The Road

This is the other thing I've got for you this week - just a little story thing I wrote on the bus the other day. I hope it is of some interest!

It’s getting steeper.

                                Can we rest here?

                                                                Again?

                                                                                                Again. There’s a long way still to go.

                                We need to rest.

It’s hot.

                                                                Thanks, mate. Hadn’t noticed.

And the road’s getting steeper.

                                                                You said.

                                Is there any water?

                                                                Not anymore.

We drank it all.

                                Oh.

                                                                Well said.

Sweat runs in rivers. A salty mockery on dry lips, rough throats.

                                                                Shut up.

Sorry.

                                Is there really far to go?

                                                                Not that far.

                                                                                                You always say that.

                                In fact, you said that two days ago.

                                                                                                That’s true.

                                I’m starting to worry.

                                                                Starting?

                                Good point. But –

                                                                What?

                                What’s this now – number – number what?

                                                                                                                I’ve lost count.

                                                                Poet?

Me too.

                                Too many.

But, it seems, not enough.

                                                                                                                We’ll find him.

                                                                We will.

                                Yeah, we will.

Or maybe, he’ll find us.

                                                                You wish.

I do.

                                                                                                                Who’s that?

                                Who?

                                                                                                                That.

                                                                What?

                                                                                                                There, look.

                                Yes!

Who is it?

                                                                                                                HELLO!

                                HI!

                                                                HEY THERE!

                                Is it him?

                                                                It can’t be.

It might be.

                                                                                                                It might.

HELLO!

                Hello.

                                It is you?

                Who?

                                You!

                                                                Are you him?

The one?

                                                                                                Are you the one we’re looking for?

                No.

It’s not you?

                I’m sorry.

                                                                                                Well who are you?

                                Me? I’m just the road builder.

                                                                What? What road?

                The road I’ve just built.

It’s there – look.

                                                                Why build a road like that through these mountains?

Why are you smiling?

                Someone’s coming.

                                                                                                With a cart?

                                                                With an army?

                No. He’s got nothing.

So, why the road?

                Wait – feel that?

                                                                What?

                I think he’s coming.

                                The ground.

                                                                What?

It’s rumbling.

                                It’s shaking.

Trembling.

                                                                                                What’s happening?

                He’s coming.

                                We’ve come far enough?

                No, he has.

                                                                The ground’s moving.

Look!

                                What?

The mountain’s sinking.

                                                                                                We’re sinking.

                                We’re falling!

                                                                I think the valley’s rising.

I think it’s both.

                                Yeah – it’s both!

Or neither.

                                                                                                Look.

                                Guys –

                                                                                                Look.

                                The ground is moving!

                                                                                                Look at the horizon.

                                Where?

                                                                Wow.

The mountains are moving.

                                                                                                Everything is melting.

                                                                Shifting.

Like waves breaking.

                                We’re still falling.

                                                                                                Look at the road.

                                                                What?

                                                                                                The road.

It’s straight.

                                                                How can it be straight?

And it’s long.

                                                                                                Very long.

                Incredibly long.

                                I can’t see the end.

                                                                                                Where does it lead?

                It leads here.

                                                                                                No, I meant –

Look!

                                                                What?

                                What?

It’s him. I can see him!

                                                                                                It is. I can see him too.

                                                                We found him.

No. He found us.

                                Is it him? Really?

                It’s him.

                                The ground’s still moving!

                I know. It’s him.

                                                                It’s him.

                                                                                                You’re sure?

                Yeah, I’m sure.

                                                                                                Bet your life?

                I have.

                                                                He’s the one?

                                He’s the one?

                Why don’t you ask him yourself?

Shepherd's Pie

Many things have happened this week, but I haven't got anything particularly interesting to say about them. On the other hand, my brilliant mate Eloise has got lots that is very interesting to say. Guttingly, a series of serious illnesses (malaria, followed by typhoid, followed by tonsilitis) have forced her home early, and this is her fascinating and beautiful response to being thrust abruptly back into the world she left just 5 months ago. Give it a read, and be challenged by it.

Africa Vs. the world

I can’t decide if travel makes the world seem smaller or larger. When it comes down to it, I believe that the more you travel, the more mystery is solved. Each new place, although similar or familiar to somewhere you may have been before, holds a new treasure that unlocks another key to the world and it’s functions.

This journey has introduced me to the most inspiring, strong, kind-hearted young adults, and together we explored Africa. Tightly knitted friendships hugged me like family. I’ve been so unbelievably lucky to meet such lovely volunteers who’ve been by my side through thick and thin.

Sitting on a big soft leather couch by the warmth of a wood fire, rugged up in Calvin Klein pjs’ with a Sheppard’s pie in my hand and a laptop by my side seems too much of a dream to be my reality after 5 months in Africa. 

I’m home, but I feel like I’m in a parallel universe.

