Mission Malawi 1 - March 2004
David Cawley from the very first Mission Malawi team tells us all about the inaugural trek.
An unexpectedly hearty breakfast greeted us at the Korean Garden Lodge as we awoke from our unexpectedly sound night’s sleep in Lilongwe. It was our first night in Malawi – indeed, our first ever night in Africa – and none of us had really expected to be so well looked after. This was a charity challenge after all; it was about discomfort, self-sacrifice and hardship - not soft pillows, scrambled eggs and clean showers.
My eight male comrades and I sat in virtual silence, nervously pondering what the day ahead would hold, and wishing we had done more training in the gym before setting off on this ludicrous adventure. The hush was broken when Claire joined us and announced, rather too vociferously for the nine men around the table, that despite her best efforts to avoid such a situation, her time of the month had arrived…with a vengeance. Oh well, only six days of strenuous cycling ahead, in sauna-like conditions!
Once we’d packed our gear into the truck, squeezed into our lycra and donned our helmets, we were introduced to a group of ActionAid volunteers, who had come to help set our wheels in motion. It was just the buzz we needed to get underway. Our peculiar-looking convoy of 10 white folks on snazzy mountain bikes and 40 Malawians on rickety two-wheeled death-traps caused quite a commotion as it passed through the outskirts of the capital en route to our official starting point at Mponela. You could see a unanimous look of bemusement on all the faces which stared at us from the roadside – each seeming to enquire “What the hell are you doing, you freaks?!” I was asking myself the same question.
Ironically, despite my being almost the oldest participant of the group, a relatively ardent smoker, drinker and gym avoider, I was probably the most prepared for what was ahead. I’d already taken part in a life-changing bike-ride in Vietnam 2 years before, and had just completed a similarly magical journey round Cuba a few weeks earlier.
Riding the sometimes unpredictable hybrid mountain bike northwards, we had left early in the morning to avoid the barbaric heat and humidity. Every couple of hours it was necessary to reapply sun cream over filthy and sweat-soaked skin, to snack, drink and perform any maintenance needed on bike and body. People passed by; many stopped to stare. Men wanted to practise their English while the women remained silent, coy and prone to occasional pointing and giggling at my wretched state. Universal experience had taught me that the sight of my unwashed, wheezing, overweight and abused body always brought crowds of the curious and amused out of their huts.
We rode over the pitted dirt tracks through glorious deciduous woodland uphill towards the verdant Ntchisi Forest. "It looks a bit like Scotland” shouted Andy Heald from somewhere ahead as we climbed up through the mists of the clouds. “It reminds me of The Alps”, I responded, voice quivering and shuddering from the impact of ruts and pot-holes on the larynx.
Suddenly, mindless landscape comparisons turned to profanities as an unforeseen and undignified separation from the saddle brought me closer to Malawi than was strictly necessary. Already exhausted, I was hot and bothered, covered in mud and now somewhat irritable, having just taken a taste of sub-Saharan dirt from amongst an intertwined heap of limbs and bicycle mechanism. I was also experiencing, I noted, not inconsiderable stabs of pain down my left arm. The day had already seen Drew Stokes hauling himself out of a babbling brook after parting company with his bike at top speed, and David Warde flinging himself dramatically into a pile of loose chippings, but somehow, my little sideways topple in the wet mud managed to inflict the most damage. The worst news was that our resting place for the night was still quite a way ahead of us, up some very steep, muddy hills; the only way forward was to push. One–handed.
The sight of Ntichisi Forest Lodge was one of the most welcome visions I can remember: a lovely old colonial house, run by a slightly dotty South African lady called Jean. It was basic, but the views over the treetops towards the Great Rift Valley were utterly spectacular, and the heady concoction of Ibuprofen washed down with Jean’s recommended MGT (Malawi Gin & Tonic) took at least some of the pain away.
March is the end of the rainy season in Malawi - which explained all that mud I’d had to push through earlier on - so the nocturnal four-hour thunderstorm shouldn’t have been much of a surprise. Coupled with the waning effects of the drink and drugs on my sore limb, the noise of the rain hammering on the tin roof of the lodge made for a very restless night indeed.
