experience africa

as we cycled along through the pitch black, rainy, muddy African night; with me clinging to my ‘driver’ for dear life and every muscle in my body tensed with fear, i heard the voice of pastor rodgers calling from behind: “Hannah: Experience Africa!”. even in my terror, those words brought a smile to my face, i’m sure i didn’t read anything in the guide book about this. but that story is for later….

we have just returned from our month long expedition to malawi. clearly there’s lots to write about but I’ll try and keep it as brief as I can. probably not very likely.

so, we set off on monday 3rd may, ready for the 4 days of driving that would take us to our destination of Nsanje, at the very southern tip of malawi. it wasn’t a thrilling journey, 4 days in a car rarely are, but there are a couple of noteworthy points. on day 3 of our journey we stayed at a campsite in chipata, on the zambia / malawi border: the very same campsite that ewan mcgreggor stayed at during ‘Long Way Down’. fame! sadly, the next day we had to make an emergency stop in Lilongwe at a friends house (more about them later) for 3 of the team (including myself) to be violently sick in their toilet. i’m sure ewan mcgreggor never had these problems!

anyway, we journeyed on and finally reached Nsanje on thursday greeted by pastor rodgers, his amazing family and his not so pleasant cockroach infested ‘bath’. hoorah! pastor rodgers is an amazing man who oversees over 300 churches in Malawi and Mozambique. he is only able to visit these churches on foot or by bike so his intention for our stay was to use our vehicle to visit as many of these churches as possible.

after a restful day on friday we prepared for saturday’s 3 hour hike to the moutain village of matekesa, where we would be camping for 4 days. i love hiking but was not thrilled about this prospect. Nsanje is the hottest place in Malawi, affectionately called ‘the devils armpit’. we soon discovered that the simple act of sitting could make you sweat out of places you didn’t know existed. hideous. by the time we reached the village the boys t-shirts were soaked through. nice.

the 4 days in the mountains were spent visiting local churches. this would usually involve a 1-3 hour hike, then our team would conduct a service including singing (badly), a drama and then a sermon. this would be followed by a nice meal of nshima with chicken or goat (our staple diet in Malawi) and then a walk home. the mountains were stunning (reminded me of being home) and we often walked through Mozambique either on a journey or to attend church there.

after our hike back we spent a few days back at base in Nsanje. during our time there we took some services and also spent time visiting patients at the local hospital. it was fairly shocking even by african standards. you would walk down a corridor and as soon as you turned into the ward you were hit with the smell. the wards were fairly appalling: blood leaking onto the floor, empty drips left in people’s arms and even a rat crawling over a sink. my mum will be shocked to hear that I didn’t faint and the hospital visits were probably my favourite ministry. we went from bed to bed encouraging and praying with the sick. one of the patients i visited most regularly was a little girl who had been burned by fire in a cooking accident (apparently this is very common as all cooking is done on open fires with the family near) and was badly burned all down her back. I prayed with her and her mother over several days and we saw a vast improvement in her condition.

our next stop was bangula, a small town near nsanje, where we were again to camp for 4 days. we were hosted by a wonderful pastor and his wife who showed us amazing hospitality with the little they had. we spent the 4 days visiting churches and eating nshima. brilliant. we did get stuck at one church though because the car couldn’t get to us. the only way out was to catch a bike taxi. it was raining and I couldn’t even walk without slipping. terrifying. I think I broke all social rules by clinging onto the driver for dear life. experience africa!

the last few days were spent in nsanje, visiting hospitals and churches. on monday 24th may we were ready for our long journey home. made extra long as we were planning to spend 3 days at south luangwa game reserve en route. however, we must remember that THIS IS AFRICA! an hour into our return journey home I heard shouting from the back of the car to stop immediately. there was a fairly loud screeching noise and a hideous smell of burning. on inspecting the vehicle we found that the problem was much worse than we thought it was going to be. the suspension on our trailer had completely broken and the trailer was resting on the axle. the burning smell was the tire rubbing on the mud guard that had slipped down onto the wheel. hideous. we unpacked the trailer and stayed with our belongings on the side of the road while the others went for help. at this point I was fully expecting to be spending ANOTHER night sleeping on a road. urgh. however, God is good and the situation worked out so much better than we ever could have imagined. we broke down just 5k from a orphanage run by Iris Ministries (associated with Heidi and Roland Baker, for those who’ve read the books), which incidentally is the best run orphanage I’ve seen in africa. we were welcomed by some crazy Hawaiians who made us feel right at home and let us use their wonderful showers, which was a dream after 3 weeks of bucket baths. their mechanic (THEY HAD A MECHANIC!) who got straight to work on the trailer. he was going to need a new suspension so we set up our tents ready for a long wait. the genius mechanic managed to buy a suspension from a broken down truck and set about customising it to fit our trailer. we spent the evening being fed by the director of the mission and hearing great testimonies. the next day we were back on the road feeling refreshed and ready to go.

ok, this is already longer than expected….well done for getting this far…I’ll try and keep the next bit brief.

we stopped in Lilongwe to visit Hannah and Samuel for the night (the house that we all vomited in on the way). Hannah is the daughter of Peter Pederson, the founder of Kaniki Bible College and together they have 28 (yes, 28!) children: 25 are adopted, 3 are biological. such an amazing family! I don’t have space to write more here but ask me about them when I’m back and I’d love to tell you all about them!

our stay at south luangwa was amazing! we stayed at a campsite right by the luangwa river where we could watch hippos and baboons at play! great until a cheeky baboon stole a loaf of our bread. the safaris were great but the absolute highlight was going on a night safari and spotting a leopard. we chased it and watched it stalk it’s prey. stunning! that night i awoke at 4am to the sound of chomping outside of our tent. I woke Katie up and we bravely peeked out of the tent. A HIPPO!!! about 2ft away from us. amazing! and utterly terrifying.

and now we’re home and already stuck back into life at Kaniki. we’re in our last 5 weeks now and I am both excited and nervous about the prospect of coming home. anyway, that is really enough for now! bye!

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