Jan-Feb 2014, we finally leave Malawi

Almost exactly one year after we left Malawi for the UK I am sitting on the couch back in London, 39 weeks pregnant in the freezing ‘artic blast weather’, writing our last ever blog post- the longest delay in the writing to date. So much has happened since we got back, both Gav and I have been awarded our higher degrees, Gav has got his renal certificate of completion of specialist training and is ready to be a consultant, I completed my PhD and got a job as a lecturer at UCL, Joshi has settled into pre-school and grown into a confident, chatty, gorgeous child from the toddler he was when we left, and we have been incredibly lucky to get pregnant again and we are all excited about our upcoming arrival.

When we left Malawi, these things were all part of the plan, but we had no idea we would get so much done when we got back within 12 months. After we had recovered from our incredible road trip, we had five weeks to visit all our favourite haunts one last time, pack up and ship all our belongings and most importantly by far, spend as much time as possible with our wonderful friends  who we knew it would be a long time before we would be able to hang out again. Bip and Karen arranged a beautiful last lake weekend at Conforzi House with obligatory drinking, silly games and far too much food, as always the light and sunsets, birds and beauty of the lake meant we wished we could stay longer, sunset on the rock with cold beers was amazing. 

Conforzi house at sunset

We went to Majete for one last weekend to see the elephants, and had a whirlwind of leaving parties. We were especially touched by the leaving dinner with our work colleagues from the hospital, who had arranged gifts and speeches for us and our senior colleague who was also leaving. Their praise of the work that Gavin particularly had done was really heartfelt and  I know we both felt that all the ups and downs of working at Queen’s, and especially the amazing effort of Gav and his colleagues to get the dialysis unit up and running had been recognised and appreciated. With a few months of our return, he had arranged for Rhys, a colleague of his from the Royal Free to come out to help support the service, it is going from strength to strength now. One of Gav’s last jobs was after 2 years of negotiation, get the Minister for Health to sign a contract to ensure new dialysis machines and supplies would be available to the Queen’s unit, a massive achievement. 

We also had our own leaving party one weekend, we rigged up lights and power into the new party house our landlords had built in the garden for dancing, and got in all the food and drink, only for the power to go out for a few hours, and without a generator we all danced around badly amplified music from Kate’s laptop. But the sight of our friends dancing by candlelight to music they could hardly hear was awesome, and we did all have a proper boogie when the power finally came back on. Our lovely neighbour Hazel organised a dinner for us at her place a few nights later to say goodbye to lots of friends from the mountain club who had not been able to come to our party, and we were honoured by the presence of Malcolm Molyneux, an incredible man and one of the world’s foremost malaria researchers, whose amazing 70^th birthday party we went to a few days later. Thanks so much to everyone who made such an effort to see us off in such style over those last few weeks, we love and miss you all.

A few days before we left, our lovely guard dog Ruby sadly passed away, she had been ill since we returned from our road trip. As ever, our staff were fantastic in making all the arrangements for us, as negotiating the death of a large animal was a new one for us.

On the day we left, Aylwin and Hannah  came over, itching to be ready to move in, and we were so happy that Annie nanny and the guards were staying to look after them and the house. Little Annie, our housekeeper moved on to new employment, and Elias, our lovely lovely gardener left to start his mechanic’s apprenticeship, which we have funded over the last year and have heard that he is doing extremely well. Through Hannah and Alwyin we have kept in touch with the staff and they are all doing well. Gavin went back in November last year for a week and let Annie and Pemphero know exactly how much Joshi still misses them. We all miss our life in Blantyre, and hope to be back in that part of the world one day when our future plans are a bit clearer. For now, we are looking for a new house to fit our growing family in, and hoping that 2015, despite the dreadful flooding brings all our friends in Malawi peace and prosperity.

Joshi and Pemphero in the garden being flowers - who needs toys with friends like this?

