Mad about Malawi III: Shabbat on the Shire

Dear all,

Warning! Large epiphany ahead! I promise I don’t do it on purpose!

Where were we? Ah yes. I returned to Lilongwe where I was joined by colleague Verena (one of our graphic designers from Johannesburg) for
the rest of the trip – which included four days in Liwonde National Park, Malawi’s main wildlife area, and a last day sitting on an island on the Lake in a storm (of which more anon).

Off we bumped (for four-five hours) down the potholed roads south to Liwonde, with the requisite rain, donkeys and goats along the way. Finally we arrived at the banks of the Shire River, where we boarded a boat and chugged 45 minutes downriver until we reached Mvuu.

A note on the Shire River. I know it sounds like Frodo Baggins should be hanging about twiddling his ring, but it is in fact pronounced “Sheereh”. Broad and flat, it flows out of Lake Malawi down to the Zambezi, and is usually clear but of course muddy at this time of the year with flotsam and jetsam (always wanted to use that in a sentence) thanks to the rains. And hundreds of hippo too – but here, these hippo are the friendliest in Africa. In fact, when I ask our guide McCloud about the dangers of this many hanging about, he looked at me in bemusement: “but hippo aren’t dangerous!” Seems the friendliness of the people has rubbed off on the beasts. (McCloud, so you understand, is yet another wonderful Malawian, who, like many of his race, has a free and easy attitude to the use of the letters L and R in a sentence; hence we would see a “led-necked flancorin on the light hand side of the load.” Work that out.)

Wilderness has two camps almost next to each other: the more ‘zhoosh’ Mvuu Lodge and the simpler yet still delicious Mvuu Camp (Mvuu means ‘hippo’ – of course). We stayed at the former, which has its tents fronting a brown, slow-moving stream that flows into the Shire. While this doesn’t sound exciting, it turns out that this – it’s larger than a stream, more of a riverlet – is quite a highway, with hippo and crocs floating up and down it and of course all manner of birds. But the feeling is secretive, away from the main highway that is the Shire.

Once again at Mvuu, the people around us were just incredible. From Richard the camp manager (he began as a ‘houseboy’ – his own words – and gradually worked his way up to being a guide and manager. Look, you have to read about him – it’s on our website, go on, be inspired by Africa! Or directly here.), to James the Seventh Day Adventist barman (who has the nicest, whitest, shyest smile you’ve ever seen; on Friday night he joined me for Kiddush and we compared notes on various explanations for verses in Leviticus and Deuteronomy according to the Oral Law which his teacher taught him; an excellent dvar Torah for Shabbat!). I was provided with my own private chef – Hussein (we bonded over the differences between Halaal and Kosher) and they made half the kitchen kosher for my use, clearing out cupboards and putting every spice or ingredient with The Sign in one place for me!

The Mvuu experience is mainly a study in sound and colour, a profusion and bursting-out of life that took my breath away every day. Leaves rustle from a riot of bushes and trees – the leaves of the towering palm trees crackle as if an elephant is hiding in them – and a mass confusion of bird sound (and thunder of course – as I write the clouds have come down again). Thanks to the rain, it is so green that an Irishman would burst into tears at the sight.

Our tent (classic Wilderness, large and luxurious, outdoor shower, funny towel shapes on the beds) looked out over that gently flowing stream, complete with Brown-throated Weavers enthusiastically making their nests in the reeds, Bohm’s Bee-eaters just sitting there waiting for twitchers to get excited and tick them – and several rude, brash Hadeda Ibises perching on the top of the palm trunks and shouting insults across the river at us. But the African Fish Eagle that sat regally watching me watching him more than made up for his bourgeois neighbours.

Friday afternoon, as Shabbat approached, had the by-now prerequisite evocative, dark, glowering clouds. I was ready to be all sad that I was going to miss my Friday evening sunset and have to make do with towering – or lowering – cloud formations (depends on if it’s about to pour or just building up to it) – all a bit too moody sometimes, you know? Not bad moody or depressing, just moody. Like too much Beethoven Sturm und Drang music.

