Welcome to Africa

Since we had permission to spend the night outside of Mozambique and our students were still busy with other teachers' finals, we decided to make a quick stop at Lake Malawi on our way back to site from the airport so that Janet's parents, who had traveled from so far away could see this marvel of Africa. Actually, us having been so busy with teaching and other work in site meant it would be our first time too. Luckily after nine months of coping with public transport on this continent we have grown savvy to the nuanced challenges of boarding/descending from crowded buses, making sure no luggage disappears, negotiating the correct price for each segment, and accurately estimating when vehicles will actually depart. Not even the oversized duffle full of American goods would slow us down. The journey was an adventure for our guests, including plenty of cramming, buying lots of snacks through the window at our various stops, some group singing and praying,
and one segment in an open-back truck sitting on large sacks of sugar and boxes of soap. But it was worth it, emerging from the African scrub landscape, studded with majestic baobobs and mud hut villages, to finally see that great body of water and experience some of that same exhilaration Dr Livingstone must have felt all those years ago. We went kayaking and saw some of those colorful cyclid fish that make the lake the most biodiverse body of fresh water in the world, and some large eagles that were catching and eating those fish. We slept in bamboo cabanas on the beach and ate pizza overlooking the water. We also met some interesting characters, like the man bicycling around the world, the white Malawian raising crocodiles to sell to Italian shoe manufacturers, the former volunteer coming back to her site for the first time in 8 years, lots of expats and world cup spill overs, as well as many friendly locals (as well as 2 bitter locals who harassed
us for not buying their curios or boat services). What an introduction to Africa!