Tolerance is a virtue
Trip Start
May 14, 2010
1
10
27
Trip End
Jun 12, 2010
Liwonde, Malawi
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Departure was initially delayed by the bus being 45 mins late – its Africa! Then people wanted to go to airline offices, shops and banks before we set off. We left 40 mins after the time allotted, by the time everyone had just popped here, there and everywhere. This was, frustratingly, to set the flavour of the weekend. Imagine a group of doctors aged between 50-ish and 25 years and three small children under 6 years. Half way to our destination we phoned ahead to say we would all like dinner, to be told the lodge was shut for the next two weeks – we had only made the booking on Wednesday! The 20 somethings then start trying to organise alternatives, with much phoning, mutterings about cost, cries of 'let's go to the beach instead, it’s only 2 hours further away’ and ’I stayed in a lovely hut on the beach, it was really cheap’ etc, etc. There was no reference to us older folks, or to the parents of the small children, who were already bored by the bus drive. At that point all I wanted was to turn back and come to my little flat and peace and quiet. Not quite sure when I became so intolerant, which is not a nice trait, but later found out others felt the same! We eventually ended up with two choices of accommodation – expensive and cheap. The expensive was not extortionate but I just went for a single room so I could chill out on my own. I had dinner with Matt, Sarah and their delightful children which restored my sanity. On reflection I realised that I can cope with about 8 people at once but any more and it ‘does my head in.’ And as always I’m more at home with young children than adults – which says a lot about my mental age!! The next morning we got up at 6am (on a Saturday- what was that about) to see the sunrise and listen to the hippos. As the designated communicator with the driver, as soon as we set off for the game park, 5 people separately asked me whether he knew where he was going because we were going the wrong way! Bloody Hell.
Anyway we finally got to the park having travelled past lots of little villages. Groups of children would run towards the bus asking variously for money, sweeties or bottles! Apparently they wanted empty plastic water bottles to get water from the wells. Most of these villages seemed to be served by water pumps. We passed small crops of cotton, maize, and people selling sugar cane, tomatoes and sweet potatoes. On the game drive we saw quite a few animals, elephants, impala, kudus, waterbuck and lots of pumbahs..... I dined with the family again as everyone else was dining elsewhere but I had such a headache I had to have a sleep first! The food was OK but the strawberry ice cream was fantastic! Not so the vanilla cake that had what tasted like blue cheese icing – and the sponge was a bit strange too. Luckily Esme (4) seemed to like the cake! Esme seems to have that ‘camera’ gene much like my sister, my niece Gemma and nephew Sebastian i.e. they immediately pose and look beautiful as soon as a camera is pointed anywhere in their direction! Sadly I have inherited neither the posing nor the beauty!