The bird cacophony died down to that special pre-Shabbat peace, when you’ve done all you can do and there is nothing more than to light the candles and enter a different place. An Emerald-spotted Wood Dove was calling plaintively about his/her dead relatives, a hippo snorted
somewhere in the Shire, the palms continued rustling manfully and a few desultory drops of rain fell. The night insects and frogs were tuning up for the big performance later while the Collared Palm Thrush perched almost on my shoulder tried out a new song.

Head spinning from all this mood stuff, I tottered off to the main lounge area to light candles. And the miracle occurred. As I lit, from somewhere behind me the sun broke through, strong yellow rays lighting up the dark-grey clouds. Colour returned to the leaves and trees across
the now-sparkling river with a vengeance and even that blasted hadeda’s wings shone metallic green-purple. And Shabbat duly came in with a drum roll of thunder and in a blaze of glory!

Perhaps encouraged by the last burst of sunlight, the birds decided to give it one last go and burst into louder song, if that were possible. Even the tiny flying jewels that are the Malachite Kingfishers chirped reedily down by the river – and the African Fish Eagle gave a clear, high cry that seemed to echo across the whole world – indeed, as if he was the chazzan (prayer leader) beginning the universal service: “Lechu neranena – let us go and rejoice!” At that moment it occurred to me that – to mangle the immortal words of the Bard – “all the world’s a shul and
all its birds and beasts say many prayers...”. What I mean is that every bird, every living thing, seemed to be joining me in praising the Creator and bringing in the Shabbat.

As the sun disappeared – for good this time - they were joined by the reed frogs and the clear peeping of the bats that swooped down around my head. (Best not to make sudden moves in case one of them was in the slow Reflexes class…) But the point is that, on my little deck with the brown river meandering below, I felt as if I was standing in the middle of the greatest choir on Earth, who were singing the loudest, purest paean in the world to He who made it. A sublime moment indeed; I couldn’t have asked for a better one.

(Of course, like all good shuls, there are always the two women in the front row shouting to each other: “So I said to him, STUNNING doll!” in raucous tones – the blaring voices of the hadedas hit the right note there.)

Shew, well after that, seems a bit of a comedown but as I mentioned, I discussed the parsha with James the Seventh Day Adventist, and sat down to a delicious Hussein-inspired Shabbat dinner (the local fish, chambo, is delicious!) with Verena and Richard. The candles flickered in the wind, and we tried out Kuche Kuche (pronounced coochie coochie), the local Malawian beer, which was very nice and went well with challa.

It poured Friday night so that both Verena and I slept badly, disturbed by worries that we wouldn’t be able to go walking in the morning. But Malawians don’t let a little damp stop them, and after much-needed coffee at 5:30 (it was the Netz minyan for me) we started off. Oy vos it
muddy! I thought to myself, “Embrace the mud, Ilana” as we slipped, slid and splatted our way through the bush. (“Embrace the mud – but not too close, ooh, a little too close!”)

Mud aside, it was a stupendous walk. Liwonde does not have any large cats (no one is sure why this is so), but the herbivores are everywhere and less skittish about walkers than any I’ve seen. So everywhere we stomped were impala, warthog, yellow baboons, kudu, bushbuck – and of
course the birds!

The rest of Shabbat was peaceful and easy. I tried out the hammock on our deck and am happy to report that it works fine. Several birds insisted on visiting me which I thought was very kind of them as I could not go to them. After Shabbat, we were joined for supper by Jillian Wolstein and volunteers – she is financing the building of a school in a village across the river. They are doing an amazing job and we went to visit the school on Sunday afternoon, after a SPECTACULAR game drive in the morning (too muddy even for the intrepid Richard to walk), and a boat cruise along the smooth-as-glass Shire. You shouldn’t trail your fingers in the water for obvious reasons, but that aside, it is just as scenic as can be.

Of course, I whinged like mad about leaving Mvuu. But Monday morning dawned – allegedly, since it was cloud-covered and splattering – and we had to take the boat back out of Liwonde. On the way, we were treated to our one elephant – a damp, dark grey individual who moved rapidly into the bushes, disappearing completely as only a hefelump can. We also saw two African Skimmers skimming across the smooth Shire (hence their name, see) their beaks dipping into the water. We got a special thrill out of this, not only because you don't see these birds often, but because this is Wilderness’ logo come alive. (The two orange and brown sort of
double-ewes are in fact birds’ wings, see?) I know, it’s sad how patriotic we are, but it was lovely way of saying farewell to the Shire.

