboin, an ag expert at the USAID who gave us a briefing week before last.  (The Public Affairs Sector of the US Embassy arranged it; being a Fulbright scholar has its perks!)  He said that all the models which predict what might happen under climate change scenarios show the same thing for Malawi: unpredictability.  It doesn't necessarily mean less rain; its timing is just less predictable.  People used to know when to plant their corn (here, "maize") and they knew that most years once it was planted there would be enough rain to keep it growing until harvest.  Now sometimes the rains start but then stop for a while, and the young corn that's just come up withers.  That year maybe those who waited to plant until later do better.  But the next year if you wait to plant you might not have the rain you need when it's forming tassels, and you get a poor harvest.  It's just not as predictable and dependable as it was...not good in a nation where 80% of the people rely on subsistence agriculture.  There are usually about 2.5 million people here classified as "food insecure" (in a nation of some 15.9 million), but the hotspots of hunger change from year to year depending on the vagaries of the rainfall.

Other sobering news we learned from  Mr. Raboin:  The population is growing at a rate of 2.5% a year, and is expected to triple within 30 years.  It has one of the highest fertility rates in the world.  The population density is already quite high; we were struck by this crossing back into Malawi from Zambia a few weeks ago, noticing how little forest is left on the Malawian side of the border.  Most of it has been cleared for farming, and the demand for firewood and charcoal is eating into what's left.  The average land holder now supports a family on about 1 ha (2.2 acres) - less in the south where population is even denser.   As population grows, land holdings shrink.  In addition, while Malawi tends to have pretty good soils they're rapidly being degraded.  Maize is continually cropped on some land because it forms the main part of the traditional diet, and many farmers don't have enough land to rotate crops.  Not enough people own livestock to make manure a viable source of soil fertility, and synthetic fertilizers are too expensive for many.   The need for more farmland also means cultivation of marginal lands prone to erosion, which is a major problem here.   It not only damages soil fertility, but when you mainly rely on hydroelectric power erosion is especially bad news.

According to a UN report from 2013, Malawi ranks near the bottom of the Human Development Index: 170 of 187 countries in the world.   (The HDI is a statistic which incorporates life expectancy, education, and income indices).   Life expectancy at birth if 51 years; infant mortality is 76 of every 1000 live births.  Over 14% of adults ages 15-49 are HIV positive; it's as high as 20% in some urban areas.   There are over half a million AIDS orphans.

This is actually not where I expected to end up when I started writing about rain.  But I guess I was bound to end up on these topics sooner or later.  It's easy enough to sit down with an internet connection and look up all these facts; easy enough to organize them into black and white type for a little report.  It's much, much harder to settle it all in my mind as I look out a shiny glass car window at shouting, laughing, waving, ragged children for whom this is not statistics, this is reality.

This brings to mind the sermon at church the Sunday before last:  Dr. Alex Kalimbira, one of the professors we've become acquainted with,  spoke on generosity.  His advice was to not think you have to worry about the big picture (leave that to the politicians, he said!) but focus on what you can do, what acts of generosity are within your reach.  I don't find this entirely satisfying - but I don't have a better solution to suggest, to the problem of feeling overwhelmed by so much poverty.

Emma's class trip to Namizimu

After a couple hours in the bus, we got out to stretch and eat lunch at Cool Runnings, a restaurant at Senga Bay on Lake Malawi.  Unfortunately, we couldn't go into the water since we only had an hour to eat and get a lesson from Sam, the owner of Cool Runnings.  She was telling us about how she spent a lot of time working with village children and sometimes teaching them how to make art from all the rubbish laying around, and sometimes she would have to drive somebody to the nearest hospital in her car.  She told us about how when they were 13 or 14 the boys of the village would go to a ceremony, get circumcised, and learn the responsibilities of men.  She had just gotten back from driving a boy to the hospital who had not learned how to clean his wound properly and it had gotten infected.  She also told us about how many people die of malaria, and about how mosquitoes breed.


We reached Namizimu Forest Lodge at 4 or 5 on Tuesday afternoon and had to hike up to the plateau.  It felt good after sitting in the bus so long, though some people complained most of the way up.  Some of the workers carried the tents and luggage but we carried our backpacks.  They would have a suitcase on their head and another in their hand.  We had to set up our own tents and unpack, and then it was time for supper already.

