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...

The Zulunkhuni river

Ruarwe is 60km north of Nkhata Bay and can only be reached by boat (or the treacherous road journey from Mzuzu to Usisya followed by a 15km walk!).  It was a  spur of the moment decision on Saturday that took us there.

We didn't have long.  I needed to be back for a meeting of the Temwa Malawi Board on Tuesday morning so we were working to a tight timetable...but the timing was good.  The Ilala, which has plied its trade motoring up and down Lake Malawi since 1951, was due to be passing through Nkhata Bay going north at 7am on Sunday morning, getting to Ruarwe early afternoon, and coming back through Ruarwe early the following morning. So a stay in Nkhata Bay followed by a further night at Ruarwe beckoned.

We spent the night at Njaya Lodge (our regular in Nkhata Bay) and had just sat down for our 6am breakfast when I got a phone call from the Zulunkhuni River Lodge (our destination in Ruarwe) that the Ilala was about to leave Nkhata Bay...so much for the schedules!   The gang plank was down when we got there but we managed to scramble on just before the boat sailed - others were not so lucky.

The Ilala was built on the Clyde and has been in service since 1951

The bar on the upper deck of the Ilala



The lower deck of the Ilala

The Ilala is an interesting antidote to British health and safety culture.  It wasn't clear how many people, chicken, cows, bags of maize, cartons of 'shake-shake' ('international beer' according to its label), steel roofing sheets, or other packages had been loaded on the Ilala.  There is no obvious checking of the number of people who get into the boats used to ferry people to and from the shore...I counted 42 in one of them.  Young children get handed from one person to another as they are lifted from the boats.  Fishing boats sidle up to the Ilala to sell their catches to willing passengers... with people hanging over the side to hand over their 1,000 kwacha notes.

People waiting to be transported to the Ilala at Usisya, the stop before Ruarwe

I counted 42 people on one of these boats 

 For those of you who know Jane Campion's film, the Piano, our arrival at Ruarwe would be a familiar scene (sans piano).  We clambered down a rickety ladder on the side of the Ilala into a boat filled with people, goods and chattels; at the shore we had to climb out of the boat, luggage and all, into waist high water; we then walked a couple of kilometres along narrow, rocky lakeside paths until we entered the Zulunkhuni River Lodge. We were pleased to see a piano in the corner of the Lodge dining area - clearly we had walked into a scene from the Piano!

You have to wade waist deep to get on and off the boats

The path from the beach to the Zulunkhuni River Lodge

The eating area - with piano - at the Lodge

The toilet/shower block at the Lodge

The Lodge is at the mouth of the Zulunkhuni River which runs down from the Rift Valley uplands into Lake Malawi.   At this time of year, when the rains have come, the water gushes down the folds of the valley into the outlet next to the Lodge and our afternoon entertainment was a walk to the top of the waterfall above the Lodge.  The rains had cleared the air so we saw the Tanzanian side of Lake Malawi for the first time.  The walk itself took us through lush forests which were full of birdlife, strange insects and beetles, and lots of jungle noise. The highlight of the walk up were the baboons that were swinging in the trees but then ran down to the river, jumping over the rocks and finding a quiet place to have a picnic of fresh mango.

View across to Tanzania from the hills above  Zulunkhuni River Lodge.

Baboons having a picnic on the rocks below the path we were climbing

On the way up, Kayola, our guide, had been muttering something about jumping down the water-fall. I had been playing along, partly not understanding and partly wanting to appear to be up for anything. We got to what we thought was the end of the walk - there was nowhere left to go - when Kayola asked us to take off our socks and shoes.  He then started to wade across the gushing river. He stumbled as he crossed but then signalled to us to follow.  I went first, with no certainty about what I was stepping on and with the water swirling around my knees.   I then encouraged Liz, who was looking non-plussed, to come across, and she managed with a helping hand at the end from Kayola. We thought that was it but then Kayola started to cross the river again, this time just above the head of the water-fall.  Again he was almost taken away by the flow of the river but made it across and turned to encourage us to cross. This time I was looking non-plussed but I started to cross.  It was flat rocks at the bottom and, with my bare feet, I just started to slip. After a couple of attempts I called it a day - I think Liz had wanted to call it a day some time before - but by this stage Kayola was looking distinctly non-plussed. What was our problem?  The only way back was by crossing the river again where we had crossed it up-stream - a scary enough prospect but at least we felt it was the better of two evils.

