Last weekend was quite an adventure. Binnu (an Engineers Without Borders friend who is working around Blantyre as well) and I decided it was time to get away and explore a different part of Malawi. We took off on a 3 hour minibus ride on Friday afternoon to Mount Mulanje. Mount Mulanje is the largest mountain in Malawi and is known for it’s many tea estates, wonderful pineapple and bananas, beautiful waterfalls, and cursed hikes. Curses are a large part of Malawian culture and there are stories about people getting lost and never being found on Mount Mulanje and spirits leaving food for people to eat on their hike. We arrive at the town in Mulanje around 3pm and are told by a Malawian gentleman that we would be able to walk to the lodge that we had decided to stay at, “1.5 km” is what he said. So we start walking and soon acquire quite a group of us walking. We had children, and men on bicycles asking us if we wanted a ride to the lodge. Thinking that it wasn’t too far, we refused. We walked with a couple of guys who worked for the forestry department and were heading to the same place as us. It soon became about 2.5 hours that we had been walking, and their responses on how long the journey would take kept changing. We figured we better flag down a car and get a drive there as it had already turned dark (the distance was actually 11km). It just so happened that the car we flagged down was the owner of the small lodge we were staying at. She was more than happy to give us a ride. She is a woman born in Jamaica who moved to Malawi in the early 1980’s when she married a Malawian. She now lives in Lilongwe with her husband and children, leases and runs the lodge, and works with a tobacco company. We had a fabulous dinner with her cooked by the staff at the lodge and heard a lot of really interesting stories and points of view on Malawian culture.
We were told by everyone we met that we should hike up Mount Mulanje the next day. So on Saturday morning we headed to the forestry office to check out the trails. There are a few huts up Mount Mulanje that you can pay to stay in which sounded pretty sweet to us. A guide for the trails is strongly encouraged, but is quite pricey. The man at the office said we would need a guide to go up, but would have no trouble getting down on our own on Sunday, so this is what we did. We headed out around 10:30am with our guide, Peter, and started the hike. The thing people neglected to inform us about was the intensity of this “hike”, in my opinion it is more of a climb. For 2.5 hours we were going constantly uphill to get to the top of the peak where our hut for the night was located. There was definitely a couple points in time that I thought I wasn’t going to make it, but what kept me going was seeing several men climbing down the mountain with planks of wood on their heads. About 20 years ago, the government of Malawi thought it would be a bright idea to plant pine trees (not a native plant) on Mount Mulanje to replace the trees that had been deforested by the located for firewood. There is a timber wire line that used to take timber from the top down close to the bottom, but that broke down 5 years ago. Now, men are hired to climb up Mount Mulanje one day and bring down already cut planks of pine the next.
Mount Mulanje is known as being one of the coldest places in Malawi. The man at the forestry office had asked if we were bringing sleeping bags up with us. We didn’t have any and didn’t really want to carry them up if we weren’t going to use them. When we asked how cold it would get, the reply was 18 degrees. Our reply… “18 degrees! That’s warm! We’re from Canada, we can handle the cold.”
We made it to the hut in 4 hours and said goodbye to Peter. The hut was more like a cabin with a porch, fireplace, bunk beds, 4 disgusting foam mattresses, a woven floor matt, and a couple chairs and tables. The view was pretty awesome, we were in a bit of a valley with mountains all around us. The sun started setting and we were enjoying looking at all the beautiful stars, then we realized how cold it was getting… We went back in the non-insulated cabin and sat infront of the fire to warm up. The only clothing I had was a pair of pants, a pair of cotton sleep capris, 2 t-shirts, a polar fleece sweater, cotton ankle socks, and a scarf. I put it all on, including my shoes. We decided that the warmest place to sleep would be infront of the fire and we decided the mattresses were not the cleanest things to be sleeping on. So we put the floor matt down infront of the fire place and attempted to curl up and go to bed. 45 minutes later, the fire was out and we awoke to the cold room. We put more logs on and decided to get over the fact that the mattresses were disgusting. We put 2 foam mattresses under the floor matt, loaded up the fire and went back to sleep. We ended up waking up every 1.5 hours to put logs on the fire and warm up again. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to wake up with the sunrise.
