Roadtrip to Lengwe National Park

Today Peter and I decided to head off south west to find a bit of warmth and sunshine. We headed off through the mountains towards Chikwawa, and the Lengwe National Park. The scenery along the route was fabulous - the road has innumerable hairpin bends with dramatic views down across the Majete wildlife reserve into Mozambique. And then the Shire (pronounced Shiree) River comes into view, flowing south towards where it meets the Zambezi.

We passed through several villages, with small markets, and road-side stalls selling bananas, sugar cane, and charcoal, and the occasional larger town or village such as Chikwawa, with a bigger market.

After a while we crossed over the river and continued along the road, reaching a large sugar cane plantation. The road was dead straight for over 4kms and all you could see on either side was sugar cane - a hugely impressive sight.

Beyond the sugar cane we arrived at Lengwe National Park. The entrance gate was set between on one side a ticket office and a small shop containing several thick textile products such as carpets, blankets and bags, plus a few books; and on the other side a small museum and a set of buildings including a library building. We were told they had plans to extend the educational services on the site. We were charged a very small fee for access to the museum, and a small fee for access to the Park. We drove in and reached Nyala Lodge where we paused briefly before setting off to drive a loop of the eastern end of the park.

Lengwe offers only a limited range of wildlife to view, but it is all naturally there rather than having been introduced by man. The roads were OK (we'd checked at the gate that Daisy would be able to cope) - just dirt tracks, some of which had been levelled, it appeared, by snow ploughs judging by the lines of earth lying on each side of the track. Some of the trees and bushes hung over the track, and poor Daisy had branches scratching along each side, and tree roots scraping along her underparts, but she kept going like a good'un.

Along the way, we came across yellow baboons, impala, nyala, warthogs, and two giant birds that I haven't yet managed to identify - but they were huge heron-like things.

Pics are on Flickr in a slideshow (hit Show info for details).

Now, on the main Malawi roads, you quite regularly come across permanent police checkpoints - these are gates across the road, manned by several police persons, that often stop you and then may question you about where you've come from, where you are headed for, what are you doing in Malawi, etc. We got stopped on the way to Lengwe, and on the way back we were stopped again by the same policeman, who remembered us from earlier in the day. This time, the question was a bit different. Would we be willing to transport a police detective along the road to the next checkpoint? Of course, we would. Gerry, the detective, was a very nice guy. We were asking him about what sort of crime he had to deal with in the area, and he seemed to rejoice in telling us that he had to deal with murders. When asked why there were murders, he replied that it was due to the weather! We dropped him of at the following checkpoint and headed on back over the Thyolo Escarpment and into Blantyre.

A good day.

It's still the weather.....

Last night it got cold.

And this Friday morning it still is.  Grey and damp, I gave up the battle and wore my fleece into work.  The internet is now sorted, but alas the water isn't.  So it's crossed legs until lunchtime.

We try to have no client meetings on Fridays so that the focus moves to training for the apprentices.  The consultants also have a review and team meeting with the apprentices to review the past week and flag up any issues going forward.  Of course, with Rick having left, and Sharife on the plane heading for Jo'burg, it was just me.  They'd asked for some help with getting to grips with what marketing is all about, so I decided to have an interactive session to start with so that I could answer any specific questions they had and then I'd be able to plan out what I could do over the next couple of months.  It seemed to go quite well, and so I'll try to do 30 mins each Friday to build up their knowledge and expertise.

One thing I did do was develop a spreadsheet to log useful online resources for each of the core and non-core CMI training modules (plus marketing) which can be developed over time to provide a helpful directory of websites and online reference materials.  The apprentices really liked the idea.

The office closes at lunchtime on Fridays (it's something that NGOs tend to do here, but drives Peter mad because it means we aren't formally working the hours we are contracted to do - despite the work we do back at the house in the evenings!).  So apparently there's a new policy whereby the UK consultants will be working Friday afternoons in the office, but it will be focusing on developing new training modules, etc.

We needed to get some shopping in for the house, so we went to the Chichiri shopping mall (well, the shopping mall in Blantyre) to buy stuff and have a bite to eat.  We ended up in a curry house - I had a very nice chicken aloo with a naan, Then to the Shoprite supermarket for the shopping - I indulged myself with a bar of Dairy Milk and some fruit for my room.

We we due to have a Skype call with Edinburgh at 4pm but the call never came, so we emailed to say we were going home and they could contact us there later if they wanted (this is to do with a large project that might be coming up).  So then back to the house, and get online.  The Skype call eventually took place at around 7.30pm.