Liz gets a helping hand from Kayola

The staff at Zulunkhuni River Lodge were amongst the friendliest we have met - which is saying something in Malawi.  Levy, tending the bar and proudly telling us the story of how he and other villagers had been involved in the building and running of a library, community centre and other facilities (collectively known as Nyumba ya Masambiro, NYM), Fishani singing local songs whilst cooking our food in the kitchen, with Leah smiling and laughing alongside her; Kayola being long suffering as we climbed up to the waterfall and then showing off his own derring-do by diving off a 15 metre platform into a rocky bit of the lake; Duwe carrying our bag back to the boat and introducing his wife, who was amongst the village people on the beach.    

Levy and Fishani with a fish freshly caught in the Lake

Ruarwe itself has a lovely feel to it. Kayola showed us round the village whilst we were waiting for the boat. The beach area was the main hub of activity.  But we walked past houses at the back and up to a community campus - a 105 year old church, a primary school, the NYM buildings, a clinic. There were one or two dilapidated houses which looked as if they had been built half a century or more ago and were totally out of place - but they only added to the charm.

Children playing in Ruarwe

Not your normal village house!

 One thing that increasingly strikes me about Malawi is that GDP per head is a very poor measure of quality of life (you'll recall that Malawi's GDP per head is now the lowest in the world) .  Northern Malawi is less populated than the south, has different land ownership structures, and is more fertile - which may mean we're getting a distorted view.   But people are happy here and on the whole have a good life.  They have no money but, certainly in this area, most appear to be able to access food.  There is a real sense of village community with people in the village taking responsibility for each other. The children clearly enjoy the freedom to run around and play. And people are industrious.  We didn't see any bricks being fired here but we saw plenty of other industry: growing fruit and vegetables, rearing livestock, fishing and other activities, all aimed at ensuring that people could ensure a reasonably sustainable livelihood.

A woman preparing cassava to make nsima, the local staple

One of the many animals being reared locally

Fishing at Ruarwe

On our way back on the Ilala we could see what appeared to be smoke rising above the water in virtually every direction. In my typically 'observant-unobservant' way, I could see these smoke clouds, wondered briefly whether they were oil wells on fire and shifted my thoughts on to something else.  Some time later, Liz drew my attention to them again - and this time I took in what I was seeing.  Apparently they are swarms of flies that hatch in the depths of the Lake and rise up above it, much to the delight of waiting fish and birds.  Occasionally the swarms drift over land to the delight of local villagers. They are caught by the children, squeezed into balls and fried  - a real delicacy that brings to mind the Eccles cakes of my youth.

Just how many flies?

Those who read this blog may be wondering (in fact, I would, if I was reading it!) what this volunteering thing is about.  Is it just one long holiday?  Well it does feel like that sometimes - we do seem to have been around in northern Malawi.    In my defence, m'lord...well enough of that.  Suffice it to say that I am working very hard!!!

Having said that, after the Malawi Board meeting this morning and finishing off some work this afternoon, we are off on our next adventures - Mushroom Farm at Livingstonia for Christmas and Mango Drift on Likoma for New Year.  I can feel a blog coming on...

'My Heart's in the Highlands'

It's getting toward Christmas but it doesn't feel like it here.  Following the storm we had six weeks ago, it seemed we had gone back to the hot dry weather  Since then the rains have arrived but they are not like the storm we had...now it's nothing more than the heavy rain we might have in the UK during spring.  And then it turns to what is most of the time very pleasant hot weather. So no sign of reindeer here other than the hats worn by Shoprite shop assistants.

