No mushrooms at Mushroom Farm

Our trip to Livingstonia once again took us north, past the Rumphi turn-off on the M1, down the Rift Valley Escarpment  and along the lake shore to Chitinda.  From here you have a view up to the Nyika Plateau and Livingstonia lies on a ridge about half way up, 900 metres above the lake shore.   Mushroom Farm, where we were staying, is lower down the ridge, at about 700 metres.  

Once again we found ourselves in beautiful Malawian terrain.  The views down to the Lake, across to the Nyika Plateau, and out west toward the Zambian border were magnificent.  We didn't see the splendid sun rises we had seen at Nkhata Bay and Usisya (these were hidden from us by the ridge which rose a bit to our east), but the moon shining on the water in the evenings was almost as impressive.   We had seen fast flowing streams on our visit to the Nyika plain and on the Zulunkhuni river at Ruarwe but had not seen anything to match the falls at Manchewe.

The Nyika plateau, seen from the road between Mushroom Farm and Livingstonia

View west from the Livingstonia Mission Church bell-tower - the horizon stretches for ever

View down to the Lake shore

Manchewe Falls

There were no mushrooms at Mushroom Farm; the season was wrong.  But the place is heaven. The lodge itself is made up of an assortment of structures which form living and sleeping quarters: wooden chalets perched precariously on the edge of the ridge, an A-Frame made out of an indeterminate material, our safari tent with a thatched canopy, the obligatory compost toilets in painted wooden structures, a living room, a bar, a concrete yoga platform (!), hammocks, various tables dotted around the place.  A dry river bed (or at least it was dry until the storm on our last night there) runs through the middle of the camp.  Monkeys play in the trees, birds sing, butterflies flit. There are the views - down to the lake shore, across to the Livingstone Mountains in Tanzania, along the Rift Valley Escarpment or  up past Livingstonia to Nyika.  The vegetarian food was the best and most varied I have ever eaten; there may not have been mushrooms but other vegetables were in abundance - freshly picked avocado, aubergine, green beans, lovely tasting onions - and brought together in exciting recipes. There were of course the infectiously friendly staff:  Budget, Bishop and Kondwane who worked in the bar and served the food; the singing and dancing cooks, Fiskani, Enetta and Charity; and Oscar, the handyman, who made sure we had hot water in the showers and hails from my home district of Chitipa (you will recall that I am Mr Muspole from Kamame District in Chitipa) .  The Farm is owned and managed by two young Americans - Maddy and Cameron - who live out the ideals of eco-tourism; they use local labour, source as many of their products as they can locally (food and materials), are eco-conscious in all they do, and are active in the local Manchewe community.

 Moon on the water - view from our safari tent to the Lake, 700 metres below

View of our safari tent from the tastefully decorated compost toilet

Preparing our Christmas dinner - the dancing cooks

The best vegetarian food I have eaten

Enjoying a Green

Insect life at Mushroom Farm

The wonderful Forest Restaurant run by Mr Banda who used to be a cook at Mushroom Farm

Mcdonald was our guide at Mushroom Farm.  He met us off the bus from Mzuzu at the Chitimba turn-off for Livingstonia and led us up to Mushroom Farm.  On Christmas Eve, before taking us round Livingstonia, we went to his home village where we met all his immediate family, several of his relatives, the head, deputy head and a teacher at Mahuwi School, where he chairs the PTA. and a range of other friends and acquaintances.  On Christmas Day he took us and other people staying at Mushroom Farm to see the Manchewe Falls and visit the gardens at Lukwe Ecocamp.  So we got to know him pretty well.  He is absolutely committed to doing his part in improving the lives of the local community. In addition to his work with Maluwi School, he chairs a local community organisation which supports empowerment of women in the community,  provides support for orphans, and generally promotes community well-being.  There is limited or no financial support to carry out the work so it is about bringing the community together to achieve what it can with whatever limited means they have at their disposal.  Mcdonald himself seems indefatigable.   His home is some 7 or 8 kilometres from Mushroom Farm - beyond Livingstonia - and he was shuttling around between his home, the Mushroom Farm, the Lake shore on foot in the way that others might if they had some form of motorised  transport.  His garden has avocados, mangos, pineapples, bananas, greens of various kinds; he has land on which he grows cassava; he has plans to build a new house (there is a brick-making kiln in his garden  but a serious injury to his hand sustained when a vehicle overturned on the road up from Chitimba has prevented him from starting); and he does his community work.   