Clara measures Joshi for his last outfit

Annie and Joshi

December 2013-Jan 2014 - Zimbabwe and Zambia road trip

Wedding

Wow this is our penultimate blog, written in November 2014 so I am very behind with our last bits of Malawi news. But this blog is going out anyway so Joshi can read about these last few months in the years to come. At the end of November 2013 the rain finally arrived after a long hot wait, and we started to wrap up our lives in Malawi. My study saw the last patient for follow up (after half a days drive through the bush in 35 degrees to find him in his village) and I said a very fond farewell to my study team. They nearly all have jobs to go to which is great, most within the MLW family which I am very pleased about. We had planned to go away for the whole of December, but instead cut that down to three weeks so I could fly back to the UK to be a bridesmaid for Helena’s wedding to Nick at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. It was a wonderful occasion with so many old and new friends and Nick and Helena both incredibly happy and relaxed. Dinner in the gallery was stunning and much gossping and catching up was done. They have both since then moved to Liverpool and had a beautiful baby daughter Anwen.

 

Southern Africa road trip

I flew straight back to Malawi after the wedding to meet Joshi and Gav in Lilongwe to drive straight to Zambia. They were late in true African style after a breakdown on the road, but were rescued by our wonderful mechanic Macmillan who saved the day again.

We drove in a loop from Blantyre into Zambia via Lilongwe, and straight onto South Luwangwa National Park (SLNP) for Christmas, then onto Vic Falls via Lusaka, and drove a loop around Zim through Hwange and Bulawayo back through Harare and Moz to Blantyre.

Zambian Christmas

We returned to Mfuwe lodge in SLNTP where we had a very successful trip in 2011 with Joshi, Mum and her friend Gill. They remembered us (an interesting encounter with Joshi and a leopard) and had very kindly given us a discount for 3 nights with them over Christmas. We were even lucky enough to have the same incredible guide we had last time, who was delighted to see Joshi older and with his list of animals to see which he fulfilled to the letter. We saw 6 leopards, including the one who gave us the frighteners last time when Joshi was 6 months old, wild dogs, lion and so many herbivores we lost count. One of the wonderful things about doing safari in the wet season is all the baby animals who are completely entrancing, we had wonderful weather and ate incredible amounts of food with the lodge laying on bush bbq’s bush carols, Christmas dinner and snacks on the drives. Sitting on the edge of a ravine, with a cold drink watching the sun go down as the elephants cross the pinked up river was so magical we wanted to hold it in our memories and hearts forever, a completely African experience, and distilled the essence of our time in Africa.

Vic Falls

We were so rested and relaxed after our time at Mfuwe that we could manage a 2 day drive across the whole of Zambia with much less difficulty than we expected – including an overnight in a backpackers in Lusaka, it was an incredibly easy drive. Joshi was a dream sitting in the back advising us when to overtake lorries and we had a great soundtrack to keep us driving to. As we wove through the mountains, and endless forest, crossing the luwangwa river and then across the great central African plains was an awe inspiring experience. We are so used to the extreme poverty and overpopulation of Malawi that throughout the trip the sight of good roads, better quality housing, children at the sides of the roads who weren’t malnourished and most of all trees was wonderful.

I loved driving across the Vic falls bridge and all our anxieties about travelling in Zim disappeared with the incredibly friendly welcome we got everywhere we went. In Vic falls we spent a day at the falls which are much better on the Zim side and incredible in the wet season, we also got stuck in the Zambezi river mud and managed to get out again (thanks to the beast’s incredible engine) had a picnic on the river banks and high tea at the Vic falls hotel travelling back in time (except for the tourist hordes around us). A highlight for Joshi were the trains still running on the Vic Falls Bulawayo line. We had our car loaded up as we heard about a looming petrol crisis in Zima and got ready to head into the proper bush,  in Hwange national park.

Hwange National Park

After our long drives, the 90 minutes to get to Sinamatella camp in Hwange was a dream. This camp is run by the Zim national parks authority and had been a pain to book, but I had heard about the stunning views. We had a chalet on the edge of an escarpment on the northern end of the park, with incredible views stretching all the way to Botswana and the Kalahari. We sat having a braai at sunset watching the elephant herd waft across the plains surrounded by birdsong. However we arrived at the same time as a 3 day downpour, so we did get some driving done through some impressive mud, we were confined to the chalet for more than we would have liked. For a park that has a reputation for being dry and desolate, we were surrounded by pouring rain and incredibly lush greenery. We went to some of the watering holes which were beautiful but flooded, and did see the most enormous male lion and lots of elephants, but only when we drove to the Southern end of the park for the last night did we see more animals. We were directed to a platform overlooking a waterhole teeming with crocodiles, and could eat lunch and play and watch the animals with the most incredible light. As we were self driving we could come and go as we pleased, probably missing the best sightings as we didn’t have a guide who knew where the animals hung out, but we saw so much including disturbing another huge male lion trying to snooze at the side of the road.

