Date: Mon, Jan 21, 2002

From Abigail Stamm

Subject Christmas on Likoma

Happy holidays everyone!

My holiday began on 23 December. Jason Welle and I went through various Malawi guidebooks (Lonely Planet is the best) looking for information on Likoma Island while waiting for Kate, Heidi, and Jerome, who were all heading up from Blantyre. We were already anxious to leave. We had to be in Nkhata Bay by 11:00 pm the next day and transport would be difficult over the holidays. Finally, after dark, they arrived.

The next morning, we broke into two groups because travelling together would be too hard. The three latecomers had to go to the bank, so Jason and I headed north as soon as our tents were packed the next morning. Scott had rented a car for his family to visit, so he brought us to Area 25. From there, we caught a ride to the airport turnoff. And waited. And discussed that we should have headed to Mzuzu the day before. And waited. And watched all the dressed up Malawians walking to church and were watched by the Malawians biking past or working in the fields. And waited. Nothing would stop to pick us up until a random pick-up truck pulled over. The others were in it, their banking finished. The pick-up brought us to a turnoff, where we broke into two groups again. The others caught a ride quickly. We waited a long time, amusing the women who were chatting in a yard across the street. Finally a minibus pulled over and brought us to Kasungu. In general, volunteers try to avoid Kasungu because once you end up there, you are stuck for hours. We avoided to bus depot, as dirty and crime-ridden as any other, and walked to the northern turnoff. There are supposed to be minibuses that charge MK15 to take you there (about 25 cents), but we could not find them. Almost as soon as we reached the turnoff, the District Education Officer for Rumphi pulled over to offer us a ride. We took it. With him were the DEOs for north and south Mzimba too, so we talked a little about the volunteers they knew and problems with Malawian education. We stopped in Mzimba boma to drop off the two DEOs who live there, then continued on to Mzuzu. By Chikangawa, it was dark. That is when Jason and I realized exactly how slowly the landrover was moving. It had taken us twice as long as it should to get that far. We got to Mzuzu by 7:30 pm. I was nervous about continuing on to Nkhata Bay in the dark, but we compromised. There might be one more bus. If we caught it, we would go straight there. If not, we would go to the PCVL house nearby. The DEO drove us to the bus depot and caught the bus as it was pulling out. We sat or crouched on the floor in front because there were no seats left. The fumes were horrible anyway and made worse when the bus stopped and the exhaust blew in the door. We hid our faces behind our t-shirts to breathe.

At last, we reached Nkhata Bay. The ride had taken an hour, but felt twice as long. I had never taken a Shire (Malawi's version of a Greyhound, but without any amenities) on the hills and switchbacks to Nkhata Bay and the dark made it even more frightening. Once we got off, Jason got out his pocket knife in case someone attacked us and I got out my torch. We walked to the Yellow Submarine, a resthouse near the pier, to inquire about the Ilala, a big steamer that served as a ferry on Lake Malawi. We would take it to Likoma Island. We had planned to, except that the man at the resthouse told us that the Ilala had left at 7:00 pm, four hours early. We assumed the others were already in Nkhata Bay and had not left on the Ilala, but did not know where they were. Jason had never been farther north than Lilongwe and I was exhausted. We had not had a chance to eat all day. We headed for the Butterfly Lodge, a new backpackers' place on the peninsula that we had briefly mentioned as a rendezvous point. The walk took a long time on unlit dirt roads, but we had no trouble and found the Butterfly quickly. We asked after the others without success, then pitched our tents and headed to the restaurant to eat. The others came in shortly after we finished dinner. They had searched all over for us with some helpful man they had met on the way. They pitched their tents near ours.