I’ve been fantasising about this moment for months. What it will be like when I arrive in Australia, all the food I’ll eat, the luxurious furniture to sink into etc etc etc. But the fantasies’ themselves are disappointingly better than the real thing. The Sheppard’s pie is decent, but in my dream it was never ending. The way it sits in my stomach is not a happy feeling at all, unlike the vegetarian meals I grew to love in Mua. The furniture, whilst incredible, is so unnecessary. If I could be in my bed, greeted by the sound of Nadine sneezing twice each morning, I would take it in an instant. Mtweya, my African cat is my only comfort. She sits on my lap purring contently, seeking endless attention.  She’s well feed, fat and spoilt rotten, nothing at all like the skeletal creatures that sleekly roam the streets of Malawi.

Had I come home in July, I might have seen things differently. Unfortunately, after fighting a long list of diseases, having being in hospital for a total of two and a half weeks, and severely ill for more than half of my trip, I suppose the contributions I was giving to my placement was close to a total of zero. It soon became blatantly obvious that I was no longer in control of the situation. Lattitude decided that my health was more important: staying would be a risk. I however, thought otherwise. Alas, I lost my long lasting battle to say in the country for the remaining two months, and was on the next flight home (after many ordeals of lost/emergency passports, rescheduled flights, more illness and low funds).

Before I left, one of my major arguments to remain was the dreaded feeling that returning would be a risk to more than just my physical health. Now that I’m back, this theory has greatly increased in strength. 

I can't stand it here. I feel like I’m being squashed. Or like I’m the plankton at the bottom of the food chain. I feel so undermined and isolated.  There's just so much STUFF. It's ridiculous. The Western world is cold and consumerism reaches a whole new level. There is no creativity. No gratitude. Just want and needless desire. It’s unbearably overwhelming, I feel so claustrophobic.

I must have looked so stupid walking through the international transfers section of the airport; my eyes were popping out of my head. I could vividly remember the children’s’ faces when we took a donation of rice to the school. It was the biggest treat, to have a variation from nsima. And yet there were suddenly thousands of different options and brands of rice, chocolate, fruit - food in general! The electricity is without fail and constant in every room and there was more clothing, play equipment, medical care and accessories than I could set my eyes upon. I still can’t get my head around it. Perhaps I’m being a bit hasty in my judgements, this is an airport after all. But I can’t help but despise the atmosphere of the place.  Malawians are accustomed to hard work with little reward. The reward comes from the beauty of the land and the sense of togetherness that the country holds. 

Welcome to reverse culture shock Eloise!. 

The main thing that strikes me above all else is how quiet, lonely and secluded this side of the world is. No one cares about anyone else. There’s no maize machine whirling at 5 in the morning, no hollering deaf children or skinny dogs howling as I go off to sleep, no tribal drum beating, no joyous singing. Conversation is silent and personal. I miss having conversations with people I don’t know. It’s like everyone is following a set of rules;

Rule number one: Don’t speak to strangers.
Rule number two: Care for yourself before others.
Rule number three: You have a clique, stick to it!

Rule number four: Buy things you don’t need.  Throw them out, and repeat.

Rule number five: Get up and go! Always hurry! And when things don’t go according to plan-complain!

The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving.

As my plane rose from the runway a piece of me was left behind. Something was literally missing. That was when it hit me full in the face.

Malawi is my home.

Completely and utterly, in a way that I never imagined was possible until I had to leave.  Turning my back on the faces of people I love, saying goodbye to a community that had become my family and explaining to the children that I was leaving them early was horrendously heartbreaking. I tried to think of a way to describe the emotions I felt, but nothing compares to the looks on their faces or the feeling of abandonment as I walked away.

Thinking back to the day I arrived, the speed with which we all bonded still astounds me, as does how quickly a country so foreign became my home. I was filled with utter relief and warmth upon arrival, and that was something that never changed.  So I suppose the response to my departure should not have surprised me as much as it did. Warm words of encouragement were sent my way. I was overwhelmed yet again by all the people who have helped me in this journey, both in-country and out. The goodbyes, the tears, the love, the gratitude, the joy, the embraces and kisses, the songs, the letters, and the surprise of my departure flooded back to me as I waited for my connecting flight in Johannesburg. Although I was still in Africa, it was no longer “the warm heart” that I grew to love in Malawi.

I spent only five months in Malawi, yet my view of the world and life itself has changed dramatically. “If you want to make it, all you have to do is try.” Malawi has so much potential to develop. When they take matters into their own hands, then and only then can Africa and its people become a place of innovation rather than a country of charity. This is a lesson that applies to all of us, regardless of where we come from. It may be the 9^th poorest country in the world, and the least developed country in Africa, but what it does have easily makes up for what it lacks.  It’s a country where laughter is a medicine to all things and where faith is strong enough to get you through any situation. They make the most of what they have and thank God for it, resulting in a population of the happiest people on this planet who share an inspiring gratitude for the lives they’ve been given. It’s a place where a child is raised a whole community, not singular parents, where friendship and kindness is valued above all things, where life carries on, where junk is a treasured way of rebirth, where people are free.

