Ruarwe Hike

by Dom on September 26th, 2008

Just got back from the Ruarwe hike as I call it. It’s actually a hike from Mlowe to Usisya. I arrived in Mzuzu at 5:30am. It’s been a long day and it’s only 8:30 but I figure now’s the time to tell the story. So Paige and I started on sunday I think. We hitched up to Chiweta, which is just past the escarpment in Karonga district in the north. We took a matola(small truck crammed with people) on a pleasant ride down a dirt road to a coastal town of Mlowe. There we just took a right down a road and kept walking for about four days. The road dwindled into a path pretty quickly and it mostly followed pretty closely along the lake shore. I had heard it can be hiked with two four hour days and a six hour day. We packed two loaved of peanut butter sandwiches and planned on inviting ourselves to eat with the locals.

The first day it was windy, really really windy. Clear and sunny but almost cold because of the wind. We hiked for about an hour, found a beach and went swimming. Stopped for lunch, got sima and goat! That’s pretty much how the story goes. We did that for a while the first day. Maybe 5+ hours. Ended up camping on a beach at Chisanga. It was a weird and beautiful place. Real secluded but apparently well off. I saw a lot of glass windows and iron rooves. While we sat on the beach recouping and waiting for dinner to be ready some kids swarmed. Some brought some tamarind and I found out that they are pretty good. Real sour. Like one or two will burn my tongue. I told them I liked them and they brought me a plastic grocery bag full of them. I still am eating them. We had rice and vegetables for dinner there. We also signed some guest book and heard stories about how other visitors stayed for weeks.

The next day the path got more treacherous. That’s the only word for it. It got a lot more narrow and sandy and high and rocky. I was using my hands to climb some hills, I wouldn’t say they were mountains. We would hike for kilometers on almost nothing but rock. Rock cut out of the side of a hill or placed there to maintain the path. We stopped and swam at a couple beaches ate some of our sandwiches for breakfast and snacks. This second day was overcast mostly. It got hot in the afternoon but soon the sun was behind the mountain so it wasn’t bad. We had gotten a much earlier start than other people who we had talked to so we had gotten further the first day and became ambitious the second day and tried to push through to Ruarwe(take some time figure out how to say it…now continue). We were starting to feel the wait of our packs and the Chaco sandals were starting to wear on our feet. After continously asking people how far to ruarwe and getting answers from three hours to one hour, though in no particular order and repeated multiple times we decided to stop. It was around 5:30pm when we stopped at Kandowe. We were beat and had probably done more like 6+ hours of hiking that day. I inquired if they had a resteraunt. They didn’t, however one of the guys we were talking to said he’d feed us. Awesome. He just lived at the top, the peak, the zenith, of this hill/mountain. I was again on my hands as I climbed up there. We had Usipa and cassava sima. I don’t mean to be an ingrate but I wasn’t pleased. Usipa is little fish about the length of your pinky and they let them dry in the sun and then they weren’t cooked. You eat them whole. I skipped the heads and left them in a little pile in the bowl. Lunch had been fish too, a little bigger different fish that was cooked. Though had still been left in the sun in preparation for the meal. Not the best marinade. Afterward we pretty much slid down the hill on our butts back to the beach and set up tents.

The third day we set off with the knowledge that when we asked how far to Ruarwe we were told 2-3hrs or 1hr if you were strong. What does that mean. We ended up taking about 2.5hrs. I guess we weren’t strong, I’m ok with that. That part was equally if not more treacherous with more steep steep hills and rocky precipices. We made it to Ruarwe around lunch time. We found out that it is about six hours to Usisya from there and decided not to stay the night there but to knock some hours out later that day, beach camp again and finish the next day. Also I had heard(incorrectly) that Usisya was the better lodge. So we stayed for lunch at Ruarwe. I tried to nap and did some snorkling too. We stayed there about four hours. It was a nice break. My feet were really hurting then. We finally left around three. Pushed on through some of the most hilly and landlocked part of the hike. It was crazy seeing the hills and the people just marching up and down them carrying water on their head or whatever. We reached a beach and camped around five. Ate only our sandwiches for dinner and had some coffee. I played a little guitar and we guyed out our tents to some beach ivy because for like 40min there was intense wind. It stopped when I finished tying them down and I don’t think it came back all night. Annoying but still necessary, the wind was blowing our tents over with our packs and stuff inside them. It had to be done.

