Malawi part 3: Saturday Morning
It is still quite colonial in Malawi (it is an ex-British colony). Florence has a helper working in the house (a man non-the less), and do you think that he would let me make my own breakfast? All I wanted was some cheese on toast, and a cup of tea. No No, none of that! I had to sit down and relax while my breakfast was made for me, and don’t you even think of helping yourself! I am being well looked after. For dinner tonight, I believe that I am having some of the local fish that they catch in lake Malawi.
Malawi is quite free with time, it is currently 8:10am on Saturday, and registration for training is starts at 8:30, but Florence is not here. I think that she is still at Church, so, no use in panicking.
I am quite far south from Lake Malawi, so I was not expecting to see it, but I have discovered that it is only 1 hours drive north, so I will be using my free time tomorrow morning to get an early start and head off to the lake – I am quite excited about that. With all the gear I had to bring, I left my SLR camera at home, but at least I packed the point and shoot!
I think I hear Florence arriving now, so I will continue later.
Malawi part 2: Friday Evening
I am staying that the Area Governors house – Florence, at her house in Lilongwe. They have quite an interesting house numbering system. Florence’s address is site 10/1234. That’s it! Every house is simply a site number, 10 or 12, and then a house number! I have no idea how they navigate the system, but I feel sorry for the poor postmen.
Even though I am in the city it is quite rural (well at least compared to Cape Town or Johannesburg). Florence has got a sheep, chickens, ducks, a guinea fowl (although he might have been passing through), and about 11 dogs. This is in addition to the various vege growing in her garden. I must admit to being quite startled to look out my bedroom window to be staring face to face at a sheep. This sheep looks exactly like a goat, but I am assured that it is in fact a sheep, just not a fluffy white sheep – you be the judge!
Malawi is not as warm as I was expecting – it is only about 27 deg, but the humidity is very high, so you feel hot, and you constantly have that sticky feeling. You also can’t sleep with the windows open because it is a Malaria area and you really want to avoid the mosquitoes.
I heard in the evening that Tony’s flight was cancelled, which meant that I was promoted from simply attending the training, giving a single speech and one training slot, to running the entire training session! Not quite what I had planned, but thank goodness I have all the training material on my laptop!
So, window closed, safely covered in anti-mosquito cream, I slept like a baby, I just collapsed and fell asleep.
Malawi part 1: Friday Afternoon
Lilongwe Airport is the first airport that I have ever been to where the queue at passport control for residents is longer than the queue for visitors, so I got through relatively quickly, collected my bags and then when through customs - to be promptly stopped to have my bags checked.
Now, I have only had my bags checked by customs at an airport three times (including today), and all three times were in Africa. This time it was at the Lilongwe airport, and the other two times were in Namibia, and Swaziland. Every country in the world seems to trust me, except for my neighbours – oh well!
The local currency is the Kwacha which is exchanged at about 20 to one Rand. This did make my feel quite wealthy, exchanging R500, and receiving about 10000 Kwacha in return (in Zimbabwe it would be about 40 million Zim Dollars).
By the way, here is a suggestion. You have to pay USD 30 departure tax when you leave Malawi (and it HAS to be USD), and you can get it at the bank at the Malawi airport at a reasonable exchange rate. I did not know this, and I had to pay $12 commission to exchange R200 to get $30 at the forex counter at Johannesburg airport. It was a complete rip-off. So, rather get the dollars at your bank beforehand, or in Malawi itself.
In case you are wondering why I was in Malawi, I was there to assist with the training of the local Toastmasters club officers. Tony from Johannesburg was going to present the main session, and with me assisting.
So, Andrew who was collecting me from the airport was running a bit late, and while I was waiting for him, I realized one of the universal truths about airports around the world. The arrivals halls are always swarming with taxi drivers touting for your business. There was one driver in particular (with the friendly smile that you encounter all over Africa), that was determined to be my friend. He was quite concerned that my lift was not going to arrive, and he was going to save the day, and give me a ride into town. He kept telling me so; "no, your lift is not going to arrive – I have to help you". Eventually I was rescued by Andrew, who is the president of one of the local Toastmasters Clubs.
Off to Malawi
I am off to Malawi today to assist with Toastmasters Club Officer Training in Malawi on Saturday. It seems a bit crazy to spend about 11 hour travelling for about 5 hours of training, but I have never been there, so it should be quite fun.
What is even more crazy is that Lois is going to Swaziland for a similar purpose – it seems like we are both going "overseas" by ourselves – oh well!
I will let you know how it goes.
Bihari Restaurant – a lesson in customer service
I have spoken in the past about how the different between excellent service and poor service is often revealed when service goes wrong. Well, here is another example.
Recently our favourite Indian restaurant Gaylords in Muizenberg mysteriously closed. This greatly disappointed both Lois and myself, because it was the only restaurant that served a HOT curry when we wanted a HOT curry. So, we have been on the prowl for a replacement.
Last night, we tried a fairly new restaurant called Bihari in Westlake.
I ordered a butter chicken, and Lois had a potatoe curry. She ordered hers “Indian Hot”, and I thought that I would just have mine hot. We had to send both back because they were not hot enough. Shortly both meals were returned, but only slightly warmer (they had filled my half-empty bowl to the brim). “Oh well”, I thought, “it is not at all hot but very tasty, so no problem.” Besides, butter chicken is not really a hot dish.
After the meal, I mentioned to the waiter that I would have preferred it much hotter, but not to worry since I had really enjoyed my meal, but please make it hotter next time. Well, not five minutes later the head waiter was at the table apologizing, and he offered to arrange a really hot curry for me to take home as an apology. “Sure – lunch tomorrow”. I did start to get a bit nervous when they told me that it would take a few minutes, and they were “just grinding the chillis”.
About ten minutes later the meal arrived, all ready packed to take home, and they brought a little extra sauce for me in a bowl to taste. Well, it was blisteringly hot! I am not sure that I have had a hotter curry in a restaurant. So they can make a hot curry. I decided to throw it into the freezer and keep for supper one evening next week.
But the point of the story is that even though something had gone wrong, and even though I was not particularity concerned about what went wrong, the restaurant (under their own initiative) felt compelled to make it right. No questions, and no fuss!
Will we be back – of course – two orchids!
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