Travels to Blantyre

My trip to blantyre happened ever so quickly! I went to work on Thursday just a normal day, and before the working day was over I was on a bus to the south of Malawi. It was a rather big drama actually as to how it all happened. And raised lots of different issues in our workplace, there is often much miscommunication, lots of power plays, a whole stack to much pride, way to much competition that has developed potentially from a rather dominating and dictatorship leadership style… anyway… I really hope that my presence here within the changes in our workplace can be a positive and meaningful influence. But we'll see. Anyway that was a side issue.

I ended up catching a coach down to blantyre, I am happy to catch minibuses in the day time… on most occasions… but put my foot down to doing so in the night time, that is a death wish if I ever heard one. im telling you, the normal travel time to blantyre is about 4-5 hours, and minibuses can sometimes do it in 3… that tells you something about the speed they travel hey! Unfortunately much more expensive… but I think a good price to pay for my life…hehe… there are three types of buses here.. (well main catergories anyway) theres the "chicken buses"… these are in your minibus catergory. One of these buses in good condition means that the door only falls off every second day, more than 80% of the seats are actually screwed down to the base of the bus or have cushioning and coverings over the seat, all the windows open, and the roof isn’t falling in on your head, and you only have to share your seat with one other person and maybe a chicken or some fish under your seat. Then there is the “somehow local bus” now these ones are found at your local minibus depos and most people will avoid these as they take longer to fill up ready for departure, so you often have to wait longer before your journey commences. A 5 hour trip will take between 5 and 9 hours. Depending on how many times it breaks down, and how well they can go up hills with the giant load that’s strapped onto the roof. The suspension is much better in these buses, so the journey is only half a rollercoaster ride compared to the chicken buses and you will only have to share your seat with half a person, you become very clever at choosing someone who looks like they have bathed atleast once this week to be your traveling companion. But there is no control really, as you have still another 8 people or so in a 1 meter radius so no excellent choosing strategy will always be foolproof. If you are taking a short trip around town, these buses must be avoided and the chicken bus is the only option, but a longer journey on certain roads will be the best option. your 5 star buses are called the "tv snack" bus. You travel in your own seat… not shared with anyone. There is no extra seats in the eile, there is airconditioning, excellent suspension. You get a snack mid journey although it was a stale muffin and a somaso with meat inside that I have no idea how long it had been outside of any refrigeration, so anyone sitting next to me will be pleased to have double snacks. And there is a tv in the bus, which on our return journey they played a movie. And although the sound didn’t work they didn’t seem to mind and played it anyway. Which at first amused me, but then I became increasingly frustrated by having no idea what was going on, so filled in my time by thoroughly enjoying the amazing countryside which I never get bored of watching. Someone else must have been frustrated by the no sound either, and requested they try and do something about it, so they did. They put the subtitles on, although they were in Chinese. So I was back to being amused again, and continued watching the scenery fly by.

All three buses have no stops, no matter how long the journey, unless if stopped by police at a road block, but these are never long enough for a toilet stop. So when traveling on a long journey, there is really no other option than to dehydrate yourself to avoid the need for the toilet.

We arrived in Blantyre rather late on thursday evening, and Titi, Mirium and I all made our way to some rather strange accomodation... but i survived the experience, so it was all ok! The meeting we were traveling down for was held at the Kachere rehab centre behind the queens hospital but didn't start until 11am, so we had hours to walk around blantyre as they gave me a tour. Blantyre is much bigger than lilongwe, so walk we did!!!! My goal for the meeting was to arrange some lecturing at the rehabilitation assistants school down there in the new year, so i was successful in that, but otherwise nearly fell asleep in the meeting, but still enjoyed meeting some of the other professionals in malawi, rather strange to think that all of the allied health staff in malawi were in that room... where else in the world could you fit them all in that room i wouldn't know!


I had arranged to stay the night with Lisa & Martin, some new friends of mine down in that part of the country, and they took me to their home in nguludi, which was absolutely fabulous!! i really enjoyed my time there, seeing the village they live in and meeting their friends and neighbours!

which brings me to my explanaion of why the Aussies did so well in the first test of the ashes....

It was because there were three extremely dedicated aussies here in Malawi who woke up at 4am on Saturday morning, walked from one nguludi village to montford village even before the sun was up, and watched a fabulous sun slowly rising around the mountains spreading an amazing light over mt mulanje. We went to a tiny little pub we had bribed to open at 5am for our fix of the cricket. We ate donuts and lemonade for breakfast and cheered with extraordinary enthusiasm and nostalgia as we giggled at hearing the commentators aussie accents. Im not sure I have ever felt so patriotic as i did that morning,


As some of you know my love of cricket occured rather bizarrely, and was sparked during the last ashes series, so it was rather an exciting event for me on Saturday, although I did realize that in trying to explain the game to our local pub owner, I now remember why I was so confused by the game prior to my current addiction to it… he made me laugh a great deal by his questions that i still often ask!!!
It was 5am and I had more energy than I thought possible to bottled up inside one tj. We were cheering and on the edge of our seat at even the most boring of moments. The excitement of seeing Australia on the tv (and just seeing a tv itself) and hearing aussie accents, was so exciting, made me realize how much I do miss home. Not enough to make me come home just yet though, but I certainly felt more patriotic than ever. Australia really is an amazing place, which i dont think we always realise. Im rather intrigued by it, there were so many things that I thought would change while here in Malawi, so many things that I thoughts would be challenged and new things I would learn and discover, and I can honestly say this was not one of those things on my list. I did not imagine that my love of Australia would grow so much, and not in a way that I don’t like Malawi and that I want to ome home, but just that I am proud of my home, and proud of where I come from. I believe we are so very blessed in our country… but also on a very shallow level to, there really is something about aussies that I find absolutely hysterical. There is much fun to be had. And i think i have learnt that i am more aussie than i ralised!