Mad about Malawi II: Tu Bishvat on the Lake

A stranger Tu Bishvat I haven't had. (Tu Bishvat is a Jewish holiday: the New Year of the trees, look, it's complicated, ask me if you need to.) Usually I haul over various unsuspecting friends to my house, where I make them eat various fruits and nuts and drink wine. But there I was in the middle of Malawi, surrounded by a group of children and adults, all singing softly in Tonga. Sitting on cool, white sand on the banks of the enormous Lake, the full moon seemed to laugh as it rose out of the still black water. It blazed down, mirrored like a black and white Salvador Dali painting. The fire crackled and 24 kids and their mentors watched transfixed as "Rabbi" (seriously – real name: Matthews, a guide at Mvuu but volunteers at Children in the Wilderness, calls himself this because he says, he's not an official teacher but wants to show the children the way – and that is his idea of a rabbi. Not having met one personally himself, mind you – he has to explain to them that that is what a rabbi is, but he doesn't tell them it's a Jewish thing cos they don't know from Jewish…), with a jersey worn upside down on his legs – the sleeves become trouser legs – and a blanket wrapped around him elder-like, gosh this is a long sentence sits at a fire and tells the children the following:

"Don't be afraid of learning. You have come here to have fun but also to learn and learning is the best thing in life. Don't be afraid of it."

A very good lesson I think.

In between each sentence he breaks into song – and the kids pick up the refrain. All their songs are very simple, with one or two words repeated over and over. For example, one song that even I could sing went: "Folwahd, folwahd…" – and then I realised that meant 'forward'… followed by a Tonga word meaning backward which I didn't get so well. (Another one is "sehko, sehko, sehko" – circle, as in: get into a circle, see.) The song they sing around the flickering firelight that turns the sand golden is "Hazaa zaa zaa" and is sung between all the acts of the campfire show that the mentors and leaders put on for the children on their first day. There's a magic show and a skit on poaching and a doctor joke – each one very simple, the magician using not-so-fast sleight of hand but these kids have never seen anything like it and are enthralled. At the end, we all stand in a circle, small, warm hands in each of mine and sing a slow good night song that brings the tempo right down and envelopes them in a warm bubble – just right to send them to sleep.

The next morning… ahh… the sublime Lake lies silver-smooth and silent. The view straight out my room is of the water, the clouds reflected in its perfectly still surface at this time of the morning. And the birds are... well actually they're drowned out by screams and yells as the children, up since 5:00, play an extremely noisy game of catch with their mentors who clearly have an incredible amount of energy at this time of the morning. (Mind you, they are very well organised – they all have turns to be on early morning duty while the rest sleep in.) Bit of a clash of audio and visual here!

Hence my davening was slightly different today – not the elevated type, but rather one that is filled with what it means to live life with a sense of meaning – to give of yourself somehow in this world, because let's face it, in Africa, there's plenty of places to give. This is emphasised by the mentors who are running around madly with the children. They are generally between 18 and 20 and have the life that they're trying to move the kids away from: they haven't finished school and live in the villages continuing to do what their parents do – fishing or subsistence farming. A beautiful girl named Desire (seriously, not a pun) shrugs her shoulders and avoids the question when I ask her what she 'does'. What she 'does', what they all 'do' is look after children once a year for six weeks – and then for the rest of the year, they do 'follow-up' – in other words, keep in touch with the kids, make sure they're okay, encourage them to study and continue their schooling and to perhaps look at another future for themselves – an opportunity that they, the mentors, have never had themselves.

There were a couple of volunteers around too, including a Scottish boy who talked about a "wee house" and he didn't mean the bathroom, a Zimbabwean boy called Pule, pronounced Pulleh (his English name is Andrew but no one calls him that) whose parents are missionaries somewhere in darkest Zimbabwe, and a nurse from the Peace Corps with Hebrew letters tattooed on her toes…

Then there's the African rhythm that one must gently descend into: where one instruction takes ten minutes to give over, because a whole story, no, an entire production, is made of it, complete with enormous facial expressions, leaping, shouting and then dramatically dropping the voice to a whisper, with the final denouement or moment of humour – and the whole table erupts into laughter. I do too, delighted by the wonderful heart-filling giggles of a child. (Apparently the instruction was: please turn off your lights when you leave the room.)