Not that we have been short of seeing other kinds of deer (well antelope!).  We had a long weekend in Nyika National Park which is 100 kilometres north of Mzuzu so pretty far north in Malawian terms - though not as far north as my home town of Chitipa (you will recall I am known here as Musopole from Kameme District in Chitipa).  It rained quite a lot on the way up there and there seemed to be rain coming down (together with amazing lightning forks) all around us when we were there.  But we were lucky and I don't recall a drop of rain falling on us during our stay.

Nyika is nothing like the dry scrubland we experienced at Vwaza which lies just to the south. The green rolling hills seem to go on for ever in every direction.  There are lakes, streams, evergreen trees, bracken, beautiful orchids, mountain paths; there is low lying mist and dew on the ground in the mornings; there are heavy dark clouds with blue peaking through; there are log fires in the lodge and in the guest rooms for the cold nights; there is a small fishing lake in front of the lodge and little green wooden tables to sit at for picnics; there is even a friendly deer or two (bushbuck - looks like a deer to me but belongs, I think, to the antelope family) that come down to the lodge to graze on the grass in the mornings and evenings.  We were back at the hostel we stayed at in Lochranza (Isle of Arran) in August - or it felt like it!  

View across the lake to Chilinda Lodge

Liz by the log fire in our room at Chilinda Lodge - electricity is only on from 6pm to 9pm

Disa Robusta -one of the many varieties of orchid we saw in Nyika 

We went with Roy 'Tubby' Johnson, a South African who has lived in Malawi for a few years and runs Tubby Tours, and two other guests - Hannah who is from Korea and has been working as a volunteer near Zomba (the old colonial capital which is in the south) and Michael, a musician who trained in Karonga in the north and is now back living in Mzuzu which is his home town.  Roy loves Nyika and was really enthusiastic whilst taking us on game drives. On the Saturday, he took us to his favourite viewing point, Chosi Point, to see the sun set over the Zambian hills to the west. Unfortunately the rain clouds  over the hills hid the sun from view but it was a great spot and we returned the next morning, when the clouds had dispersed, to get an even better view.

Roy, Liz, Hannah and Michael at Chosi Point

The animals were not the same as Vwaza - none of those elegant, big-eared kudu, no impala, definitely no hippo and buffalo....but masses of roan antelope with their  trade mark white noses, herds of bushbucks running across the grassland, the ever present zebra, regular sightings of birds of prey and other bird varieties (for the connoisseurs amongst you, the spotting of Denham Bustards, a nightjar and an African marsh harrier), the occasional eland antelope (the largest antelope weighing in at about 1,000 kilo compared to the 500 kilo of the roan), and some unusual black monkeys with very long tales as we drove along the Zambian border on the way back.

A roan antelope with distinctive white marks on its face

Zebra Crossing!

Some of the bushbucks ran alongside our car

A pair of Denham's Bustards

Nightjar 

Nyika also has one of the greatest concentrations of leopards in Central Africa and we were hopeful we might see one on the night game drive we took but as first timers we would have been lucky.  We were able to pretend we were in the leopard's lair when, the next day, we went to the top of a hill which had a brilliant view of the antelope grazing in the valley below, good shelter in trees and rocks, and a smell of an animal marking its ground.  But, maybe luckily, we didn't come across the leopard itself!

Blessings and Watson were our very knowledgeable guides on the night game drive

The leopard's lair?

We saw fresh elephant dung on the way out of the park but no elephants. We stopped at Vwaza Marsh en route back to Mzuzu.  What a contrast with the landscape in Nyika! No buffalo this time but loads of hippos doing their wallowing best and quite a few warthogs. Godwin, who looks after the Vwaza cabins, was there again - he didn't recognise us from the previous time until I mentioned that I was Musopole from Chitipa and Liz was Nya Kaunda from Nkhata Bay at which stage recognition was immediate - clearly our names have caught on.  

