End of an era... on the road again

Last Thursday was my final day at the UNHCR and today is Lesley's - we're on the move again! I wasn't set to finish over there until the end of next week, but basically I just ran out of steam. Early tomorrow morning we're cramming ourselves onto a minibus and pushing forward to Chimoio in Mozambique. The day after hopefully we can make it to the Bazaruto Archipelago on the coast of the Indian Ocean for some beach cocktails, crab, sunsets and dancing.

This past weekend, Les and I and 3 of our coworkers drove up to Kande Beach again, my favourite spot on the lake. On Sunday was the 44th anniversary of Malawi's independence and you could tell that the whole country was in a good mood. The drunkenness was rampant which meant a lot of unwanted hand shaking, hands on shoulders, claims that I am someone's best friend and invasion of personal space, including 'close talking'. Nevertheless we had a stellar time barbequing at our stone cottage, playing pool, swimming and cliff jumping. We even managed to head into the village for a traditional dinner at a local's house. And now that I'm on the way home, my iron will against buying crafts and trinkets has disappated, so I bought a few cool prints. Today, I even spent 40 bucks on a really nice 'bao' board, which is kind of like African chess.

On the Sunday, we drove the hour and a half from Kande to Mzuzu, Malawi's 3rd largest city, and this year's host to the independence day celebrations. The demonstrations at the local soccer stadium were surprisingly impressing. By some freak luck we didn't have to wait in line to get it - a police officer just pointed to the 5 of us and told us to follow. He led us to a back door and there we were. The first activity on the field was a chance for the Malawi Defense Force to show its stuff. A few 'bad guys' were unloaded onto the field with a few makeshift buildings, after which 3 armoured personnel carriers rolled out and started firing blanks with their machine guns at the 'enemy'. A few minutes into the gunfight, a helicoptor flew overhead and 4 elite rangers abseiled down to the field on ropes. Explosions began to go off just outside the stadium wall to which everyone cheered. For a second I thought maybe we were actually under attacked. With the foes driven from the arena, everyone left, the helicoptor landing to pick up the rangers. When the field was clear, the building that the bad guys unloaded unexpectedly exploded into a fragment of twisted wood. Freaking cool. I considered myself lucky to see something like this, as there's no way you could start blowing stuff up inside a stadium anywhere in the West. Later, 5 paratroopers started falling from the sky. Embarrassing for the last 2 guys, they caught a bad wind and had to land outside the stadium. Everyone was supremely impressed with the show.

Tonight we're having a farewell dinner (Ethiopian food) with our coworkers, and after that a few drinks with the hostel owners and some of the regulars who also happen to be leaving tomorrow. I'm definitely going to be sad to leave Malawi, which has been my home for nearly 3 months, but sometimes you just know when it's time to move on. And I can't tell you how good it's going feel when I'm safe and sound in Canada. Until the next post...