“Africans bend what little they have to their will every day. Using creativity, they overcome challenges.”

That’s the most beautiful thing about spending a day in Africa, the simplicity of freedom. Sitting in peaceful solitude for literally hours, enjoying your thoughts and the environment around you.  I miss waking up and not knowing what will happen. I miss appreciating little things like electricity, and having to make candle toast when there’s a lengthy blackout. I miss the ecstasy and excitement and shouts of pure joy when it finally flicks back on and we can use the toaster again. I miss inexpensive goods and services. I especially miss Mandazi. I miss the friends I've made, and the people I was yet to meet. I miss the sunrises and the clear night skies with millions of stars. I miss the radiant colours of the market and the stench of the fish. I miss swimming in the huge, warm, never ending pool of Lake Malawi.  I miss the beauty of each day. I just miss the culture.

I’ve been called irresponsible, stubborn, hot headed and immature. People think I’m crazy and without consideration for my own health-a young girls frivolous dream that was short-lived despite stubborn determination.

But when I reflect on my time in Africa, I see it as a gift of growth and giving that no one will ever be able to take away from me. Malawi brought me freedom and I wouldn’t change one single thing about it. It was an experience of a lifetime and has become a part of who I am. It taught me to slow down and appreciate the life that we’ve been given. I’ve finally escaped from the prison of my own mind and opened myself up to a world of possibilities.

I plan to rest, recuperate and approach everything in a new light. I can appreciate how lucky we are in here in Australia while persevering with my passion. Nadine will continue the work we began in Mua, taking the bulk of it on her shoulders. She’ll put into place the remainder of our fundraising work and I’ll be on standby, 11541km across the ocean, whenever she needs assistance. I couldn’t have survived as long as I did without her and I admire her strength and persistence.

I may not have had the perfect ending that Nadine and I planned as we lay on the bug-ridden concrete floor, dreaming of food as we counted down the days. But since when does life ever go according to plan? There are millions of things that can go wrong, no mater what you’re doing, how you’re travelling or where you are. In fact, there are millions of things in your life that can go wrong by simply stepping out the front door. But how would we ever learn if we knew ever step that had been planned out for us? As Shakira says, “When you fall get up, cause this is Africa.” The thing to do is get on with your life. Take a risk and follow the path that you want to go down. So we put ourselves out there and took the opportunities that were thrown at us. We forgot about counting down the days and they quickly turned into weeks, then months. Suddenly, we wondering where all the time had gone.

And all of a sudden, I’m home.

I think that all anyone really needs, is a good adventure. My time in Africa is over for now, and I can only look forward to the exciting and unpredictable future, and hope that one-day, I will be back. And I’m more than ready for the next one to come my way. 

“You’re mountain is waiting, so get on your way!”

-Eloise.

Mike and Brian's Big Day Out

I felt like maybe it was time for another day-in-the-life style blog – partly because I had such an interesting day on Wednesday! Brian had invited me to go with him to a reunion meeting for people from his teacher training college, and then we needed to get lots of nails and wood varnish and an extraordinary amount of planks to make desks for the Standard 8 classroom. So here’s how it went...

Wakey wakey - I got up as normal at 5.45am, got myself ready, and then waited for Brian to finish his bath (this is impressive by the way, because it is VERY cold these days at 6 in the morning to have a bath outside just by throwing hot water over yourself!) and together we headed out to the road.

Transport – We managed to hitch a lift almost as soon as we got to the road which was beautiful, it was a bit full of tobacco and babies so Brian found himself doing some athletic repositioning as we went along, which reminded me very vividly of people in action films doing daring deeds in car chases! Our luck run out at Wimbe however, where the truck stopped, then turned around, went back half a kilometre, stopped again, and what seemed like the whole body of passengers got out to talk to a man in a fluorescent police jacket. We then went back the half a kilometre to where we were before and waited for about an hour as the driver gave a statement to the police in their (3x4 metre) office building. It turned out that the truck had recently left a man unconscious in ‘hospital’ in Chamama – the other truck drivers of Chamama had accused the driver of running the man over, but his story was that he had tried to jump up and pull someone off the back while it was still moving, and had ended up falling off and hitting his head on a nasty looking metal bar that stuck out at the back. Traffic safety in rural Malawi is genuinely terrifying at times. On a much more trivial note, the wait was improved greatly by the range of African cakes available across the road – zitumbua with bananas, very well cooked mandasi, and gloriously moist zigumu. I had quite a lot of cake for breakfast.