The next day we did about three and a half hours and made it to Usisya. Thats when we found out the inferiority of it. It was ok, we were glad to be finished. I had blisters and a sore heel and it was nice to not have to walk anymore that day. It felt kind of like when Jenn and I got to Likoma though. Just very unsatisfying. The kicker was when we found out the 5am matola out actually is a 2am matola. I decided not to sleep and made a liter of instant coffee. It didn’t help, I found this hanging bed, it was amazing. I slept. Only to find out that the 2am matola was actually a 1am matola and we were late. So we basically ran to the thing half asleep with my feet screaming and my pack half closed. I had heard stories of this matola. I was hoping to plan this whole trip around avoiding this matola. I envisioned a small brown pickup with about thirty people plus stuff in it skidding its way up this mountain ledge. I was pleasantly surprised. It turned out to be what we(and I think the UK-ians also) call a lorry. Like a big flat bed but with like two foot sides. So we crammed in this thing sitting on crates of empty beer bottles and usipa coming to the market in mzuzu and climbed our way up a surprisingly well maintained path/road. I was on a bag of fish, pinched between some luggage and a wall. Fortunately not the cliff side. I almost slept on the thing although it was cold and windy up through those hills and the constant honking to wake up any one who might want a ride didn’t help. The trail took us about two and a half hours through the mountains under a full moon and then we just appeared in Mzuzu at dawn. The road we came in on I didn’t think left town, just looped around. I was wrong. Now I’m here, showered up, sore and tired. I got some sweet photos though, of course.

Oh an amusing story. We were hiking past this house, there was a small dog(all the dogs are small), it was barking it’s head off. I turned my head slowly to look at it and it yelped and ran away inside. Just freaked out and ran off. I mean, I scare babies but dogs are a new one for me.

Jon and Emily

by Dom on June 27th, 2008

So Jon and Emily came and went. It was a great time. We spent a few days at my house where they saw me teach and helped me get water. We spent some time in Lilongwe doing fourth of July stuff and we went to the lake for a few days as well. I was impressed with how they handled all the situations. Like they were old pro’s or something. They were so easy it was great. They even cleaned my house and filled up all my water buckets while I was teaching the last day we were there.

It was nice for others to see the kind of things I get to face day in and day out. Like sweet random hitches and food that almost tastes American. We all actually thought it did taste American until Jon corrected us. Out of a room of 10 I think half did a double take when he said nik naks tasted nothing like cheetoh’s. Amusing. I got him hooked on bao. I just hope he finds people to play with besides Emily, cause I know she’ll get tired of it. If he doesn’t I just keep whooping him when I get back, well he did beat me two consecutive times and deemed himself the bao champion and started talking smack to Malawians saying he was the best. I don’t think he ever let them challenge his title though. He also was kind enough to bring a soccer ball for my school which was in desperate need of one. Though now, two weeks later, it’s almost unrecognizable from the bunch. It’s amazing how they treat things.