There are many more memories of the few days I spent with these people: the words they begin to instil in the children (RTC – stands for Respecti, Teamworki and Challengi; the 'i' is at the end of the word in Tonga, not the beginning), or the Nutrition Game (do you know how to act like a vitamin? Or be a carbohydrate? I do!) and other games, all educational. The children who if not malnourished are not exactly well-fed, stand politely in line to get their food and then all wait before diving in, while one of them says grace. (The first little girl to do so, appropriately named Grace – seriously – went on for about 10 minutes – Sephardic grace I suppose.)

Then there was the 'swimming test' where everyone gets a chance to see if they can swim before they go on a 'boat safari.' The boys swim better than the girls - that's because they are the ones being taught to fish and therefore need to know. One little girl, as she tried to swim across the width of the pool, clearly thought the test was how long she could keep her face underwater - luckily Pule pulled her out after a bit....

Many other quirky happenings, but most in the context of "you had to be there" so I'll leave it for now. With the shlush-shlush of the Lake and chanting "sehko sehko" of the children still ringing in my ears I reluctantly dragged myself away, returning to Lilongwe to grandmother Tammie at Heuglin's Lodge for a night.

Mad about Malawi I

Dear all,
In which Ilana visits Malawi in the rainy season and spends time with Children in the Wilderness, and some other lovely people, hippos and birds.

"’Tis the season to be rainy…" This version of the song went through my head during my ten days in Malawi. See, ’twas the rainy season indeed – and the thing about the rainy season in almost central Africa is that it tends to well, rain. A lot. To make things a little um wetter, this rainy season was rainier than most apparently (something that the whole of southern Africa has been experiencing actually) so that my overall impression of the country was one of water – from Lake to River to heavy skies and muddy puddles; the sounds were musical drips and plops. Not that that put a dampener on my trip at all har har.

I landed on a (grey, rain-speckled) Sunday afternoon in Lilongwe, capital of Malawi and immediately began to enjoy the quirkiness that is Malawi. Lilongwe International looks like many other African airports – one, simple large building – and the plane came to a stop about a two-minute walk from said building. But when we alighted, we were told we had to wait for the bus. Somewhat bemused, we watched as the bus left the airport building – just over there – and drove around to us. Then some of us didn’t fit in so we had to wait for it to come back…

Lilongwe is another typical African city, with spurts of ‘city’ interspersed with suburbs and maize fields. When I was ‘in town’ I stayed at Heuglin’s Lodge (named after the White-browed Robin Chat, confusing I know, but that’s its new name – it’s still a beautiful bird with a gorgeous deep orange chest, striking white eyebrow and delicious song), a large rambling house in the suburbs that feels like I’ve wandered into a grandmother’s home and have ended up in one of her many bedrooms. Between its old-style cupboards, highly polished wooden floors, wrought-iron bed posts and Tammie, who plays the grandmother part very well – I could just relax and potter in the garden checking out the birds….

I was a bit impatient, as I just wanted to get going, you know, get to the Children in the Wilderness programme – until I realised that this is the real Africa – where things take a bit longer than you’d expect, and we’d go when we went!

Finally on Monday afternoon (after I had pottered around Lilongwe, seen memorials and markets) I found myself travelling along the potholed roads with Gladys, (programme coordinator of CITW for Malawi) with a bucket of chickens covered with ice cubes in the back seat. Apparently this isn’t a custom of the country, it’s because they didn’t all fit into the freezer box she had, and she had to get 50 chickens to Chintheche Inn where she was running the next CITW camp. Good thing she was picking up chickens cos then I got a ride too but at least I didn’t have to sit in the bucket.

Driving through Malawi is like being in the Emerald City in the Wizard of Oz – remember how everyone had to wear green-tinted spectacles? Here you don’t need the spectacles because the country is bright green everywhere, except for the lake which is a blue-green. Of course when I comment on this to Malawians, they all crack up laughing at my naïveté – during the dry season (April to November) this country is brown and dry!

Can’t imagine it myself.