The rain held off for our departure the next morning, but my arm was in bloody agony. I was determined to carry on, though, so I dosed myself up with pills and stood there motionless as Dr Richard “Tricky” Nixon fashioned a Heath Robinson-style sling from a dirty Mission Malawi T-shirt. Cycling downhill on muddy, shingle-strewn slopes was pretty hair-raising – especially as I had one arm virtually strapped to my chest. Changing gear was like a military operation: gingerly lifting the left arm out of its holster and taking control of the bike, whilst leaning to one side in order to shift the gear-lever with the fully-operational hand. About two hours into our journey, there was a disturbance ahead, and I pulled up to the rest of the group to find David Warde covered in fresh injuries, which he’d just sustained by skidding spectacularly off the downhill slopes and into a rather thorny-looking bush. That was going to smart.
Luckily, as we progressed further downhill towards the Shire Valley and Lake Malawi below, the weather improved noticeably, the mud disappeared and the dirt-tracks flattened out, making the ride much easier on arse and arm.
That evening was spent at the Nkotakhota Pottery Lodge, the first of the overnight pit stops by the lake shore before continuing our journey up the middle third of the lake. Across the water to the east, were the mountains of Mozambique and Tanzania. Hovering over the lake in between, like smoke plumes from burning tyres, dense clouds of lake flies, known locally as Kungu, congregated over the surface. Godfrey Shawa, our guide, told us they were caught in nets, crushed to a pulp and then eaten. Not being one to shirk the opportunity to embark on new culinary exploits, on this occasion, I was content to make do with the bland, but always welcome offering of chicken and rice, followed by liberal applications of deep heat and more of that excellent, mosquito-deterring local gin and tonic. Purely medicinal, of course…
At sunset, wallowing in the warm lake water that gently lapped an idyllic, pristine, white sandy beach was further relief for complaining muscles. The therapy was short lived, though. While drying myself off, Godfrey decided to warn us of the potential dangers from all local aquatic creatures great and small. Clusters of reed beds scattered along the banks of the water can be colonised with snails infected with bilharzias - a nasty, squirm-inducing parasite that enters the body through any orifice available, whether you’re clothed or not. “It may be worth”, he also suggested rather too calmly and belatedly, “staying out of the water after 6pm to avoid rare but potential attacks from hippo and crocodile”.
However, having witnessed the Keystone Cop nature of our cycling abilities and the sloth-like characteristics of our early-morning awakenings, it was surprising he was still around to give any advice at all.
David Warde and I licked our wounds; my arm was by now quite swollen and difficult to move, and David’s back, shoulders and arms were covered in angry-looking sores, which suppurated in a very unappetising manner. As the scabs crusted over, he was forced to carry himself in a somewhat effeminate, limp-wristed posture, which annoyed him intensely but amused the rest of us no end! Les, who shared a room, if not a bed with David for most of the expedition, observed, rather unhelpfully, that it was like sleeping with the Singing Detective. Charmed, I’m sure!
Continuing north, the following days were spent cycling the undulating, almost traffic-free two-lane M5 highway. We passed smallholdings of fruit and vegetables and larger fields of maize, cassava, cotton and tobacco from which decorated Shaman sometimes emerged after exorcising the evil spirits amongst the crops. Through villages and past remote thatched homes the constant shouts from children in Chichewa of “Azungo”(Foreigner), ”Give me money” (in English) was, like the heat and the pain in my left arm, relentless.
Wherever we stopped, we were invariably greeted by a group of smiling children who approached us with an air of quizzical intrigue. In central Malawi, stupid foreigners like us are few and far between, so we were something of an oddity to most of the local people. It was usually within the first two minutes that Carl Austin and Chris Todd had managed to involve the kids in a rousing rendition of “Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”, which could last for anything up to half an hour, depending on their excitability (Carl’s and Chris’s, not the kids’!).
I, for one, was amazed that such simple actions could provoke such happiness. But then, Malawians seem to be a very happy people. Despite their poverty, despite their poor schools, despite their dilapidated hospitals, I saw more smiles in the two weeks I spent in Malawi than I’ve ever seen walking through the streets of London or Manchester.
These people have nothing, and yet they seem content enough with their lot. Somehow that makes you more inclined to give.