Emmanuel Teacher Training College – Eventually we arrived and met some of the alumni of Emmanuel Teacher Training College, which seems to me to be an awesome project. The college train really good teachers, and also grow them in their faith, and equip them to run bible clubs for their kids. Once they’ve left, the college do a great job of helping them out – my favourite part of this being the offer of subsidised bicycles, which led to Brian getting, for a third of market price, a Royal Mail bike – from STRATFORD UPON AVON! Exciting times. Anyway, his mates were lovely, and it was encouraging to hear that a few of them actually are running Bible clubs at school. It was a bit more surprising to hear about the amount of opposition and resistance they face from other teachers, it seems Malawi is, once you scratch the surface, not quite as Christian as the shop names and slogans on the back of buses would suggest. (On that subject, I saw one the other day that simply said, “IF ALL FAILS, TRY JESUS.” Really not sure about that one...)

Wood shopping – Once we’d said goodbye to the Emmanuel people and had some chips and a fanta it was time to start shopping. I had to buy a Chichewa bible, which was fun, and then a long list of building materials, which turned out to be such a large amount of actual stuff that we had to pay a kid with a wheelbarrow 200 kwacha to take it to the timber yard. Then we had some fun negotiating desperately with the timber sellers, hoping to convince them that despite my skin colour, I did not actually have infinite funds and was actually buying the wood for my school and not for me! In the end, by switching to low quality for some parts, and getting them to chop some planks in half on the crazy chopping machine, we managed to get the price down to something vaguely acceptable, and hired a big truck to take it all back to Chimbowe. Had a great moment of feeling horribly naive when Brian said, “That is all of the wood, let’s get into the vehicle” and I said, “But we need to pay these guys for the wood,” and he said, “Yes. That is why we need to get into the vehicle.” And I looked around at the huge numbers of piece working men standing around and felt the big lump of cash in my pocket (since 1000 kwacha is the biggest note the money for the wood was actually far too much to fit in my wallet) and decided that his plan was eminently sensible. The whole process was somehow thoroughly exhausting, but we made it in the end.

Homecoming – We arrived under the cover of darkness, and got the lorry to pull up outside Standard 7 (the only classroom with a door), only wincing slightly when it ran over some bricks that are supposed to mark a flower bed. When I got out I saw Mike cooking on our porch, and on going inside I discovered that something very strange had happened. The kitchen table had been rotated 90 degrees, it was completely empty except for a few bags of clothes, and the shelves were stuffed wildly with the huge mound of rubbish and books that had been on it. Next to it in the main room was a pile of bags, including both our suitcases. I looked into my room. The mosquito net had been tied up, and the curtain was drawn – I never do either of these things. Then I looked again and realised that the bed had somehow been turned 180 degrees. I am still unsure how this was possible considering that the bed is only about 2 feet smaller then the room in either direction! It turns out they had, for the second or maybe third time, re-floored the hut. This involves taking literally everything out, and then smearing new mud+something mixture over the floor, letting it dry and then moving everything back in. The floor was much improved, and the effort much appreciated.

Evening entertainments – Mike was in a surprisingly good mood considering that he had taught Brian’s class all day, then gone to teach our 3 classes at the secondary school, and had done all of this while pretty ill – a dizzy spell in the middle of Tuesday night had led him to accidentally kick our toilet roll down the toilet hole, sad times. Anyway, he had cooked our food and we ate well, then finished watching ‘Rock of Ages’ on my laptop (he had started it in the day) and rounded the evening off with some Chokkits. Mike had sent me to Kasungu with money to buy these – they are the best biscuits available in Malawi by a long way, made in South Africa – a kind of coconut crunchy sandwich cream chocolate biscuit. Exceptional. It was, however, quite strange buying them in front of Brian – it is very hard to justify the 1200 kwacha a packet costs (that’s £2, or more bananas than you can carry).

Bed time – Then I went outside, as I do every night, to brush my teeth under the stars. This is such a glorious way to end the day that I’m considering maintaining the habit at home. Then I went back inside, saw a massive spider on the wall and failed to squish it with my flip-flop, went out to the toilet and was beset by flies. I attempted a stroke of evil-genius by putting the torch down pointing towards a spider’s web, hoping they would follow the light and be trapped. Sadly, they were either too smart or too strong for this scheme, but I suppose you win some and you lose some. So then I washed my hands with our new pot of ‘Handi Kleen’ hand sanitizer, and went outside to have a pray, and look at the stars, and write down what I’d done that day.

Basically, life here is getting hectic these days and it’s brilliant. I’ve found myself saying sentences over and over again this weekend that start “I love...”. “I love food!” “I love this place!” “I love people!” and a lot of more specific and obscure ones that I can’t remember any more. In fact, now I think about it it’s quite often, “I love you mate”. That’s probably my favourite.

My mate Miriam

There are plenty of possible candidates for ‘Best Thing About Being In Malawi’ – the friends I’ve made, the sheer beauty everywhere, the freedom of simplicity - but right now there is only one, clear winner; and she’s 2 foot tall and 1 and a half years old and called Miriam.