The next morning, we discussed leaving, but Heidi's group would be coming in the next two days. It was Christmas morning, but felt nothing like it. Hot, humid. We watched the clouds of lake flies out on the water. It's said that someone caught among them would suffocate because they are so small and there are so many. We tried to watch the sunrise, but the rainy season had started at last and clouds sat on the horizon the entire time we were there, obscuring the mountains of Mozambique across the lake. The others were content to hang out in the gazebo and fight over the hammocks. I was too restless, so I walked down into town and wandered through the markets. The selection was poorer than usual, but I found a few touristy things I liked. The entire country is suffering from a "hunger" due to the maize shortage and no one has money, so I was glad to spend some on curios. (Celia, if you want, I can send you more information for your Famine class. Some of you may also be interested in an article I found in the Weekend Nation on male homosexual prostitution in Nkhata Bay. It's typical of most African countries' attitude toward homosexuality.) I ate breakfast at the Yellow Submarine's restaurant and lunch at the eating tree. Both had food that was cheaper and tasted better than at the Butterfly and other camping lodges. At the Butterfly, I read whatever books I'd brought, wrote in my journal, or tried to imitate the art common on Nkhata Bay batiks in my sketchbook.

I stayed only two days, then went to Mzuzu alone. At Mzuzu, I went to the bank, then met up with a few other volunteers. I wanted to go to Nkhotakota the next day and by chance ran into Linda, an environment volunteer who lives there. Between her and Jason Price, who had COSed, but had not yet gotten around to leaving, figured out how to get there, but they could only tell me a rough estimate of the cost.

The next morning, I headed east and south along he lakeshore road. I went first to Nkhotakota Pottery, the local azungu resthouse, but the volunteers who had been there for Christmas were already gone. I spent lunch trying to figure out where else to look. I knew they were still there. The next morning they would leave on the Ilala for Likoma Island. I did not know who was in the group besides Owen, who lives in Dwangwa, but I doubted they would stay that far away. It took me a remmarkably long time to remember that Nori, from my group, lives in the boma. Next, I went to his house. He was in Austria visiting his family and no other PCVs were there, but the other teachers at his school told me that volunteers were staying there. Andrew showed up first. He is in Linda's environment group and works with Nori's Wildlife Club when school is in session. He explained that all the seedlings in Nori's yard were for a tree-planting project the Wildlife Club would do sometime in Term 1. Tanya, the Crisis Corps volunteer in Zomba, was with him. They were staying at Tacaco's house nearby. She is a JAICA (Japanese) volunteer working at the local health centre. He brought me over to a Malawian's videoshow place to watch satellite TV. We met the others there: Owen, Debbie and Joe from Ntcheu, and Mateo, the Blantyre PCVL. They were channel surfing and arguing over the music videos. After we joined them, they settled on a news station, either CNN or BBC, and watched the speech by President Bush on the status of the war against bin Laden. I wish I knew what the Malawians present thought. The Americans felt like we were watching a bad comedy. We had no idea what he was saying except when the reporters paraphrased him and concluded by the end that he knew nothing. Then we watched music videos again. It did not occur to me at the time to ask the Malawians' opinion of the scantily clad singers.

We ate dinner in the market and bought last-minute food, then returned to Nori's house to prepare for the next day. First, we ditched everything we did not need on Likoma. Then we repacked our bags and fit in food wherever there was room. Jerome had joined us by this time, coming straight from Nkhata Bay. I did not sleep well. For the second night in a row, mosquitoes buzzed in my ears all night. After we had gone to bed, Nori called from Austria "just to see who was around." Debbie answered and wished him well for all of us.

The next morning, we set out as soon as everyone as coherent enough to walk. We walked the four-plus kilometres to the jetty. The place held nothing except a beach, a compound, and a big fancy pillared run-down building. The jetty itself was falling apart. Grasses and reeds grew in abundance well out into the water. Many, many Malawians had beaten us to the beach and gathered in small clusters. We sat on the jetty to eat a breakfast of bread and peanut butter while we waited. At one point, after we had moved away from the jetty to sit by our luggage, lake flies came swarming in and covered the jetty and the area on its far side, but did not come near us. They looked a bit like a writhing mass of translucent grey and left as quickly as they had come. The Ilala was due to leave at 7:00 am. It did not arrive until after 9:00 am. We hired a small fishing boat to take us out to the Ilala once it stopped. Joe, Mateo, and Debbie went in the first trip with our katundu (luggage). The rest of us took the second trip. The Ilala's lifeboats were overflowing with people and katundu, and probably animals as well. I don't know how they kept from capsizing.

