In Search of Notebooks

You know what Africa lacks?  Notebooks.  There are no bloody notebooks to be found on this damned continent.

Sometimes, you’ll see a sign saying “Stationary (sic) Shop” and get all excited and rush in.  And what do you find?  Lined school exercise books on that plasticky paper they used to make bog roll out of, and biros.  Biros!  It’s revolting.

It’s a good job Livingstone has a nice large ex-pat community, and the associated shops (you can imagine the type - Marmite and real Cadbury’s* and Hobnobs) or I might just have gone insane by now.  If you’re going to come visiting, bring a good stack with you.

*  Although Cadbury’s chocolate is available in Africa, it’s not really Cadbury’s.  It’s made in Egypt, or sometimes Kenya, and has had something added to raise the melting point so that each bar doesn’t come out a big pile of goo.  It tastes really weird, like cheap Easter egg chocolate.  Thankfully, South Africa makes the real stuff, and it’s made it to Namibia.  We’ll be reunited soon.  Oh yes.

Mzungu in the Market

If there’s one thing we’re good at now, it’s not buying things in a market.  It seems that just a handful of passing tourists can support an African tat market in any backwater of the continent, all with their own range of small carved wooden animals, necklaces made out of beads and bent wire and paintings.  Oh my God, the paintings.

But we’re only good as a group.  Split up, resolve fails and one person will become swamped, bemused and terrified by all that’s going on.  And markets can attack you at the strangest times, when your companions are far away.  The other day, I walked up to the international post box to dispose of another few postcards, and turned round to see one of those familiar smiling faces with a roll of canvas in his hand.  I couldn’t take a step before I was surrounded by bad paintings of African women carrying pots or “tribal dances”, all too big for me to jump over.  And once one image hits the ground, the other sellers fly towards you and the tide of orange and black grows.  I was up against the wall, alone.  It was nearly 10 minutes before G saw me waving none-too-subtly and came over to remind me that we had to be somewhere else very very urgently.

My current favourite is to say that I am looking for something bizarre I am convinced that I haven’t seen on any stall on the market so I can move on quickly.  Quite a lot of the time, this fails, but it does mean that I get to watch a range of incongruous wooden animals appearing from somewhere, always the only two on the market, and an increasingly wide range of weapons I didn’t think people were allowed to sell.  The machete-men are always my favourite, although a little more difficult to say no to than the paper-knife men.

At least I’ve stopped buring things for money, though.  It would seem that quite a few people are willing to trade rather boring commodities for a bit of bone on a string.  Soap’s not a surprising one really, but over the past few days I’ve been amazed by the amount I can get for hairbands, which appear not to be sold in Zambia.  Sadly, the men who want them (it’s always men who run the stalls) are rather Rasta and, as a result, their carvings are much crapper than other people’s.  Still, it’s been a great way to lighten the load a bit (why did I think I needed to bring 30 hair bands with me exactly?).

I’ve even got the hang of haggling now.  I’m still nowhere near as good as R, who can get very nice things for terrific prices, partially because if I like something I express my interest in it rather too loudly, and partly because I find it very difficult to turn my back on someone and walk away.  The fake names help, but not much.  For reference, it seems that 40% of the starting price is about right if you don’t want to haggle for horus and get heated about it.  R has managed less than 10% on some items.  I live in awe.

Hello? Zambia? Can we come in please?

Hello everyone!  A very excitable zebra here, forging his merry way across Africa.  Malawi was great but notably not on the original route, which has meant that we’ve had to tear across the Continent at a terrific rate to get to Namibia in time.  There’s nothing of interest in Zambia, right?

Well, regardless I still wanted to get in to go and play at the big watery thing in the south.  And Mummy had paid $50 for a visa, so we damn well intended to have a good four day visit!  So imagine my disappointment when we turned up at the border, stamped ourselves out of Malawi, got to the Zambian immigration point and…  Oh.

No one there.

Some loud banging and ringing and shouting and wandering around outside.

No one there.  No one coming.  Zambia, it seems, was shut.  This wasn’t a problem I’d really expected.  Mummy et al had all done so well at not losing their passports, their yellow fever certificates, multiple photographs of themselves, not smuggling things through, but it all kind of relied on the gate being open.  And no chance of turning back - they don’t like you rocking back up at a border you just signed out of.

It was only about 10 minutes before someone showed up, thankfully, and they let us in.  Zambia was worth it, kind of.  Lots of buses.  And a bit of water.  And a taxi driver who played us a song about how Britain is crap because we send Zambian refugees home again on repeat the whole drive to the nearest border town.

Beauty and Claustrophobia in Paradise

As you might have gathered from previous posts, it’s beautiful here.  Really, actually, completely stunning.  There’s everything you could want from a beach-side resort, plenty of activities, laid-back and friendly people.  No wonder so many travellers rock on up and decide to stay for a bit longer (like we have).  Or, in some cases, decide to stay for good.

It was a thought that certainly crossed my mind when we got here.  Wouldn’t it just be great to stay here forever?  To give up carrying around the heavy rucksack and surviving on biscuit crumbs on buses, being hassled by people, no idea where you’re going.  After all, if I do find my ideal place why shouldn’t I stay around?  Maybe not forever, but skip the rest of Africa and hang out here for a bit.

It took less than a day for me to become completely dissuaded of this view.  Yes, there’s a large expat community here (mainly from London, it would seem).  No, I could not stand to be a part of it.  You only have to watch them for a few hours to realise that beneath the happy smiling surface churn turmoils of emotional strife.  The main problem seems to be that there are only two men for all the women here, and that they have taken full advantage of this to make life as complicated as possible.