She’s Brian’s (who I must have mentioned in nearly every post) only daughter, so we’ve known each other now for 4 and a half months, but I must admit the relationship, like the proverbial rollercoaster, or a truck ride on the dirt road to Mtunthama, has had its ups and downs. The first 4 months, in fact, was a gradual and painstaking process of familiarisation. I say painstaking, because to start with, every time she set eyes on me or Michel she burst into tears of pure terror. After a while the safety of Brians’ lap was sufficient to allow some gentle interaction – the occasional low five or foot tickle – but time and again, as Brian would start to life her across to me, saying “Pita, Dad!” (“Leave Dad”) in his most comforting and encouraging Daddy voice, she would start wriggling violently and use her voicebox as a sort of human parking sensor – pitch, volume and intensity increasing in proportion to proximity to the dreaded AZUNGU (white person).

But then, just a couple of weeks ago, a glorious incident occurred. We were eating some groundnuts at Brians, and she was sitting on his lap, and I was playing with her – I have developed a tickling technique where I wiggle my finger up to her neck like a work so that she even starts to giggle and shrug away before it’s reached the ticklish spot behind her ear! So all was joyous and bright. And then, Brian had to go and teach, so he put her down, told her to go to Mama and started to leave. I put out my hand to hold, and she took it, and we walked together to the back step. She stood, atop the steep precipice of about a foot, paralysed. Brain saw an opportunity and said – “Try to pick her!” – so I stooped down, and picked her up.

And SHE DID NOT CRY!

I took her to her mother in the kitchen, and set her down, jubilant. And ever since we have been the best of friends. We play together, I carry her around, and I can even comfort her when she’s crying! And every time I leave she says, “Bi!” and waves to me. And I absolutely, desperately love this little girl. Just sitting and watching her play – picking upa  stick and trying to sweep the ground like her elder cousins do, or throwing a little plastic bag ball at me and running after it with bouncy, unsteady, determined toddler steps – is an unadulterated joy. I could, and sometimes do, just do it for hours on end. She is glorious. And it makes her happy that I am around, and this is even gloriouser.

And what makes it even more beautiful for me is what I’m discovering through it – the feelings, the love for a little child, that is a delightful picture of the love God has for us. I wrote, somewhere in my diary, “Once again I am living in a rich metaphor.” I love it when she talks to me – even if the words are not really words, and make no sense. I love it when she sits with me or lets me hold her, but in a different way I am delighted when she strikes out alone to play with the older kids, or explore some new corner of the dirt and tree roots, or invent some bizarre and slightly incomprehensible game. And then, when an older girl bumped into her mid run and tumbled over on top of her, I got the tiniest glimpse of what it is to love a child, and see that child hurt.

I just love it. I just love her. And I thought you would all like to know.

A Good Question

I was chatting to my friend Daisy the other day, and she said how her uncle always used to ask, “Why does God want us to worship him?” I didn’t really have anything useful or interesting to say at the time. But then as I was going to sleep, a thought came to me, and I wrote it down for her. And here it is:

                When I was sitting on the banks of Victoria Falls (before I dropped my passport in) I was looking at the bit in Mark’s gospel which describes Palm Sunday. And I saw the bit where all the people are laying down their cloaks on the road, and running to find palm leaves and lay them down. And it occurred to me that the road in question was probably much more like a Malawian dirt-road than I’d previously been imagining. And then I realised something I had never really noticed before: Jesus is riding a baby donkey, on a seriously bad road – it would have been a bumpy, uncomfortable ride. And then it struck me that the really beautiful thing about Jesus choosing to ride the colt, or whatever baby donkeys are called, was that it meant that the cloaks actually made a difference. The palm leaves were not pure symbol, not simply an expression of deference or duty, they made the road smoother. They made a difference to Jesus.

                And I realised that this is true, it’s a massive thing about Jesus. The God who created black holes and B minor humbled himself and became a child, and then a man, and then even a convict, a prisoner, and a corpse. In love, he gave us power over him. He put himself in a position of weakness, by loving us he made himself vulnerable to us. So that what we do – whether we return his love – is capable of truly inflicting upon him agony or delight. C.S. Lewis said something like this once: “to be loved, not merely pitied... to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness... it is a weight of glory almost too great to imagine, but so it is.” Love makes us vulnerable. There is no position more powerless than that of a man, down on one knee. That, in fact, of a God nailed to a cross.

So to ask God why he desires our worship, is to ask a lover why she desires kisses. It is to ask a father why, when he walks through the door, he longs for the sight of his child, running towards him, arms outstretched, wanting to be picked up. It is to ask God why he loves us so much.

And in that sense, I suppose, it’s a good question. I don’t know why he loves us this much. But he does.

Two Birthday Snapshots

Number One.