By the time Owen, Nori, and I reached the steamer, the others had moved all of our Katundu to the top deck. We settled down with books or playing cards to wait. We would reach Likoma sometime after dark. We paid for first class without board or meals. The next highest level, Deck 2, was less than a third the price and packed with Malawians and their katundu. Children slept in the walkways on reed mats or chitenjes. Adults used the katundu as pillows. They were spread out all along the guardrails. I did not go inside any rooms on Deck 2, but I imagine if they were open to the public, they looked similar. We stayed on Deck 4. Deck 3 was the sleeping rooms and restaurant. Any time the Ilala stopped for loading or unloading, the men with money or the occasional cheap backpacker azungu would come to the bar on the top deck for drinks. We would double the guard on our bags and watch and wait until everyone was herded downstairs again. We ate lunch and dinner on the Ilala, with Joe eating the others' leftovers. We tried to chat with other passengers, but few were social. Among them were JAICA volunteers also serving in Malawi.

We crossed the lake from Nkhotakota heading northeast to the Mozambique border. We stopped twice near Mozambique before reacking Likoma. My main impression of Mozambique was that it was green, not only because the rains had started, but because there were so many trees. When I commented, Mateo explained to me the Mozambican civil war's effect on the population and land compared to Malawi's need for farmland. Around dinnertime, the steamer began to pitch more than before. Debbie and I both felt seasick and she left for half an hour at a time, toilet paper in hand. I managed to sleep restlessly through the worst of it. We reached Likoma twelve hours after boarding the Ilala, at 9:00 pm.

We gathered our possessions and piled onto the lifeboat, which was packed. I was balanced near a compartment in the centre. My pack was in front of me on a pile of katundu. One foot was wedged near the compartment and my other knee leaned against the katundu. The only one in our group less wedged than me was Debbie. The males were all on the other side of the katundu pile. The boat was large and powered by motor, so we traveled quickly to the "dock". It was apparently a barge that had sunk close to shore. The lifeboat was lashed to the barge, then the 20 or 30 passengers climbed out. To get to the shore, I handed off my pack to Jerome and jumped the four feet from the barge to the dark, murky water. I do not like to step in water that I cannot see the bottom of. Retrieving my pack, I waded ashore and headed for the ruin of a building, the rendezvous point. Mateo had wandered off, but the rest were there. He reappeared, announcing that no rides were available; we had to walk.

We asked for directions to Mango Drift, the lodge where we would stay. A man offered to escort us for a "small fee". We got out torches and Joe borrowed my knife, then we started off, without the guide. We followed the road they had sent us down. Matt greeted everyone we passed in Chichewa and asked again which way to go. We veered right when told and somehow ended up following a riverbed without realizing it. Even with the start of the rainy season, it was dry. We hardly used our torches because the nearly full moon was so bright. The riverbed narrowed and became a rocky climb, at which point either Joe or Matt realized our mistake and led us up onto the road that ran along the top of the bank. We walked for a long time and discussed pitching our tents wherever. At last we reached a crossroads and sat down to rest. Mateo ran ahead to figure out where to go. He returned much later to report that he had seen the first sign yet for Mango Drift, pointing down a steep rocky path toward the shore. We stumbled down the path, which looked to me like a steep streambed, then followed a winding trail to the beach. We were pretty sure we had to veer right, so Owen and I took what looked like a shortcut. He saw stones ahead and started to say something about writing on them, then realized midsentence that they were tombstones. We found ourselves in a cemetary. In the States, that is not a big deal, but in Malawi it is taboo to enter a cemetary except during a funeral, and especially neve at night. I know some of the Chewa and Yao beiefs, but Likoma is predominantly Tongas and Mozambicans. We assumed they too considered cemetaries off limits and left immediately. We met the others on the beach and sat down to rest. Joe and Matt went ahead to find the place, but came back without success. The rest of us broke out the peanut butter and bread while we waited. Out of nowhere boys appeared. They said they were from Kaya Mawa Lodge (literally "maybe tomorrow" in Chichewa) and would lead us to Mang Drift. We followed them and finally collapsed in the chalets, too exhausted to pitch our tents, just before midnight.

