Lilongwe
Trip Start
Sep 01, 2005
1
34
72
Trip End
Ongoing
Lilongwe,
Malawi
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Just before we stepped off the bus, into the frenzy, the conductor put out his hand saying "Stop. Wait. There are many thief here," and made a grabbing motion with his hand. They had all either seen, or sensed us coming and were waiting in a pack just out of the bus. He jumped off and returned in a few minutes with a white car following him. Working their way through the crowd a few hustlers started yelling at him.
We stepped of the bus and were promptly accosted. "Hey my brotha. Meesta. How are you? Where you come from?" All the while, subtle moves are pushing you through nimble hands. We slide into the dark, unmarked taxi and heads and hands try to follow.
"You now the Golden Peacock?" I ask the driver.
He looks at me in the rear view mirror saying nothing and starts rolling forward. The crowd follows and a lazy eyed, intoxicated adolescent opens the passenger door, gives the car a push and hops in the seat.
There are no street lights to illuminate the shanty town assembly that surrounds the dusty lot, so we drive out into darkness with the predators still following.
"You know the Golden Peacock?" I ask again.
He shakes his head no, but keeps driving.
"You know the Korea Garden?"
Again, he shakes his head no and keeps driving down the dark road. The other passenger says nothing and smells of Gin.
"Seven hundred." The driver blurts.
"Is that a good price?" I ask in a joking tone.
"Six hundred." He replies.
"Six?" I repeat wanting to be clear.
"OK. Final, six fifty." He said, looking like he was done with the talk.
"OK. Six fifty." We both slid the mace out of the top of our bags. If you don't know who you may have to run from, it can be difficult to know whether or not you should lock the car door. So, we had one other dilemma.
I really dislike arriving after dark, and our entrance into old town Lilongwe did nothing for an ongoing feeling. As soon as we entered an urban area, I had the strong desire to leave it. But, as with most so far, this one turned out well. No one sank their teeth into us and after turning down several dark streets we pulled into a guarded parking lot at a hotel. The car's starter got out of the passenger's side and pushed it into a bump start, then they disappeared back into the night.
We spent four days and nights in Lilongwe collecting and organizing ourselves. The hotel staff was very friendly. Though the walls of our room were covered in smashed mosquitoes, the bathroom was right across the hall. I was disappointed one morning to see that I was sharing the inside of my mosquito net with half a dozen of the disease carrying pests. The city is a spread out mix of modern businesses, shiny NGO cars, expensive grocery stores and scary lightless areas like the bus depot.
The night before we left, I could feel an illness developing in the back of my throat. That morning, it had progressed into a burn. The bus, besides being painted in a chipping light blue looked like a school bus from the 1970's. We clambered through the city in low gears, packing the bus with people and their belongings. Our bags were in a large pile in the front right beside a large, rectangular, hot exhaust duct which ran through open space from floor to ceiling.
The lady behind me coughed and I felt spittle impact with the back of my neck. Then I coughed and my throat started burning worse. I decided that sitting uncomfortably, getting sick on a bus in Africa was not the best place to read Theroux's Dark Star Safari, a somewhat pessimistic letter to the continent, having returned to dismay after some 35 years.
We sat watching the scenes from the bus window, stopping every 35km to shuffle people around. The same mud huts and grass roves, the same people wandering along the road. Blank-faced teens and bundled babies on women's backs. Flies crawling freely on faces. A few stick stands selling onions here and there and young boys selling skewers of fried dough. Same heavy bikes loaded with necessities. Same barefoot old men.
