North of the South

My new car and kayak in Murchison



Looking into the bay we were camped in on Kenepura Sound



In NZ it is customary to carry children with you for sacraficing in event of rockfall...



In the deep forest



a beautiful view down into Marlborough Sound (I think)



cranking it up one of the many many hills on the Queen Charlotte Track



one of the plague of Weka birds who constantly pestered us for food. Look out for the evil red eyes!



a view point at Eatwell's Lookout on the Queen Charlotte Track



the road back to the campsite along the Kenepura Sound



Davies Bay, near the end of the Queen Charlotte Track


Hello all,

As you can see I now have a car and a kayak. I've been out paddling on the Buller River at Murchison and one of it's tributaries, the Matakitaki. Great to get out on the water again, although there are relatively few kayaking tourists like me about so it's been tricky finding people to paddle with. Luckily in Murchison there is a kayak school, and due to the quietness, the instructors and rafters are often at a loose end.

C, J and I went for some mountain biking action on the Queen Charlotte Track in the Marlborough Sounds area while C&J wait for the van they want to buy to be fixed in Blenhiem (looks like it will be Monday now).

I am currently at GB & M's flat in Chch sheltering from the rain, before hopefully heading across to the west coast for some rivers tomorrow.

I've run a couple of my hiking plans past C & J and they are game for the Christmas and New Year plans. I want to hike the 7 day Hollyford-Big Bay-Pike River (not that Pike River)-Hollyford circuit over Christmas, spending Christmas day on the beach at Big Bay 2 and a half days hike from the nearest road. Then on the 31st we will start the 7 day 'traditional' Dusky Track from Lake Huaroko in the far south of South Island, out to Supper Cove, and back inland to Lake Manapouri near the town of Te Anau. On this track we will pass such famous Scottish landmarks as Loch Maree, the Upper Spey, the Dingwall Hills and Gairloch. These plans are hopefully going to come to fruition, but we still need to book huts, which may be a problem on the popular section of the Hollyford track.

Right, I think that's most of the news for now - i may not blog again until after Christmas, so Merry Christmas to all in the Arctic UK, from a rather soggy NZ!

Andy

out of Africa...

Lawrence, our loyal and reliable taxi driver, says 'tiwonana' for the last time.



Rach doing her "good relative / friend" impression and writing Christmas cards in Jo'burg airport during our 10 hour stop-over, I'm afraid I have not been as good...



mmm...real beer...!



happy Rachie!



Rach makes a new friend



a cold windy walk near Christchurch



good times in the pub with C,GB, J, M, AP and me!



a sunny walk near Christchurch



AP and K at the crag



me climbing


Not many words this time as I'm packing up to head up to the northern part of South Island to (hopefully) begin my adventure. Rosy and Jake have put me up in fantastic style at their lovely house, and have advised me on where to look for cars, leant me a bike to go do my stuff around town, and fed me beautiful food - thanks guys! I met up with GB and M, and C&J who are also new in town and finding their feet. AP met me off the plane (Christchurch customs were very easy to get through, in fact Rach and I had no problems all the way from Malawi).

Helen and Sandy put Rach and I up while we were transitting through Sydney for a weekend, and that base allowed us to get over jet lag, contact family and find our feet again. Both Sydney and Christchurch have been unusually cool and damp this week, but as we've mainly been pootling about sorting things out that hasn't affected us too much.

Of course, now I must let Rach blog her own updates, as we are now apart for an unprecedented 7 weeks...very strange!

Right, i must go do more packing. Will try to blog again soon.

Love to all,

Andy

PS - 2nd hand Whitewater kayaks are proving hard to come by...may have to buy new (eek!)

Rachie's first blog post

Hi folks! Tis Rachel here, trying out this whole blogging thing for the first time. I thought this would make more sense than emailing as I am unsure how much email/internet access I'll have whilst travelling around.

So....WE MADE IT! We are now in Sydney....in the rain?! In December?! Crazy.

The flight was looooong but fine and with no mishaps (amazing considering our luggage was out of our sight for 8 hours in Johannesburg-capital theft airport).