We went to Nkhata Bay for my birthday, so on Friday I was travelling with Mike and Sam. We left Mtunthama at 6, got a lift to Kasungu, a bus to Mzuzu, a minibus to Nkhata bay and then a lift up to the hostel. We had to change a tyre within the first 30 seconds of this 11 hour journey, which was quite Malawian, but nothing like as much as the minibus from Mzuzu. It was perfect timing – we got to the  bus depot just as it was full to bursting so that when we had squeezed ourselves in it actually set off straight away. We proceeded out of the depot and rolled down the main street – jerking violently every 5 seconds as the driver tried to kickstart the engine. This continues with no success. This continued to the bottom of the hill – we turn, and roll to a stop. The conductor and some others get out, gather passers-by and push. No success. They go round to the front and push us backwards again. No success. We are pushed, jerking, back and forward for 15 minutes. No success. They give up and take the battery out – after another 15 minutes they manage to find another battery from somewhere and someone clever wires it up. The driver turns the key. Chug-chug-chug-chiuum. Chug-chug-chug-chiuum. Chug-chug-chug-chug-chug-chug-chiuum. No success.

Thereafter followed 15 minutes of unexplained stillness and complete inactivity. Then a man appears with a jerry can of petrol and pours it into the tank. They push the bus once again, the driver turns the key. Success.

A glorious 45 minutes of Malawi.

Number Two.

On Saturday a few of us went out for lunch to a place called Aqua Africa, which had a beautiful view of the bay, a swing, and good cake. So obviously I loved it and was keen to go back – and I realised that it was straight across the bay from our place – apparently 800m.

So Sunday morning me, Sam, Naomi and Lara borrowed the two big canoes and paddled our way across for breakfast. Me and Lara reached the shore first, and she hopped out from the front and started to pull the canoe up the beach. Unfortunately, I had just stood up to follow her, and so this eminently sensible action had the unintended consequence of moving the boat under me, lurching me off balance and sending me, gracefully, bum-first over the side and into the lake.

You’ll be no doubt glad to learn that the joyful humiliation of this didn’t detract from a delicious breakfast and a delightful swing.

When it was time to head back, we wandered back down and climbed into the boats. As we picked up the oars Sam said – “It looks like it’s going to rain”. As he said it, the wall of falling water moved visibly across the lake towards us, and we paddled hard into an absolute deluge. There is something absolutely glorious about being on a tiny boat in the middle of a flat blue lake, being pummelled powerfully by rain on all sides. It was beautiful. Like everything awesome I’ve seen here, it made you feel small. It made me feel like I was in the bit of the of the bible when Jesus is asleep in the fishing boat, and then he gets up and calms the storm. And we sang, of course. Which reminds me – if anyone knows the second line of the song, “Raindrops keep falling on my head” – then please do share because both Lara and myself are blissfully ignorant on the subject. Anyway, we made it, all four of us just as soaked as I had been earlier on, and it was definitely the awesomest canoe-based breakfast outing of my life.

Mike Climbs a Big Mountain

I am utterly exhausted in that beautiful, satisfied, aching kind of way. I’ll tell you about today in quite a lot of detail because it’s actually captures the feel of the whole trip a little bit.

Food

We had visitors and we were staying at Kamuzu Academy (the most bizarre boarding school in Africa, in case I haven’t mentioned it before, you can probably google it) so my alarm goes off at six and I endeavour to rouse everyone from their slumbers so that we can go and get breakfast at the school canteen. It was a pretty simple one by KA standards – bread and butter and rice porridge – but I have developed a deep and delightful passion for the rice porridge (of course accompanied by a more-than-healthy dose of Malawi brown sugar) so I am happy happy happy.

Transportation

So we head out to the town, the challengingly spelt ‘Mtunthama’, and look for transport to Kasungu for 6 mzungus (that’s ‘white people’ in Chichewa) and 3 massive backpacks. We end up in a small saloon car. With another Malawian passenger. So that’s a classic, slightly battered five-seater carrying eight people and a lot of bags. This was in fact only mildly uncomfortable and now I put it down in numbers it seems feeble in the face of general Malawian minibus practice – the other day me and my friend Sam travelled in a 7-seater minivan which was carrying 17 people. The next time you hear a politician talking about immigration and declaring sagely that “sometimes, you just have to say, there’s no room on the bus,” think to yourself: This person has obviously never been to Malawi.

Goodbyes

We get some cash out in Kasungu and then make our way to the bus depot, take a bet on one minibus to leave before the others or the anticipated ‘big bus’, and say goodbye to Rosie, Jenny and Grace. These are awesome people, and it’s been awesome to see them, and they have very much enjoyed staying at Chimbowe and playing with all our kids. As everyone does, they have complained about how much stuff our community does for us (dish washing, clothes washing, hot water for baths...) but are secretly just jealous! Hopefully we’ll see them for my birthday in a couple of weeks.

