Different kinds of riches?

Kevin came over today to teach Grant how to play a traditional game called Bao. It would have originally been played using scooped out holes in the dirt and stones. The posh version uses a wooden board with four rows of eight depressions and 64 stones. A simple version of the game is called Mancala and you may have played it. This is other level complex with lots of strategic stuff and I’m hoping I can avoid it:)

Kevin is a local, and as we have found with so many Malawians, a highly intelligent, educated man with a gentleness and ease that we so seldom see in our society. He is the main assistant to Susie who owns Rafiki.

After the Bao lesson we chatted about our two countries and their different societies and politics. We have yet to meet a Malawian who is happy with their government, but they deal with it by accepting that they can expect nothing from them, and focusing on generating enough food to eat. According to Kevin, despite the level of education being high (mostly thanks to churches and charities, not government), people no longer educate themselves to get a qualification to get a job. They educate themselves so they can better look after themselves. A job is no longer an expectation. Poverty is normal. He did add that the only advantage about being poor is you don’t have to worry about wars with your neighbors.

We then spoke of our society and the things we observed in Malawi that we had lost. The main thing is community. It is incomprehensible for a rural Malawian that we could have an epidemic of loneliness in our privileged country. The fact that we often don’t know our neighbors amazes them. People dying alone is beyond comprehension. They always ask, ‘But what if someone dies?’ And we say, we only go to funerals for people we know. For them it’s a whole village whole day, or days experience. Only our indigenous people still understand the importance of that. How we could have the levels of depression and anxiety that we do when as far as they can tell, we have everything, is again bewildering.

I have learned to appreciate Australia and our government system so much as I travel, but it’s also clear that we are losing some fundamentals of what makes a life meaningful. Community and family and time and communication and generosity and kindness. These cost nothing but mean everything. Thank you Malawi for that lesson.

We also met Freddie today. He arrived at 6am in his khaki Africa Parks uniform with his gun slung over his shoulder. From Kasungu, he was trained by and works for Africa Parks which runs Nkhotakota National Park and Liwonde NP where we go tomorrow. More on them later.

Freddie has been a ranger for two years and this was his first private game walk for Rafiki. He seemed nervous at first, understandably, but was full of great information and gentle strength. Grant and I had mixed feelings about a walking safari as the death rate seems high. None the less we followed like lambs as we passed through the electric gate leading into the park. The grass was high, the trees were green and visibility minimal. To add to the excitement there was fresh elephant and buffalo spoor - both animals high on the list of most likely to kill you. Knowing that Freddie’s gun was there purely as a deterrent and was in no way capable of stopping a charging animal didn’t help my blood pressure.

We minced our way through the tunnel of grass and trees stopping now and then for a cool bird or for Freddie to listen out for nearby beasts. He was a font of knowledge on the local trees and their uses in traditional medicine, so that was a great distraction. For tree nerds, this mostly a Miombo forest with Brachystegia trees and acacia.

The turnaround point of the walk was a steep, descent down a narrow path to the beautiful Bua River. Only as we stood balanced on a ledge overlooking the river did he mention that the path was an elephant access! I was very sprightly with my climb up and out.

I am happy to say we saw nothing other than cool birds and a water buck, although we smelt buffalo nearby. In that setting an elephant might have been 5m away and we would not have seen it. Survived!

We have a very big drive tomorrow down to the bottom of the lake into the Shiré district where Liwonde National Park is situated. It’s probably a bit ridiculous going so far but I wasn’t aware that 400 km takes 8 hours here! We have three nights at Liwonde so I am sure we will appreciate it.

As I mentioned Africa Parks run both National Parks. It’s a really interesting organization started by some Dutch business men. It now has a whole bunch of other international investors. I don’t know a lot about it but the gist I got from Jimmy, our guide yesterday, is that they collaborate with governments in countries which have struggled to protect their wildlife- such as Congo, Rwanda, Uganda and Malawi, and provide the funds and training and infrastructure to create functional parks. The bonus for the workers is they get paid. This is not guaranteed for workers in government run parks.

We have been very impressed with Nkhotakota and I’m looking forward to Liwonde as it is meant to be the jewel in the crown. It is good learning about the great things people do as we get so swamped with the bad.

We plan a chilled afternoon and evening so we can be strong for another epic day on Malawi roads!

Thank you for the lovely messages and feedback by the way. It’s so nice to be feeling as if I’m chatting to you xRead more