Bulawayo

From Hwange it was another easy drive onto Bulawayo, Zim’s second city where the currency is not the USD but the South African Rand. So many flowers were in bloom and after 10 days in the bush a properly hot shower with a comfortable rondavel in our self catering chalet with a pool was wonderful. There was so much to enjoy in Bulawayo, but we all, but particularly Joshi, loved the railway museum. Tucked away behind a warehouse and the railway line, for the grand price of $1 each to get in, is a train lovers paradise. All the old engines are parked there, including the first engine to cross the vic falls bridge, Cecil Rhodes coach that he used to travel in, and the best bit was everything was open and we could climb on everything. I loved all the old signs and artefacts, Joshi and Gav spent hours pumping themselves up and down a bit of track on this trolley and we even ‘waited’ for trains in the entire reconstructed railway station. We then loaded up the car in the very nice supermarket to head bush again to Matopos national park.

Matopos

We were back in National Park accommodation again in Matopos – our chalet’s name translated as ‘rock hyrax’ and the views from the khondi and the braai were unbelievable – we did several drives around the park looking at the rock art and the herbivores – we missed all the leopards that are supposed to be there, but it didn’t matter – watching the rocks glow pink in the evening sun reflected in the lake with two klipsringers and some black eagles for company was wonderful. We hiked up to Cecil Rhodes grave, chatted to all sorts of people  and hiked to various ancient rock paintings. We didn’t want to leave after 3 nights, the peace and beauty was something else and we felt incredibly lucky to have spent time there. I had always wanted to do a riding safari there, but sadly we couldn’t make that work this time, but maybe next time…….

Lake Kyle & Great Zimbabwe

We then took off on another mammoth drive back through Bulawayo to Great Zimbabwe and Lake Kype in Eastern Zim, driving through the diamond belt. Eight hours and a few stops later we made it to another stunning lodge overlooking Lake Kyle/Lake Mutarika. One thing about driving in Zim that we had been worried about was road blocks – so many stories of bribes and dodgy dealings had gone around the expat community in Blantyre. We were pulled over a few times, mostly to be asked ‘How is Malawi?’ and ‘do you like our country’ – we were treated with extreme courtesy and had no problems at all, it was so refreshing. We also enjoyed meeting so many Zimbabweans, including lots of expats who now live in the UK and were back on holiday – including one man who was climbing great Zim behind me and exclaimed ‘I am knackered!’ when I asked him where he was from he said Leicester!  We met the rain again at Great Zim, and hiked around the monuments with a disinterested guide with a plastic bag on her head and carried a wet Joshi around. The mystery of the monuments with no written records, and the attempts of the white minority government to completely dismiss the achievements of these buildings were so interesting and sad in equal measure, including the unexplained decline of the entire civilisation.   It was our last proper bit of holiday and we braaied again every night outside and watched more spectacular sunsets over the lake – a big feature of this trip! Joshi did brilliantly, going everywhere, making up games with himself or other children everywhere we went.

Across the Zambezi back home

Our last mammoth drive was another 2 day trip back to Malawi via Harare- Zim’s capital was looking busy and prosperous despite the news we watched that announced the Government was expecting an economic boom despite the fact the banks had no capital with which to pay salaries let alone loans. The drive north from Harare to Moz was classic high plateau Africa, incredibly beautiful, bendy and steep and we made it to Tete and crossed the Zambezi again with no problems. Only after lunch in Tete did our problems really get going with officially the worst road we have ever driven on – pot holes the size of mini buses in the pouring rain over a mountain range with lorries and buses going at 5km an hour – we almost got stuck on several occasions, each time the beast managed to rescue us again – we actually got stuck ironically at the customs post going into Malawi. We made it back to BT in one piece, despite the best intentions of the Mozambiquan border guards, had a shower and washed the dust and mud off, armed with so many memories and images we collapsed in a heap. We were only sad that we won't have another holiday like that for a long while, as our return to the UK awaited us.