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Apr 1, 2020 | 1:30 pm

maastrichtmouse

Join Date: May 2015

Location: Here, unless I'm out.

Programs: BAEC, Flying Blue, Eurostar, Miles&Smiles

Posts: 330

A quick out and back to rural Malawi

In February 2020 I undertook a brief 14 day trip to rural Malawi to conduct qualitative research in a rural district of Malawi along the Mozambique border and just off the road from Lilongwe to Blantyre.

Flights:
KLM: DUS-AMS
KQ: AMS-NBO
KQ: NBO-LLW

KQ: LLW-NBO
KQ: NBO-AMS
KLM: AMS-DUS

The flights were all perfectly uneventful. While I live in the Netherlands we tend to start journeys at the airports in NRW in Germany or Brussels as they are closer. However, on this occasion, by far the cheapest routing took us to Amsterdam anyway. The flight to Amsterdam was brief and uneventful. The connection was relatively lengthy, unfortunately. But as the COVID-19 situation was beginning to bite in China, there were few people in the airport. The flight to Nairobi was rammed full and very warm, so I didn't sleep well. We pushed back late and arrived late and thence sadly had to be towed to our gate due to building work in foggy Nairobi. I had just 15 minutes to make my connection. I got through security as they were paging me. In the end, I made it. There were temperature checks in Nairobi. The flight to Lilongwe was more than 2/3 empty so I could sleep well. We had lovely views of Kilimanjaro on the way, as well as over the tea and tobacco fields of Malawi on landing. There was a chlorine wash on arrival in Lilongwe as well as a temperature check. There is now an e-visa for Malawi. I had not done this, and got visa on arrival which necessitates three booths and costs $50. However, the line for the e-visa was for just one booth, so took far longer than applying for the visa on arrival. I proceeded to the hotel and crashed out asleep.

For a small and relatively geo-politically unimportant country, Malawi is hard to conceptualise. Rather than the slightly frantic energy of Kenya, Malawi has a certain lethargy mixed with genuine openness and warmth. The capital, Lilongwe, is a sleepy city nestled inside high, decorative walls and florid gardens and the song of dozens of songbirds. It's stillness and silence, punctuated only by the sounds of nature, is quite restful. My preferred hotel (Africa House in Area 10) is a perfect oasis to rest the soul. Strolling or driving round the city is relatively stress free. Traffic lights and road signs remarkably reminiscent of home in the UK guide traffic which approximately follows the rules of the road. Products from South Africa and the UK line most higher-end food shop shelves, but most harking back a few decades. Bird's Eye custard, Cadbury's chocolate, Imperial Lather soap and meat pies. The city is low, the highest thing around often the trees, oppressed by the southern African heat. A sense of order, respect and a gentile old fashioned approach to society. Everybody bids you good day, and when you ask how they are, they tell you. On previous contracts I have travelled extensively around Malawi, but never to my intended destination on this occasion.

After a day or so in Malawi, I jumped in the double cabin and hit the M1 south. The research site chosen by my contracted agency is Ntcheu, along the Mozambique border. After a couple of hours on the M1 we reach Ntcheu. The town runs along the north-south road, parallel to a series of valleys to the west. The mountain was more often than not shrouded in a thick swirling grey cloud. The heat of Lilongwe dissipated into a cool, damp coolness. The top of the mountain remained elusive through much of the trip, but heavy rain and thunder made itself well-known. Mid-way through the trip the government issued an emergency notification that this area was likely to experience natural disaster. The stoic green, rocky, mountains provided a calmness over the area; everything was made minuscule by the hulking hills. The land was verdant, flowers blooming and trees languidly poking towards the cloud. While walking from the offices in the evening, if one timed it right, the sun would set under the ever-present cloud layer and shine golden beams under the cloud, illuminating the valley under the cloud.
Suffering in the villages in which the research was to take place was quite harrowing. Poverty is a grinding reality for the majority in the district, especially during the lean season before harvest when food is scarce and prices are high. How little we can do, how much we ignore, how alien my reality and theirs must be. Boys tended goats, roaming the high grass and muddy ground. Women gathered what money and food they could, men were often away for work in fields, different districts or Mozambique. It's near impossible to express the feeling of inadequacy.
My hotel was more than slightly eccentric, with a lovely proprietor, an enthusiastic cook, no water but reliable power. Each morning the proprietor would knock on my door at about 06.45 to check whether I had taken my bath. But, the bed was relatively comfortable, the television got a single South African English language channel. The chef could cobble together a half-way decent meal, if a little repetitive and focused on chips and white bread. There was a Kips (chain of chicken/BBQ restaurants in Malawi) next door which dealt with my samosa addiction and provided better coffee (still terrible). Fieldwork generally occupied my days, or conducting interviews in the district offices housed in traditional, British-looking offices complete with Land Rover Defender parked under a large tree. Inside the building were safes constructed in West Bromwich in the UK. A little piece of England in a far off field. By and large, the people I met and engaged with were delightful, engaging, positive, professional and with a wonderful vision for the district and its population. I am very excited to visit again and see how it changes. Despite this energy, there was a certain air of waiting, eternal waiting, under the cloudy skies, waiting for better times to come.

