the islands, sugar smugglers, Mbamba Bay

So... this last week has been an adventure.

After the last time I wrote, I took the ferry out to Chizumulu and Likoma, the islands in the middle of Lake Malawi.
The ferry itself was like a tropical titanic waiting to happen, if you swap the icebergs was crocodiles... Getting on was insane- people with babies, bags of maize, cardboard boxes of godknows what, were all fighting to get into economy class. People were shouting pushing shoving, about ten people at a time trying to fit through a door which could hardly let one person in. Guys were even scaling up the side into second class. The ferry only goes once a week, so people's livelihoods literally depend on them getting there stuff on that ferry. Inside, it stank of petrol was boiling, babies were screaming- it was a little bit how I imagine hell might be... Luckily for us wazungu, we could afford the 2600 kwacha fare (about a tenner) to sit on the first class deck. Some people pitched tents and got in their sleeping bags. I'm travelling light so I don't have either- I just a couple of jumpers on and watched the shooting stars, and the strangely orange moon.
Me and the people I was travelling with, deicded to go to Chizumulu, the smaller of the two islands, first. At about one in the morning, we were thrown into an overcrowded motor boat, a little offshore of the island. I found out later that the week before it had capsized... Bearing in mind that the majority of Malawians can't swim, you can see the risks people take to scrape a living.
Although the ferry experience was somehow stressful waking up the next morning ad seeing palm trees,smooth grey rocks, and aquamarine sea made it all worth it. The island itself was tiny and incredibly peaceful. We walked around the whole thing in a couple of hours. People there spend most of their time in the lake or on the beach, fishing, washing clothes, washing themselves. The kids there, though skinny and dirty and dusty like everywhere in east africa, seemed really happy, shrieking, running in and out of the water and playing on the rocks.

After a couple of days there, mostly swimming snorkelling drinking beer and reading, we decided to cross onto the bigger island. We took a local dhow, a small sailing boat with tattered ripped sails. it meandered across the 12 km in about two hours, and as we docked, the boom fell of completely. On the boat I discovered that the local language chitonga, was a little bit like Swahili- so we managed to find out where the backpakcers was on Likoma island, a 3km trek from where we got off the boat, with all our bags...
Likoma island was one of the first stops for the missionaries. As a result, it has the biggest cathedral in central africa in the middle of it, and also some of the best schools in malawi. Incredible since the island itself is so small. The cathedral is by far the most beautiful human construction there- its hardly surprising that every sunday, the vast building is packed. Its beauty is only spoiled by an ugly corregated iron roof- clearly the original slate could not hack the climate, or they could not afford to repair it. Likoma island is my favourite place that I have vistied in Malawi- so laid back and beautiful, the perfect place to read and relax.

After the islands, I needed to plan my route across to Tanzania from Nkhata bay. Luckily for me, I boat carrying contraband sugar across to Mbamba bay in Tanzania, was due to leave the next day. midday sharp, they said. So I arrived at the beach with my bags, and sat in a ramshackle self service bar with a man who said he was the capain. I watched him get wankered on some alcohol that comes in kerosene containers for a couple hours, and managed to change some money on the black market into tanzanian shillings. About four in the afternoon, the motor boat was finally loaded with 2.5 tonnes of sugar. I got on, with some other Mamas and a lairy old swahili guy. The captain was nowhere to be seen. We left without him...
The sunset from the boat was marred by the lurching of the waves. The sugar, which at first had seemed quite comfortable, soon felt like lumps of concrete. As it grew dark, i realised what I had gotten myself into. All you could see was blue back sea, and blacker sky studded with stars. If i sat up, I could sea the retreating black shapes of the mountains in Malawi. A few times, the engine cut out, and all we could hear was the water, and in the absence of forward motion, the boat would align itself with waves and rock sickeningly.
Finally, around midnight, we saw the dotted lights of fishing boats, and drew into Mbamba bay. Blinded by the light of torches, we waded to shore, and stood, bemused on the beach. I befriended one mama who was on her own, and escorted by another guy, we walked down the dirt road into town, guided only by the light of the stars. As we reached the guest house, we hear a choir of teenage girls singing plaintively, sitting on th ground, surrounding a lantern. Mama Lucy and I discovered that it was a night vigil, held to mourn the death of a school girl who had died trying to abort her baby. That night, I shared a bed with Mama Lucy in the guesthouse. She was sick and said she had travelled all the way from Mzuzu in Malawi to reach a cheap hospital in Tanzania.
The next day, I was shown around Mbamba Bay by Tupac, the sugar smuggler. Mbamba bay is a pretty little fishing town. I was told that you can walk to beautiful beaches from there, but I didn't have the time or energy to do much but wash my clothes in the lake, and walk around town.

The last couple of days have been less fun and less excited. I sat on stuffed half-broken buses for two days travelling northwards up to Iringa.
I was forced to spend one night in Songea, and having spent the afternoon wondering around aimlessly eating a coconut, I spent the night in a skanky guest house by the bus stand. The chair was covered in the standard semen stains, and there were the customary brownish (blood?) stains on walls. Was awake most of the night listening to Mamas and their children who were sitting on the ground outside my window all night. The hacking of one child's tb-ridden cough, the fact that none of those kids were complaining or even crying, really got to me. I felt ridiculously priveleged to be able to be in that nasty room rather than outside.

Travelling alone in Tanzania has given me the chance to talk to alot of people, and hear there stories, but they are nearly all the same. 'I want to study but I don' t have the money'. It's depressing- other travellers I have met have critisized Africa for lacking the entreupenurial spirit of India or South East Asia, but it is all to do with the percieved feasibility of any effort an individual makes coming to fruition. Here, even whe something looks good it often flops due to a loack of infrastructure; I'm talking businesses, roads, social initiatives, but the same applies with people's lives.

Anyways, sorry for going on for so long. Hope everyone is gd and enjoying the summer, lots of love xxxxxxxxxxx