If you don't go far, you'll be old 2

Chapter 12 Malawi: The Mango Adventure

Everyone who is bored with life wants to explore the outside world. If you really have such a strong desire, Malawi will definitely satisfy you.

Whoever can borrow more money can be president
Everyone on the earth knows that Nanjing is a stove, and the sweltering heat waves in summer can steam people.In that suffocating steamer world, people comforted each other: it's time to be content, and it's much better than Africa anyway.It wasn't until I actually set foot on the African continent that I realized that the Flame Mountain in my mind didn't exist at all.The Sahara Desert is scorching hot, it’s true, Northern Sudan is indeed hot enough, but most of the other areas are just ordinary hot, not high temperature, and mainly dry heat, not steamy.Areas with slightly higher altitudes are covered by cooler climates, such as Ethiopia, which is like spring all year round, Uganda, which is full of forests, and Malawi, which has distinct seasons.

In the hypothetical land that is always spewing flames, there is actually a country where the temperature can reach subzero, and this is Malawi.The whole country is almost on the high mountains, with four distinct seasons, and the temperature can drop to about zero degrees Celsius in winter.The coniferous forests that have not been seen for a long time appear frequently. Rice and apples are also grown here, and even bamboo forests are seen.The cool wind made me feel refreshed, and I was so comfortable that I was about to fly.Humming a little tune, the bad mood of being cheated by the ticket was quickly cured.

The destination of this stop is Mzuzu, a city in central Malawi.I think this place name is very interesting, and what's even more interesting is that the name of the Mzuzu Youth Hostel is Mzoozoo (Mzoozoozoo), which makes people laugh.At the Mzuzu bus station, I hoped and hoped, waited and waited, woke up, woke up, dreamed a few times, but the car still remained motionless.There is no timetable for the bus, just leave when it is full.I waited for four full hours before the car finally started reluctantly.Time, is not very valuable here.

Halfway through the journey, the preacher got on the car, and a passionate speech kicked off.The speaker was so hoarse, spitting, and screaming that I almost thought it was a political speech by a fanatic.After the 30-minute speech, the preacher led all the passengers in the car to clap their hands and sing religious songs.Two hours later, another preacher got on the bus, the same process, but different songs.In this country where more than [-]% of the people believe in Catholicism, religion is an essential part of life.

Malawi, once rated as one of the least developed countries in the world by the United Nations, has about half of its population living below the poverty line, and the government has been in debt for a long time.People in Malawi often joke that whoever can borrow more money from the big powers will be president. "Borrowing money" is an essential diplomatic skill for leaders of many African countries.In such a country, it is not surprising to see mobile phone recharge cards worth [-] cents.There are almost no shops in the countryside, and people still rely on "going to the market" for business. The street market stretches for hundreds of meters, and the long street of stalls is full of textiles and daily necessities. There is an endless stream of people going to the market.

Just as I was indulging in admiring the lively village, the bus stopped, and the people outside the bus were excited, yelling at the bus, gesticulating, and speaking in a language I could not understand.There was an instant chaos in the carriage, and the passengers rushed to get off.At this time, people will probably complain about how the doors are so small. A car should have five doors.Passengers pushed forward as hard as they could, as if to make the doors wider.What's more, they jumped out of the window directly, completely ignoring the long distance from the ground.Jumping out of a car window is undoubtedly dangerous, but it seems that not jumping out of the window at this time is the more dangerous thing.

People were so excited because smoke was coming out of the chassis of the bus.The villagers standing outside the car and yelling—you can guess what they are saying, God, it’s smoking, it’s going to explode, run, jump out of the car!It seems that a big event is about to happen in the next second.

I guess everyone more or less associates those car explosion scenes in Hollywood movies.With a bang, his body was smashed to pieces, and even the bone residue could not be found.I couldn't fight the crazy crowd in front of me, and I have fallen pitifully at the tail of the team, and will be the last passenger to get off.I told myself, don't panic, don't panic, and keep calm: the bus is extremely difficult to explode, unless it encounters a rollover, a strong impact, a rupture of the fuel tank and an open flame, the thrilling scenes in the movie will appear.Most of the smoke is due to a malfunction, and it may cause a fire if it is extremely serious.As far as the current situation is concerned, there are no signs of fire yet.They panicked and did nothing, and simply rationally followed the crowd and got off one by one.If something happened before I got out of the car, it was also caused by fate, I don't blame heaven or others.Fortunately, I was in Malawi and nothing happened.As the last passenger to leave the bus, I am grateful for God's mercy.