In true Rachel style, I will most likely write again shortly with some emotions on leaving Malawi. Currently I feel pretty numb - not happy, not sad. Relief if anything. But judging by the few tears (nothing new there then!) I shed earlier today just discussing some of the frustrations, I think it will take a while to fully digest how I really feel about our time there. But hey, you regular bloggers who perhaps havent been receiving my emails, won't be used to emotions being emitted by 'aandrinmalawi' so I won't bore you with any more for now....

Big love to all from a soggy Sydney, Rachie and Arnott-features, Rxx

ps. Oh yes, for those of you who care. I am heading to Canberra to see the Palestinian tomorrow and Andy heads to NZ on Monday. Yipppee, finally I'm getting rid of him!!

That's all folks!

our amazing accommodation at the lake for Thanksgiving



a long climb



a long down, zoom zoom!



first and largest river crossing of the day



looking back down one of the long (rough) climbs



the victim receiving some amateur physio - his cramp was so bad he could not walk, nor get back on his bike, for over an hour



changing a tyre, luckily the clouds were reducing the power of the sun a little on this occasion



3rd river crossing of the day



riding down a dry river bed



finally crossing the mighty Shire river, the end was in sight



Rach and I in our traditional clothes - my shirt was made from a chitenji by one of our guards who is also a tailor.



the two men, one is the groom, the other a 'fake' (who also seems to be what western weddings would call the 'best man')



exchanging chickens



L-R The groom, the bride's uncle (holding a cockerel), the groom's uncle (holding a chicken), the bride.



Goodbye AYISE meal




This will be the last post from Malawi! (unless something goes wrong with our travel plans on Thursday…fingers crossed!) The photos show our last couple of weekends:

- Thanksgiving at a private cottage on the lake 2 weekends ago
- Bike ride to Majete last Saturday
- Attending the engagement ceremony of one of our colleagues last Sunday
- Goodbye AYISE meal

Thanksgiving was very relaxing, for me at least – as somehow I had managed not to be assigned any cooking duties! Drove up to the lake through intense heat on Friday afternoon, and arrived to one of the hottest evenings I have ever experienced. It was literally impossible not to sweat all the time until…around 9pm the heavens opened and we danced in the downpour! Saturday we played a variety of ball games, swam in the lake, collected Rachel who had just got off the bus from leaving Claire in Lilongwe, chilled out and generally tried to live up to the modern spirit of thanksgiving. What a spread, great food, and so much of it! A great weekend, thoroughly relaxing (although I do suspect I got whiplash from a tackle during our attempts at Aussie Rules Football).

Our last week at work was filled with lots of tying up loose ends. For Rachel that meant visits to the women’s groups she had started, to the group for youth with disabilities, giving a speech on gender related violence for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on Thursday, and generally being a do-gooder! I was completing the website (now updated and ready to view here – www.ayisemw.org ), annual reports, the Environmental Policy, funding applications, and also meeting with an environmental funding organisation to scope out resources for a project which I also proposed. Quite a productive week, all in all!

On Friday we headed to a braai in Blantyre, which was a culinary delight – homemade hummus and beef filets…need I say more!? We then stayed over at L’s place, ready to get an early start the next morning for an epic 60km off-road bike ride down the escarpment to Majete.

The ride dropped 1500m and gained 750m, so it was not all zooming downhill, but there was a good amount of that. Unfortunately there were also a lot of punctures and one case of crippling cramp, so despite our relatively early start (although not as early as I would have liked) we were still riding through the heat of the day and arrived at the destination at 2pm (for the front group who had gone on ahead), and 3pm (for the back group including me, who had helped get the cramp victim back to a village where he could wait to be picked up later). I don’t think I have ever sweated quite so much, and I’ve sweated a lot here! Changing punctures in the full glare of the sun, 40 degree heat, miles from anywhere, with sweat dripping in my eyes and onto the tyres…good memories! No, seriously, I really enjoyed it, although it was somewhat epic. The cramp victim had a particularly bad day though, as once he had been picked up and brought to the lodge which was our final destination, he wanted to shower before getting in the pool…slipped and broke his wrist! Not a good day for him! In the spirit of the season we sang Christmas carols on the way back to Blantyre.