After supper we finished unpacking and hung around the campfire, and Group 2 entertained us with several skits.  Then it was time for bed, which I was quite ready for and I'm sure others were too.  Anna (my British tentmate) and I were quite cozy in the little 2-person tent you see in the picture.  At least, it was supposed to be 2-person but I think it was more like one and a half. 

We didn't sleep very well that night because some of my classmates woke up in the night and felt it necessary to wake up somebody else to talk to, and in the process woke up nearly everybody else.  

The next morning after breakfast, we sat around the dying fire and Mrs. Drower (my teacher) explained the day's activities.  We were already divided into three groups with a teacher in each.  My group stayed around the campsite for the first activity, sketching and coming up with scary stories to tell around the campfire.

Then it was time to hike back to the plateau, put away our sketchbooks and materials, and hike down to the pottery.  We learned how to mix two types of soil together with the right amount of water to get a good sturdy clay.  Once you have some of both kinds of soil on the large rock, you sprinkle on some water and start pounding at it with sticks.  The women of the village would add some of one kind of soil or the other until the mixture was right, always stopping to pick out roots or sticks from the clay.

Then it was time to start shaping it.  Those who were interested watched one of the women shaping pots and copied, receiving help when necessary.  Tara, who runs Namizimu, told us that they make a big bonfire to fire the pottery.  However, it has to dry first and they wait until they've got a big load to fire.  

Mrs. Drower went back the next week with another class and got to go to the firing.  She said that they had the big fire going and they would drop the plates on top.  Some of the pots didn't make it back to our school in one piece, but thankfully mine did.

((Insert picture of Emma's dish))

The group that was at the pottery before us stayed there, so we hiked up to Azuzu Ridge together after lunch.  There aren't any pictures, but it was REALLY steep.  Nearly all of us had to use our hands going up, and some of us ended up butt-sliding on the descent.

Then we had some time to swim in the "plunge pool", but it was rather crowded because 24 kids don't fit very well in a pool that small.  If you look closely you can see the black bathtub next to it, to give you an idea of size.

Then we had to hurry out of the pool in time to dry off to meet the Standard 6 students of Chowe School, who had hiked up to the plateau to meet us.  There was a brief introduction, an exchange of gifts, and some music: they sang a welcome song and a couple members of our class shared music also.   We divided into groups and played some games.  Our group did the name game, some relays, and finished by teaching them how to play Simon Says.

That's me in the blue shirt.

  When the school left, we took the opportunity to hunt for marshmallow roasting sticks.  I started first and got several, which I kept and gave to friends who needed them.  After supper, we got out the roasting sticks and roasted marshmallow, and roasted more marshmallows, and kept on roasting.  There were a LOT of marshmallows!  There were still a couple left over for the next night.

The next morning, we headed down to the village after breakfast and took part in the assembly at Chowe School.  There are over 1500 students in that school, and seven teachers!  In order to give them some power, the teachers carried sticks with them as they tried to get everybody organized for assembly.  During the assembly, the Standard 6 performed their welcome song again, and several students were invited up with a speech or poetry.  The headmaster spoke in English but they had a teacher translating it into Chichewa for those who did not understand.  Standard 6 is the same as Year 6 and fifth grade.

After assembly, we followed the Standard 6 into their classroom and learned about introductions in English with them.  Our three teachers got a surprise then, because the Chowe School teacher invited them to come forward and help teach!  So we learned not only about "Hello, how are you, I'm fine, and you?" but we learned about "my favorite color is" and "my favorite sport is" as well.  Then we went outside for some games.  We did most of the same games as the day before: some relays, and finished with Simon Says.  However, we had to constantly stop and shoo the younger children away because curiosity is curiosity, and they probably hadn't seen many white people before, and certainly not interacting with the students during class time.  Their classroom was not furnished with tables and chairs, as ours is, but with mainly picnic tables and spare benches, with a white board at the front and back.  As you can see they don't have glass windows, just fancy brick things that allow air to circulate.  There weren't a whole lot of books that I saw, but I was one of the last ones in and it was crowded.  Even though they had about 40-50 kids in their class (there are a LOT more kids in lower primary than upper primary, probably because as they get older they have more responsibilities at home and some drop out), add that to our class and it's a lot of people for that size classroom.  It was fairly hot, and I was glad I'd brought my water bottle.  

