Friday, November 20th - Lilongwe, Malawi

My plans to sleep in were thwarted by all the noise around my room.  I think my room is right in front of the staff area and some of them were up and talking pretty early in the morning.  And of course the sun was up by 5 a.m. so the room was light.  That meant that I was wide awake and finally got up around 5:30.  I guess the moral of the story is that I just have to go to bed early every night.

It also didn't help that someone came into the compound around 2:30 and the gate is locked so he had to honk for a while to wake up the guard and then the guard had to open the gate, which is a noisy process and then close it.  Then he had to run back to the area behind my room and pound on the door and call out to wake up the receptionist as this isn't exactly a 24-hour service.  Then the person who arrived had to talk loudly on his cell phone for quite a while and I think he might have been just down the hall from me.  I eventually got back to sleep but then woke up around 4 a.m. and someone had their TV blaring.  This seems like a very sturdy building but the doors and windows aren't exactly air tight and the place is definitely not sound proof.

Lynn was up early too so she went for her run.  I worked on some finances as we are wrapping up the Malawi work portion and have to get our finances in to Canadian Humanitarian.  Once she came back we had breakfast and then started the day's tour of Lilongwe.

Our first stop was the Lilongwe Wildlife Sanctuary.   One of the gentlemen who is staying at the hotel, Robinson, said he would give us a lift since he was heading that way so we readily accepted.  It was going to be another hot day so a ride part way was good.  Robinson is a young equipment salesman from Tanzania and he is really friendly.  He has a company car and the first night when we were commenting on the restaurant having no wine, he simply went out and bought us some.  We kept trying to repay him but he wasn't interested in that or even a beer.  He was just happy to help out.

Another one of the men here is a current MP and he was in court first thing this morning trying to get an injunction to stop the President of the country from appointing a certain person as a Supreme Court Judge or something similar.  The MPs apparently have a committee that does the interviewing and selection and the President is just supposed to approve their decision and make the appointment.  This time, however, he picked someone else - the third candidate I believe - so the MPs took it to the courts to decide and they won.  He was quite happy and talkative at breakfast.  After talking to him for a while and explaining what we were doing in Malawi, he really wanted us to go to the north of the country and visit the secondary schools in his area.  We had to tell him, "maybe next time."  He also commented on our new Prime Minister and said that he knew his father, Pierre, well so I guess he's been in politics for a long time.  He wanted to know if the son was as charismatic as the father.

Another young lady is here for four months.  She is originally from Vancouver Island but now lives in Baltimore and goes to John Hopkins University doing a Masters in Public Health.  She is doing a work term here with World Vision working on capacity building in the health care area.  And another gentleman is a doctor who is working on HIV and malaria measures on a grant from some organization.  We commented when we were out walking today that there are some interesting people staying in this hotel and we never found that in some of the other hotels where we stayed.  We decided the extra cost for nicer hotel also meant that you got more interesting patrons.  And I guess I should mention that the hotel, the Area 3 Hotel, is owned by a former Minister of Finance back in the 80's.  He is a really interesting person too and a great host.

Okay, back to our day.  We were dropped off at the Wildlife Sanctuary entrance and went in and paid our fees for a tour.  We thought we were just going to walk around on our own but it seems you have to pay a guide and go on a tour instead.  I should also mention that the Rapid Response Team was sitting at the park entrance when we went in and when we came out.  We decided that was just in case one of the lions got loose and they had to get everyone out of the area in a hurry, but of course we were just joking.  

The tour was only about 50 minutes long and you really didn't need a guide, except perhaps to help you find some of the animals.  The signs were there to tell you what you needed to know and to identify what you should be seeing.  However, most of what you could see was not around to be seen and when they were being seen the guide was forcing us to move along so he could complete his tour.  For example, we would have watched the baboons a lot longer as they were putting on a really good show.  We had no idea what they were trying to accomplish and it looked like a little one might get eaten or hurt by some of the big ones but it seemed to end well.  The poor little guy was right at the top of the tree balancing on what seemed to be just a thin little twig.  There were three really big baboons that had been chasing him around and now they had him cornered  on this tree top.  One was in the same tree below him and the other two were in neighbouring trees to prevent him from jumping to them so he seemed doomed.  However, after a few minutes they let him climb down.  The guide said they were probably just teaching him a lesson and that may well be, but to us human observers he looked like he was doomed.  

The heat was a bit too much for most of the animals.  The lions, Bella and Simba, were in their house staying cool. The serval cat was lounging in the shade and his colours blended in completely with the surrounding ground.  Some of the monkeys were hiding in the trees and the underbrush, as were the crocodiles.  Other monkeys were just not to be found.  The owls were out but we never would have seen them on our own because they were so well camouflaged.  The python was cooling off in the inside of old tire according tot he guide but I can't say that I actually ever saw him.  A few duikers or little antelope were around but not many.   

All of these animals were rescued from one place or another: circus, private owner, etc.  They have large fenced areas to roam and play in here but they can never be released into the wild.  I think some monkeys have been but they are the only ones.  And the animals are sterilized so there won't be a sudden increase in numbers at any point.  Right now there are about 200 animals in total.

After the tour we went for a walk further down the path.  It was beside the river/stream and very nice but we really didn't like the "beware of crocodile" signs along the way.  When we asked later they said there was only one and she was waiting for the rains to come so she could lay her eggs and then head off down the river.  The entrance area includes a play area, picnic area, restaurant, bar and gift shop.  This whole section is very green and lush and looks beautiful.  Where the animals are kept, the area is more dry and definitely not very green.  The trees are some kind that many years ago they thought would be good here.  It grows quickly so that's a plus.  However, it's very dry and has few leave so it doesn't provide any shade.  It also takes a lot of water and nutrients out of the soil so nothing else can grow around it.  they would like to get rid of all these trees but there are thousands of them.  And besides, in order to get rid of them you have to get rid of all the roots and that is virtually impossible.  If you cut it down or cut off a branch, it just keeps growing anyway so it really is a strange tree.

After a brief water break, we walked downtown to the bank.  We needed to get cash for our trip so we had to make withdrawals at the ban and fill our back pack with about 2 million kwacha in 1,000 kwacha notes.  The money system here is so strange.  Why they don't just print bigger bills is beyond me.

From there we went to lunch and then we went to a copy shop where we had them scan our receipts for the trips and put them on a USB so we can e-mail them back to Canadian Humanitarian.  And finally we walked back to the hotel.  It was another hot day so the walk was definitely a hot one.  For the rest of the afternoon we sat in our air conditioned rooms and did other work for a while and washed clothes.  Eventually we moved to the patio to continue working and got a router that we can use in our rooms for tonight.  That will be nice if we can get some pictures uploaded to the cloud because the old iPad is full again and I can't get any more pictures on it.

About 8 we had dinner, another fabulous meal of fish, potatoes and vegetables.  We tried to do a uploads and backups but it wasn't working well so eventually we quit and went to bed.