We put out the fire, cleaned things up and were out on the path by 6:45am. There was an alternate route that we could have taken if Peter didn’t have to go back the same day and we were told that it was not as steep and had a waterfall so we decided to take the route down. We were going pretty good for about 2 hours, enjoying the scenary, the forest, and the downhill walk. We made it to a small water falls area and had trouble seeing where the path was. We finally found a path and took it. We were walking, checking for footprints, going uphill, going in kind of the wrong direction and thinking that something might be wrong. I called the man at the forestry office (the one smart thing we did-get his phone number) and asked if we should be going uphill and he said yes. So we kept on going. We walked for about 45 minutes uphill and really decided that we were going the wrong way. I called Duncan at the office again and questioned him more. It finally came out that we should have reached a large path. Definitely not the right way. I was exhausted by this time and in some pretty bad aching pain. Duncan asked if we wanted him to send someone to get us and we agreed. Someone was to meet us at the waterfall. Little did we know, there was a large waterfall, and by waterfall they meant that one not these little ones. But we thought it was the waterfall a bit further up so we walked the 45 minutes back down to the water, then 20 minutes up to the first waterfall we had reached. I was almost in tears by this point and was wondering how I was going to go on. Then we heard voices… Saved! It was a man with his guide. He asked us why we didn’t have a guide… And we told him our story. He offered for us to go along with him. It turned out that he was from Canada. He is an Indian man who was born in Malawi, but married a Canadian and moved to Canada. He is back in Malawi for the year doing some work with his and his brother’s business. He also lives in Blantyre and just so happened to be heading back that day and offered to drive us. We’re pretty good at this luck thing.
One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is food. We found out about 2 hours before heading up the mountain that we were required to bring our own food. So we headed to the market about 15 minutes from the lodge to find some things to bring with us. This was definitely not the greatest market. All we found were sweet potatoes and cookies. We bought 4 sweet potatoes, and 5 packs of biscuits and had 1/3 of a small jar of peanut butter that I had brought from Blantyre. After a 4 hour hike uphill on Saturday and a 7 hour hike downhill (plus unfortunately uphill) on Sunday, we were starving. Raag (the man who rescued us) took us to a pizza restaurant on the way back to Blantyre, and we both ate an entire pizza to ourselves.
So the weekend that I had in my mind as being relaxing and a good energizer for the coming weeks, definitely didn’t play out that way. Looking back at it though, it was a pretty awesome experience.
Other news! (this may turn out to be a lengthy e-mail). I have a place to stay in a village close to my office! I will be moving in on Monday afternoon and am about a 45 minute bike ride from the office. I purchased my bicycle last week, and it turned out to be quite an investment, 11,000 kwacha! It is a new bicycle, green and has gears (which is good because it looks like there is going to be a lot of up hills on my ride to work).
Mr. Banda (the executive director of Freshwater Project) went to the village headman last week and told him that I am looking for a home to live in. The village headman called a meeting and the village held nominations for who I will be staying with. An older couple whose children have moved out have been chosen as my host parents. On Monday I went to visit them and was greeted by about 20 men, women and children. The couple seems really nice, and the people in the village were more than welcoming.
My host mother, Sarah, is taking me to church this Sunday. Church is a really important part of the Malawian culture, and your denomination is quite often one of the first questions to arise upon meeting someone. I’m not quite sure what people think when I say that I’m not part of a church, then go even further into saying that I’ve never been to church. I usually get questioning of “why?” and “how come?” which I tend to relate back to Canadians not attending church as much as Malawians do. I am interested to begin to find out why religion is so important to Malawians and how it impacts their lives on a day to day basis and on a larger scale. I don’t have the intention of finding the answers to these questions, but just gaining even a bit of insight will allow me to develop an understanding.
