From the porch of Rondavel 350 Nkukuti Lodge – Nkhata Bay.

Sunday 30 December
I needed a vacation, and some quiet time. While it may be warm and beautiful in Malawi at this time of the year, I do not get much quiet time especially at Makupo where someone is soliciting or greeting or hanging out from early in the morning. At 5:30 this morning, it had stopped raining over night so I took a chair to the back of the house, out of sight of the construction going on next door and which had already started at this early hour with lots of hammering and thumping and sawing. (See the last paragraph for an explanation of this kind of activity on a Sunday in the holiday period.) As I sat writing my notes, Eunice appeared greeting her agogo and like a typical 3½ year old snuggled up and began asking questions and gabbed on.

Sunday 23 December
I knew if I I could escape to Nkhata Bay, one of my favourite places on Lake Malawi. I drove with my nieces Sautso and Undeni and their daughters, Laurlyn and Victoria and drove to Nkukuti Lodge owned by Sautso’s boss, Mr. Mhone, himself from Nkhata Bay. The Lodge is on a beautiful little beach just a couple of bays away from the dock in Nkhata Bay where the lake steamer lands. Sautso booked us into this place and they gave us 2 thatch roofed rondavels with a great porch protected from the sun and rain. It looks out eastward over Lake Malawi. The cottage is on the point at the end of the bay and as I look across, I can see through the mist on the far side, the mountains of Mozambique.

It’s Sunday afternoon just before Xmas and Nkukuti surrounds on 3 sides the old Chikale Beach Inn which has fallen somewhat into disrepair and is decidedly down in the tooth. The Nkukuti, on the other hand is in full expansion and has about 15 new rondavels being built and scattered up the steep slope of the bay. At the far end of the bay is Njaya Lodge, the original backpacker’s paradise catering to a gang of mzungu and Chinese of different sorts. (Note to self: write about the new face of China in a small country like Malawi –both the Chinas are here as well as Korea). It has a lot of the charm of the 60’s and as you work your way along the beach the enterprising local guys try to sell you kayak tours and chamba (Chewa for dagga) because they know their clientele. I first wanted to book the students into Njaya, because 15 years from now this corner of the world is going to be way overdeveloped and they may never have a chance to see such charm again. They only get one night, but I bet they will all want to come back.

A young boy named Moses, has just made his way over the rocks from the water up to very close to where I am. At first I thought he was scoping out the place, but as he reached the top of the rock pile on the lake shore he reached up and picked a fresh mango from the tree at the top of the waters edge. Then he came over and said hello and asked how things were going. The rock point seems to attract young guys who find the rocks more interesting than the beautiful beach sand which stretches around this little bay. Now at about 4:00, there are about a dozen of them down in their private corner, soaping up and diving in to rinse as well as washing their clothes.

It turns out he was scoping the place. He saw the kids here and was curious about the old white guy with the young Malawi girls so shortly after he said hi, he came back and asked to look at the computer I was cradling on my lap. We looked at some family pictures and because I now knew his name, he was very pleased to see it typed into this paragraph. He is ten and the girls are 7 so they are a bit shy with him, but tomorrow he has promised to teach them to swim on the beach. The city girls have not been in the lake and do not swim.

I have trained Laurlyn and Undeni to call me grandpa instead of agogo so I won’t feel so homesick. They even sound like the kids at home albeit with a cute little Malawi accent.

Being Sunday, we have a lot of the Mzuzu day trippers down, young Malawian families. The men are into the water often with a Carlsberg in hand, while the women shyly hide in the little shade available at the other side of the beach. Only a couple of Malawian women are in the water in bathing suits and they get right to water’s edge before they drop their chirundu and slip modestly into the water.

Gliding by at two or three hundred metres out pass a slow flotilla of dugout canoes. It seems so effortless but I am sure that they are a lot more work to paddle and steer than our Canadian versions. Now and again they are carrying a few crates of beer to some community along the coast. In the evening, they fish with lights close to shore when the winds have died down and the lake is peaceful. There are quite a number of bigger dory style boats with outboards acting as shuttle. They carry larger loads and are a lot more comfortable. Both dugouts and dories carry passengers as water taxis and will take you for a spin up and down the coast.