Big Mountain

Next on the agenda for me, Mike and Sam, is Mount Kasungu. Like all the hills here it just comes out of nowhere in the middle of completely flat bushland, so it looks pretty spectacular, and I have since discovered that it is 1071m high. We ask some people how to get there and instructed to walk ‘straight, that way’ and obey with confidence. The plan is to climb it (apparently it takes about two hours) then eat lunch at the summit (purchased at Sanan Superette, a shop which sells good biscuits at good prices, and is painted entirely green, so has much going for it) and come down in time to buy some building materials for Sam and be back at KA for dinner. So we follow the path until the path becomes a trail and then we follow it as it picks up and starts to wiggle its way up the mountain. It’s pretty much as I expected: a bit steep, rocky, overgrown, and every time you turn around an even more mind-blowing view presents itself for your enjoyment. And then the trail disappears. No worries, we decide, we can see the top, we know where we need to go, let’s just go there. So we get going. In the absence of a trail, however, the fact that this is the end of the rainy season and the grass is at full height, in this case well over head-height, becomes an all-too-tangible reality. Our ankles become very quickly saturated with prickles and sticks and little balls of thoroughly unnecessary spikiness. Our bare knees become red from the sun and the constant tickling of grass and scratching of branches. I hit my head on a branch. We take a lot of breaks to eat some of the food we were supposed to save for lunch, and far too much of our limited supplies of water. We keep going, encouraged periodically by noticing, again, the startling beauty of the country  spread out below us like a strange, handmade, all-green patchwork rug. The sun shines. I put some more suncream on but I can actually feel the backs of my hands and my neck burning. We sweat. A lot. We keep scrambling upwards through the grass and over the rocky outcrops – sweet, non-grassy relief whenever we can find them – towards the summit. Michael helpfully observes that we are making no noticeable progress. Myself and Sam disagree optimistically. A surprisingly good samosa gives me a boost. I keep thinking about how good it will be to reach the top. I say this, hoping to inspire the others, although I’m distinctly lacking the necessary eloquence at this point. This goes on for a long time. About 2 hours. 

And now we’re getting up to a really excitingly rocky bit, and I can see the top, and it’s not far away, and I speed up, and then slow down a bit to let Michael go in front, and we’re so, so nearly there, so close, and Mike crests a little slope and says, “Ah. There’s heaps more. About 100 metres.” (100 metres doesn’t sound like a lot, but at this point I’d say we’re genuinely up around a 40-50% gradient so it feels fairly significant.) So we keep going some more. And then I hear the others start to woop. And I clamber over the last few rocks and all around me I can see for miles and miles and miles and I woop too, and I point at the sky and say thank you to Jesus for being awesome and also that none of us have fallen off or broken our legs or been bitten by snakes. And we rejoice. And we eat food and drink water and chat. And we take loads of stupid photos. And it is good. Unfortunately we can’t just leave it at this and continue with our lives because we are now 1071 metres up a mountain. So we set off to go down. And this is much more difficult actually, and we all do a lot of falling over in the long grass, and not a negligible amount of complaining, and after a long, long time, and a lot of little prickly bits in our socks, we make it down again. 

But of course, from the bottom of the mountain we’ve got a half hour walk to town – throughout which we plan in detail what drinks we will buy as soon as we find someone selling cold drinks. I spot someone selling apples on the side of the road and go for it because apples are juicy and that’s close enough. And then we find a shop with a fridge and fanta has never tasted more beautiful, ever. And then, of course, we have to do food shopping, and Sam has to buy hundreds of nails and twelve 10 ft iron roof sheets. And we have to carry these things around, to a truck home, and then from the truck to KA, and me and Michael both cut ourselves on the metal, which is nastily like a papercut, just a lot bigger. But when we arrive at KA, there’s free dinner, and it’s fish, and they give us a boiled egg each as well, and good sauce, and lots and lots of cold water. And then I get to have a cold shower at the guest house, and sit on a sofa and listen to music and go on facebook chat and write a blog.

Jesus

This day has been good practice for me, I think. Because I’ve discovered recently that Jesus doesn’t just not make everything easy for us. He doesn’t even make everything into a really cool movie script where it’s tough and gritty and real and then we overcome adversity and reach an incredible, dramatic climax, and the good guys win and everyone hugs everyone else and then the story stops. Following Jesus is beautiful and hard all at the same time. And then sometimes, there are moments of breath-taking brilliance. Moments where I just need to go outside and sit down somewhere and smile and say, “Nice one, Dad”. Moments where a few words of the bible hit me so clear, and true, and beautiful, that I actually weep. Moments where you stand on top of a mountain and look around you at the world in all its awesomeness, and you take stupid pictures with your mates and laugh and take your t-shirt off just to feel the breeze, and every nerve in your body knows that God is good. But you never get to just walk away. You find yourself 1071 metres up a mountain and you realise that going down is actually scarier than coming up.

