Traveling Wilbury

This is a story written for those who think that travelling and working is awesome.

A week ago I woke up at 4.45 to take a quick shower, make some coffee and shake my wife out of bed. Then it was off to the airport for a long day of mainly sitting at airports.

On arrival in Maputo I checked in at the hotel to immediately fall asleep and try to catch up with sleep. Once I woke up I went to a very nice local restaurant to eat something, then repacked my suitcase and went to bed.

To wake up at 4.45 to take a quick shower and catch a taxi to the airport for a long flight to Lichinga via Nampula. There is no hotel on Earth that serve breakfast at that time and very few are hungry at that hour. Once on the plane I am served with the smallest, not even white but albino "bun" with some cheese in it. And some juice.

On arrival to Nampula transit I head straight for the bar and a beer, the most wholesome meal during this flight. I make that Laurentina Premium just to be sure. On the next leg we are served a bag of crisps and juice. Unless you want to pay for Johnnie Walker Black Label, it may not surprise you that quite a few do. The crisps are for some unknown sadistic reason always "cheese and onion". So you have a whole plane full of cheese-and-onion breath. That may explain why the Black Label makes a roaring trade.

On arrival I am invited to a lunch-dinner at the local manager's house that I happily accept. The best restaurant in Lichinga is always at someone's house. But with 2 days of 4.45 in my system  I fall dead asleep and wake up at the time the lunch is on! Good thing we are in Mozambique where few people worry over being an hour or so late.

After a really nice lunch cum dinner I go back to the guesthouse and try to do some work on my computer. No internet, this is Lichinga OK. Power blacks out at 8 pm and is not back when I wake up next morning.

Which is OK but for one thing: no water. The system relies on booster pump and no power means no pump means no water. Well I am used to this so the "Roskilde shower" of rinsing your hair and put on deo it is.

The breakfast at Benilde's guesthouse is by far the strangest I have ever experienced. It is kind of OK that the "juice" is more sugar than fruit and the instant coffee is blended with chickory. I guess. But you are served with strictly 1 "pao" a piece of white bread/bun, 1 minimal hot dog OR 1 fried egg and then chips. Sometimes there are pieces of boiled cassava, think boiled potatoes, as a bonus. End of story. There is no cheese, there is some kind of sugary jam and very bad margarine. And Aromat.

The flight to Maputo was rescheduled 5 hours and on top of that 1 hours late. I was tasked to bring a "mystery box" to Maputo, since I don't really want to face the question "what is this" and not be able to answer I asked what was in the box. Maize, in short. About 6 kg maizemeal that meant a lot of negotiating with the check-in staff.

Arrived in Maputo and checked in around 9 pm and too tired to even go eat something. Then I spent 2 days working and enjoying Maputo until it was time for another day of flights and airports. Arrived home and have basically caught up with sleep the whole day plus trying to calm down a frantic cat.

Yep, the travelling life is really cool...

Noticias from Mozambique

Mozambique as country fascinates me. It is in many ways a very challenging place and the farther you get from the capital Maputo the more challenging.

OK I have not been to Pemba or Isla Mozambique, truth to be told, but otherwise that is my experience.

Mozambiquans can be very friendly, jovial and helpful when not in uniform or holding any official position. When in uniform or holding some sort of official position they are at best lazy and uninterested, at worst rude, troublesome and intent on making whatever you want as difficult as possible. Kafka could have been the inspiration of some of the stories I have heard from residents. My own experience at the Mandimba border post some time ago is a personal classic. It took 3 attempts to finally make it cross the border.

Some habits that seem to be countrywide has fascinated me since my first visit. The easygoing café- and barlife is nice, the habit of drinking straight whiskey or gin tonic for lunch is .. strange.

This morning I witnessed a man having double scotch while waiting for the plane. At 9 am. That is not unusual, and he looks ever the part of a smart businessman. Same guy, I think, had another one during transit wait in Nampula. Hope he did not have an afternoon meeting.

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A Barbershop in Lilongwe

In Lilongwe, a short walk from the Lilongwe Hotel (now Sunbird Lilongwe) along the road down towards Old Town lies a small barbershop with 3 chairs. Inside it you always find 3 men plying their trade, 2 indians and a black. They separate the clients accordingly, the indians take care of indian and white, the black of blacks. I assume this has to do with the very different texture of hair. Officially they are open from 8 am to 8 pm but I have often passed by later than that to find them still busy cutting, trimming or shaving and customers still waiting. I am yet to find the place closed on any day of the week.

