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The head is still a very used mean of transport among the women of Malawi, they carry everything from flour to tomatoes, from laundry to pots, firewood and water. The load is in proportion to the age, and it is not rare that on their back they carry a baby too. Men use the bicycles more, even though today I saw one who was dragging some wood kept together by a rope. Malawi is the second African country to have a female President, Joyce Banda, who even though was not elected directly having come into office because Vice of her predecessor who died during his mandate, is very popular, beloved and all the people I talked to are very happy of their female President. I think that if there were more female Presidents the situation in Africa would be a bit better.
Today I started really late around 10,30 because the bicycle needed a last tweak after the technical solution of yesterday born from Italian creativity (mine) and Malawian improvisation (of the mechanic from the market), and also it needed to be washed because the sand sneaked and clung everywhere. The tweak I did it myself with the small screwdriver of the glasses. For the wash I relied on a taxi-cyclist, Aondwani, who took me to the most incredible bicycle wash of the world: a creek in the compound of Chiputura! First you have to buy soap, then you go down to the river just after a small bridge, the bicycles are lowered in the water with the wheels immerged for 15 cm, then the soap wash starts, to rinse the force of the water of the river is used, when the bicycle is clean it is taken back to the road and accurately dried with a cloth different from the one used to wash it. During the wash some children came and were saying ‘ona ginga a panga’, look a bicycle made in wood, and I told them ‘not panga bamboo’ every new child coming was saying ‘ginga a panga’, and the others told him ‘noo not panga, bamboo!’ and they all laughed.
I saw many children working both at the bicycle wash and in shops, in particular a girl of about 10 year old, alone in a shop who was calculating bills at an astonishing speed considering the age.
To test the bicycle I went back on the leg of the itinerary I could not do yesterday, it was a bit like a reconciliation with the adverse destiny, like apologizing after a mistake or a betrayal. The apologies are there. The mistake or the betrayal remains, but it is easier to live with it.
After the bicycle in bamboo, the bridge in bamboo! While I was having fun going down and up on the valley crossed by the River South Rukuru, I found a sign post saying ‘Kandewe Bamboo hanging bridge’, built in 1904 at only 200 meters. My bicycle was quivering, it was curious to see this strange relative made out of its same raw matter! The bridge was built intertwining bamboo of different lengths and dimensions, it is concave like water slides or sledge tracks, you can see everything below as the intertwining are fairly loose, this made my walking uncertain and made the children laugh. The improvised guide of the bridge and me had the same skepticism, myself for the bridge and him for the bicycle.
On the cover of a book which we have at home without being read, I think of Anthony De Mello, I read that ‘life is what happens to you while you are busy thinking (or doing) something else’. Yesterday the broken gear disturbed me a lot. Today despite the late departure I managed to do more than 120 km, I saw beautiful places and people, at a certain point an abundant group of women who were preparing some sheaves to burn with the leftover corn, asked me where I was going, and when I said London, they started dancing and singing to wish me a safe journey! This is a bit what we try to convey as Sport2build: never give up, soldier on, persevere, if you lose a game or a race, you can always do better next time.
By the way, Giorgia told me today that the athletes of our Never Give Up have sparkled at an important national competition in Lusaka, so much so that the coach of the national team will come to see our next races.
Tomorrow I will get closer to Tanzania where I should enter on Monday.
Now I will fall asleep lulled by the waves of Lake Malawi which I did not see properly as I arrived when it was already dark.
Mzuzu S 11° 45.807’ E 34° 01.513’ – Chitimba Nimiasii Lodge S 10° 55.745’ E 34° 21.732’
123 km