Over Land and Lake

After our Nyassa visit, we headed back towards home via the lake (known as
Nyassa to Portuguese speakers and Malawi to English speakers) crossing
the skinny strip of water from island to island. Likoma island with its century
old cathedral, which is still the largest and most graceful church in Central
Africa, and extremely friendly locals was a welcome respite from our frenetic
Peace Corps lives and a nice place to catch our breathes. Water transport in
Africa is as crowded, uncomfortable, and full of surprises as land transport.
We took a motorized canoe for the first streach, a traditional swahili type sail
boat on the second streach, and the legendary Ilala ferry, which has been plying
the waters of Lake Malawi for the past fifty years, on the last strech. The
ferry showed up four hours late, blowing its baritone fog horn at 1AM to wake us
and the other potential travelers who were all dozing on the beach guarding
their piles of baggage. Everyone simotaneously scrambled for the skiffs
which shuttle passangers from the shoreside to the massive boat, which can't get
too close for fear of getting stuck in the sand. Once on board we squeezed
through the humanity in search of a spot on the floor not covered in dried fish
or nursing mothers. We eventually found somewhere we could fully extend out on
the cargo deck where the air was fresh enough to breathe. We slept
shallowly, clutching our valuables, for the five hour journy to the Malawi
mainland, or at least until a morning downpour aroused us from our uneasy
slumber and everyone tried to crush into the already full second class galley.
At one time the Ilala must have been an elegant means of getting from place to
place, but with at least ten times the recommended number of human beings on
board at all times, its more an exercise of endurance these days. Of course
most of the foreigners and white people or anyone else with enough money to
spare to pay three times the base fare, can escape the dingey underbelly of the
boat and relax on the airy upper deck, next to the bar. We could have afforded
this luxury, but Luc's strong ideological stubborness got in the way. We made
it all the same to Nkhata where Janet immediately found a bed and slept for the
next five hours while Luc scouted out the transportation situation for the rest
of the overland haul to the Peace Corps Office in Lilongwe. Although Mozambique
is all about the beaches, since we live deep in the Tete interior, we're fairly
isolated from the postcard paradise beaches, so this return voyage offered a
couple piteresque spits of sand to watch the day close while sipping a sundowner
beer (or water in Luc's case).