Girls Everywhere
Trip Start
Apr 21, 2008
1
40
225
Trip End
Apr 20, 2009
Nhkata Bay,
Malawi
Saturday, May 31, 2008
It was a quiet day today. I spent most of the day swimming and tanning and reading my book on Che Guevara. This is definitely not the tough travel I have been talking about. It will be mostly like this while in Malawi. Most of my time will be spent by the Lake. I will have to be careful and not get too bored. I am normally not the beach bum type.
The one thing I am starting to realize (as well as some of my friends reading my blogs) is that I am only seeing and meeting female travellers on this trip through Africa. Everywhere I go, I only seem to see women travelers. I look around where I am currently staying and the people are about 90% female. Even in Uganda and Rwanda I was only meeting female travelers. I don?t even see that many male travelers. This has never happened to me before and I was trying to figure it out. The only thing that comes to mind is that many women I am meeting were volunteering at one point or another during their trip through Africa. I am guessing that more women than men tend to volunteer, in general, and this may explain why there are so many female travelers here (given that there are so many volunteer opportunities in the area). It is the only explanation I can think of. Anyhow, I am not complaining. All the girls I have met to date have been really nice and outgoing. It would be nice though, at some point, to have a drinking buddy. Anyhow, I just wanted to mention what I think many people (especially the guys) have already observed.
I thought I educate everyone a bit about the country so you have a better understanding of it. Malawi is actually the 12th poorest country in the world. 85% of the population is dependant on subsistence farming and only 35% live above the poverty rate. On top of that, 15% of the population has AIDS (or is HIV +) and coupled with issues with malaria leads to a life expectancy rate of less than 40 years of age. Not very good statistics. I thought I state that as I have only been describing how beautiful it is here. There is a definite sad side.
Anyhow, all of this beach time has made me less observant of my surroundings. It?s hard to see what?s really going on around you when you are in a place like this. But if you open your eyes you can make some observations. I promised myself to make an effort tomorrow and try to see things I otherwise would miss if I was just going through the motions.