The plan was to go to a local bar to watch the England game.  This bar (Mustang Sally's) is an amazing place.  It's owned by a guy from Manchester who's been out here for years.  He bears more than a passing resemblance to Roy Orbison - when we got there he was sitting at the side of the bar dressed completed in black, wearing sunglasses.  The place is designed like some sort of tropical island, with bamboo lining the path from the car park, and there's an upstairs area where they have discos, but there is also a large kidney-shaped swimming pool in the middle of the floor!  I'll get pictures later on.  In the meantime the match was rubbish, but we met up with some of the expats who'd come round to the house a few days ago, and so had a good chat with them, before hitting the road around midnight.

Oh No - it's a Brit whinging about the weather AGAIN!

Big story of the day on Thursday is the weather - it's getting chilly.  The Malawians in the office said that it was cold, but to me it felt just chilly.  I was still in shirt sleeves, whereas they were wearing fleeces and coats. It's also raining on and off - a heavy drizzle, I guess you'd call it.  All in all, a bit miserable.

I had a couple of client meetings, and spent most of the day trying to progress the larger project I'm working on. But the internet was still down, and worse still, the water supply went off, so the loos were out of bounds.  Peter, the Programme Manager, and I wandered down the road for lunch - he gave me a whistle-stop tour of several local eateries, before we settled on the place I'd had some somosas earlier in the week.  I opted for a quite good vegetable curry that came with a huge amount of rice in relation to the quantity of curry.  But when I'd finished the curry, the owner came over and offered to top up my supply, which was nice.

Sharife is going to see his parents and attend a wedding in Australia tomorrow (he hasn't seen them for around 4 years as he's been working in Edinburgh), and went off in the afternoon to buy a few pressies.  He came back with some nice stuff, so I've an idea what I'll be taking home with me for my beloved and my mother-in-law.  I'm not sure the son and heir would appreciate the same things so I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for other things as well.

Evening was more football on the telly, then to bed.  Unfortunately, when climbing into bed through the mosquito net, I managed to kneel on the net rather than the bed, and the net detached itself from the cord holding it up to the ceiling.  I couldn't get my own net onto the ceiling hook, so spent the night cowering under the duvet - thankfully I escaped without being bitten.

Farewell, Rick

I (uneventfully) drove in to work again this morning, but this time there were just three of us because Rick returned to the UK today.  One of the first out here on the project, he has done an amazing job setting up the extensive templates, processes and training programmes from which those of us arriving from now on are reaping the benefits.

The office internet is still down (and was all day) and so it was a question of pressing on with things as best we can, but with no email and reduced research opportunity.  However, I did my first diagnostics with two small businesses - one a restaurant and the other a leisure venue.  We'll now be putting together proposals based on the information we obtained from our meetings with the principals, and wait to see what their responses will be.  I'm hopeful that at least one will decide to invest in a consultancy assignment - fingers crossed.

Then it was back to the house to watch a bit of soccer and to have dinner.  Tonight Abraham produced a very pleasant beef stew with green beans and cabbage.

The wind has got up this evening, and the temperature has dropped significantly, although it was a very pleasant day weather-wise earlier on.

Driving Miss Daisy

So this morning after breakfast I was handed the keys to our people carrier (goes by the name of Diasy) and advised that I was driving the team to work today.  Luckily I've kept my eyes open on previous mornings, and sort of knew what to expect and roughly where to go.  As it happens, the journey was relatively painless - I didn't kill, maim or otherwise damage anyone or anything - and no-one was moved to sickness or diarrhoea, so I guess that's a good result.

Otherwise the day included taking part in the first post-project reviews for the apprentices, continuing to learn about the project I've now taken over, and chasing additional information from the client.

This evening we left the office a bit early so that we could be here when the satellite repair men came to fix the TV signal.  It's now working perfectly again, praise be.

Just a few little hitches along the way...

Spent today in the office, with a couple of weekly Monday morning team meetings before looking to get to grips with the project document system, and beginning to think about planning out producing a piece of training material for the apprentice consultants.  I was also due to get my laptop connected up to the shared drive where all the documents are stored, and to have my Business Consult Africa email address set up.  Unfortunately the IT guy didn't show, which in the event didn't make much of a difference because the power went off for a couple of hours - indeed, it was only at the exact moment my laptop turned itself off due to the battery being empty that the power came back on!

And then I couldn't get access to the documents or to the internet (because the network went down), but fortunately I could obtain a copy of last week's backup of the documents to be going on with.

At the end of the afternoon I had another hand-over session with Rick and apprentice consultant Edmund Mfutso who is working on the marketing plan element of this particular project before we headed back to the house.  And then we discovered that the satellite TV system has broken today - during the World Cup!!!

Still, this is Africa, and I really can't complain.  Just take it on the chin and move on.

Locations Map

I've just added a new item to the Links section on the right-hand side which plots places I've been in Malawi to date, so you'll be able to get a good idea of the geography and relative locations.  You can zoom in and out as required.

