The drive home

I went to a field day in Msoro and was expecting it to be just like any other field day. Leave here around 10am, couple hours in the field, have lunch and be back around 3 or 4 pm. I should have known it would be different when 15 people got into a 3 passenger mini truck which was already partly loaded with cotton supplies…The drive was 2hours and 45 minutes one way. The “road” which started as a bumpy dirt road, degraded into what in Canada would be considered an “unmaintained hiking trail”. It was wickedly eroded in places, the elephant grass nearly closed the road and there was a constant danger of being hit by low hanging branches or falling out of the back of our sardine packed truck box. Regardless, we arrived with only stiff joints. Realizing that once we arrived, we were only half way because we had to return, I was prepared for more of the same. What I was not prepared for was rain!


The journey home started with an hour walk because our driver was still distributing picking sacks for the farmers. Once he got us we all packed into the truck we set off. After a while the thunder started and then the rain, tropical rain. We pulled over at the local office and waited for about 45 minutes for the rain to stop, which it didn’t, so we put all our phones and money and bags in the cab and started off again. At least this time we put some old bags of cotton in the back to sit on so we could be comfortable. I thought if I just get wet, it won’t be that bad, I was right, if I just get wet. The problem you see is with elephant grass, it’s about 8 ft. tall and when it gets wet it leans…onto the road. So as I sat in the back of the truck, driving 30-40km/hr, raining, soaking wet elephant grass was slapping me in the face, dropping whatever insects it had on me. At that point I thought, if this is all it is, then I’ll be just okay. I put my arm in front of my face to block the grass and just lay there laughing. I told everyone it would be a great memory of Africa for me that I won’t forget. The other men in the truck said “We’re sitting here suffering and you’re laughing making memories!” and for the rest of the ride home that was the case. After about 2 hours the rain stopped and the sky cleared and the stars were so bright, that it ended up being a nice ride. Oh did I mention we saw some park rangers bringing a dead hippo to the chief so that he could distribute it? Well we did. See the picture below.


It was pretty neat. There is so much myth and wives tales. They said that before you eat hippo you must put the blood on your hand and then let it sit for 5 minutes. After you remove the blood if your hand remains red, you are not worthy to eat the hippo. After some digging I found out the red that remains is a rash, and apparently some people are allergic, so it’s actually an allergy test! We were about 30 km from South Luangwa National Park. One of the top game parks on the continent! Look it up. There was an old park ranger in the truck telling stories about pretty much everything, what animals are used for what witchcraft, what prices you can get for them, how to catch them, and all sorts of other interesting stuff. The way people talk is quite funny, they will mix Chewa (the local language) and English, so you could hear “And of course you take the meat and (continues in chewa)”.

So at the end of the day, the ride home was awesome, I arrived soaking wet, freezing, happy, and was alright with the insects. But…During the night…I woke up scratching and itching. In the morning, well, have a look at the picture.


The following night the itching was so intense that Steph was up with me for hours trying to stop me from scratching my skin off. I was asking her to just take her needle and stab me with it if I couldn’t scratch. Anyways, it’s about a week later and I’m mostly healed up, but it was a tough week. This is a self diagnosis, so remember that, but steph has a book on tropical medicine that she keeps next to the bed. She tells me it’s to keep the mosquito net away from the edge of the bed, but I think it’s actually there to give me nightmares. Reading about parasitic worms and how they travel through the blood and lungs and up your throat and back down to get swallowed! BLAH! So, I diagnosed myself with Chiggers. The book had stuff of lice and mites and chiggers, and I think it was them, plus it’s a fun word to say. Chiggers are the larvae of mites that go to the end of grass and wait for passing mammals. Then they bite and fall off or are washed off. Oh and I have worms for sure now, because I was swimming in Cape McClear or Monkey Bay, which is the schisto (I think that’s what they’re called) worm capital of Lake Malawi. They’re the worms transmitted by snails, and there were lots of snails. Also there was good stuff about the lake, bueatiful water, beaches and cichlids (I think that’s what they’re called, beautiful bright tropical fish in Lake Malawi).

I never know how to end this, and it kind of degraded from single story to listing what parasites I think I have, but either way, I hope it’s interesting.
Oh, I forgot. Something funny about Zambians. They can’t say Steph’s name, and they freely interchange he and she. So I have heard “Your wife, his name is Steve?” to which I reply, “Yes, her name is Steph” which doesn’t clear the issue up one bit!
Zambians also freely interchange R and L so I heard that they have “Lobots” in Chipata, so I asked again and thought I heard “Rowboats”, so I asked again and thought I heard “Robots”. Which of these do you think is the correct answer? It’s Robots. So then I was looking for these ‘robots’ which were near “clossloads” (=crossroads). It turns out that they call traffic lights robots!

Here are a few more pictures: our bedroom, kitchen and home...so take a look!