Here's another fine mess...

Life here may resemble Laurel and Hardy at times but I don't know whenever this vehicle was in NE England. I don't know how many locals would have ever heard of the great duo. This is just round the corner from the Royal Mail bike shop. 

Parliamentary Chambers

Two students and I went to a Parliamentary Committee to talk about student welfare and the shortages that lead to hunger, prostitution, etc. Afterwards we were given a tour of the Chamber.

One very happy student after the meeting.

There was nowhere else to go it seems. Just had to be done.

Frictionless borders

On the left is Malawi's M1 but most of the rest is Mozambique. (Actually, Google Maps thinks the M1 is also in Mozambique and sends unwitting travellers on a long diversion to avoid the border!)

The gap is only 10m in places and here are my driver and two students entering Mozambique without passports. In places the border runs through villages, fields, football fields and even churches and mosques. Some have an entrance in Malawi and the body of the building in Mozambique.

Classroom repair

The screen must have broken so someone turned it upside down and tied it up to the casing.

 

Unfortunately, they tied it up with the cable that connects the ceiling projector to the laptop. Maybe all is not lost, that connector always was dodgy. However, when power goes off, we can no longer get at the blackboard for plan B! 
Students call lectures without projection, "a cappella"

Even Tear Gas is corrupt

Poly students on the highway making their point about the lack of water

and complaining about possible corruption in the purchase of inferior Tear Gas!

 

Street plant

It is common to see a stick in a pothole as a warning device, or some odd fronds on the road, or a mud-filled pothole to smooth the road. But here near the town centre, someone has filled the hole with mud and planted something. I hope it survives!

Street School

Near my new home, someone is teaching Roman numerals to some boys at the side of the road.

Just a blackboard and a bench.

Mother and daughter

...on a very hot winter's day on Likoma. Heavy loads and quilted jacket.

Guard dogs...

... doing what they do best and conserving energy

Presidential races

I've written before about the Presidential motorcade which is large and travels on both sides of the road at high speed. Here we are pulled off the road while the first police vehicle passes by. The police line the roads and wait for hours for him to come.

School days

So, here I am on a remote Malawian island in Mozambican waters (Likoma), and I see this flash-back to school days. I never had a tin of Oxford instruments but I think my brother may have done. The boy's bemused expression is probably because I explained that we had those tins at school and I now live in Oxford. He didn't understand a word.

Trees and slaves

Slaving was common up to the19th century and Nkhotakota was a principal focus. This wall is from Malawi's first mosque, next to a stockade for slaves.

In 1861, Dr Livingstone sat under this fig tree to negotiate with local chiefs to stop the trade.

He sat under this one in 1863 and gave a chief an umbrella before sailing off to intervene in more slave trading.

Here the first post-independance president of Malawi, Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda, held his first political rally.

Crumbliest, flakiest.....

Certainly is.   Something of a rarity here and I can see (and taste) why demand might be low.

Lazy days, watching the world go by

A secluded spot from which to watch the world go by in Mulanje. Several happy hours spent here watching tea-workers, bicycle taxis, wood-carriers and anyone else. All while munching a pizza.

The one and only...

The only escalator in Malawi (if you don't count its twin just to the right) in the new Crossroads Mall. Not always working but used a lot by giggling children and their friends and parents who photograph them.

Wax removal?

A very old Kudu grandmother looks a bit resigned to the attentions of the Red-billed Oxpecker, and yes, it did go inside her ear. Parasite removal is thought to be beneficial.
  

Way of the Cross

Starting at St Joseph's in Chilimoni township

The way winds over the Michiru foothills to the summit cross (look carefully or click to enlarge)

past 14 iron crosses with bronze sculptures

to the final plain cross.

A hazy view of Blantyre in wet season. St Joseph's twin towers visible to the right.

Recycled lawnmower

Some of the kids who wave and call out to me every time I walk or drive past. They recently acquired two lawnmower frames to push around.

Hospital Fire

This post is not amusing but it is also not a tragedy.

Somewhere down the page, I posted items from Mangochi District Hospital, where we were due to take students next week.
Sadly, on Sunday there was a major fire caused by an electrical surge after a blackout. The out-patient area caught fire and is gutted. Family and maternity clinics were lost. The locals and staff tried to put the fire out but the town does not have fire-fighting equipment, so a whole building was lost.
Mercifully, no staff or patients were hurt and the rest of the hospital is OK. (The pharmacy store is on the right of the picture and the main pharmacy is just behind it, even closer to the flames. The wards are further away.)

60 years is a lot of time (pieces)

Yesterday, my watch stopped and I wanted to replace the battery.  Watch-repairers are to be found interspersed with tailors and shoe-shiners along Haile Selassie Street so I beetled along there to ask them to open the watch and replace the cell.
Sadly, the youngsters plied their pliers and failed to budge it.

Not really wanting to buy a new watch, I asked around last night and was told of "a little old man who sits near the steps" , so I went again today and found Mr. Waziri.

It took a long time (including waiting 40 mins for the shop where he stored his vice to be opened) and a lot of effort with his Swiss watch-opening tools, but it gave me time to chat and watch some high-speed games of advanced-level Bao. (I felt declining to take part was just sheer common sense.)

It turns out that Waziri has been repairing watches since 1958, which is indeed a lot of time-pieces...