I think they had a good time. It was stressed by some of my previous engagements but they were good sports about it and seemed to make the best of it all. We made it to the lake and thats all I really wanted to do. Now they’re home safe. Back reliable transportation and food, and traffic jams, mcdonalds and headaches. Although I think traffic fume headaches are worse than sun/boredom ones. I’m extremely glad they came and I think everyone enjoyed meeting friends of mine.

new head and other parts

by Dom on February 16th, 2008

so the shift key doesn’t work here. it’s obnoxious. i got a new headmaster. my old one was awesome but got transfered to a school that has just started. so i got some new guy. doesn’t really seem to know whats going on. i gotta say it’s really decreased my dedication to the school but it’s harder just not having someone that’s easy to ask questions to about culture or just the best carpenter. the deputy headmaster left to, so we’re a teacher shorter than we were. i think we’re at 6 with me. not too many. oh well.

did the science experiment thing at my school. had over 100 students and a few teachers there. it was pretty awesome. gonna try it again next week at yorgos’ site. he’s got a lot bigger school so things will be a bit different. i’m happy with how it’s turned out though.

i think some other things have gone down but i just don’t really remember them right now. my students are kind of pissing me off with how little effort they seem to give compounded with how little they seem to be paying attention in class too. i’ll go through a whole problem explaining it. one that i gave for homework - that no one did. a kid will say ‘i don’t understand any of it, can you just repeat it?’ wastes a whole class cause they can’t put effort forward. this of course also decreases my dedication. whatever.

just got back from a night at the lake though. it was needed. a nice relaxing party and swim. great weather too; we’re in a drought right now. the rains have stopped for a couple of weeks. might try to see this ex-pat today too who has a shop and keeps a lot of potentially useful trash. she said we could rummage through it to see if we needed any of it for the experiments.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

by Dom on December 31st, 2007

Back in Lilongwe. New Years is tonight I guess, woohoo. Almost forgot about it. I’m a bit more excited because Jenn comes back tomorrow. However right now I have a Gastro-Intestinal Tract Infection. Which means I have lots of cramping and other things that most people don’t like when I say.

Christmas at Paiges was good though. Played a lot of bored games, went swimming and had duck. Bought it off this lady who claimed she didn’t have any, but there were like 10 waddlin around her. So we got one, for K500 too. She said we had to pay more because we were white though and we did the whole, I’m-gonna-fake-walk-away-cause-I-know-you-want-the-money-more-than-the-duck trick. It worked. She buckled, we paid, but it was still over priced. Apparently ducks are like 3 or 4 normally. Whatever. It was good. We ate it with potatoes.

After that I went to visit Jessie for a bit in Nkhotakhota. We basically just ambled around town. Helped her turn an old chicken coup into a dog house. By that I mean I moved it into her courtyard. Her place was pretty snazzy. However I think that’s where I got my little belly viper, I mean GI Infection.

All that said, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Nkhata Bay and Likoma Island(or Chizimulu)

by Dom on August 24th, 2007

So I went and got scuba certified. Pretty sweet. Went at this place called Aqua Africa, supposedly the cheapest place in the world. So I’ve now done six dives in Lake Malawi. It was really sweet. I did it in hopes of doing some even better stuff in Mozambique and Zanzibar when I finally make it there.

Jenn and I went out to Likoma island. That was a bit of a trip. We got on the boat, The Illala, at 6pm on Monday, it left Nkhata Bay around 8, and we got to the first island, Chizimulu, around midnight. We stayed at that island until 6am and then went the last hour and a half to Likoma in the daylight. A good bit absurd I thought, but whatever. We got lucky and met an former VSO couple that was doing it right and had bought a cabin to likoma but decided to get off at Chizimulu and so they let us stay in their cabin the remaining time. We didn’t realize it would be another 8 hours until Likoma so we kept waking up in a panic only to find out that the boat hadn’t left. Then we get there, there’s only two ports with an actual pier so they drop the life boats to ferry people to shore. It’s everyman for themselves at that point and what a pain. Jenn got a fishhook threw her foot while waiting to get on the little boat.

We finally get to shore and have no clue where we’re going. So we start asking how to get to Mango Drift, the backpackers lodge we hoped to stay at. (I say hoped because there was no means of contacting them for prices or reservations so you just have to hope it all works out). It turned out to be almost an hour walk. But we made it with the help of a random kid guiding us. It was kind of hidden tucked up under a little ledge right behind a few village houses. I’m not sure what we were really expecting but the place was sparce. There were a few huts with nice concrete floors and bamboo walls and one big straw roofed pavilion where the bar and tables were. The only people staying there were the seven of us that just walked up.