After 7 days of work in the district I returned to Lilongwe eager for hot water, air conditioning and a variety of tasty food. I settled up with the cars and checked back into Africa House, the lap of luxury. I spent the next few days meeting government officials for our report and conducting meetings. In the evenings my colleague (who arrived after fieldwork) walked through the stunning gardens, drank cold beers and ate at restaurants housed in English-style houses set in tropical gardens. The food was by and large delicious - Mexican food, Italian food and Indian food in a surprising part of the world but all delicious. The gardens were alive with nature, sometimes a bit too much so. In particular, large, foot long millipedes which appeared in great numbers. The gardens of restaurants were often in total darkness, along with the car park. On one particular evening a piercing and panicked scream emanated from the car park shortly after two women headed to their car. We all dropped everything and ran out only to find the two women staring in horror at a millipede. Laughs all round and back to dinner. Overnight, enormous rain storms would often deluge the world, shaking me awake initially before providing the perfect white noise for sleep. So much peace surrounded by chaotic emotions of seeing suffering and poverty.

All too soon it was time to leave; happy to go back to my partner and life, but also feeling leaving is impossible. The waiting under an enormous sky, a sense of place, of belonging, of irrepressible beauty. In the end, I'm glad we had to leave when we did as it didn't take many weeks to pass before borders all the world over slammed shut.

My flight home was particularly punishing. My colleague and I were on the 02.40 departure out of Lilongwe to Nairobi on KQ's Embraer 175. We tried to find things to amuse us before leaving for the airport. The restaurant closed at 22.00, unfortunately, but the hotel permitted us to stay on the patio with some beers after they locked the doors. We spent some time playing cards with the bar staff. Our taxi got us to the airport about midnight, only to find it closed and in the dark. Thankfully the waiting room was open. Eventually check-in opened and we could get our boarding cards and go through immigration and the second round of security. The lovely gentlemen was afraid I wouldn't be able to convert my remaining currency and offered to take it off my hands. I politely declined. We waited in the new section of the airport, a particularly uncomfortable area to sit and wait. About an hour before the flight, a gentleman stood up and advised us to check our immigration stamps as he had noticed his exit stamp was for the month before. I checked and, indeed, I had been stamped out the month before I arrived. Back through the airport to get her to scribble out the date and write a new date in in biro and sign it. Hope this won't be an issue later... The aircraft arrived and we boarded. There can't have been more than 30 people on the flight. I passed out before the plane had finished taxiing and didn't wake up until the lights came on upon arriving on stand in Nairobi. Our layover was about 2 hours before the Amsterdam flight. We grabbed a coffee and waited in the separate gate areas European flights get shoved into. Fears about the virus were not really present, though some passengers wore masks (more than usual). Totally unrelated a poor girl was vomiting relentlessly (I overheard the mother tell the cabin crew it was travel sickness). She vomited powerfully hourly through the entire flight. The charming women sitting next to me on the flight also had digestive issues but were delightful companions otherwise and we chatted most of the flight.

We arrived in stormy Amsterdam and went through security. Unfortunately, the winds were powerful across Europe and there were heavy delays to destinations across Germany. I was completely shattered by this point as I didn't sleep on the all-day flight from Nairobi. Mercifully, despite looking touch and go for a while, our Dusseldorf flight was announced as on-time. We boarded and took off into turbulent skies. The very short flight was bumpy and landing lively. Back to the car (having spent a good 15 mins remembering where I parked... The heavens opened on the drive back to the Netherlands. A long journey gratefully safely concluded.