The Grass is Always Greener in Zomba!!

For the first time we began a weekend adventure punctually. We left on a sunny Friday morning at 10 a.m. to stop by a variety of stores in Lilongwe and pick up mass quantities of green soap and kilogram packages of brown sugar to give to the prisoners we were about to visit on Saturday (more on that later). And then we headed south to Zomba in our van accompanied by Linda (Duncan’s wife), Duncan (SCOM Staff), Irena (SCOM Intern), and our fearless driver Victor.
The drive was full of bumps but had a view of beautiful GREEN mountains (They had tall trees in comparison to Lilongwe. This time of year Lilongwe appears very dry and dusty.) The drive was approximately 4 hours long and Victor even got to stop by his father-in-law’s place to drop off some food. (It was cute, says Kate.)
Then we arrived at The Lodge. (The name had something to do with fishing …said Craig). We were the only people staying at the lodge and they provided delicious meals consisting of:
Breakfast: Over-hard egg on top of chips (fries)! With four pieces of bread, butter and coffee.
Lunch: Rice/Nsima with chicken
Dinner: Rice/Nsima Chomba (fish-native to Malawi mind you) or Chicken
Dinner also consisted of beef and Nsima/Rice one night. Ooh with delicious red tomato salad-ish substance.
The meals were all served by one very friendly lady, also named Linda!!, who also provided some rooms with hot buckets of water each morning to bathe/bucket shower.
The lodge was surrounded by dirt paths and square fish ponds which we explored on the first evening. The atmosphere was very serene. Then a group of kids began following us all the way home and we could not invite them in (sad).
We only had a few hours after we arrived in Zomba to prepare for a large group at Dumasi College of Education. Maggie stepped up to the plate by preparing a sermon and even sacrificed being late to dinner to complete her wonderful feat (“It was all God,” said Maggie.) In completion of her sermon, like Spencer before, she was served with a beverage, only this time Fanta! The moral of the story is that if you preach the word, you’ll get served with a tasty drink at a large group. The large group began by candlelight because the school had no power (This is Malawi – it’s like butter on toast). But the worship was exciting and people even danced around the room during one particular song, it kind of looked like a conga line.
Also at the large group, three people gave their testimonies and we sang Palibe during which the students joined in, we think that’s a good sign. Maggie’s sermon was about works and faith and how we cannot have one without the other. Then as it is always Malawian style to introduce oneself … people went around saying their names, grade, major and ….. relationship status? It was Duncan’s fault because he introduced Linda as his beautiful wife at the beginning. We were all almost single, Greg had zero kids. It was awkward, but still not as awkward as that one bible study with the secondary students.
Day 2 Saturday … Zomba!!
Supply’s were low …morale was lower … just kidding! >:o)
At 7am we woke up to the melody of rain on a tin roof. “It never rains in the winter season of Malawi,” Duncan said. He was wrong though –oh how wrong he was - it seemed like the Lodge was receiving a power car wash.
After a lovely breakfast (see meal plan above) we went out to visit Chancellor College, the premier college of Malawi with approximately 3,500 students. Although it had many wonderful buildings with floral landscape, the best part of it were the mountainous views in its backyard. One area was called Jerusalem, which is an area overlooking the vast scenery and specifically set aside for students to get away and pray.
Afterwards we stopped by the Botanical Gardens and encountered an invasion of little grey monkeys. The scenery was nice, filled with all the shades of green and a clear waterfall rushing along boulders and smaller rocks, but let’s face it – the monkeys were the highlight.
We stopped briefly at the lodge to eat lunch but as we are so commonly late – we stuffed our mouths and bolted to meet with the Dumasi students and partner with them in their prison ministry around 2pm. The students kindly carried our brown sugar and soap supplies as we walked to the prison through a large field which was approximately a 10 minute walk from the school.
The prison had approximately 200 inmates and they all gathered in the center outdoor area for the students’ ministry. The prison security was really lax and the only precaution for us to enter was to turn off our cell-phones, which none of us had so we were good! Some of the prisoners are responsible to grow their own crops for food and are able to sell the surplus. The presentation of the ministry included a skit by three students, singing, and some drum banging. The whole service was in Chichewa and therefore we didn’t even know when to stand up and sing, until prompted by others, then we shared two songs. (They were extremely impressed when we sang a song in Chichewa and pronounced “nazunga lira” correctly) After a message was spoken from the word the leader told the prisoners that we had brought them soap and brown sugar. The prisoners got riled up when they heard the brown sugar was going straight to the kitchen and wanted the tastiness to go straight to them. So, after much deliberation, the SCOM leaders worked with the prison guards to distribute the sugar and soap equally amongst each individual group cell. The prisoners’ ages ranged from very young to very old. Almost all of the prisoners who attended the program seemed very familiar with Christianity already. They knew the song lyrics, they knew the call and responses, and many of them responded to the speaker’s call for prayer. The Domasi students will continue their ministry once a month to that specific prison. We were very happy to be able to partner with the students with the ministry, although it definitely took us out of our comfort zone, and we were in constant need of translators throughout the program.