While the driver was sweating profusely repairing the bus, I circled the village, enjoying the unexpected stop.Curiosity always goes both ways. The children in the village stared at me as if they were aliens, their eyes widened, but they dared not get close, for fear that I would eat them.The children hid more than ten meters away, squatting on the ground and observing my "giant panda" through the bottom of the bus.I waved at them, and the kids couldn't stop giggling.I slipped to the stewed meat stalls on the street to eat snacks. The freshly cooked pork was cut into small pieces, dipped in the stew, sprinkled with salt, and inserted into my mouth with a toothpick. The price was so low that it seemed free.I can't wait to shout with all my might: Boss, I'll take care of all the meat!

The bus was back on the road, and the chicken under the seat seemed to be unaware that it had just survived a catastrophe, and was still making noise without knowing what to do.People regained their senses, and the carriage became lively again, chatting and eating snacks, as if the crazy scene just now was just a dream.

Arriving at the station, accompanied by the sky full of stars, the passengers got off the bus with big bags and small bags, and left without looking back.I got out of the car, found a hotel to stay, washed myself up and threw myself on the bed.I pinched my own face, still, still alive, so truly alive.very nice.

mango world

Malawi is home to alluring lakes, dotted with crystal-clear waters to the east.Lake Malawi is located at the southernmost end of the Great Rift Valley in East Africa. It has an interesting alias called "Calendar Lake", which is named for its length of 365 miles and width of 52 miles.She is as blue as the sea, crystal clear, and occasionally rough, like Namtso in Tibet, but there is no snow mountain behind her.In view, you almost forget it's a freshwater lake.I went down to the lake and swam freely, not caring about choking on the water, but even so, I still felt that it was so beautiful.

Cape Maclear is a small village with a primitive atmosphere, without even a single asphalt road, let alone shopping malls, banks, and supermarkets.It is precisely because everything is simple and free of pollution that the water in Lake Malawi can be kept so clean and clear.The shops in the village let me travel back to China in the 80s, and the old radio cassette player on the counter made the scene in front of me more three-dimensional.The crooked thatched huts seemed to fall down at any moment, and there was not a single street lamp on the dirt road with holes.I stumbled across a local pub - whether the word pub could be called that, I doubt.The bar is so simple that there is almost nothing, no air conditioner, no fan, no dining table, no bar counter, and no bartender. There is only a dilapidated earthen house, a flickering light, a freezer, and an old stereo Music was playing loudly, and several black men were sitting on bamboo stools drinking beer or glass bottled soda, chatting about men's topics with great interest.Why are there so many people drinking soda in bars.It turned out that the bar sells gin in small plastic bags, which are not as long as the index finger and only slightly larger than the lenses of glasses, and the price is equivalent to a few cents in RMB.People can't afford a whole bottle of wine, so they can only buy such a small bag of wine and pour it into a glass bottle of Sprite or Coke to make a bottle of alcoholic beverage.It looks a bit shabby, but it's better than nothing.

The children peddled to me with a lot of mangoes in their hands. When I asked the price, it was 20 kwachas, equivalent to 100 cents in RMB.Fifty cents a mango, so cheap that I'm embarrassed not to buy it.I took out [-] kwachas and handed them to the child, but the child threw a large pile of mangoes to me and counted them, and there were eight of them.I suddenly realized that it was not fifty cents a piece, but a pile of fifty cents.Why is it so cheap? When I looked around, I found that there are mango trees everywhere, and the nearest one is more than ten meters away from me.The kids are just earning errands.I decided to head towards a tall mango tree, and a local nearby kindly handed me a special tool for picking mangoes: a long bamboo pole with a wire hook tied to the end.After picking up this magic tool, I felt like a tiger with wings added, pointing east and west, making every hook and every tick, full of domineering arrogance.Carrying the spoils on my back—a dozen freshly picked mangoes—I returned to the hotel contentedly.

I live in a cheap hotel run by a Taiwanese by the lake. The average accommodation fee is 30 RMB per person. It is clean, comfortable, and has a usable kitchen.Relying on the low price of meat here, freshly slaughtered mutton is equivalent to RMB [-] yuan per catty, and I will not give up until I eat enough mutton, so I started to cook mutton in different ways.Boil mutton soup, stew mutton, roast mutton, and use soy sauce from the boss of Taiwan to make sauced mutton.Chinese vinegar and soy sauce are hard to find in Africa. Unless you buy them in supermarkets opened by Chinese people, you can’t find them in the kitchen of ordinary local hotels. Curry powder is available all over the world. I made it again. I accidentally ate too much lamb curry and got angry.