The next morning, we hung out at the lodge. Only one other guest was there, a British boy who would not stay in the chalets because they leaked when it rained. Being somewhat used to leaking thatch roofs, none of us had noticed. The "lounge" was nice that first day. It was a gazebo built around a large mango tree with the bar in the centre. A random assortment of largely mismatched tables, chairs, and benches surrounded it. Each morning, if it had rained the night before, the chair cushions were laid out on the beach to dry. At first, only two guests, Matt and the British boy, smoked, so it was easy to avoid the smoke. By that afternoon, several more smokers had arrived, so I started hanging out elsewhere. My tolerance has dropped a lot more, if that is possible.

In general, our group stuck together. None of us felt comfortable around the other guests, and the drugs they passed around, and they made no attempt to chat with us when we tried to hang out with them. We stayed in the chalets and played cards or Balderdash or Risk. Both of the latter were borrowed from Kaya Mawa. On New Year's Eve, we stayed alone on the beach to celebrate. The full moon had passed, so the night was dark. We could hear the painfully loud music and the shouting from the lounge farther down the beach. Our celebration occurred first, since our watches hit midnight before whatever gauge they were using. None of us had particularly wanted to stay up, but we somehow felt obliged to. In Joe's words, "It's just like any other night." Hot, humid, snowless. Owen agreed, saying in Malawi, "It's perpetually June." I think the New Year turning the year before half of us, myself included, had gone to bed before midnight. New Year's Day was also uneventful and felt nothing like our temperate climate minds thought it should either.

During the day, we would walk to Likoma boma, about an hour away. We bought bread, bananas, and groundnuts there to eat later when we realized we could not afford to eat every meal at Mango Drift. We ate dinner there though; Peter the cook was excellent. He had been trained in Dar es Salaam and his dishes were strongly Swahili influenced. He made the best chapatis Joe or I had eaten in a long time. (Joe had studied abroad in Tanzania.) He was also an entertainer. The night of New Year's Eve he donned a Native American type buffalo hat to serve dinner. Joe called him Tatanka for the next 24 hours.

In the boma, we visited the Anglican cathedral built in 1902. I believe Lonely Planet Malawi describes its history. We sat outside for a little while in one of the covered walkways eating bananas. An orphan boy that Owen, Debbie, and Matt decided was mentally insane followed us there. He kept trying to accuse us of something and grabbed me and Debbie at some point. It took all of our self-control not to react. Finally he left, but when he reached the courtyard he grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it at Owen, then headed into the cathedral. Sometime later, we followed. At the steps, Owen stopped and made some comment about churches serving as sanctuaries. None of us knew if the kid would attack him again. When he was not commenting about the kid, he teased Debbie, who was the only non-Christian among us. Jerome and I just looked around. The cathedral was huge and in poor repair. We wanted to climb the tower, but the stairwell was pitch dark and stank of urine. Jerome swore he heard bats in it too. Owen and I started up the stairs to the choir loft, but that too stank of urine. Besides, it seemed to be the hideout of the kid. In back was a large basin, presumably meant for baptism. It, like everything else, was covered in a layer of dust. Wasps had built nests around its bottom inside edge.

We followed the stations of the cross, posters behind glass that were torn, faded, and stained from age and neglect, around the walls of the cathedral. One nook off to the side had a creche set up. The altar was fancy, but not gaudy. Behind it was a smaller chapel that looked like it was regularly used. The whole thing felt slightly unreal. From outside it looked almost like a European castle with a high peak. Just inside the only unlocked door were the usual posters, signs, and donation boxes begging for money. Not trusting whoever was in charge of the donations, we kept our money. Later, I went alone to the oldest church on the island, near the southwest corner. I would have gotten hopelessly lost if I had not met up with a boy who led me there. It was significantly smaller than the cathedral and in much better repair. It had a ramshackle gate that would have been easy to break into if anyone wanted to. There were a few benches, a main altar, and a smaller altar off to the side. A large gap between the wall and roof was loosely covered by a chicken wire mesh. Joe told me a nice elderly woman was the caretaker, but I never saw her.