Little did we know, Saturday’s adventure did not end at the prison. While walking back, we encountered a lively game of football (that’s soccer for all of you back home) between two colleges. Although we may not understand why people enjoy football (soccer) so much, the spectators in attendance were very passionate about the game. We saw bicycle kicks, slidetackles, and much rejoicing when the home team scored. The spectators surrounded the field on all sides, and many viewed the game from a nearby hillside. It was quite an experience! Nature made for a good venue.
Saturday night at the lodge was rather uneventful, a couple of girls did get their hair done in cornrows by talented hairstylists (aka Linda and Irena!). Sleep was met with plenty of dreams that night. People woke up confusing mosquito nets as intruders.
I (Spencer) was awakened on Sunday morning to the jovial sounds of Victor singing in the bath. It was hilarious! After a punctual breakfast (hooray! See meal plan above) we packed our bags in preparation for our loooooong bus journey back to Lilongwe. But before leaving Zomba and the southern region (that’s right, there’s more! Much more!) we drove up, up , and up the Zomba plateau. Although some members of our team might have been a bit worried by the mountainous drop-offs , hidden turns, and lack of side rails, I (Spencer) had every confidence in Victor’s driving ability, and he skillfully got us to the mountain’s summit.
Our first stop involved picking up a “tour” guide for 1500 kwacha. He led us to another extraordinary sight of William’s Waterfalls. I (Kate) slipped but only got dirty and surprisingly no one got unintentionally wet. “Don’t go chasing waterfalls …” Spencer has an amazing ability to provide musical accompaniment to our adventures. And Kate has an amazing ability to annoy Spencer by typing everything that he says out loud. (In case you haven’t noticed, this post is written by more than one person, and is consequently not as smooth as past posts.) Hiking in the midst of the forest next to the raging stream of water we reached a dilemma of facing a tree with vicious bees. This is where the sense of self-preservation made us turn around. All-in-all it was a good hike.
Then our “tour” guide, oh oh! He has a name, Daniel, took us to a great view of Zomba city called Queen’s Point because Queen Elizabeth visited that location from Britain. Lots of the Malawi sights have British names because of their presence before Malawi’s independence. Then we also went to Emperor’s point a little farther down, and as Greg pointed out, they really need to decide on their monarchical structure here In Malawi. Duncan carried a big stick with him for some reason… it was a good pole vaulting size.
Then we went to a bunch of shops to purchase curios (for some of you folks) ..sshhh we didn’t tell you. But bargaining is hard so value your gifts well. Greg was a pro at it. He made the rest of us look like we got ripped off. He was also described as “driving a hard bargain” by the sellers on multiple occasions. And then, after experiencing the mountain to our satisfaction, we made our descent back down to the town of Zomba, where we ate at a restaurant called Tasty Bites. It was much faster service than our last two restaurant experiences, but if you’re ever there, don’t get the pizza. A large is the size of your face, says Kate who didn’t even get the pizza.
On the drive back we picked up two HUGE bundles of charcoal (which successfully got past the check points because I guess some forest police like to take the charcoal for themselves if found) and lots of vegetables when we drove by markets. The loooooong drive seemed shorter due to the good times we had singing many, many songs, despite their lack of musical pleasantness. What Spencer means, is that we frequently switched pitch in the middle of a song and liked to use the different sounds of our voices to produce unique melodies.
All in all, we learned a lot during this weekend, and Kate and I definitely learned that a history major and a journalism major should not be paired to write a blog entry, at least not this late at night…
Arica just won at hand solitaire! A rare feat. Arica and Sarah also accomplished doing the dirty work of four people’s laundry by flashlight in the dark after our long trip! (Again, as I said, not as smooth as some entries…)
Thank you for your patience and readership! Our last request is for prayers: Please pray that God blesses our last week in Malawi together as we visit our last time at the SCOM office in Lilongwe and venture off to Lake Malawi for a leadership conference.
That’s allll folks! We’re excited to see you all again soon (after South Africa)!
God Bless,
Spencer and Kate and the Malawi Team
P.S. We hope that someone edits this for us.
P.P.S. No worries Sarah, Arica and Maggie did the editing =P