Malawi's staple foods are so uniform that they don't qualify as gourmet by any standard.Accidentally discovered a new thing: pigeon rice.It's a pity that the meat is too old to bite. After a meal, my cheeks are sore for three days.Traveling here is undoubtedly an exercise in cooking skills. Before going out, I can only cook instant noodles, but now I can cook many different dishes.I used to think that I couldn’t live without the Internet, but in sub-Saharan Africa, where I can only use a computer to access the Internet once every half a month, my dependence on the Internet gradually faded, and I didn’t bother to go online after a long time.You see, people's potential is great enough to scare themselves, where there are so many "impossible".

desert island adventure
Swimming can no longer satisfy my desire for this blue lake.Under the suggestion of the hotel staff, Xiao Shen, a backpacker who came to Malawi with me, decided to try canoeing to explore a deserted island not far away.Putting on life jackets, they pushed the canoe into the lake. The two sat on it carefully, and started rowing vigorously one after the other.I couldn't bear the excitement in my heart: paddling a canoe to a deserted island, I am so handsome, domineering and majestic!Unexpectedly, the canoe became unbalanced in the middle of the lake, and the boat turned upside down without any warning.We scrambled after oars, slippers, hats, mess, mess, all mess.

Xiao Shen, who claims to have an excellent sense of balance, decides to take the lead and try his best to climb onto the canoe from the other side in an attempt to regain control of human beings.It's a pity that before I persisted for three seconds, I was thrown off by this naughty boat again and fell to my side.I was still trying to press the boat to help Xiao Shen maintain his balance. I saw a black shadow pressing on top of my head. Having been pressed hard into the water by the heavy pressure, Gululu swallowed several mouthfuls of lake water.There was another burst of water splashing in all directions, all four hands and four feet came in handy, and finally floated back to the surface.Lying on the side of the canoe, the two gasped heavily, looked at each other for three seconds, and began to laugh out loud, breathless and hearty, our laughter wafted across the lake.

After returning to the shore to study again, I discovered that there is a lot of knowledge in canoeing.How to control the stern, how to adjust the direction, there are many tricks.Facts have proved that it is good to dare to try, but don't forget to arm yourself with knowledge.After going out again, we rowed more steadily and smoothly.The speed of the canoe is much faster than imagined, and the deserted island that seems to be near is also farther than imagined.The two laymen were too nervous to chat, for fear of being distracted and repeating the same mistakes, they kept their balance wholeheartedly.Fortunately, they braved the wind and waves all the way and arrived at the deserted island smoothly.

There are only the most primitive products of nature here, dense forests, messy weeds, and no human-made trails, which makes us feel at a loss for the primitive jungle right in front of us, and there is no way to enter.The waters near the deserted island have not been damaged by human activities, and are so clean that you can see the bottom of the lake at a glance.The fish and birds are kept in the most relaxed state. Flocks of lake birds are flying around, and occasionally a few stand on the rocks by the lake and look at the water.Put on snorkeling glasses, bury your head in the water and look around, there are so many small fish, green with flowers, big and small, in groups, willing to be a lone ranger, holding a little bread crumbs When I put it into the water, a large group of small fish came around and ate by my hand, defenseless.The fishes made my arms itch when they touched them, but they didn't dare to laugh out loud, for fear that any movement would scare these lively little guys away.

Sitting on the rock and looking at the opposite fishing village, people wash clothes, play with water, and fish in the lake beside the village.Those noisy scenes are so close and so far away, as if they are within reach, but they are like two worlds, and even the degree of intimacy of fish to humans is very different.I use the life jacket to float on the surface of the water, without any effort, as if I am a piece of duckweed floating along the water.

We have never capsized again and our rowing skills have improved dramatically with study and practice.My arms were sore from the mechanical movement for half a day, but I held my head up proudly when I thought I had learned a new skill.

How handsome, how domineering and how majestic it is to go canoeing to a deserted island.

Moths
I like the night, quiet, cool and calming.But in places with poor law and order, night has another meaning, and it becomes a time when the crime rate soars rapidly, and danger is everywhere.I try to avoid going to a completely new place at night, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.In order to reach the next stop before dark, I woke up early in the morning with sleepy eyes.It's a pity that the word hurry does not apply at all in Malawi.It takes a whole day to move once, even if you get up earlier than a chicken, you have to toss until nightfall before you can move to your destination.It takes three or four hours from the time when the bus is full to when the bus departs, plus various delays on the road.If Nepal's time is not money, then Malawi's time is not even a piece of paper.

