"Exterminate all the Brutes"

Nyasa is the Yao (one of the 4 spoken languages in Malawi) word for “lake”. When the british colonialists came into Malawi they asked the native for the name of the lake. They said it was “Nyasa”. So the british called the lake “Lake Nyasa”, which effectively means “Lake Lake”! The lake Malawi is 560 km long and 75 km large. The boarders of Malawi, Moħambique and Tanzania meet at that lake. Fishing is a pretty important income for the native who catch Chambo and Kampango. One can see the importance of Chambo when you see it printed on many things like textiles:

Sengabay is about 18 km away from Salima at the south of lake Malawi. The beach is original and has not yet seen many foreign tourists. The beach is used by native people for washing, bathing, fixing fishing-nets etc. But men and women bath seperately. The foam of the withe soap looks funny on the black bodies of the Malawians. Because the holydays have started some school classes visit the lake and are very excited taking a bath.

Seeing this idyllic lake one often forgets that there are crocodiles and hippos some of the time. The locals say that one should not go for a swim after 5 pm. That is the time when hippos are crossing at about 15 meters away from the beach.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

To refresh our brains after this weeks of work, last week-end we climbed the mulanje mountain. Our 2 friends from Germany and a guide are part of this adventure. The path is steep, very steep, the heat makes you think, you’ re walkint throug a oven, climbing a cake. The vegetation is amazing. From above, you can have a look down to the villages, the rooves made out of metall, are funkling like stars on the red floor. The floor is plain and wide. Out of nothing, there are this hills and mountains. They look as if a big animals had stoppet, desciding to take a rest.

On the way we cross one of this mans, walking down the mountain, carying a tree on his back. Once more very uncommen for our eyes. As higher we get, as fresher the temperatures are getting. When the nights falls, we finaly arrive to the hat, with a big big hunger.

This big hunger, as also the fact that 4 europeans are meeting who eated in the last 2 month nothing else than nsima or rice with chicken, jambo or beef, provoces long conversations about things like pizza, risotto, olives, gorgonzola, curry and chocolate…

This morning, when I wanted to put on my trousers, the one my tailor in Blanytre made, there was a huge tarantula on it. It must have come in our sleepingroom during the night.

It’s part of our all-days ritual to beat the shoes and the cloths. 🙂

This is how malawian centipedes looks like, and if we can belive in wath Andrew is telling, it is a medium size one 🙂

Yesterday in the morning, I’ve seen “real” african rainshower for the first time. Drops as big as crocodiletears falling by millions and millions on the red soil, filling up the termits hollows. Their only way for them to survive, is to fly into the sky. A quite strange picture to me because it looks as if they would also fall out of the clouths. We really tryed to be at Poly in time, put on a longsleeved shirts and went coureagousely on the road to cetch a minibus. Afrer 3 minutes and 10 seconds, we had to capitulate and go back home, wett as cats fallen in a lake. The picture does show the garderobe at the entry of the library at poly.

Before visiting Chancellor College in Zomba, we drive up Zombamountain, that is 2800m heigh, to look down to the city of Zomba, that is the fourth biggest city in Malawi. Driving upwards, the air gets cooler and fresh, the environment green. The smell of ceder and pine wood is in the air. For our understanding somehow shocking is to see men and women carrying big amounts of wood on top of their heads. Down in the City they will spilt the wood to sell it as firewood.

The “University of Malawi” consists 5 Colleges in the Cities of Zomba (Chancellor College), Blantyre (Polytechnic, College of Medicine, Kamuzu College of Nursing), Lilongwe (Bunda College of agriculture, Kamuzu College of Nusing). The chair of the “University of Malawi” is found in Zomba next to the buildings of the Chancellor College.

The lodge is inside the Nationalpark up on a bank. Our Friends Andrew and David join are joining us.
Otherwise a lot of white germans and very white english and dutch people. This place is quiet, the dorms are hidden inconspicuous between the bushes. As inconspicuous, that the gekos, the saurians and spiders and also the monkays and hippos agree to share their place with us. We descide to go for a nightsafari. The term safari comes out of the arabic word of traval. Erlier it ment a travel who mainly had the aim to bag the big fives. Today it mostly meens a travel into wildrich areas, on wich is shot at the most with the camera.

The guide combs with a very bright ligh the flor and the trees, to find some animals. His eyes are sharp, as sharp as he is even able to find a chameleon hidden into the bush. Nightsafari has something from a ride trough a dream. For our two natives friends indeed, is the question about the possibility of preparation and taste of the different animals in the foreground.

Very enthusiastic from this safari thing, we descide also to go for a morning safari by walking. After a early the, we go to walk long distances over the steppe and aproches us slowly the herds of watterbags, hippos, krokodiles and elafants. We go as far, as we can look with the binoculars into the eyes of his animals. Anyways, we are still alive, and also the animals, exept the cockroach who wanted to be confortable in our car.

Frank, our cook, finds a “chamaeleo dilepis petersi”, that he kept in a box for us until we got home. I don’t believe my eyes, when I see it.
Later I try to tell David the sensation and feeling it causes. I explain, that it might be about the same sensation for a malawian to see snow, for the first time in his life.
That animal is moving forward so incredibly slow and quiet. After holding it in our hands for about half an hour it still behaves as if it was still not beeing seen. In fact it still isn’t there at all.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.