Breakfast

Sharife drove me to a bakery to pick up some croissants and danish pastries for breakfast today - really so I could continue to learn the layout of the area.

We went via the Blantyre Sports Club (link on the right-hand side of this page) because I'm looking for good places locally to walk and stay fit, and he recommended the golf course has some of the best walking without having to resort to the roads too much.

We then went on to the Bread Basket (strapline: "Exceedingly Good Bake") which is located in the food court of  the Malawi Sun Hotel and Conference Centre (strapline: "Passion for Excellent Hospitality").  The range of breads and cakes was very impressive, and it will definitely be getting more business from me in the future.

The hotel is quite close to the two top hotels in Blantyre - the Mount Soche and the Protea Hotel Ryalls.

There are a couple more images available here.  (Remember to turn on the "Show Info" link top right).

The Wildlife

I'm really looking forward to visiting some of the national parks in Malawi, which I'm told are fantastically beautiful and contain some wonderful animals.  Ahead of that I'll have to make do with what appears in the garden.

I woke up this morning (Sunday) to a lovely sunny day, wandered out onto the verandah to find a young baboon sauntering along the wall by the swimming pool.  S/he then trotted by clutching a small nut or piece of fruit and went off to join some others sitting on the wall by the golf course.

A good start to the day.   There are some more pics here.

TV Sport + a one-off experience

So yesterday it was England vs USA in the World Cup, so a crowd of ex pats are coming over.  But there are 3 matches played today, plus 3 rugby tests all being shown on TV.  Whilst the New Zealand v Wales game was on, I had my first example of a Malawi power cut - it lasted around 25 mins, and when the picture came back we'd just missed a try :-(

Whilst the TV was off, I popped down the garden to take a couple of snaps.  You can see them on Flickr.  A couple of things you notice about the garden: firstly it's big (we had a game of golf in it later in the day - well, chipping), and secondly it's steep.  This is the house taken from the bottom of the garden. 

Anyway, the power came back and we carried on watching the games and preparing for the football in the afternoon.  Rick had managed to blag a projector and so the games were being shown on our lounge wall.  Good quality picture too.  We use the DSTV satellite service from South Africa, and John Barnes is one of their pundits.

People started to arrive as the afternoon went on.  In the end we had about 20 guests - most of them volunteers or working for NGOs, and including americans, french, germans, australians, danish and british, all aged 20 - 35, I'd say.  And a very nice crowd.

My turn to do the barbecue today - steak, sausage, burgers plus a bit of vegetable (but not much!).  We all settled down to watch the England match, but 5 mins before kick-off, the power went off again.  There then ensued a mad rush of people out to their cars to drive round to any bar or club with a screen, but shortly after most had gone, the power returned, so it was a case of frantic phone calls to recall everybody.  England of course started quite brightly but then became a bit lacklustre.  I thought Wright-Philips and Lennon were poor, Heskey had one good moment, Green of course had is shocker, and Rooney didn't really get into the match at all.  In the house, there was a lot of banter between the americans + fellow hangers-on and those supporting England.  A fun atmostphere.

To "celebrate" Rick's impending departure, one of the crew had brought four cartons of Chibuku Shake-Shake (follow the link for the gory details of this concoction), which was consumed by everyone standing in a circle and passing the box round one by one, taking a sip each turn until it was all gone.  This stuff is seriously weird, and I heard tales of the effects it can have if consumed in quantity.  However, a few sips was fine just for the experience, and here's hoping I don't have to do it again.  This stuff is the original Chibuku Shake-Shake and not to be confused with the tub-thumping clubs in London, Liverpool and elsewhere in the UK that use the same branding.  I'm not sure which version is better for you! 

I found a review on the internet: 

This is the commercialized version of the "village beer" of Malawi.  This is a very unique brew. It’s served in cardboard cartons that swell with the carbonation. Ingredients are maize, water, sorghum, yeast, and enzymes. Pours the color of a vanilla malt with tons of grit and grain in it, hence the "shake shake" to mix it all up. Smells very acidic/vinegary like a Belgian [beer], but simply tastes like white vinegar mixed with cornmeal. Thick, pasty, and gritty. A one-of-a-kind experience, but definitely tough to get down.

Another review said:

It is mixed, cooked, packaged and shipped the same day. The cardboard carton has a vent in it to release the gas. It is really a slurry and it does coat the mouth. There is a lot of acidity in the flavour and if you don’t like that in a Belgian beer, you sure won’t like it in this concoction. Apparently the locals still make a lot of home made chibuku, and I think that Shake Shake is the only commercial one in Malawi. It is a must try, but I don’t ever want to try one again. 

Can't say I disagree with those sentiments.  I prefer my beer when you don't have to spend five minutes picking the bits out of your teeth.