It was 11 o'clock in the evening when we arrived in Lilongwe, the capital.Looking at the darkness in front of me, I feel a little hairy.I had checked a well-known hotel near the station in advance, and was about to walk there, but was stopped by two policemen, who told me solemnly that no one was allowed to walk on the street after 10 pm.This warning made me feel even more hairy.Well, take a taxi and go to the main office of the hotel.In the face of precious life, what is the 10 yuan taxi fare?

Are there any rooms available?The answer is full.In the middle of the night, in a place with poor security, is it possible that I should carry a big bag all over the street to find a hotel?Sounds more spooky than thriller.Fortunately, Xiao Shen, who was traveling with me, had two sleeping bags, and we made a floor bunk in the corridor of the hotel.They come, the security.A rare opportunity to sleep under the stars, let the stars above my head accompany me to sleep.

In Malawi, one of the most densely populated countries in sub-Saharan Africa, elderly people are rarely seen on the streets.Affected by AIDS, Malawi's life expectancy is only 36 years old, less than half of China's.15% of the population here is under the age of 15, and the population structure is seriously younger.The HIV infection rate is close to [-]%.Among African countries, this situation is not unique to Malawi.

Most Chinese working in Africa have the impression that black people are lazy, negative and unreliable.Chinese people who work on engineering projects often say that at least half of the people on the construction site disappear the day after the salary is paid.They eat, drink, prostitute and gamble with the salary they just received. When they have no money to eat, they come back to do manual work to earn money. They are happy every day without thinking about the future.The compatriots shook their heads while talking, unable to understand or agree with such an attitude towards life.If you think about it differently, if countless people around you are suffering from AIDS, even a minor ailment may kill you, children will die easily, and most of your relatives and friends will not live to be 40 years old, and they will leave the world before their hair turns gray... ...Facing such a life, how can I convince myself to be diligent, positive, and far-sighted.Living in the present is the most important thing, but living too much in the present will become another extreme-more and more people give up on themselves, don't care about stealing and robbery, and don't care about committing crimes and going to jail. "Tomorrow" and "future" have become harsh jokes.Being forced to "live in the moment" helplessly makes people feel sad.

I'd love to put in a good word for the capital, but Lilongwe's poor infrastructure is nothing to be proud of.The roads are narrow, and most of them have no designated pedestrian areas. If you walk on the asphalt road, you have to risk being hit by a car at any time.If you want to be safe, you have to walk on the potholed dirt road beside the road, stepping on the mud and stones that scratch your feet.At [-] p.m., restaurants, supermarkets, and shopping malls in the center of Lilongwe closed one after another, and the streets were depressed.At seven o'clock in the evening, the street seemed to be two o'clock in the morning, and the whole street was empty.I'm hungry, but I have nowhere to look for food.I can only go to the only supermarket that is still open to buy some vegetables and go back to the hotel to cook for myself.The locals said that it was due to the policy that the curfew brought a lot of inconvenience to the lives of ordinary people.Having learned my lesson, in the days to come, I will go to supermarkets and stores early to buy ingredients and prepare dinner.

Burundi made me understand that poor countries do not necessarily have low prices, and this truth has been verified again in Malawi.There are three large supermarkets in the downtown shopping plaza, one is empty, the other has few customers, and the other has a long queue just to enter.Presumably it is due to the high and low prices.I compared the prices of the three supermarkets. Needless to say, the aristocratic supermarket, even the overcrowded supermarket is not cheap, but the price is relatively reasonable.The common people have to pay a price if they want to buy things at a reasonable price. There is no endless long queue from the store to the outside.Want to save money, trade time.

After shopping for ingredients, I like to treat myself with a bottle of soda.Glass bottled soft drinks, which were common in China many years ago but are now hard to find, still firmly occupy the mainstream position in the market in Malawi.Even large supermarkets sell glass bottles of Coke, Sprite, Fanta, etc., and each bottle requires a deposit of about [-] cents. The soda can be taken home by the customer, and the glass bottle can be returned to the supermarket in exchange for the deposit.