Mcdonald outside his house with his 'third, fourth and fifth born' - the youngest child is an orphan who lives with his family in their two room house

In Mcdonald's wife's shop

In Mcdonald's garden - anyone for avocado?

Palm trees on Mcdonald's land

Mcdonald destroyed this plate of the local delicacy - fried termite ants

A local meat market on our way to Livingstonia

Livingstonia itself is not like any other Malawian towns we have visited.  It was built on the site of an African township, Khondonwe, by Robert Laws to ensure a lasting legacy for David Livingstone’s work in the Lake Malawi area.   He had previously tried to set up settlements on the Lake shore but on both occasions his attempts had been defeated by fatalities inflicted by malaria.  He arrived in Khondonwe and over the next few decades led the development of the town.  The church here is the headquarters of the CCAP (Church of Central Africa, Presbyterian) in the northern region of Malawi. There is a university, a technical college, a health centre and hospital, a school, a museum (in the house that Robert Laws lived in from 1903) – with the architecture more akin to what you would expect in Blantyre old town (Livingstone’s home town) or Aberdeen ( Laws’ home town) than central Africa.  In contrast, the trees that line the roads into and out of Livingstonia make them into what look like boulevards from any small town in France.

Livingstonia Mission Church 

Entrance to Livingstonia University

Bell monument in Livingstonia

A boulevard in Livingstonia

It's a bad admission to make, I know, especially after years of working for local councils which have a major role in promoting them, but green issues have never been top of my personal agenda.  That may be changing.  Temwa's focus on improving forestry and agricultural techniques to promote sustainability and the eco-consciousness of all the lodges we have stayed at whilst here has heightened my interest.  And then there was the visit we made to the permaculture garden at Lukwe Ecocamp. Aleck the gardener (father of Bishop who works at Mushroom Farm) was passionate about the principles and benefits that come from proper eco-management of gardens. The garden was a magnificent example of the results that can be achieved.  But it takes years of painstaking work and huge amounts of patience to get the garden in the condition that Lukwe is in. My (relatively ill-informed) challenge would be how people who desperately need food and other means of living can be expected to wait that long to see results.  The challenge back would be can they afford as a community - and we as a society - not to?

Aleck teaching us the principles and practice of permaculture

The journeys from Mzuzu to Mushroom Farm and back brought their own excitement.   There were the normal trials and tribulations  of an Axa bus journey to Chitimba and a matola minibus trip back. But these bore no comparison to the journeys between the lake shore at Chitimba and Mushroom Farm.  The road climbs the 700 metres in 9 kilometres and includes 20 hairpin bends.  We walked up without too much incident.   Mcdonald guided us, including along steep paths which cut out a number of the bends, and we made it in some two and half hours.  It was difficult - searing heat and I also had been foolhardy enough to refuse Mcdonald's offer to carry our rucksack which weighed a  good 15 kg - but there was a  sense of achievement and a couple of swiftly downed Greens (the Carlsberg beer of choice) at the end.  Relief was our biggest sensation at the end of our journey down.  The storm the night before had led to quite a lot of land slip on the road.  We had planned to walk down with Mcdonald - mush easier than the walk up - but some American Peace Corps volunteers who were staying at Mushroom Farm had ordered a truck to take them down and we agreed, with some others, to go down with them.  So there we were going down a 700 metre hill around 20 hair pin bends on a road (if you can call it that) which was disintegrating and with 16 of us squeezed in the back of a small truck and a further three inside.  We made it - just!

Mzuzu bus station - people getting on and off at the same time

On our way up the mountain - lots of people were coming down to the Christmas market at Chitimba

How many people can fit in one small truck?

There is no rest for the wicked.  So here we are, back one night at Mzuzu, and just about to go to Nkhata Bay to catch the Ilala on its southward journey to Likoma Island.   It leaves early evening and gets to Likoma in the middle of the night.  It stays there until early morning so we will have a choice of sleeping on the deck or braving use of the small boats in the dark night to take us to Likoma.  I think it will be the deck...