You can see in this picture the brick vents.  This picture was taken outside a classroom.

 Then we said goodbye to the rest of the school, and our class and the Standard 6 class walked over to the chief's house for lunch: nsima, beans, and greens.  (Nsima is a porridge made of corn flour, with sort of a soft rubbery texture and a bland taste.  It's the main staple in Malawian food.)

 By the time everybody was done eating, it was time for another activity in groups.  We were rotating between playing Indian tag, getting a tour of the clinic, and carrying water from the borehole (well) to the clinic on our heads.  Mrs. Drower didn't get any pictures of the clinic.  That wouldn't be the clinic I would want to go to if I was sick, because it doesn't have very many supplies, but there aren't any other clinics for quite a ways.

Indian tag.  That's me in the pink skirt.

A bucket of water is HEAVY, no matter if it's on your head or in your hand!  

Anyway, by then it was getting really hot and it was time to say goodbye and head for the campsite.  Then we had some more free time, in which I made a stop at the pottery place to fix my pot and then headed to the plunge pool.

That evening after supper, most of us went to the lookout to watch the sun go down.  It was our group's turn for entertainment, and Mrs. Drower knew a skit which she taught us, and I also knew a skit from Laurelville Summer Camp which we performed.  Then we roasted the last marshmallows and went off to bed.

The next morning we had to pack up, take down the tents, and climb down the mountain to the bus.  It took us longer to get home that expected, because a) we started about half an hour late, and b) the one tire got flat so they had to stop and put the spare on instead.  But then a tire blew later on and there wasn't another spare.  It was a tire on the luggage trailer, so the aisle of the bus got packed full of suitcases to make the trailer lighter, and they put the flat tire back on.  But we finally ended up back at the school.  Then my family and I had to negotiate our way back to Bunda trying to avoid the worst of heavy traffic.  It felt good to be home and have a bed...yawn...if you'll excuse me now, I want to take a nap!

Emma did have a great time but she was SUPER tired by the time she got home!  She proceeded to get sick and miss a couple days of school, and felt pretty miserable over her birthday, but she does have good memories of that trip.

Dzlanyama Forest Reserve

The church service this week was scheduled to be in Chichewa, so that provided the impetus for us to find something else to do for the weekend.  We chose Dzalanyama Forest Lodge, in the Dzalanyama Forest Reserve.  It's only 60 km away and not too expensive, so it looked doable for the weekend.  After Joel's recorder lesson on Friday we picked up some groceries (bring your own food, but the housekeepers there cook it) and headed out.

Land & Lakes Safaris, who operates the lodge, assured us that we could make the trip in our little VW Polo and gave us a map showing which roads to be sure to avoid in that car!  We were soon off the pavement and onto dirt roads, and the further we got from Lilongwe the worse the roads got.  They were never so bad we felt we couldn't make it, but bad enough to slow us down to an average speed of 20 km (12 miles) per hour.

Roads like this are why zip ties on hub caps are standard procedure here; it keeps them from falling off.








On the way we passed through lots of small villages, most of which seemed full of children just waiting for the chance to jump up and down shouting "Azungu! Azungu!  (White people!)"  We felt like quite the spectacle.  In between the villages the fields lay dry, empty of everything except a few parched weeds, waiting for planting time.  A bit of green in the landscape is provided by some trees that keep their leaves in the dry season.  Mango trees are especially common; it seems each cornfield includes at least one mango tree.  The green, forest-covered mountains we were slowly approaching seemed a welcome contrast to the hot, dry, dusty fields and villages.

After a long bumpy drive with a fairly impressionistic hand-drawn map, we were glad to finally see the sign for Dzalanyama Lodge.  That white blocky structure is a wood-fired hot water heater - no electricity here!  Cooking is done with wood; there is a candle in each room and a propane light for the living/dining room area.  Not fancy but comfortable, and we enjoyed the luxury of a real table and chairs for meals!