Chinese people like to carry things on their shoulders and backs, and they don't have the habit of carrying things on their heads.People in South Asia and Africa love to push things with their heads for 10 minutes.Bundles of branches, sacks, baskets, bags of cement, suitcases... It seems that everything can be topped with the head. I even saw a woman with a cutting machine on her head. She walked steadily and did not worry about things falling.In Malawi, I once again saw a man of God, a black woman with a long-handled umbrella on her head, carrying sundries in her hand, and walking like flying on the mountain road.It's like doing acrobatics for such a long and thin object to be supported by the head. I'm amazed at the excellent sense of balance.This is not the most amazing thing. The next day, I saw a "monster" on the road dragging the bus body with the head of a truck. The head of the big truck and the body of the bus. It turns out that cars can be assembled like this.The world is full of wonders.

Standing in the city center of Zomba, a small southern city, you can see Great Wall Store, Beijing Supermarket, Huayue Supermarket... more than a dozen Chinese-owned supermarkets gather in this small area.Walking into one of them, "Love Trading" is playing loudly from the speakers. It is full of Chinese-made products, mainly selling daily necessities and textiles. The shelf display and decoration style are very Chinese. With a sound of "snap", the horn stopped singing, the lights went out, and the power outage time, which was commonplace, began.The store has been prepared for a long time and connected to the rumbling generator.When I went back to the street, I saw that there were rumbling noises at the entrances of supermarkets, large and small.The power outage schedule is posted at the front desk of the hotel. In fact, it is not implemented according to the plan on the schedule. It stops as soon as it is said, without discussion.Only when there is no electricity will you realize how important electricity is. Mobile phones, cameras, and computers become empty shells that can be seen but not used. Electric stoves are used in the kitchen. When there is a power outage, you will only be hungry. Vegetables and meat will be broken in the refrigerator. Ice soda has become an unattainable thing... Dian, you are too important, come back soon, amen.

With my sincere prayers, power was finally restored during the night.At this time, there was a burst of lightning and thunder outside the window, and a sudden downpour of rain fell heavily on the ground, forming a water curtain from far to near.Suddenly, a large group of black unknown objects rushed into the room from the window, flying around the light bulb, they were moths!In a short period of time, the moths in the room changed from a few to a dozen, from dozens to hundreds, and groups of moths tried to break in.I was stunned, and hurriedly closed the doors and windows. Those unwilling moths were still rushing into the room desperately. The gaps in the windows were covered with dense moths, trying to find any possibility of entering.

Hundreds of large moths flew over my room, and I was shocked by the spectacle of the scene. I swear I have never seen such a sight. Such a large moth team is really unheard of, never seen, let alone Said they're flying over my head right now.These moths are flying blindly in the rooms with no way out, lying on the walls, crawling on the mosquito nets, and there are this group of black guys everywhere.I decided to use phototropism to lure moths away, turn off the lights in the room, and turn on the lights and door in the bathroom.This method was very effective. The moths flew into the bathroom one after another, and there were not many moths left in the room.I finally breathed a sigh of relief, locked the bathroom door, and drew the curtains, trying to forget the existence of the moths.Isn't this the realistic version of Hitchcock's classic thriller "Birds" "Moths", I am beginning to rejoice that these moths will not attack humans like the birds in the movie, I am still lucky.

Half an hour later, I opened the bathroom door carefully, and the sight in front of me surprised me: the moths took off their wings one after another and turned into soft crawlers moving on the ground.I don't know if I took off my wings voluntarily, or because the wings were wet by the heavy rain and had to fall off.I got goose bumps all over my body, and my hairs stood up one by one.Ask the hotel staff for help, and the staff calmly swept the moths and their off-wings out with a big broom.

The world is finally clean.

Until I got on the bus to the Zambian port, I was still thinking about why those moths rushed into my room on a rainy night.Maybe they just want to hide from the rain and protect their vulnerable wings, maybe they just want to find a bright place to stay.I guess, they are not willing to take off their precious wings. Without wings, they can no longer fly, and maybe they can only wait quietly for death.What ended the life of this group of moths was only a sudden rainstorm.Thinking about it this way, the scene of moths flying in memory doesn't seem so frightening anymore.

For some reason, Malawi has been rated by me as a thrilling place to travel.The smoking long-distance bus, the overturned canoe in the middle of the lake, and hundreds of moths in the room... I think this must not be Malawi's original intention.However, due to a few small accidents, the beautiful blueprint she worked so hard to draw showed a completely different result.If I were to anthropomorphize the country, Malawi would be a careless girl who made a few wrong threads in a hurry and created some wonderful dramas for me.But those provocative but innocuous stories made a presence, and I'm still grateful to her, Malawi.

(End of this chapter)