I’ve been getting a few questions about the how Malawians dress. Appearance is very important to Malawians, clothes are washed on a regular basis, shoes are always polished, and almost everyone owns an iron and irons all their clothing. Men who work or live in the cities wear dress pants, dress shoes, dress shirts, and sometimes short ties. Women are the ones who wear more of the traditional clothing. The printed fabric is called a chitenje and has many uses in the Malawian culture. Women get the fabric tailored into long skirts, dresses, and skirt suits. In the villages, and by the women who work in the field, the fabric is often tied around their waists to protect their skirts from dirt. The elder women of a village often tie a chitenje around their head, and it is used as a sign of respect in a village. Chitenjes are used to carry babies on women’s backs. Women carry their babies everywhere. It’s a common occurrence to see women carrying water on their head, getting into a mini bus, going to the market, selling produce, etc. with a baby on their back.
I’m working at getting some pictures put up somewhere so you can all see them, but the internet in Malawi is really slow, and this is quite a long process. Hopefully I can get a few photos up in the next couple weeks.
We were told by everyone we met that we should hike up Mount Mulanje the next day. So on Saturday morning we headed to the forestry office to check out the trails. There are a few huts up Mount Mulanje that you can pay to stay in which sounded pretty sweet to us. A guide for the trails is strongly encouraged, but is quite pricey. The man at the office said we would need a guide to go up, but would have no trouble getting down on our own on Sunday, so this is what we did. We headed out around 10:30am with our guide, Peter, and started the hike. The thing people neglected to inform us about was the intensity of this “hike”, in my opinion it is more of a climb. For 2.5 hours we were going constantly uphill to get to the top of the peak where our hut for the night was located. There was definitely a couple points in time that I thought I wasn’t going to make it, but what kept me going was seeing several men climbing down the mountain with planks of wood on their heads. About 20 years ago, the government of Malawi thought it would be a bright idea to plant pine trees (not a native plant) on Mount Mulanje to replace the trees that had been deforested by the located for firewood. There is a timber wire line that used to take timber from the top down close to the bottom, but that broke down 5 years ago. Now, men are hired to climb up Mount Mulanje one day and bring down already cut planks of pine the next.
Mount Mulanje is known as being one of the coldest places in Malawi. The man at the forestry office had asked if we were bringing sleeping bags up with us. We didn’t have any and didn’t really want to carry them up if we weren’t going to use them. When we asked how cold it would get, the reply was 18 degrees. Our reply… “18 degrees! That’s warm! We’re from Canada, we can handle the cold.”
We made it to the hut in 4 hours and said goodbye to Peter. The hut was more like a cabin with a porch, fireplace, bunk beds, 4 disgusting foam mattresses, a woven floor matt, and a couple chairs and tables. The view was pretty awesome, we were in a bit of a valley with mountains all around us. The sun started setting and we were enjoying looking at all the beautiful stars, then we realized how cold it was getting… We went back in the non-insulated cabin and sat infront of the fire to warm up. The only clothing I had was a pair of pants, a pair of cotton sleep capris, 2 t-shirts, a polar fleece sweater, cotton ankle socks, and a scarf. I put it all on, including my shoes. We decided that the warmest place to sleep would be infront of the fire and we decided the mattresses were not the cleanest things to be sleeping on. So we put the floor matt down infront of the fire place and attempted to curl up and go to bed. 45 minutes later, the fire was out and we awoke to the cold room. We put more logs on and decided to get over the fact that the mattresses were disgusting. We put 2 foam mattresses under the floor matt, loaded up the fire and went back to sleep. We ended up waking up every 1.5 hours to put logs on the fire and warm up again. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to wake up with the sunrise.
