Okei Wapi ?: R&R

4^th-8^th May – Days 217-221 – Dzalanyama Forest Reserve, Malawi

I didn't feel much fresher the next morning. In fact, I spent a good while in the toilets before we left to the airport to meet T's parents, drove the whole way there with the window open in the taxi and, once there, locked myself up in the ladies' for some more gagging to the disgust of fellow facility users. I still tried to put up a smile and convince Francoise and Dave that I was actually happy to see them even if I probably looked like I had been handed a pair of rotten eggs to keep company to. T in the meanwhile had disappeared somewhere just in time to miss his parents' arrival through the magic gates. I bet Francoise and Dave were impressed at our efforts at welcoming them...

The road to Dzalanyama

The happy reunion!

And they waste no time throwing maturity straight out of the window

Apparently these guys cycle 2 days to Lilongwe with these wood stacks, for 15€

In the end we managed to find T and the happy reunion started with a trip to the supermarket where we picked up our food supplies for our stay at the mystery location that had not been disclosed to T and I before Dave and France arrived. The only thing we knew was that it was going to be all R&R. We'd be spending the next four days at the Dzalanyama Forest Reserve about 40kms outside of Lilongwe in a cozy lodge in the middle of nature with no electricity. So we bought a reasonable mountain of food and took a good while to get through the tills, where Francoise was seemingly appalled at the lady for not even a breaking a smile when France paid and said thank you. T, knowing his mother's ways and attitudes towards customer service people, giggled and guided France out the door before any further drama would evolve on the spot. I bet Francoise was impressed at how Africa was welcoming her after the long time since her last visit.

A selection of Dzalanyama's abundant wildlife

Nothing would get us down, though. We arrived at the lodge with plenty of wine and gin (for everyone but me who was on the bastard bug killers), saucisson (for T as a souvenir from Europe), a big pile of mixed antibiotics and worm-killers (for my giardia-infested system and Dave who had scraped some skin at footy lately which needed special attention to prevent it from going green), several pairs of binoculars (mostly for Dave to check out the birds and for the rest of us to identify them for him), cigarettes (for us with a bad habit – thus everyone but Dave) and most importantly: Jungle Speed (for all of us). We whiled away our days catching up with each other,sleeping late or getting up early respective of which age group we represented, going for walks along the trails around the lodge, reading books, battling with hurricane lamps while trying to get them on or off without burning the house down, catching up on our fist-washing, etc. T and I also desperately tried to get some speed into Jungle Speed while challenging Dave and Francoise at this marvellous game. We accomplished giggle fits and broken fingernails, but quite frankly not much improvement on the speed issue.

T trains for a future job in management

Jungle Speed casualty #768769

During our time at the lodge, we had a cook, Lucius, and some kind of a general caretaker, Flaxton, at our use. Before and after every meal they prepared for us, Francoise came up with new names for our dear helpers along the lines of Julius, Confucius, Clapton and Plankton, so that in the end all of us had serious trouble remembering what their real names were and none of us dared to give it a try to their faces. They were henceworth mostly known as 'hey you' or an embarrassed smile before starting a sentence when speaking to them.