Monday 24 December
When there is sun, it is extremely hot. Right now the sky is overcast and even though threatening rain there has not been much at all here on the coast. In fact Nkhata Bay is quite dry and crops have not yet started growing. Yesterday, we drove to Mzuzu to meet Clement Mushane, Lyness Dove’s cousin who finally pulled the well together for us. Fifteen minutes out of Nkhata Bay the escarpment climb begins and it was raining heavily. Mzuzu is soaking and the rain only really started to clear up as we came back into Nkhata Bay where almost nothing had fallen.

Clement retired five years ago from the ministry responsible for water and was able to manouevre the drilling company into a position where we could finally get the rig up to Kasungu. The Mr. Jones who run the drilling company was very elusive and was really only willing to go where he could profit from economies of scale. The company has to transport three large pieces of equipment to each site and many places are extremely hard to get into. When he finally had about 10 wells to drill in the Kasungu area, he included us in his programme. In the meantime, Clement was up and down from Karonga a couple of times to track down a commitment from Jones and he got the District Water Officer in Karonga to help put some pressure on as well since they had worked together. Clement still has a very young family even though he and I are born in the same year, so he is hoping that he can be involved in more projects to supplement his meager civil service pension to pay school fees.

December 25 on Chikale Beach was wild.
In the morning we walked around the point to a couple of little backpacker Lodges. The Butterfly is aptly named ands seems to be run by a flower child from the sixties and her Tonga boy friend, a Rasta. It is very cheap and very sparse. Then we fell in love with Mayoka Village Lodge which fits right in between Njaya and Butterfly on the price range and is absolutely charming. We tried to book in but they were overbooked because of the Xmas season and they were serving their barbecued meat buffet at 15:00 which was too early for us to get back for. I have reserved the place for the Vanier students when we get to Nkhata Bay and I am pretty sure they will want to opt for a second night once they have seen the place. It has a rocky beach and offers free snorkels and masks and great fish viewing. Lake Malawi has a variety of fish that are very popular among northern aquarium fish collectors. These cichlids are very colourful and abundant near the shore.
Sunday had brought a lot of day visitors to Chikale beach, but by the time we got back, just before noon we had the Xmas day rush. People came by water taxis from up and down the coast, because there was news that there might be entertainment. A rough guess put the crowd at 2,000 and the bars were soon sold out of beer and soft drinks sending the taxis off to Nkhata Bay to restock. I hid out on the porch and sneaked (snuck?) a few crowd shots on the mighty Fuji, then we booked supper at the Njaya where they were barbecuing a lamb. The night before we had eaten there and they had barbecued a pig and had a local band play. There was a tea chest base with one string and with a large cowhide kettle drum as resonator as well as a home made snare drum set with cymbals as well as a male and female coordinated dancers. After supper on Xmas day there was a band playing at the Nkukuti, so our day was a lot of fun. Sautso and Undeni unwinding as much as I.

Wednesday 26 December
We returned to Lilongwe, by way of Salima following the lakeshore north to south. At Nkhata Bay for about 70 kilometres the escarpment hugs the coast and the road winds in and out and up and down. Large stretches are in a rubber tree plantation established back in colonial times and there still seems to be production going on. Some enterprising little guys are holding up white rubber balls which are great at the beach. They take the raw white rubber and wind it around a balloon for shape. At Tukoma we stopped at the Aleke Development Centre and drove about a kilometer down towards the to visit the aunt of Hannah McNally and her husband Aleke who were at the cottage for the holidays. The last time I had seen Mr. Banda was at Hannah and Brian’s wedding in 1975. He has set up another group, KUDA for KuNyanja Development Association which provides revolving credit, small loans in the form of livestock and child care, schooling and training for local AIDS orphans. He made me promise to drop in on KUDA when we come through with the students in January.
In Salima, we met Undeni and Yonah’s sister, Beriya who has been looking after Victoria for the last 3½ years while Undeni was in the UK. Beriya runs a small shop where she sells the used clothes we North Americans send to the Salvation Army and Thrift Shops. They are baled and shipped to Malawi and other countries where small traders like her buy the bale without knowing what is in it and hope to make a living selling the contents in small market centres like Salima. You can see Canada T shirts and Maple Leaf hockey sweaters walking the streets all over Malawi. University shirts are very popular as if they bestowed a degree by virtue of ownership.

