T.I.A

So let me paint you the picture … It’s 2.21 am. I’m smoking a cigarette – a menthol, it’s all I can get here. I’m sheltered under a blue mosquito net that provides me with adequate protection from flying nasties, but none whatsoever to the fleas and bed-bugs that have colonised my mattress and dine on my fresh blood nightly. I’m hungry, though don’t want to tuck into my solitary bread roll for fear of the ruthless and unstoppable ants that rapidly hunt any spare crumb. The net is hanging from the roof of my banda, which in turn is scantily protecting me from the elements. A brewing tropical storm outside will no doubt break in a little while and violate the thatched roof and bamboo ‘windows’. I am squinting from the glare of the laptop screen, which is my only light source, save for the odd lightning, which occasionally punctuates the night sky with a brilliant and brief flash of daylight. All I can hear beyond the tapping of these keys are the unusually un-rhythmical waves of Lake Malawi, which must be spurned by the approaching storm, breaking about 5 metres from my ‘door’.

I’m in Usisya – look it up on google earth. A small slice of paradise isolated from the rest of the world. When I say ‘paradise’, you must understand that this is so for a sun, beach and water starved Mzungo with a fair amount of cash in his money belt, like me. For the indigenous, Usisya is similar to any rural part of the ‘5th poorest country in the world’. The area is poor, yet not desolate. The rains have been kind this year and the soil fertile for subsistence crops – Maize and Kasava predominantly. The village consists of a spattering of huts, some plastered with tin roofs, most mud brick and thatch. Each plot is hidden by 2 metre high maize crops, which for a short-arse like me, means tackling Hampton Court maze each time I step outside. Pointing, staring and laughing barefooted children wearing the obligatory ripped T-shirt and oversized shorts is standard fare, and seem to be the de rigeur of every African village I have visited. Usisya is located on a small peninsula plateau, hemmed in by the aqua blue Lake to the East and the seasonally green steep escarpments to the West. There are no creature comforts here – no electricity, no internet, no phone coverage. There are only two ways in or out, by boat which is reliable but limited to twice a week, and by truck through the hair raising mountain pass which should go daily though is un-reliable due to the rains.

Which brings me to why i am hunched under my net at this ridiculous hour. I am trying to leave. Last night, at 3am, I was woken by the faithful nightwatchman Elias, who escorted me with the help of his trusty torch to the truck stop in the village. It left at 4.30 and I was rewarded for my early start with a prime spot in the cab, nestled between the driver and his prize for his previous days work … a young looking prostitute. My other journeymen, all locals, were huddled in the back covered by a tatty piece of tarpaulin. By 5.30 we were well on the way, in the hills, on course to hit Mzuzu town by 8am. Then the rain started. Within minutes the up-hill dirt track had become a torrent of red-brown water, the truck slipped and squealed. We stopped and did nothing for an hour but watch the rain. We started again, I don’t know why then, and managed the hill only by jumping out and pushing or pulling. The sight of me helping to physically pull the truck in the downpour caused a certain amount of amusement amongst my co-travellers, I was happy to provide some humour. After that monumental effort, the driver turned round to head back to Usisya. I guess it was a judgement call at what was to come. My Tombuka and his English were both too inadequate for a full explanation. Tonight Elias woke me at 1am. He had buried his younger brother earlier in the afternoon, yet seemed un-perturbed - he had died from a ‘mystery illness’, which at a guess is the same ‘mystery illness’ which is ravaging the rest of Africa. Elias soon realised that the truck had left already and we trotted off [I should qualify – Elias trotted, I wheezed, trying to keep up whilst cursing the menthols] on a wild goose chase through the Maize fields of the village looking for the allusive second truck. It too had already left.

So I found myself sitting outside my door, in the middle of the night, awaiting the storm, contemplating my experience. Instead of leaving on Wednesday I hope to take a boat on Friday to Nkhata Bay. There’s no real option but to shrug my shoulders and wait 3 days. It is equivalent I guess to waiting another 6 minutes for the Northern line after missing the tube into town. Rattling through my brain is the rather obnoxious Dicaprio line in a bad ‘Rhodesian’ accent … ‘T.I.A – This Is Africa’. Granted, I’m not being chased by AK-47 wielding, blood diamond mining, Angolans. But for the minute this is my Africa.

I hope to return to Usisya next week for a little while. There is a project here with the local small-scale NGO, to build a house and the ‘first sandbag kitchen in Malawi’. I have been invited to get involved, and I may just do that. So, it is likely that I’ll be as isolated for the next couple of weeks as Usisya has since its’ existence.