Rafiki

There are 22 Million people in Malawi and most of them seemed to be walking along the side of the road today. It’s Sunday so many are walking to church in their beautiful multicolored sarongs. Many are also returning from market and the women are balancing great buckets of produce or firewood on their heads. Yesterday we saw a woman in her 50’s heave a full 20l bucket of water onto her head and walk off!

Often the women are also carrying a baby on their backs slung in a colorful strip of the beautiful textiles they have in central Africa.

The fuel crisis means there are few private cars on the roads other than taxis and motorcycles. The taxis here are mostly cars rather than vans and filled to the brim. We are following one as I write that has two men plus luggage jammed in the boot - so full that the door can’t close. Men pass on bicycles, often with women riding side saddle on the back with a child or two sandwiched between them. The road today was truly dreadful- massive potholes and often reduced to a single lane - so dodging walkers and cyclists just added to McDonald’s challenges. I am eternally grateful we aren’t driving ourselves.

Our destination today was a safari camp called Rafiki. It’s a Swahili word meaning ‘friend’ but you’d also recognize it from the Lion King. Rafiki is situated in a Wildlife Reserve just outside the Nkhotakota National Park and is owned by a couple from South Africa. They’ve lived in Malawi for 16 years and opened Rafiki 9 years ago. It’s a lovely spot in the bush with comfortable accommodation in canvas tents. There’s a central thatched Boma for meals - and we are realizing it’s another holiday we won’t lose weight on as the food is excellent.

This afternoon we had a game drive in the National Park. They had over 1m of rain this summer so it’s all very green so we didn’t see a lot of game, but the birds were excellent . ( I can hear my kids groaning from here). One exciting sighting was a herd of sable - about 20 mixed males and females. They’re magnificent creatures and I’ve only seen single males before.

I wanted to spend some time in the Malawi parks despite their eye watering cost as this is such a vital thing to support. From what I’ve heard they’ve really improved their conservation practices so it is good to see how things are going. This particular park is the oldest and biggest in Malawi and it looks very well managed and maintained. They plan to introduce lion and rhino soon now that the population of the other animals is up to good levels again.

The only negative is the tsetse fly. They were out in force and took a liking to me. They’re nasty blood sucking things and I had blood all over my trousers by the end of the trip!

It’s a totally still night and all I can hear is the distant sound of frogs. The sky is magnificent though the stars are a bit wonky - pushed off to the left in comparison to the Australian sky. My belly is full after a very fine meal so I’m off to bed. Thank you for keeping me company.Read more