from Nampula to Lilongwe via...via...via

This time I am writing from a new location: Julius Nyerere Airport in Dar E Salam. I am on my way to Lilongwe, Malawi for 2 reasons: My visa for Mozambique expires today, which means bug off. And this conveniently coincides with the Global Race Conference on HIV/AIDS which I was invited to attend being the reproductive health teacher at the Seminary in Ricatla. And this journey takes me on a trip through the eastern part of Africa. Via Tanzania and Kenya, 23 hours of travelling for a distance of about 1000 km as the crow flies. Unfortunately there are no planes following the crows which in turn don’t carry passengers. And only after having booked the flights because I was not able to find a way to travel over land, I learnt that there is a train from Nampula to the border with Malawi. The journey would not last much less (and some people discouraged me to take the train, but they also discourage me to walk a block in Maputo after sun down, which I do definitely without exposing myself to increased risks), but it would for sure be much cheaper. I won’t have to pay it myself, but still I find it a pity to spent so much money for 23 hours of hassles. The stopover landing in Pemba was definitely a hassle and at a certain point I thought the pilot was trying some kamikaze stunts. The nose of the plane was so low that we had to secure anything on our tables to not slide and crash against the chair before us. (Try eating your delicious on flight meal while holding firmly to your glass of water!) Luckily the nice company made up for it. I met a gentleman from Ethiopia who works in Mozambique and while we were talking about Ethiopia it turned out that the couple in front of us also came from Ethiopia. So the 4 of us had an animated chat.
Let’s see what the rest of the journey will bring. For the moment I am surprised about the airport prices here: even the tourist shops are cheaper than the street vendors in Mozambique. But I resist the temptations. :-)
Anyway, the next time I’ll try out the train.
We spent the past 3 weeks in Nampula and Nicane. I enjoyed the peace of our little village (apparently our neighbour has trouble with his new TV. It has been marvellously quite.) But now another being keeps us awake at night: our newest family member: Bobby, supposed to become our guardian dog, but as far much more scared of people than anybody could possibly be of him. And he hates to be alone. As soon as we are out of sight he starts crying desperately. And when he finally calms down, his dad, brothers or who so ever from the cashew farm where we got him, come for a visit, which upsets him each time. But it is getting a bit better every day, and our guard will be taking good care of him, while we are away (Erik will spent the week in Nampula for some meetings, checking out new locations etc.).
I’ll add some pictures of Bobby and our ex-guard building a dog-hut for him for protection from the sun. By the way, the name was not our choice. I wanted him to have a Makua name, but our guard and one of Erik’s colleagues decided that Bobby was a good name. And as Silvério, the guard will be the actual dog-owner, namely when we leave Mozambique, he should be happy with the name. So Bobby it is. Only he does not yet realize that this is his name… :-).
For the rest we have the usual lizards in the house: i don’t mind them eating mosquitoes, and observing their love games (see the cute picture) are fun. Sometimes they seem to fight about… well I don’t know about what, but they can get very engaged and then fall of the wall banging very noisy on the Floor, where they continue to fight. But there pooh all over the place can be a bit disgusting. Once Erik tried to catch one and take it outside. But it got away… without its tail… they really drop their tail. And what struck us was that unlike chicken that run after having their head chucked off, the tail continued to move. And not just for a moment. First it moved very fast, later slower, but it kept moving for at least 15 minutes. A weird experience.
And after we came back home I thought I found some rat-pooh as well. After a few days I also started to perceive a strange smell of rotten meat. First we thought it was a dead lizard or maybe even rat our Mouse (because of the pooh we found) which we suspected to somewhere above the reed mats on the ceiling. But searching for a water bowl for Bobby ( we were not very well prepared for his coming) I found a dead rat under the fridge. Let’s say, I moved the fridge, and realized the rotten meat smell got stronger. Then I looked and found the rat… our let’s say its liquid leftovers and its tail as it had been decomposing for apparently already a while…. Bon Appetite!
About Animals: the other night a strange insect approached me when I disturbed it’s sleep underneath our kitchen table: it looked like a cross-breeding between a land-crawfish, a spider, a scorpion, a … well I don’t know. But it frightened me so much that I screamed out so loud, that the guard came running to see what was wrong. He did not know that kind of insect either. The next morning, Eurico said it was just some insect that would usually stay near latrines (An indication for the hygiene conditions in our humble dwelling?). He says it would not kill.
From categorizing insects into “we eat them” and “we don’t eat them” to making a difference between “kills” and “doesn’t kill”, which is much more useful to us western people. The snake he found in our compost while turning it, did “not kill”.
Anyway, the huge spider that I found in front of my face on our door 10 minutes later would not bother me anymore… I am progressing :-).
And of course there are beautiful animals, like that lizard I saw in Ricatla.
Okay, let’s finish it there, otherwise some people might get nightmares. And in the meantime I am at Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi, which does not have a hotel in the transit area. As I have to spend the night here, I paid for the first class lounge to get a comfy chair for a nap. But it also appears to have the fastest internet I have experienced so far, I will thus use it to upload the blog and a few photos... of animals, like always. But also with Erik and me (some people asked about it, and we don’t want you to forget how we look like :-)).
Sleep tight!
Anna