The staff turned out to be less than pleased to help and, we found out later, there was an electricity problem on the island and so there wasn’t much food to be had. So after the un-welcomeing welcome we decided to try to get back to Chizimulu because it sounded much better. But it turns out we couldn’t use credit cards at this place, which honestly does seem a bit ridiculous but we were so reassured we believed. So therefore we were a bit strapped for cash and couldn’t afford the ferry over and just decided to go back and suffer through.

It turns out the only real problem with the place was the staff and not all of them at that. The hut was fine, the beach was beautiful, and the food we could get was pretty good (no cheese, no fruit, no oatmeal…) we ended up just getting the same thing every meal, except dinner. Dinner was a one kind thing meat or vegetarian, and everyone got the same thing.

After a day or two the others who had come with us had gone off on further travels to Mozambique or to Chizimulu and so we had the place to ourselves. It was really nice, I did absolutely nothing. There supposedly was a really nice cathedral on the island, never saw it. The most I did was go to the other really nice resort twice. Once to complain about the staff where we were and the other to get first-aid stuff for Jenn. She had the good fortune to almost rip her pinky toenail off from hitting a rock in the water. She’s doing good now though.

So she did that on the last day we were there, so I guess that’s some kind of luck…then we were waiting for the Illala again. It’s suppose to arrive at 4pm. We paid K600 to be ferried to the Illala whenever it does decide to show. We ended up getting on around 3am, after another stop in Chizimulu we finally made it back to Nkhata bay around 5pm. So our 12hr initial trip was trumped by the 14hr return trip. yay. There were 10′ seas coming back too that boat, though fairly big was rolling.

The VSO couple we met came to Likoma a few days later and also realized the error they made. The stories they told of the other place with it’s two bars, one for day and the other for night, and it’s multiple little paved alcoves to lay out in at different times of the day, and more food options and cheaper prices made us realize what to do next time. Chizimulu’s a shorter trip on the boat both ways too. I think the highlight of the unwelcomeness was when we asked to get a fire started under the water in the outdoor shower and the guy said only if there was already water in it because he wouldn’t get water for just two people, and then, I guess there was enough water, he yelled at Jenn in Chichewa to help him carry firewood. Good times.

All in all though it was still a solid vacation and if we wouldn’t have gone we’d still be wondering “what about Likoma” but now we know. Chizimulu’s the place to go.

The good times

by Dom on April 24th, 2007

Things these past weeks have been pretty cool. Probably the best time I’ve had in this country. It began with the wardrobe malfunction during the bike training in dedza. Stupid crappy abercrombie and fitch jeans. Then, on into IST, down to blantyre and mulanje, back up through lilongwe and on to nkhata bay to stay at mayoka village on the lake. That place was awesome, right on the water, awesome atmosphere, good food, cool people, and just all around real laid back. Sergio came with me and we met some others volunteers there. Ended up meeting a lot of real cool people too, some gap year british folk, some irish folk, two sweedish girls, a peruvian and another dude from LA. All of them, save the brit’s, got a minibus with sergio and are headed north (to alaska, goin’ north the rush is on). He should have a good time, I’m sure it’s the trip of a life time. It was pretty crazy to meet people with zero affiliation with the US. It was great though, it really gives a new perspective on everything.

Also, in the midst of a site-change process. I just don’t like my site and it makes me feel ill when I realize it’s time to go back. The same feeling I used to have when I realized I had to do dynamics homework. Not good. Also, I’m going to try a toned down version of “the book” the one for teaching reference, not “the book” for language reference, gunda icho. The latter has actually come along quite nicely. The former however has a long way to go. I think it will be good though. I’m suppose to get a call tomorrow from Dora and we can talk some more, she called me today and we had some discussions but it was more about how my expectations weren’t going to be met, as usual. So hopefully these talks will be relatively fruitful tomorrow.