A couple of years ago when I happened to be in Lilongwe I was not happy with my hair and decided to let them have a go at it. My reasoning was basically that no matter how bad it turned out it would grow again and my regular hairsaloon would sort it out then.

To my slight surprise I was not at all unhappy with the outcome and Mia deemed it "not bad". Given that it cost me around 4 USD I then made it a habit to visit them when in Lilongwe.

When I was later persuaded to grow a beard (or at least something resembling it) I on my next visit asked for a trim and a shave, having watched them doing this on other clients while waiting for my turn. That turned out to be an experience that has made my regular visits become something of a ritual.

Trimming is one thing, it is not complicated with the correct equipment. But the shave around the beard is something else completely.

There is something slightly exciting yet very relaxing in getting the full shaving "mafia style" treatment. You lean back on the headrest, you get thoroughly "creamed" twice with the oldfashioned brush and cream. Then that nastily sharp razor knife is brought out and you really get scraped clean. No matter how well shaven you might think you are you hear and feel how "the shade" disappears. Then creaming once more, shaving again but now in the opposite direction. Following that the part where the tricky-to-get-to parts are shaved (below the nostrils etc) and then wiping the face clean.

Finally you get lotioned with some sort of paste and, the grand finale, some sort of indian face massage. Aaahh.

All this at the total cost of around 8 USD. I have no idea towards what goal in life these young men quietly (they certainly don't say many words) work so hard but I admire them and do not miss out on my visit when I am in Lilongwe. Even when that means waiting in line for up to 1 hour while watching bad indian tv-shows. Let me tell you that "Strictly Come Dancing" indian style is very, very different from other versions I have had to endure.

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On leave at last

In some ways I am sadly unorganized. Events like Easter, Xmas and other annual holidays always seem to take me by surprise. Another side of that is that I sometimes completely fail to plan for work leave. This also has to do with working as a consultant for many years, you simply take leave when you can.

Anyhow, something happened that made me realise exactly how tired and worn down I was. With understanding from management I went on leave "immediately" and we (that is me and Mia) decided we should go for a beach holiday with the kids.

Whereto now? Would have loved to hit Dar es Salaam or Kenya Mombasa but time- and moneymatters made us decide for Mozambique. After scouting around we found a lodge near Beira, a day drive from Harare basically. Somewhat naively (more on that later) we thought we might commute to nightlife in Beira and decided to take Mia's sister Cynthia along to look after the boys in the evenings. Ha!

At the same time Mia was running to the passport office on a daily basis to get her "3-day" passport produced. It took well over a week... and we decided to have a checkup of the Isuzu before making such a long drive. Turned out to be a very good decision as the mechanic found a problem with a wheelbearing that could have meant a total breakdown somewhere along the road.

Only problem with that was that he could not fix it before the weekend and our plan was to drive on Monday, arriving in the late afternoon. Come Monday we could only plan, pack etc and then wait. By 12 Steve announces the car is ready. Now to decide whether to go or not? In the end we decide to have a go at it and by 2 pm we were on the road, crossing the border by around 5.30 pm.

Why in heaven's name we had not read the instructions from the travel agent before then is anyone's guess. "Please make sure you arrive for the ferry across the lagoon before 5 pm"....

OK now what? Already in Moz it is no point in going back so I thought we would either find a hotel in the nearest town or drive on to Beira and stay overnight there. Turns out Mia had a better idea: relatives in Mafambisi, some 40 km before Beira. Called to uncle Werner who runs a small guesthouse "can you put up 5 beds for the night". The rooms were full but they promised to find a way of hosting us. Around 10 pm (talk about optimistic) we arrived at auntie Elena's small bar/restaurant (called a "kiosk" in Mozambique for some reason). After a nice but very late dinner on fried chicken and chips we stumbled on to various bed quarters.

Following a late and slow breakfast next day we took off towards the lodge, Rio Savannah. Made a stop at Shoprite in Beira for stocking up and drove ca 40 km on a rather bad sand road. Bad as it had rained and parts were more mud than sand. Drive to Beira for nightlife, eh? Well, most importantly we made it!

