Diplomatic Mission

12^th May – Day 225 – Lilongwe, Malawi

A small introduction to one of the stranger coincidences on this trip so far:

Between our trips to Dzalanyama and South Luangwa, we'd spent the night in Lilongwe. During this time, our wanderings had taken us into a petrol station where we sensed that we would be able to find a drink or two and some cupcakes. As Mama-T paid up, Papa-T was perusing the local newspapers, great peruser that he is. Were there no newspapers, he'd have perused something else – local advertisements, fire extinguisher instructions, the labels inside his own clothes, whatever he could find – at great length. Today though, there was a selection of local newspapers, and on the front cover of one of the local newspapers, was a picture of a not-so-local gentleman. With a thoughtful “Mhmmm!” (generally an indication that he has found something but is still processing the information) he alerted the rest of us to this gentleman who turned out to be someone that he had played football with many years ago and had lost touch with for well over five years. Reading the article associated with the picture, we discovered that he was now an ambassador in Malawi, of all places! We got in touch before leaving for South Luangwa and were invited over for dinner and to spend the night. The world is quite small.

We were originally planning to go to Zimbabwe through Lusaka but after the type of animated conversation that precedes all of our decision-making (be it which route to take or who should go and pull the curtains tonight) we ended up going back through Lilongwe to see these old friends before taking a bus to Harare from there, if we could find one. M agreed to this plan provided that I promise to “walk the plank” if we were late for her parents in Harare on Sunday. I crossed my fingers and made the promise.

It was a nice evening, we were wonderfully looked after and doubtless ate from the finest china of the whole trip (and probably for many years before that) from their great cook, met their small yet energetic adopted Malawian daughter, and relieved their fridge of a few bottles. Thankfully, Mr. Ambassador had an early morning and so we didn't end up having a very long night. He'd also offered to give us a lift to the bus company's office and, good guests as we were, we didn't want to make him late for state business. It's never too late for a brandy though, it seems, and so we went to bed slightly later than we probably should have done before getting up slightly earlier than we wished we would, said a bit of a rushed goodbye to my parents before zipping off towards the office of the company which would be taking us to Zimbabwe – the grandly named “Malasha Flying Horse”. Gentlemen, place your bets!

p.s. In keeping with Lilongwe traditions, we have no pictures.