We visited the market one day, looking for food to eat back at Mango Drift and for dhows to hire. While there, we found the famous strangler fig on its own island in the otherwise paved plaza. Once, it had been parasite to a very large baobab tree, but the baobab had died and rotted away completely. The strangler fig that remained looked like a living cage. Steps led up to an opening, whether natural or cut away and the scars buried by bark I don't know. Inside, Joe commented that one could climb it and I am sure he was right, but no one wanted to try. It was still very much alive with shoots growing off in every direction.

We wanted to go to Khobwe on the Mozambique shore across from Likoma Island and tried every day. The only problem was that we could not find anyone to bring us. We thought that because of the holidays everyone wanted to stay home and brew and drink kichasu, a kind of alcohol. We could have hired a dhow, but no one could afford the fares. We did not even try to visit Chizumulu. Just in case we lucked out, we went to the police station anyway to get permission to leave Malawi. This required a hike to the top of one of the highest hills overlooking the boma. Owen kept us entertained by playing a British safari guide who was afraid of the wildlife, which he invented as he went along. He carried this character through for the rest of the trip. We arrived at the police station minus Joe and Matt and asked to leave the country. The officers had to call in another officer, who brought the forms. Instead of asking us to fillthem out ourselves, then looking over them, he filled them out. Owen adopted the strategy of agreeing with everything the man said and we followed his example. The only thing we said no to was the question of whether we were married. He still filled out the forms as if we were couples, Owen with Debbbie and Jerome with me. I lost count of the number of times he scutinized our identification. Owen and Debbie had passports. Jerome and I had only our Peace Corps IDs, but eventually he accepted them. The letters for the customs official in Mozambique were stamped and we were on our way. Since we never went, I still have my letter. Our hair and eye colours were enturely arbitrary. Owen was given blue hair because he was wearing a blue bandana.

We had wanted to leave on Wednesday. The Ilala would not return until Saturday. There were rumours of private boats shuttling people to Nkhata Bay after the New Year's festivities. Mateo asked around and signed us up for one of them. On Wednesday, we found out the boat in question was still in Nkhata Bay. Joe had to be back on the mainland by Friday and the rest of us were bored, so we found a man willing to bring us on his dhow. We invited some VSO (British) volunteers from Mozambique to join us and left Thursday morning at 9:00. Because we had hired the dhow, it cost us each about $20, but considering that Likoma cost close to $10 a day, we paid willingly enough. The dhow was large and sturdy. There were twelve people on board: eight pssengers, three crew, and the captain. At first, a Malawian woman joined us too. We all fit comfortably, using life vests, sleeping mats, and chitenjes for seat cushions. The dhow was powered both by a motor, borrowed from a friend, and by a patchwork sail made from cloth maizemeal bags. The first leg of the trip, to Chizumulu for maintainance and petrol, took one hour. We hung out on Chizumulu for just over an hour, exploring the lodge there. Behind the bar in the lounge area was a very large, hollow baobab tree reminiscent of the redwoods in Big Sur, California. The lodge was cheaper and nicer than Mango Drift, but Chizumulu Island itself had less to do. We left the woman there.

Just after 11:00, we set out again. For a long time, I just looked around us. Joe pointed out a waterspout to the northwest, a dark column against a background of grey stormclouds. I counted at least seven storms around us in every direction. One of the larger ones appeared to be over Nkhata Bay, our destination. We started out using the motor, but when the wind picked up, we were able to sail for about half an hour. The captain, whose name was pronounced Brin, said a westward wind is not common on the Lake at this time of year, so he was surprised. We crossed a foot-wide line of some plankton-like microorganism that stretched as far north and south as we could see. The Lake was relatively calm at first. We skirted one storm, the worst Brin said, but entered another. The sails had already been lowered and stashed. The shore was invisible behind the curtain of grey rain. On such a small lake, the sailors relied so heaily on landmarks that no one bothered with carrying a compass. Without any sense of direction, we stopped completely and waited out the storm for maybe half an hour. A tarp was raised to keep us dry, but it, coupled with the tossing waves we'd hit just after the rain, made my stomach uneasy. Then the smokers aboard did what most smokers do when nervous. They lit their accursed cigarettes in the confined space under the tarp. By then the rain was pouring down and the smoke had nowhere to go. I left as soon as my stomach stabilized enough to move and spent the rest of the trip in the rain at the stern. One of the crew members tried to hold an umbrella over me, but I was still soaked to the skin by the time we reached Nkhata Bay.