And yes, there are quite a few of them.  But nowhere near enough to create anything like a comfortable environment.  All too soon, this peaceful idyll showed its true colours; a claustrophobic trap, in which the prettiness of the area juxtaposes so bitterly with the horror of life here.

Here, there are plenty of rocks by the sea.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve all had a girl crying on them at some point in time.  It certainly beats the stairs at a party for view.

Speciality Beers

If there’s one thing I learnt in Tanzania, it’s that all the lagers (and, therefore, all the beers) on sale there taste exactly the same.  The one exception to this rule is Castle lager, which tastes almost the same as the rest, but with an added layer of ming to the flavour.

In an attempt to try an make this massive holiday have some sort of point, I have started to collect the labels from beer bottles in a little notebook.  Sad?  Yes, completely, but there are some well pretty labels out there, and it gives me an excuse to drink as often as possible.  After all, it would be a waste to be aware of a new label and not get hold of it, yeah?  Tanzania filled the pages of the book with its range of identical beers from the same brewery.  I was rather bored of Tanzania.  I couldn’t wait for Malawi.

Little did I know that Carlsberg has sunk its Danish claws into the country, and has a monopoly on the beer market here.  But still, that’s a bit of a range and some you can’t get inside the UK, and it can’t hurt to try them, can it?  And I need labels.  So, following the advice of the man at the bar, I ordered a bottle of “Special”.

What I ended up holding was Special Brew.

Yes, Special Brew.  The stuff you get in the UK.  The stuff drunk mostly by tramps.  This beer is the pride of Malawi, the best they have to offer.  So I drank it.  And you know what?  It might just be in comparison to the Tanzanian lagers, but it’s not half bad actually.  And it’s cheap.  Everyone likes cheap.

So I encourage you all to go out tonight and get hold of a nice bottle of Special Brew.  You might even like it.  If not, you’ll get a good sense of what all African beer tastes like.  Roll on South Africa and the Castle Milky Stout!

The Lake of Stars

Hello everyone!

A rather soggy zebra here wishing you well from The Lake of Stars (that is, Lake Malawi).  Although Mummy et al had not got Malawi on the original itinerary, loads of peple in Tanzania said it was great (and the visa is free) so here we are!  And thank goodness we decided to come.  Malawi is green, very very green, apart from the massive lake down one side of it which is very blue instead.

It’s an enormous body of fresh water which has waves, but not tides (so your bag doesn’t get soaked when you go for a swim, although zebras still do when they accidentally fall off rocks).  It is stunningly blue most of the time, and with sandy beaches it’s easy to forget that it’s nto the sea.  Of course, being a lake you don’t have to battle with salt in the water, and swimming in it is just like having a bath! (this is made more true because all tap and shower water comes straight from the Lake).

It’s called the Lake of Stars because at night it is said that all the fishermen go out in their little dugout canoes with lanterns on and the whole lake sparkles.  This isn’t true at the moment, because it’s the rainy season so each night huge storms rage across the water, but it’s a nice mental image.

Mummy has been making me get up at dawn to watch the sunrise, but so far this has been rather abortive, due to the storms.  On the upside, Mummy now has a large collection of photographs of not-quite lightning, because it is hard to manage.  Some photos of the Lake have gone up now (see photos section), but here’s my favourite one so far:

The lack of lanterns at night is more than made up for by the presence of little green fireflies, which cover the fields and the hills and twinkle on and off in the evening.

I have been doing lots of exciting things here!  I have ridden in a canoe and a kayak, and been line fishing with some fishermen, and got to sit in a boat whilst Mummy went diving.  And there’s a place with free coffee!  Wet zebras can dry out quickly when they’re vibrating in the sun.

Life Lessons

Before getting a bus, you should not:

1.  Challenge the Konyagi warrior.  He graces bottles of gin here.  If you drink enough to impress him he will lower his arms for you on the label.  He will also laugh at your ineptness for the whoel bus ride.

2. Eat a whole pineapple.  That’s just too much pineapple for one digestive tract.

3.  Clean anything.  It will not leave the bus clean.  Even if it’s in a sealed bag inside another bag in a box.

Hunting the Knobblefruit

Bus journeys are great.  You get to rattle along a road, staring blankly out of the window at the same set of shops in the same style towns for hours on end.  It’s rather relaxing, and sort of reassuring in a way too.  But every now and then you see something out of the window which shakes you from the hypnotic monotony with a wave of excitement.

I saw Knobblefruits.

I’ve never seen them before, not even in the biggest Tescos in the UK.  But they were there, growing on trees and being eaten at the side of the road.  And I wanted one.

The problem was, I didn’t know what the damn thigns were called to ask someone.  They look a bit like watermelons in size and colour, although some happen to be brown.  But instead of shiny smooth skin, they are knobbly all over.  Kind of like a pineapple, or possibly the sole of shoe.  They hang out of trees by thick cords and swing about in the breeze.

It took nearly a week of going around the markets in Dar before I found one.  I still dont’ know what it’s called.  In Swahili, it’s a fenes.  Here’s a picture of me sitting on it.

Can anyone name it for me?

Photos

Some more have gone up!  Sadly, my zebra-foo is poor and they are a slightly odd aspect ratio and badly compressed, but be thankful they are there at all - this has taken Internet every day for over a week.  I promise better quality versions at Easter!

Toasty Zebra

19:00.  The sun has set.  The mosquitos are out.  And yes, it’s still 34 degrees Celsuis.  I am a black and red zebra now.