It’s sad to have chris gone and sergio re-gone, but when I think about the site change and the book, I get a little excited and that’s something that hasn’t happened in, oh say, 7 months. And I know sergio’s going to have a good time, and chris has to be loving it, literally.

Lastly, I’m over 6 months out of date on the music scene, but the eagles of death metal, ok go, incubus, gnarls barkley, and hellogoodbye are still rockin’. Do it.

P.S. Elin, that paper you wrote the email address of that icelandic slaughterhouse on got all smeared in my wet pocket and now it’s un-readable, I’m retarded I know. Anyway, could you leave me that email address again if you have it? tak(?)

Things

by Dom on December 12th, 2006

So I’m using the internet now in Lilongwe. Tomorrow we swear in and become real volunteers, and then it’s off to site. Thursday that is. The schedule is pretty slammed and the internet was down the entire last week at the training site. So I guess a brief recap is in order.

Site visit. Well I can honestly say I know what the craziest experience of my life is. So I hitched with Mary Cate, since her site was on the way, to my place. It was an on-and-off trip of great fun and a lot of walking. Well maybe 7km total. We ended up doing most of the time in the cab of a truck with a driver named Simian that’d been driving for 9yrs and hoped to go to America one day to drive tractor trailers. Or so he says. I guess only time will tell. One thing I found amusing, when people flash their lights at you it isn’t because a cop is right around the corner. It’s because they know you and are saying hi. That’s how many people drive trucks here.

The adjective I decided my site merited was pleasant. I can see Zambia on the horizon and the sunrise from the other side. There are tons of fruit trees, orange, lemons, mangos. Mmmm, mango’s. My school has less than 150 at any given time, and my class size is pretty much the total divided by 4. So quite reasonable compared to what was previously expected. My house is nice too, four rooms, with a courtyard, an outdoor kitchen, a baffa and a chim. The standard set up. So much so actually that Chris and I have the same layout and we’re in two different districts.

After site visit, I went to see the summer school put on by first year education volunteers, which we will be in a year or so. Then I decided to take the lakeshore road south because it seemed like the same distance, M1 or M5. I was warned that the M5 was slower and that there weren’t many cars. I figured I had all day and there should be some tourists. No tourists. I left Mzuzu at 8:30am and got into Lilongwe at 10:30pm. That includes the hour I spent in Salima, which is probably the worst hour of my life. Bar none(that I can think of right now). The ramen noodles Jessie let me have were thoroughly appreciated.

Then it was back to training to process our visit and have our headmasters come so they could find out what we are actually suppose to be doing at their schools. It was a good time.

Now I just got my passport, which is awesome because I live so close to Zambia. And I just bought a guitar, which is also awesome because I’ve been playing Chris’ so much recently. I paid about $140 US, or like K19.5 Malawian. It’s no sparkly red sub-fender awesomeness but it’ll do. Hopefully if someone comes to visit they will walk mine over as a carry on. It’s possible, that’s how Chris got his here.

Speaking of visiting. Come. Seriously, I can show you around, you can stay at my house, we can go see the sites. However, my site doesn’t have running water, power, or cell phone service, so make sure you send the letter or email way in advance if you want me to be waiting for you at the airport. However if you feel comfortable using Malawian transport, have at it. I do like surprises.

One last thing, I have some updated addresses for people. I’m going to send an email. If you don’t get the email, ask someone, they may have, if no one got it, still use the old one. It will always work.

Oh and if you want to send me stuff, besides the stuff already below, gray shirts, decent flip flops(that fit), and wash clothes would be awesome. I guess frisbee’s and a yoga mat, and other trivialities would be nice as well. Oh and cheese products of any kind. Really anything you send is greatly appreciated.

After this don’t expect to see much up here for a while. Thanks.