As it pans out my workplace has taken care of the visa extension. All I did was leave it in their capable hands, I didn’t had to go to the immigration office or pay anything at all. This is great that I never had to deal with the hassle. Alas I never got my trip to Mozambique in (I’ve postponed that trip until after the end of my internship – Nov 7).
On the bright side I made a spur of the moment decision to take a trip up to Nkhata Bay. The 7hr bus ride up to Mzuzu was pretty awful (hot and slow) but the rest of the trip was terrific. I stayed 2 nights in Mzuzu at the Mzoozoozoo hostel. Highly recommended, the Swiss/American owner is hilarious. I think I paid for 1 drink the whole 2 nights I was there. I had whiskey coming at me from all directions. It was a nice change from the ubiquitous Malawian gin (I’m not really a gin and tonic kinda girl). So the Zoo is not really a place for the sober types. The expat crowd of South Africans and Zimbabweans were at first interesting and boisterous to talk to...although they were a very macho crowd of tobacco dealers, who enjoyed comparing off-road trucks. So during my second night I ended up watching Casino Royale with Charity (the Malawian girl who worked there) because earlier that day I managed to buy a DVD with the entire collection of James Bond movies on it for MK500 ($3.50) that afternoon!! Sweet!! (Well all the movies except for my fav ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’, you know the one where 007 poses as a marine biologist and has a car that turns into a sub and the villain has a tiger shark that he feeds his victims to, yeah, yeah go ahead and laugh I don’t care it was an awesome film).
Luckily enough, as I was talking to the locals at ‘the zoo’ they told me that Monday was a holiday for Mother’s Day. Which was awesome as it extended my trip a day longer!
The next morning I headed out to Nkhata Bay on the Lake to get some serious beach chilling time. It was sooooooo good. The first thing I did when I got in was made a beeline to the dive shop, even before I found my room for the weekend. I booked 2 dives for that day and the next. I wasn’t sure what freshwater diving would be like. I know in Canada the only freshwater dives that are done were for the wrecks – not much else to see in the Great Lakes. But Lake Malawi was awesome to dive in. Saw spectacular Cichlid fishes, tilapia and catfishes. Even got a close up view of the mouth brooding fish I mentioned in my ‘fish sex’ blog. Every time I came too close to mom and her babies she’d open her mouth and scoop them all inside - pretty cool to see in nature, especially after all my discussions on the topic. Besides the fish life, the rock formations were neat too. There were several rock arches and tunnels that you could penetrate and swim out the other side. Fun stuff for the adventurous types as is yours truly. I really needed to get wet and dive under the surface again. I haven’t been diving since May – much too long a surface interval. After seeing Nkhata Bay from below I enjoyed the rest of the afternoon chilling on the beach. It was hot hot hot! I’d tan for 15 min then have to dip into the lake, which I repeated for the rest of the day. When I started to get bored I chatted the local beach boys up and played some bao (an African board game). I’m going to catch up to Anna’s skill level soon. She may not win our next game.
On Monday I packed up, left the Bay and headed back to Dedza. I was lucky to catch a ride back with Lindsay, an American woman I met at the zoo, who interestingly enough was a research scientist studying climate change and also owned a coal mine. Talk about a make work project!! Lol!! Her research was really neat though, she studied climate change by taking core samples of Archea bacteria in the lake to obtain accurate records of temperature over time. The conversation during this ride was much better than the bus!! I don’t get to talk science as often as I’d like and her research was really fascinating. For those interested I can elaborate via email, as I fear I may be losing some of my readers with too much scien-terrific-talk.
Right so on with the trip. As it turns out the Mother’s Day holiday was not on Monday. Oops. Until this year the holiday was celebrated on the second Monday in Oct, but this year it was changed to the date Oct 15 regardless on what day of the week it falls on. So the holiday was officially Wed. Just to confuse me further my workplace decided to take the holiday on Friday instead (Oct 17) - as if things weren’t confusing enough here. Nobody was mad at me though, it was a little funny because some of them thought that my visa had not been renewed and I was actually gone home to Canada, lol. Pleasantly I have this Friday off which makes 2 long weekends in a row for me. Nice.
I suppose I really should get a move on with the jobs I was actually given my extension for. I’ll take care of that on Monday. What’s the rush? It’s Africa right. Chabwino
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