Coming back to school after the crazy passport thing has been like this for me – the big climax came, everything went mental, everything got sorted, roll the credits let’s go home. And then I realised that I can’t go home because I’ve got four more months. And at first I really didn’t like this realisation, but then I also realised that Jesus has got another 4 months of adventures and gloriousnesses to teach me and change me and love me and be kind to me and I cannot wait. And then, gently, it dawned on me that he doesn’t just have four months of these things. He’s got a whole lifetime waiting for me. And then something a lot lot longer and a lot lot better.

So basically I’m just trying to say that maybe you can’t even see the summit, maybe coming down is actually quite scary, maybe you just really want a fanta. But just know, always know, that God is good, and he knows what he’s doing. And he even knows just what those annoying spiky things in your socks feel like, and he actually cares. And that’s pretty much the coolest thing ever. 

What I Learnt From Dropping My Passport In A Waterfall

I’ve been trying to work out what God has been teaching me with the whole losing my passport twice in two days thing. And, on reflection, I reckon he’s been teaching me how to say, ‘Hosanna’. I apologise for the pretentiousness of that introduction – but to explain what I mean I’ll give you something I wrote in my notebook at probably the rubbishiest point of the whole experience. Picture the scene: I’ve been walking around a hot, smoky Lusaka for 2 days on ridiculously blistered feet, trying to get my emergency passport sorted out, and now I’m sat on a bus that was scheduled to leave for the border at 12.30, and it’s 3.30 now and we have not moved. And it’s hot, and I’m sweaty, and very, very tired. And we’re not moving. So I take my mind off it by thinking, and here's what I think:

I am learning now; in these long days and anxious moments, in the aches for certainty and for home that bring me to the brink of tears but never quite make it over the edge, in this weakness; I am learning how to cry ‘Hosanna!’.

On the banks of Victoria Falls, just before all this started, I had reached Palm Sunday in Mark’s Gospel. And I saw a note that explained that ‘Hosanna!’ literally means ‘Save!’ and was used as a shout of praise. I think I understand that now. I used to praise God simply by admiring him – telling him all the great things I knew about him, who he was, what he’d done for me. But to cry out to him again and again:

“SAVE!”

is something deeper. It is to sit, on this bus, in my powerlessness, and my impatience and my fear – and declare, proclaim with everything in me, my dependence. My soul shouts aloud that I am not OK, I am not strong, or independent, or calm and composed, I am in need. I need my God. I need to be rescued. I live my whole life convincing myself that I am in control, that I am self-sufficient in whatever way, but I realise now, honestly, that I’M NOT.

Only God is sufficient for me.

Only Jesus is enough.

“My heart and my flesh may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.”

My heart and my flesh may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart 

and my portion forever.

Hosanna.

To truly praise God I have to admit that I need him. He is necessary. God is not some unnecessary addition to the universe – some added extra – he is before all things and in him all things hold together. He is not a delightful bonus in my life. It’s in him that I trust. It’s in him that the whole thing holds together.

If God wasn’t real, my whole life would fall apart. I really mean that. And so I cry, ‘Hosanna’, I shout out ‘Save!’ and I declare not just God’s beauty, his kindness, his forgiveness, his brilliance, but also his necessity.

I admit it, I need Jesus. And I can feel that now, more profoundly and more acutely than ever.

There was an amazing quote in a book called ‘What’s so amazing about grace?’ (an incredible, incredible book by the way, I cried many times) from C.S. Lewis. He said this:

“We are mirrors, whose brightness, if we are bright, is wholly derived from the sun that shines upon us. Surely, we think, we must have a little – however little – native luminosity? Surely we can’t be quite creatures?... Grace gives us instead a full, childlike and delighted acceptance of our Need, a joy in total dependence. We become ‘jolly beggars’.”

And this thing about dependence, about weakness, about admitting that I just can’t do it by myself, is a thing that I’m very glad that God has taught me. Because I was thinking about it, and we live in a world full of independent people. Independent people who are desperate to reciprocate as soon as we receive any kindness because we can’t stand the feeling of being indebted to anyone. We always find ourselves saying, ‘Oh no, that’s too kind’ – because somehow there is actually a level of kindness that makes us feel uncomfortable. We are so determined not to be a burden to anybody that we refuse to ever put our burdens down, and we carry them around all day until we are exhausted, and the only time we really relax is when we lie down at night and close our eyes. We are so independent it hurts. But it seems to me now that independent is not something we were ever made to be. We were made to be children, who need each other, and who need our Dad.

I’ve had no choice but to live this way recently – at the placement I am utterly reliant on the community for all the ways they look after us, and in the last few days I’ve had no access to money except from the generosity and trust of my friends – and I’ve got to say, I’m loving it. Malawians say “Feel free!” a lot. I feel free right now.

I read somewhere, “I feel like I am living in a story that I am not writing.” I feel like that. And the thing about the story that I am not writing, is that I don’t know what’s going to happen next. But I do know that the writer is a good writer, and the story is a good story.