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The story so far
The previous post from our boat trip on Lake Malawi led to numerous emails and text messages from worried parents as well as some people suggesting it all just happened in my imagination after having one beer too many and falling asleep on the sun deck. For our parents, we are still alive and currently at home in Norway with you, eating your food, sleeping in your houses, driving your cars and spending your money, thus, it is time to be worried in an all different way. For the rest of you, I can assure those who doubt what happened that my imagination is rather non-existent after too many beers and that my story is a true story of those events that took place that dreadful night on November the 18th, in the year of our Lord, Two Thousand And Five.

Safari from the train window

Robinbye
2006-01-05 20:54:41

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lifted his head slightly and gulped down a sip without a word. 'That's how they spend our financial support to developing countries,' Helene said with a smile! Perhaps she's right. Many industrial countries are trying a more direct approach nowadays by pumping the money into specific projects rather than giving a lump sum to governments. This seems to work reasonably well in some cases, but in the end, we cannot do this down to the last cent, can we? These countries' goal must be to become independent at some stage, with their own goverment running their countries in a sustainable manner. If such non-corrupt governments will ever come to power is another question.

Landing in Nkatha Bay, we walked around for a couple of hours, however, there was little of interest. Then we caught a bus to Mzuzu, one of the bigger towns in Malawi. Here, the President had already arrived and was going to hold another speech, presenting his new party. We then caught a bus toward Karonga, situated some 120 km from the Tanzanian border. The plan was to stay the night, then catch a minibus to the border, walk across after the formalities, and catch another minibus to Mbeya. Enjoying our five people per row luxury bus, we were just talking about how lucky we were to have such a responsible driver who safely drove us down hair pin curves when the bus suddenly stopped.

Everytime we stopped at a "station" I took the time to practice my Swahili or give the kids some candy. Looking at those faces, how can you not?!
We had descended about 1000 meters from the top of a steep mountain and were still alive. Asking the bus driver why we stopped, he apologised (!) for our slow descent and explained that the reason for it was engine problems. The bus was not going to proceed any further but he had hopes for another bus to arrive soon; a bus he saw leaving the bus station in Mzuzu around the time when we did. We sat down next ...