Rachel had declined the bike ride in favour of a Society of Malawi trip to see the only castle in Malawi. The place was built in 1912 and has served as a prison, a barracks and a police training camp – however it is now abandoned and crumbling, but looked lovely. Her trip finished at lunch time, so she had a relaxing afternoon back at L’s before we arrived back and headed out for a meal and a bit of a dance.

Sunday we, along with most of the volunteers went to the engagement party of one of our colleagues. It was a very interesting traditional ceremony, whereby the rough outline of events is as follows:
- Two men are brought out, covered in chitenji cloths, and the family of the bride must identify which one is the groom
- Dancing and throwing money (the Chichewa word for throwing money means ‘the gift which keeps on giving’)
- Two women are brought out, also covered, and the groom must identify which one is the bride (on the first occasion, neither were – I got a bit lost at this point)
- Dancing and throwing money
- The bride and groom, having been identified, stand in the middle and people dance around and give money:
- Different groups are invited to dance at different times, friends of the groom, friends of the bride, family from one village, family from another village, etc etc
- The groom puts a ring on the middle finger of the bride
- The family of the groom give the family of the bride a cockerel
- The family of the bride give the family of the groom a chicken
- Refreshment break – at this point we left to get home before dark.

That evening, AYISE threw us a going away dinner in the compound, which was lovely, but (typically) 2 and a half hours late starting! Luckily we are now aware of this, and had eaten a pre-dinner to keep our strength up.

Last night we did our last Hash, for which we were given generous amounts of beer. The run, luckily enough, was one of the best that we had been on – despite the fact it was completely unplanned and had to be set up last minute by 2 guys getting a 10 minute headstart on the pack. A great way to end our running careers! After, we went for a curry with an Irish friend of ours, who we will be sad to leave, but hopefully we’ll catch up again somewhere in the world.

Which brings us to today. We plan to have a braai at Bangwe this evening, but looking at the clouds out the window I suspect there may be torrential rain. Last Wednesday we had the largest downpour I have ever seen – it was heavy and lasted from about 2.30pm to around 8pm! Rivers flooded, burst their banks and fields were swamped. Lets hope we just get a heavy shower today!

Then tomorrow we must pack, before our flight early on Thursday morning.

In some ways it seems a shame to be leaving – we are starting to feel like we can be slightly productive here, and we are starting to make really good friendships. But I guess it’s best to leave on a high. We are both definitely in need of a holiday. In Malawi the amount of effort required for any piece of work seems to be roughly 5 times the effort that would be required in the UK, so although we have achieved fewer goals than we would have liked, it has taken more strength and emotions than we could have anticipated. To all our friends and family out there, and here in Malawi, we want to thank you for your continued support – without which we would have really struggled to complete our time here with anything resembling sanity.

Love to all, and we look forward to seeing you again soon.

PS – I will probably keep updating the blog with my travels around New Zealand and the U.S., but there will be no more posts from Malawi (all going well).

past couple of weeks

waiting for our lift - me doing my porter impression, Claire traveling light



our massive pile of bags - 9 porters! bigger than Hunt's Everest expedition!



a 'fireball' flower



steep and hot



another Chambe Peak sunset photo



looking down to the hut and Elephant's Head - now green with new shoots of grass after the first few rains



a scramble to the summit of Nandalander



on top of Nandalander



negotiating the cave on Nandalander



leaving Tuchilla hut on Sunday lunchtime, with Nandalander Peak visible behind on the left (Khuto Peak on the right)



Rach dancing with kids before the event.



Fatima giving a speech on the causes of disability (surprisingly, it's not actually witchcraft...who knew!?)



a group of deaf people dancing to music. The young woman in the turquoise top and dress is also a plumber.



A wheelchair bound individual demonstrating some of the tailoring he has done.



Rach delivering her inspirational speech, with Rex in the wheelchair (bottom right of photo) translating into Chichewa

Weather: pretty hot, but not unbearable most of the time. Hot in at night too, but luckily we have a fan in our room. Bangwe is quite high in Malawi though, and the rest of the country is sweltering! We have had one fantastic tropical downpour, but that was 2 weeks ago and we’ve not had much since, so we’re just not quite into the rains yet. We were told that when it rains it doesn’t get much cooler – not true, luckily!