We got an early start hiking the next morning.  There is a waterfall 11 km from the lodge but that was a longer hike than we wanted to tackle, so we just set off with no particular destination in mind.  Despite the name which translates to something like Place Full of Animals, there are not many mammals left in the reserve.  The real attraction is the bird life.  We all enjoyed catching glimpses of things like the vivid yellow and green Little Bee-Eaters, the African Paradise-Flycatcher with the impossibly long tail, and the Plum-colored Starlings whose dull plumage turned a brilliant purple when they moved from the shadows into the sunlight.  Of course, I found a few plants to look at too.

 

 

Emma found a very interesting dry seed pod, and immediately thought what to do with it:

After lunch we spent some time relaxing at the lodge.  (Well, most of us did.  This time it was Emma who had homework, still catching up from having missed some school for sickness and procrastinating too much.)  The lodge is perched on a slope with a big porch overlooking a stream flowing through a rocky ravine. 

We soon realized that this picturesque rocky stream also serves as a laundromat.  (This photo was taken early, before the laundromat opened.) Saturday must be a big laundry day for the families of reserve employees who live in the area; when we stepped out on the deck after lunch we saw a couple dozen kids of all sizes, up to maybe early teens, with laundry spread on the rocks to dry.  Apparently watching azungu is more interesting than watching laundry dry, because we soon had an audience.  Some of the bolder little boys even climbed a tree on the edge of the lodge's yard to look chattering and giggling through the windows.  I wished I didn't feel so awkward about getting a photo of them, all lined up on a branch like the vervet monkeys we saw at South Luangwa!  The photo you see here is a group of boys that introduced themselves in passable English and asked us to take a photo, so they could see it on the camera screen.


 We figured we were going to have an audience no matter what, so the kids and I went down to wade in the creek for a little bit, and Joel found some wood to carve.

 

When it cooled off the kids at the stream packed up their dry laundry, and we went for a short hike/bird walk before supper.  While this is a legally protected reserve, we noticed human impact everywhere.  The understory had been burned in many places to encourage a flush of new plant growth for the cattle and goats which are grazed in the forest.  We also saw some places where we think charcoal might have been made.  Lucius, the lodge housekeeper/cook, told us that you can get a permit to collect dead wood in the forest for firewood, which many people do to sell.  We've been told that Dzalanyama is the source of much of the wood we see on bicycles heading toward Lilongwe.  However, when live wood is cut it's not dried out and is too heavy to transport that way, so it is made into charcoal.  This drives off the water and makes it lighter and easier to transport, but it's illegal.  Obviously that law isn't enforced very well, judging by all the bicycle loads of charcoal we see on the roads.

The good thing about having to get up insanely early on school days is that it doesn't feel so painful to get up really early on a weekend to do some hiking and birdwatching before it gets too hot.   Eric was up at sunrise on Sunday morning to go for a run.  But after only a couple of kilometers he came face to face with a fully-grown hyena in the road!  After they stared at each other from a distance of maybe 50 yards, they both cautiously went on their way.  Eric decided at that point that his way was back the way he'd come.  His comment: "Seeing hyenas from the seat of a safari vehicle is a LOT DIFFERENT than seeing one on foot and alone!"

Once everyone was up we followed the stream up that rocky ravine, with some detours into the surrounding woodland for glimpses of Golden-tailed Woodpeckers and Greater Scimitar-bills.

When we came back it seemed that the streamside laundromat was closed for Sunday, but the group of boys who had stopped us to talk the day before came up to the edge of the lodge's yard and called for Joel to come.  They were inviting him to join them for a swim where they'd dammed up the stream to make a swimming hole, so off he went.  Emma felt a bit wistful and left out, I think, but there weren't any girls in the group.  No girls came looking for Emma.  It seemed to us that the girls didn't speak much English; we're guessing that if anyone has to miss school to work at home it's the girls, and as the men are considered the breadwinners it's more important for them to learn English to get a job.  We also wondered if the girls have more house work and don't have as much time to play.  At any rate, Emma still had overdue homework to finish so the whole question was kind of moot. 