Everyone rides on bikes here and the bikes carry everything, from bags of charcoal, chickens (these ones seemed to be alive, as opposed to ours which were frozen and in polystyrene from Shoprite, I’m happy to say. I don’t think the chickens were that happy but they don’t need to worry about it now do they?), piles of clothes and I even saw a man with two goats on his bike rack. They looked a bit seasick, but goats generally don’t look happy with the world. Mind you, there are lots of goats in Malawi, some with distinct suicidal tendencies as Gladys drove at 100km or so an hour, avoiding potholes and goats with equal calm. My yells at several near-misses just made her crack up laughing. Quite a jolt for the lily-livered mzungu (white person) as she chats to me, swerving around a bike that just popped out of nowhere while she’s passing a massive lopsided truck and a suicidal dog wanders into the road on the right. All this while humming to strains of "Jesus is my friend…" playing on the CD.

Meanwhile, the countryside is a patchwork of maize fields dotted with low mud, thatch-roofed houses – there is no electricity out in the rural areas, only in the towns (which, considering the whinging of South Africans, makes one think). As it got darker, the only lights anywhere were small fires on which supper was being made and paraffin lanterns hanging in the windows of the houses, oddly enough reminding me of Chanuka. Oh and there was a bit of lightning and a small moon struggling through the clouds.

Thanks to the clouds I never saw a sunset in Malawi, something I missed. But on the other hand, they were redolent with atmosphere at all times of the day or night. They hung low and heavy over the landscape, so that I am convinced that either the clouds are lower here than in any other country, or the land itself is higher, closer to the sky than anywhere else, green touching grey. Today they piled up high, white and grey in Renaissance shapes and colours, brooding grey bracketed by bright sun-reflecting pink.

We eventually got to the Lake (it takes "four-five" hours to get everywhere here), and its dark mass ringed the horizon on our right, the peaks of mountains kissed by clouds on the left.
You’ll notice that we spell the Lake with a capital L – that’s because something this big deserves a little respect. The Lake is about 600km long and about 80km at its widest point, and 100m deep on average with 700m being the deepest – with some interesting characters that live in it like a 10-foot catfish named Henry but I digress.

So you’ll remember the Children in the Wilderness programme that I took part in at Pafuri a few years ago? Well, this time I was asked (I didn’t beg, okay a bit) to go to one in Malawi, to film some of the kids, take pictures and write about it – well of course! And then while I was here I could visit some other spots so it all worked out well. Gladys and Simon (a marvellous man who is an excellent Rosh Machaneh – camp director – as well as being comfortable in a dress) work full-time for CITW here and they run six or seven camps a year – two in our Mvuu Camp in Liwonde National Park and four or five here at Chintheche Inn.

Chintheche, about halfway up the western coast of the Lake, is perfect for a beach holiday, despite the fact that it’s not the sea. But a body of water that big causes confusion in the mind, because one thinks that it must be the sea, but then one wonders what is missing from the air – oh, it’s the smell of salt! But there’s soft white sand, lapping cool blue water that is crisscrossed by small dugout boats with fishermen, beautiful snorkelling, birding and swimming – what more can a girl ask for?

However, because I was here to watch the CITW camp and not to indulge my senses, I didn’t get to kayak or snorkel at this point. But I did get to sit on the long sandy beach, with the sound of the waves – small ones, that go shlush-shlush all day long in the ears, a calm background noise. After the rain (yes, plenty), the sky above would clear to a pale blue, but the horizon and hence the edges of my eyes were filled with cumulonimbus – burgeoning Renaissance clouds that towered kilometres high, blinding white in the rare sunshine.

If the sun is too bright you can sit in the shade of the enormous mango trees that grow in the beach sand, the fruit falling with a gentle thump every now and then. And occasionally, if you’re very lucky, you’ll see large squirrels moving up and down the branches enjoying pre-lapsed fruit (garden of Eden reference, get it); these are called Mutable Sun Squirrels and are different to the usual tree squirrels, so a privilege to see. The Collared Palm-Thrushes with their amazing repertoire of sweet song are also everywhere and one of those that you get really excited about (never having seen them elsewhere) until you realise the little chap lives practically on your shoulder and then you shrug nonchalantly when you see him – a good lesson not to take CPTs or anything else for that matter for granted!

Here endeth that lesson. Next time – Tu Bishvat on the Lake.