In Mzuzu, the lights are back on - it seems that the coming of the rains has allowed ESCOM to reduce their load shedding activity!  We went to Macondo Camp for Thanksgiving (a lot of the time it doesn't seem like we are in Malawi - either Scotland or, on this occasion, the USA); both the cats are expecting what Tom calls 'blessings' - there's a 'lad' in the neighbourhood who is clearly up to no good and we suspect is not planning to fulfil his fatherly duties;  it may be their current pregnant state that makes them a bit more lethargic but 'catty' or 'catties' definitely hasn't/haven't got 'ratty' - last Saturday, I surprised 'ratty' when I opened a cupboard door and he used my shoulder as an initial landing pad before jumping down on the floor and scuttling past the bemused 'catties'; Elle has started making her home-made muesli from scratch by putting lots of fruit out to dry in the sun; we went back to Macondo on Friday to hear a recently formed local group called The Repatriation Band - they were 'rastas' who showed some devotion to their cause (at least the lead singer did) and every song had 'Repatriation' worked into it - there weren't many people there but the band made a real effort to entertain and they were great fun; Liz carries on helping out at the Crisis Nursery most days and has been showing children at Wongari Primary School how to play the guitar, playing along to them singing mainly religious songs, and teaching them to sing 'Blowing in the Wind' and 'Here Comes the Sun'; and 'Red Chile', which does  a lovely hot tandoori chicken, has changed its name to 'Blue Tomato' (Liz and I are a bit concerned about the marketing impact of this - at least with 'Red Chile' you had some idea that it might be about spicy food).

'The Repatriation Band' backing players

Mangoes being dried in the Temwa garden (with cinnamon and baking powder round the outside as a deterrent to the ants!)

Mushrooms are in season!

At Temwa, the Nkhata Bay Natural Way (NBNW) team have moved on from 'sensitisation' (the community awareness campaign which I joined at Kasasire in the upland area in my first week here) and 'verification' (the process of checking people nominated to take part in NBNW understand the commitment they are making which Liz and I joined in Sanga on the lakeshore a few weeks ago), to 'situational analysis' which involves getting a more detailed understanding of each individual beneficiary's situation: what experience they have of the Income Generating Activity (IGA) they're involved in, what land they have for growing crops, fish farming or bee-keeping and what support they hope to receive from Temwa. The team have been going out into the field every weekday and most weekends (they got back around 7pm yesterday, Saturday, and went out again at dawn this morning, Sunday!). 

Off to the field - Benson, NBNW Project Manager, with Emmanuel, Programmes Manager, in the background

The Nkhata Bay Natural Resource Initiative, which operates in areas not covered by NBNW, is currently trying to source and distribute potato tuba in time for the growing season.  The micro-finance team continues its work  assessing new clients, issuing loans, collecting repayments; I'm still hoping to join Jericho, the Project Officer, doing his round of the Nkhata Bay North area. It's been a quieter time for Fishani and Dyana, the health and education officers, following a hectic November - they've been catching up on paperwork, helping me put together the budget for next year and preparing for a review of their projects.

In the office - Dyana, Maria and Fishani

Chimwemwe (Happy) prefers being in the office to catching 'ratty'

We'll be in Livingstonia for Christmas and Likoma for New Year.  Liz's trip to Zanzibar is booked and I'll join her for the last part, before we take the Tazara (Tanzania to Zambia railway built by the Chinese in the early 1970s) from Dar es Salaam to Mbeya - a 24 hour journey which includes going through national parks - before making our way by bus/shared taxi to Mzuzu through south west Tanzania and northern Malawi.  Before she goes, we're hoping Johnny at Maconda will put on a Burns Supper (if we can source a haggis!).  There will be poetry readings and songs and I'm sure 'My Heart's in the Highlands' will be amongst them.

...and, getting back to Christmas, if you are still thinking about what to buy, why not try the Temwa shop at http://temwa.bigcartel.com/?  A bit late I know but...