For more than half of the trip, I was so out of it from seasickness that I remember almost nothing. The others told me later that after the rain stopped, Joe and Owen climbed onto the bow and played some cross between stereotypical European pirate and African safari guide. Owen said he'd been nervous impersonating a British accent in front of two British girls, but they were entertained. Mateo sat on a banana, decided it was disgusting, and jumped in the water to wash off. One of the VSOs was panicking and Debbie was focusing almost all of her attention on her. She was as seasick as I was and turned out to be somewhat hydrophobic as well because she had nearly drowned as a child, or so she said. None of the PCVs understood how, knowing this, she had agreed to come in the first place. The males were all annoyed with her. Debbie said later that she suspected her own seasickness was staved off only by tending the VSO. The other VSO was calm for nearly the entire trip, but did little to help her friend.

We reached Nkhata Bay under a warm, blue sky shortly before 4:30 pm and landed on the beach below the Big Blue lodge. We learned later that Brin owns that lodge. Almost as soon as my feet were on the shore, I felt much better. A belated lunch of bread and peanut butter gave me back some of my strength. Jerome left that evening for Mzuzu an hour west and the VSOs went to another backpacker lodge nearby. The rest of us stayed at the Big Blue. The eating tree was closed by then, but we found another restaurant in town. Dinner was the ever familiar rice and beans. The woman at the counter had a sense of humour that meshed well with the boys. One of them asked her for a soda (mineral) and all she answered was "No!" We could not tell if she was joking or serious. Some nervous questioning determined that the restaurant had run out of soda, but one of the workers ran to the Kandodo supermarket next door to buy some.

The next morning, we set out. Joe and Mateo went to Mzuzu, then on to Lilongwe. Debbie, Owen, and I went south along the lakeshore. We caught a lorry to the Nkhotakota turnoff, where we parted ways with the others. A minibus brought us to a town somewhere north of Dwangwa. On the way, we crossed the Lingadzi (?) river. The bridge had been washed out one rainy season years ago and was never rebuilt, so each year a dirt dam is built, wide enough for one car at a time to cross. Since the rains had only just come, the dam was still safe to cross. Owen explained that the economy in the Dwangwa area is directly related to the condition of the bridge/dam on that river. Then we caught a matola, a pick-up truck used for public transport. Owen got off at his site and Debbie and I got off where the matola stoopped in Dwangwa. I am told that because of prostitution, a lot of people stop in Dwangwa. We waited for a long time, bored, and decided that Dwangwa was not a place where we would want to live. At last a minibus came. Actually, it had been sitting there for some time, waiting to fill up. We went to Nori's house in Nkhotakota. Debbie picked up the things she'd left and continued to Lilongwe that day. I stayed in Nkhotakota for a couple days and visited with Andrew when he came through. I returned to Lilongwe on Sunday, 6 January for midterm medical and Inservice Training.

Half of my medical is done. The other half was postponed because Sheila, our PCMO, had to take an emergency trip to South Africa with a PCV with appendicitis and Frazer, our otherPCMO, was on vacation. So I am still in Lilongwe. The IST went well. Madam Kunda, the AIDS club patron from my school, attended and enjoyed it significantly more than I did. I will be teaching Integrated Science and Life Skills this year, and possibly the new Senior level Science course in Form 3. Biology is now optional, but Life Skills and the general science courses both include some, namely nutrition and reproduction. Botany and Environment are supposed to be covered in Agriculture. More after I have started teaching again. I hope the strike is over for good.

Tiwonana, Abby

P.S. For those of you who were worried about where to write, I can receive my mail through either the Lilongwe office or my site anytime. I prefer that packages come to my site and any penpal letters should be sent to my school.