We put out the fire, cleaned things up and were out on the path by 6:45am. There was an alternate route that we could have taken if Peter didn’t have to go back the same day and we were told that it was not as steep and had a waterfall so we decided to take the route down. We were going pretty good for about 2 hours, enjoying the scenary, the forest, and the downhill walk. We made it to a small water falls area and had trouble seeing where the path was. We finally found a path and took it. We were walking, checking for footprints, going uphill, going in kind of the wrong direction and thinking that something might be wrong. I called the man at the forestry office (the one smart thing we did-get his phone number) and asked if we should be going uphill and he said yes. So we kept on going. We walked for about 45 minutes uphill and really decided that we were going the wrong way. I called Duncan at the office again and questioned him more. It finally came out that we should have reached a large path. Definitely not the right way. I was exhausted by this time and in some pretty bad aching pain. Duncan asked if we wanted him to send someone to get us and we agreed. Someone was to meet us at the waterfall. Little did we know, there was a large waterfall, and by waterfall they meant that one not these little ones. But we thought it was the waterfall a bit further up so we walked the 45 minutes back down to the water, then 20 minutes up to the first waterfall we had reached. I was almost in tears by this point and was wondering how I was going to go on. Then we heard voices… Saved! It was a man with his guide. He asked us why we didn’t have a guide… And we told him our story. He offered for us to go along with him. It turned out that he was from Canada. He is an Indian man who was born in Malawi, but married a Canadian and moved to Canada. He is back in Malawi for the year doing some work with his and his brother’s business. He also lives in Blantyre and just so happened to be heading back that day and offered to drive us. We’re pretty good at this luck thing.
One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is food. We found out about 2 hours before heading up the mountain that we were required to bring our own food. So we headed to the market about 15 minutes from the lodge to find some things to bring with us. This was definitely not the greatest market. All we found were sweet potatoes and cookies. We bought 4 sweet potatoes, and 5 packs of biscuits and had 1/3 of a small jar of peanut butter that I had brought from Blantyre. After a 4 hour hike uphill on Saturday and a 7 hour hike downhill (plus unfortunately uphill) on Sunday, we were starving. Raag (the man who rescued us) took us to a pizza restaurant on the way back to Blantyre, and we both ate an entire pizza to ourselves.
So the weekend that I had in my mind as being relaxing and a good energizer for the coming weeks, definitely didn’t play out that way. Looking back at it though, it was a pretty awesome experience.
Other news! (this may turn out to be a lengthy e-mail). I have a place to stay in a village close to my office! I will be moving in on Monday afternoon and am about a 45 minute bike ride from the office. I purchased my bicycle last week, and it turned out to be quite an investment, 11,000 kwacha! It is a new bicycle, green and has gears (which is good because it looks like there is going to be a lot of up hills on my ride to work).
Mr. Banda (the executive director of Freshwater Project) went to the village headman last week and told him that I am looking for a home to live in. The village headman called a meeting and the village held nominations for who I will be staying with. An older couple whose children have moved out have been chosen as my host parents. On Monday I went to visit them and was greeted by about 20 men, women and children. The couple seems really nice, and the people in the village were more than welcoming.
My host mother, Sarah, is taking me to church this Sunday. Church is a really important part of the Malawian culture, and your denomination is quite often one of the first questions to arise upon meeting someone. I’m not quite sure what people think when I say that I’m not part of a church, then go even further into saying that I’ve never been to church. I usually get questioning of “why?” and “how come?” which I tend to relate back to Canadians not attending church as much as Malawians do. I am interested to begin to find out why religion is so important to Malawians and how it impacts their lives on a day to day basis and on a larger scale. I don’t have the intention of finding the answers to these questions, but just gaining even a bit of insight will allow me to develop an understanding.
I’ve been getting a few questions about the how Malawians dress. Appearance is very important to Malawians, clothes are washed on a regular basis, shoes are always polished, and almost everyone owns an iron and irons all their clothing. Men who work or live in the cities wear dress pants, dress shoes, dress shirts, and sometimes short ties. Women are the ones who wear more of the traditional clothing. The printed fabric is called a chitenje and has many uses in the Malawian culture. Women get the fabric tailored into long skirts, dresses, and skirt suits. In the villages, and by the women who work in the field, the fabric is often tied around their waists to protect their skirts from dirt. The elder women of a village often tie a chitenje around their head, and it is used as a sign of respect in a village. Chitenjes are used to carry babies on women’s backs. Women carry their babies everywhere. It’s a common occurrence to see women carrying water on their head, getting into a mini bus, going to the market, selling produce, etc. with a baby on their back.
I’m working at getting some pictures put up somewhere so you can all see them, but the internet in Malawi is really slow, and this is quite a long process. Hopefully I can get a few photos up in the next couple weeks.
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