4.10 am departure for the bus stop. I used to wake up at this time all the time during student teaching, but my body is definitely not used to it now, even though I did make it staying up all night! Mr. D&D thankfully took us to the bus stop. Arriving at 4:30 with a 5 am departure (supposedly) meant we were semi late. The bus was packed! Only one goes to Malawi a day, so I guess that makes sense. T and I headed to the last row on the bus, unfortunately with all our belongings, because there was no space underneath the coach. So holding our bags it was! It was actually nice to have the back seat because there was more room for the bags.
It was a LONG day on the bus. Even with the long breaks to get up and stretch, the fourteen hours did not go quickly. I tried sleeping most of the time to make up for last night and to avoid motion sickness in the mountains. Worked alright until they gave us soda, which made me nauseous, and I had no cover for it (only glass bottles here). Nothing really exciting happened until Chipata besides stopping for a potty break, aka squatting in a field, and delivering a stack of LCCA chitenges by passing them out of the moving coach bus in the parking lot to a guy I’ve never met. Besides that, T and I stretched our legs in Chipata to find our bus emptied out and everyone gone. Apparently there was supposed to be a bus switch to the border. This bus has more seats on it, but it was the same size, very squishy. As T and I missed the bus change memo, we had separate seats this time. Well, I was lucky enough to used as a footstool on this bus. Why, you ask? Well, in Africa you can bring whatever you want on buses (including livestock) but thankfully that wasn’t the case. Someone decided to bring a 12 foot long bookshelf on board that was 5 feet high and have it in the aisle right next to me. So people couldn’t get past it to their seats ( I was in the middle of the bus) without stepping on my seat’s armchair to get by. So my shoulder and arm were also stepped on as well as my hair pulled, my foot stepped on, and having random strangers sit on my possessions which were on my lap. Oh what fun.
Chipata is near the border, so our bus was soon emptied again so everyone could go through customs. Us Mzungus were called out of the line and got to go right through—sweet! Then came time for changing money. No official place of course, just a bunch of guys standing at the border. So Malawian money is also the kwacha. Zambian kwacha exchange rate is about 4800 to $1 and Malawi kwacha is about 150 kwacha to one dollar. So changing between the two made me think a bit. And unfortunately I got ripped off. But I realized I got ripped off MK2,000 ~ $16. However, I could not remember for the life of me who the guy was that I changed money with. Then, just as people were starting to board our bus, I just walked over to one guy who looked familiar and asked where his friend was that I changed with because he shorted me. He said hold on, he’s on the Zambian side and stays there (the guy I was with was on the Malawi side) and said he’d bring him back. So this is the last time I’m thinking I’ll see this guy, but no he walks back, says yes his friend shorted me, and gives me the money! SWEET! I didn’t think that would work but it totally did! I hightailed it to the bus, where the guy and his friend followed me a few minutes later so that he could show his friend that I had the money and that he didn’t steal it. But hey, it worked!
The rest of the ride to Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital, was pretty boring. I did meet Levison who chatted with me a bit and held my bags for awhile. I shared my Pringles with him. He didn’t know what they were. We got to the bus stop in Lilongwe around 7 pm and ended up taking a taxi to the LBI (Lutheran Bible Institute—the 3 year college before the LCCA seminary in Lusaka—where some of the missionaries live). So now I’ve taken a taxi in Malawi, Zambia, and Thailand—if you count that one, but never America! Yay for taxis in third world countries! We went to J&M’s house and met their daughters, as well as K and M, the nurses who we will be staying with. J&M fed us—chicken and rice casserole with spinach soup—before we headed to K and M’s house on the other side of town. K just happens to be my cousin’s friend (J, my cousin in Germany), so we ended up video skyping her! So that was random and fun! After that, T and I made a game plan for the following day as we had planned none of this trip in advance, and then hit the hay!
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