News: in my last update I linked to an article showing the criticism levelled at the government. Well, Bingu has responded to this like a petulant child, avoiding really answering the questions and stubbornly twisting ‘facts’ to suit his agenda. This article seems to cover it - http://www.nyasatimes.com/national/bingu-speaks-on-pastoral-letter.html . I am very pessimistic of this criticism having any substantial effect, especially so far away from the next election (2014), despite the fact it has come from one of the most respected groups in the country. If the all powerful catholic church cannot have any effect here, then who can? Maybe we need Mr Ban to come back again as he did for the ridiculous and inhumane treatment of the homosexual couple.
http://www.nyasatimes.com/columns/malawi-needs-more-than-%E2%80%98fresh-generation-of-leaders%E2%80%99.html is an interesting article, with an un-Malawian standard of critical thought, relating to the African tendency to have aging leaders.

Work: I have finished the website. Woop woop! Now we just need the code to upload it onto the live web…however, for some unknown and inexplicable reason the person supplying this code has decided to use the oh-so-reliable Malawi Postal Service to send the code to us! He might as well have tied it to a rock and thrown it in our general direction, we’re about as likely to ever see it! I will pester him by phone and email if it doesn’t arrive next week (our last week of work!).
Rach has been handing over to her replacement and getting more involved in the things she really wanted to do when she came here all those months ago. She has been instrumental in the organisation and success of a Disability Awareness event held on Monday in the sports grounds of a local school. Her speech on equality was inspirational – maybe she’ll circulate it at a later time. She has also been guiding and inspiring Women’s Groups which formed after her Gender Awareness event a month or so ago.

Fun Stuff: Claire arrived 10 days ago, and Rach went to find her in Lilongwe. The next day we had a few of our Blantyre friends up for a braai (BBQ), and trip to our local pub – quite the township tour! Rach worked the beginning of last week, then spent Thursday and Friday down at Majete where temperatures were pushing 45 degrees C. Luckily they got a localised storm overnight, which cooled things right down to a sleepable temperature. On Saturday a big group of us went to a hut on Mulanje for the night. The large group and reluctance to have an early start meant we suffered somewhat when we started walking at 11.30am…right in the heat of the day! Temperatures were definitely over 30 degrees the whole walk, possibly pushing 38 at times in the full glare of the sun (although luckily our walk was reasonably shady). It was the kind of hot where you can feel the air is unusually hot when you breathe it in – a bit like a sauna. Sweat-fest though it was, it was also a good sociable group of a mixture of very new people, old-timers, returnees, and us – so lots of sharing of experiences. A beautiful sunset at Tuchilla hut (yes, the one with the rats – although they were far more timid this time due to the large group), and a night of chilli and wine was just the ticket. Next morning some people climbed Nandalander Peak behind the hut, while others lounged around at the hut waiting for our spritely return. Fortunately we did not set off down from the hut until after 11.30 again, otherwise we may have faced temperatures under 30 degrees C…can you imagine?! A long hot walk down was motivated by the thought of pizza and cold beers. A pool in one of the rivers provided a brief wallow – more for hygiene purposes than genuine cooling, but it made you feel better afterwards.

On Monday Claire came along to the Hash with us again (having joined us the previous week too). The route was very urban and traffic ridden, so good training for her London Marathon run next year – although perhaps the weather will be a little different…perhaps not!

On Wednesday Rach and Claire headed up to the Lake. I gathered by text that their journey was so fast that they got there in time to kayak across to stay on Domwe Island a night earlier than planned – I look forward to hearing about that, such a beautiful place. Tonight I think they are staying in the village at Cape Maclear, then Friday they head for a night in Lilongwe before Claire’s departure on Saturday. On Sat Rach will head back to the Lake to join a big group of us who have rented a private cottage there to help our American friends celebrate thanks giving. It’ll be expensive, but hopefully the good company, food and wine will make it worth it. I guess I could say that I am paying for it with the compensation money the bank have paid me for their inability to set up a direct debit for my credit card. They mucked up twice, and have paid me compensation both times, so that should cover this weekend nicely. Good times ahead!

On a final note tomorrow (Friday 19th) is World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse, and next Thursday (25th) is International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Worth a thought…