From Nkhata Bay, Chris and I took the LOOOOOONG bus ride to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. The capital itself is pretty nondescript (another big, dusty, African city), but it was our launching point for South Luangwa National park in Eastern Zambia.
Bus rides themselves have turned out to be quite an adventure in Africa. While Chris and I definitely get tired of the zero-leg-room-chicken-in-your-face-baby-in-your-lap scenario, it can actually be an interesting way to interact with locals and get a little window into aspects of a country’s culture that you otherwise might miss.
The bus ride to Lilongwe was interesting lesson in African “lining up”. In Nkhata Bay, we waited patiently on the side of the road, with a handful of other people, for the bus to show up. When the bus finally arrived, 20-30 people seemingly appeared from nowhere and rushed at the bus door. Chris and I, who were definitely the first people waiting for the bus, were essentially the last people to board the bus, and we didn’t get seats (instead, we got to practice our hang-on-for-your-life-skills). En route to Lilongwe, we hit several police checkpoints and the whole bus had to disembark, wait, and then re-board. Needless to say, we got to experience African mob-style “lining up” several times. By the 3rd checkpoint, we were getting the hang of it, and weren’t the last ones to re-board the bus!
When we finally did get seats, Chris and I were separated. I sat next to a really nice Malawian guy who had lots of questions about the US. One of my favorites was “Do you have your father’s blessing to go traveling with him (pointing to Chris)?” To which I responded that yes, I think I probably do. Another good one was “Where do these Peace Corps volunteers come from? Are they just the people from the US who have nothing else to do, so you send them to Malawi?” To which I responded that the Peace Corps are volunteers (not exiles), and that it’s actually a very selective program. I should also note that my new seat-mate had an Obama backpack, and was really excited that the US elected an African American president.
Once we arrived in Lilongwe, our main mission was to get a multi-entry visa for Zambia. Since we were only going into Zambia for a couple of days, and are planning to make it back to the country to visit Vic Falls, we didn’t want to fork over a ton of money for just the single entry visa. We showed up at the Zambian embassy on Monday morning only to discover that it was closed for a Zambian national holiday. Fortunately, the guard took pity on us, and let us into the embassy to hunt down the 1 person who was there. We wandered through the Zambian embassy knocking on doors trying to find someone (I think if you were caught doing the same thing in an American embassy, you’d end up being tasered and/or tackled by multiple security guards). When we finally did find an employee, it was the ambassador himself. He took us to his office, gave us the forms for the visa and said that he’d make sure we got our visas in one day. I thought that this episode was particularly emblematic of a theme I’ve seen over and over again in Africa: Even if things are hectic and disorganized, it typically works out in the end, and there’s always some sort of solution (though it often requires hefty doses of patience and flexibility).
-Julia
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