Were taken by boat across the rivermouth to the basic but neat lodge, soon as we had installed ourselves it was off to the beach. Following that was 5 days of beach, swim, sunset drinks overlooking rivermouth, prawns for dinner and so on. The boys found friends in the other houses and ever so often we found they were gone or the whole crew of kids were in our house. Serious little Sean, 4 years and full of questions such as "why do you have tattoos, why does your daughter (Mia) look like she does" etc still makes me laugh. Wonderfully relaxing and I could have stayed another week though I think Mia would have had a serious case of cabin fever by then. No TV, no radio, no news, no internet.

On the home leg we again stopped over at Elena and Werner for a late, slow brunch. I don't think Mozambiquans quite understand the word "urgent". Then on home, arriving at around 8 pm.

Well, it was well needed and despite the planning glitches good fun. I appreciated meeting Mia's family and I am 100 they loved meeting us and the kids.

Next time it will not take 3 years between beach holidays... see some pictures, unorganised as they are, here.

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Musings on Malawi

Spent a week in Malawi recently, in the capital Lilongwe to be more precise.

Found some interesting political developments. For starters they have built a new Parliament building. Nothing necessarily wrong with that, they used to convene in the President's residence for historical reasons.

But the building itself... think USA Capitol Hill, only larger. No, I am not joking, according to reports it IS larger than Capitol Hill. Pair that with a parkinglot sized for Olympic Games and you have a general impression. Now someting tells me that a small, poor country like Malawi could/should have had problems funding that, wonder where the money was found?

Also the president has decided (more or less on his own it seems) that it is time to change the national flag. Today it features a rising sun at dawn, halfway up. He wants a full, in zenith, sun. The argument: after 46 years of independence it can no longer be dawn for the nation.

Sort of makes sense, but again the cost...

Also I found to my huge surprise that a certain Jim Jumani Johansson from Sweden, a lawyer in his forties, are claiming to be the illegitimate son of Hastings Kamuzu Banda, the country's first president!

As he died without children (officially) this is big news and political dynamite in Malawi and all newspapers are full of theories, reports, stories etc about Jumani.

His mother claims it is all nonsense and he got confused while spending a year in jail (for beating his ex-wife apparently) but he demands DNA-testing. That the Banda family is refusing. No matter how it ends, it is dramatic for Malawians and I will keep an eye on it.

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In the right place at the wrong time

Seems I am constantly in the right place but at the wrong time lately. First I manage to be in Lusaka, Zambia when Brazil soccerteam comes to Zimbabwe to play a friendly warmup for the World Cup. The first time since 1980 a non-African team plays in Zimbabwe and only the 5th time Brazil plays an African team in the last 30 years. Now how much fun is that to miss being there?

Back home for one day. Wash, iron and pack the bag again basically. Off to Bulawayo for a conference. Nice enough as it is with the Zimbabwe SCC Team and we rarely meet all of us at the same time.

BUT - tomorrow the soccer World Cup starts in Southafrica and I will either be stuck here or on the road home. Now, I guess it would be OK to be somewhere here in Bulawayo and watch it but honestly I am homesick. In the last 4 weeks I have spent 2 Saturdays at home and that is NOT enough.

So I guess I will be in a car on the road somewhere between Bulawayo and Harare tomorrow during opening ceremony and the first game. Should be home in time for the second game though!

Keeping fingers crossed that SA makes a good performance in the opening game!

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On the road again

Am in Maputo, Mozambique. From here it will be Lichinga in the north of Moz. Then home to basically wash, iron and repack the clothes. Off to Lusaka in Zambia, then after returning off to Bulawayo in southern Zimbabwe. Phew.

I really like Maputo, it is a "proper" city compared to most in southern/eastern Africa. A very vibrant, living city centre full of small shops, restaurants, cafés and such, wide avenues full of traffic and people. Every time I come here I wish I could bring Mia along with me to experience it as it would feel great to show her the place.

One thing many may not realise is that in spite of the "break from humdrum" that travel in work may be it is quite often boring. This simply because after work one is often alone and you can only eat/drink etc so many times in an evening. Hanging around bars and clubs do not go well with work or health and as a lonely man often attracts the attention of "single ladies". So quite often you find that eating a lonely meal and following that retiring to the hotel room for TV, a book or the computer is how most of the evenings are spent.

Shoud be able to break that habit this week as I have some friends here (if I can get hold of them) and Friday there is a big festival at the French Cultural Centre - it makes our Alliance Francais in Harare look a shack would next to a luxury house. And Saturday there is the soccer final to be viewed somewhere, hopefully amongst old or new friends. And before that I will somehow get to Costa do Sol by the beach for a good meal. On my own or not!