Peeling off the tarmac onto the dirt track for Njaya Lodge, I met up with immaculately presented children on their way home from school. Saddle sore, but happy to be approaching the next G&T, I got off and started walking with them. Within seconds I had surrendered my bike and, too tired to care, watched as it carried on ahead wobbling dangerously under a giggling hijacker less than half my size. The remaining children then took turns to lead me by both hands, whilst wearing my crash helmet - their small heads completely disappearing inside its oversized, padded sweat-soaked interior.
Later, reunited with my bike, my feelings of disquiet towards nature returned. I was obliged to share my lake-side bamboo hut with more creepy-crawlies than you could shake that gargantuan stick-insect lounging on my bed at. But the fire-red sunrise across the water and distracting antics of vervet monkeys in the neighbouring trees was worth the uneasy penultimate night by the lake.
Just round the rocky coast, the small town of Nkhata Bay busily dedicated itself to fishing, ferrying across the lake and separating its few visitors from hard currency. A hectic street market was selling everything from postcards to coffins (a tragically thriving industry in these days of high HIV infection), while bars blasted reggae music into the warm late afternoon. There was hustling but it was half-hearted and certainly not persistent or aggressive. Back at our lodge, local entrepreneurs came to sell jewellery, boat trips and wooden crafts or to watch European football on the bar’s television and, with business concluded, they were then quite happy to sit and chat. Joseph, a very polite and animated Arsenal shirt-wearing 14-year-old, told me he was simply trying to earn enough to pay for his education. He must have been making good money – his English was excellent. Meanwhile, Dave Wright was given a lengthy tutorial on how to play the local board game, “bawo”, to which he became almost as addicted as I was to the Malawi gin!
The last day’s cycling was mercifully short. We were all completely drained, and longed for the chance to rest our weary legs and backsides. As we approached our final destination – Malawi’s bustling 3rd largest city, Mzuzu – we were overtaken by a team of ActionAid staff who were to form our welcome party. The ceremonial parade through the city was about the last thing we needed after six days of arduous pedalling, but our dogged persistence had paid off, and we stepped off our bikes at the Mzuzu Lodge to imbibe a warm, but appreciated glass of congratulatory Asti Spumante.
It was an emotional moment for all of us – we couldn’t quite comprehend what we had achieved, and it was hard to believe it was all over. It’s difficult to explain my emotions at that moment, actually – I think the nearest description I can muster is an odd mix of euphoria, relief and an unnerving desire to get back on the bike and push on. Needless to say, we all resisted that last temptation.
Our triumphal moments were short-lived, though. Before we’d had a chance to wash the dust and insect-crusted sweat from our legs, we were herded back into our mini-bus and driven to the outskirts of the city, to one of the ActionAid-supported projects that was to benefit from some of the funds we had raised. St John’s provides shelter for children orphaned by AIDS, and gives training to those orphans who are old enough to stand on their own two feet. Teenagers can leave the security of St John’s with a basic knowledge of carpentry, sewing or tin-smithing so they can rejoin their communities and make enough money to support themselves. This is a vital resource for a city like Mzuzu, which has one of the highest proportions of HIV infections in Malawi.
Halfway down the pot-hole ridden driveway to the St John’s Project, our ears were met by glorious sounds from a choir of women singing a very enchanting hymn; as we rounded a corner, they were there, in the middle of the road, waving a banner they had made by hand-painting our Mission Malawi logo onto an old bed-sheet. Inside, over 200 children of all ages ran over to greet us. At that moment, amongst a sea of smiling faces, all the fatigue, all the aches and pains, all the miles we’d covered just paled into insignificance, because we knew we’d made a difference. In the grand scheme of things, it was a very small difference, but it was a difference nonetheless, and suddenly it all seemed worthwhile.
We played with the children for a while, had a quick round of “Heads, Shoulders…” and then trooped back to our truck and drove back to our accommodation: in silence. It was a poignant end to an eventful, exciting, emotional, and unquestionably enjoyable expedition, and the start of what was to become an incredible ongoing Mission Malawi journey.
Meanwhile, I headed back to my home in Clitheroe and got my broken elbow fixed!
David Cawley