I had spent many a dissipated holiday on the beach at the old Grand Beach Hotel and was keen to see how it had turned out. Like the back packers I slept on the beach and at fish bought from the fishermen. Now it is part of the Sunbird chain and is known as Livingstonia Beach, but sure enough the old building has been recycled into use and there is an old picture on the wall from 1970 of the original Grand Beach as I fondly knew it. Nellie and honeymooned a few miles down the coast at the old Fish Eagle Inn, but I am told that it was literally eroded away and number of other resorts have taken its place.

Thursday 27 December
Justin Malewezi and I finally managed to find some time in his busy schedule to meet. It was good to see him so fit and active, still dynamic and organized. Justin taught at Likuni when I was at Mitundu and shared a house over the time with 3 different CUSO teachers, so we had gotten to know each other very well as young men. I had not seen him since he was the new vice-president in 1996 just after the UDF won the democracy elections. We met at the Capital Hotel and he came with Senior Chief Lukwa which is one of the most senior of the Chewa chieftainships. They have been working together with the newest Chewa king in Katete, Zambia to rebuild the usefulness and integrity of the old Chewa kingdom which straddles across the borders of Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique. He is formally leaving politics when this term as an MP expires in 2009 and plans to focus on delivering the goods to the people of Ntchisi on a number of levels. There is a very ambitious AIDS programme he is planning as a model for other areas. Because of his own experience with kidney problems, he is also setting up a foundation to help improve education, testing and treatment of people with kidney disease. Chief Lukwa, whom he introduced as his brother, is in fact the donor for his own kidney transplant.

Friday 28 December
I had intended to go to Makupo to finalise all the last minute preparations for the Vanier visit, but Ivy had arranged for me to have breakfast with Zilanie Gondwe, Victor’s niece, who is a music agent and promoter and closely connected to the local scene. Chimwemwe is keen to establish some links between Malawi and the music scene that he is part of in Canada and she had some really good ideas, a ton of contacts, including Jordan Mlotha who is like Chimwemwe with Malawian roots based in Ottawa but keen to make the Africa-Canada connection come alive.
Ivy and Zilanie convinced me that the Wambali Mkandawire concert at the Capital Hotel that night was a must see since, Wambali claims to be retiring from musical concerts to become an evangelical preacher and may never perform his brand of music on stage again. They were right. It was a great show in the huge marquee tent behind the Capital hotel. I had never entered the Capital before, and now I was there 2 nights in a row. Two warm up bands started the show and then Wambali came on. He plays with a strong root from South African jazz of the Cape Town sort, but has his own unique Malawi rooted style. He is a proud Tumbuka and sings almost exclusively in his mother tongue. His back up band members are really talented and overall it is a show that would travel well internationally.


Back to Sunday 30 December
I have a meeting with the Makupo women this afternoon to plan the food portion of the visit. Time is counting down fast and brother-in-law jack has his construction crew working around the clock to finish all the toilets, baths and kitchens in time. The houses will be spic and span and everyone is eager for the visit as well as the chance to make some income. I have already made several advances on earnings so people can buy their fertilizer for the maize and tobacco. I am in the process of installing the solar panel so we will have lights in the bigger house. I have to modify the kit I bought from Light up the World Foundation to make it work in our setting. If the villagers agree on solar, I will buy the more elaborate and expensive set up and hopefully get someone of the group to work on it as a project for installation. That would become the model and service the rest of the village.

I do not know if I will have much quiet time after January 3 so the blog postings may become more infrequent.