The drive back to Lilongwe was a bit more nerve-wracking than the drive out, because early on an alarming clunking sound began to issue from the left front of the car.  Eric stopped to check it out at a safe distance from the shouting, waving crowds of kids, but still ended up being supervised.  He wasn't sure what it was, but there was really nothing to do but hope for the best and keep going.  His comment:  "Every time I hear that clunk I see dollar signs."  But it turned out to be just a loose bushing which was quickly (and cheaply) secured on Monday when he took it in to the mechanic.

Making Do

Our family has learned a little bit about making do and doing without over the last weeks.  The most obvious here is electricity.  They were been doing some work on the country's electrical grid over the last month and so there were extensive outages over a couple of weeks, often ten hours a day or so.  When the electricity is off that long, eventually the Bunda water tank runs empty and so there's no running water either, until the electricity is back on long enough for the pump to fill the tank again. 

When our electric cooker (what they call a stove here) doesn't work we use a propane tank with a single burner on top.  Emma likes using it to make French toast.

 

True confessions time: once I was cooking beans when the power went off.  They weren't close to done so we had French toast instead, and went to bed.  Eric woke in the wee hours to a peculiar smell: I'd forgotten to turn the burner off, and when the power came back on in the night the beans started cooking again, and eventually burned to such a mess that the pot had to be thrown out and the kitchen smelled for days.

We're lucky: one of the campus boreholes is less than 100 m from our house, so when the water isn't running we don't have to carry it far.  Emma enjoys working the pump.

 

These days it seems that they've finished whatever they were doing to the grid, and we're back to having only occasional power outages instead of daily.

Another thing we don't have is a washing machine.  When you wash by hand, you don't let the laundry pile up!  One of our Malawian friends, Emily, does washing for us three days a week and the other days we do it.  Here the kids are washing their school uniforms.

Of course, our efforts at "making do" pale in comparison to what we see going on around us.  Don't have a car?  Walk.  Don't have running water?  Carry buckets of water from the borehole, every single day.  Don't have a truck? Pile insanely heavy loads onto the bicycle.  Don't have shoes? Go barefoot.  Don't have a sprinkler?  Put a plastic bottle on the end of a hose and poke holes in it.  Don't have an ipod?  Play checkers with a piece of cardboard with squares drawn on, and bottle caps for game pieces.  Don't have a screen to sift sand for concrete?  Make one from a piece of sheet metal.  (Eric got a picture of that one, he thought it was so ingenious.  It was also easy to get a picture of, as nobody was around.  There are lots of things we'd love to get photos of, but feel it's kind of inappropriate to run around pointing cameras at people we don't know.)

Oct 3: Reckless Driving

Tuesday I was wading through particularly heavy Lilongwe traffic after picking the kids up from school.  I was almost out of the city, ready to breathe a sigh of relief and start dodging goats and bicycles instead of minibuses and hordes of pedestrians, when it happened.  A traffic cop shook his finger at me and waved me over.  I had no idea what the problem was, but he said I had changed lanes too quickly, and that this type of thing can cause accidents and therefore he must fine me 5000 kwacha for reckless driving.  He was very polite about the whole thing and said I should view it as a learning experience, not as a punishment.  However, I'm not sure what I'm actually supposed to learn: that they were short of business that day and needed to hand out a few more tickets??  There are no lanes marked there at all, either with signs or road markings.  Traffic trying to go right usually creates an informal turning lane, which I did not want to be in, but I think it's pretty far-fetched to say that my procedure to stay out of that queue was anywhere near reckless.  Given the quantity of foot traffic on the side of the road in that spot, I'd say it's pretty reckless to stay too far left!  But anyway I had to turn around (a challenge in and of itself), go back through the worst of the traffic to the police office, pay the fine, and wade through the mess all over again.  The worst of it was coming home to tell Eric...and discovering that that was the very same intersection where he DROVE THROUGH A RED LIGHT ON PURPOSE AND WAS SEEN AND SCOLDED BY A TRAFFIC COP but came away with NO TICKET AT ALL!!!!!  (Remember the Aug 20 post?)  Not that I'm annoyed or anything, of course...

And wouldn't you know it, take a look at the "Motoring Matters" column in the newspaper I bought the very next day:

Hmmph.