Kande Beach

Well, I decided to do the entire journey back to Mzuzu in one go.  I hopped on my first plane in Toronto, and went to JFK.  I was getting a final boarding call when I finally go to the gate to get on my plane to go to Johannesburg.  It was exciting when I found out that we weren't stopping off in Dakar to collect more passengers, we just went straight from JFK to Joburg!  I was quickly running through the airport to catch my last plane from Joburg to Lilongwe.  I arrived in Lilongwe and it was a madhouse in the airport.  I had to jump over people to get my bags, and when I finally found my bag on the belt I had to take four other people's bags off of mine so I could grab it.
I finally made it outside with all my luggage, and started getting bombarded by the taxi drivers.  They were trying to get me to pay MK 10,000, but I knew I was supposed to only pay 7,000.  So I just discussed it with them until they agreed to take me for the normal price!
I knew I had already missed the AXA coach bus that leaves at noon, so I had to decide whether or not to take public transit or stay in  Lilongwe for a night.  I really just wanted to get home, so I took a chance and hopped on the National Bus Company.  The bus took about 8 hours, but I managed to get on one that didn't break down or run out of gas, so that is always a plus here in Malawi.
I started teaching one of my classes the next day, and it was quite overwhelming to get up in front of the classroom and see all these people looking at me.  I thought it was a little overwhelming the first day, but the second day seemed much better.  Unfortunately, I haven't been able to start my Remote Sensing class, due to students not showing up, teacher's striking and then student's striking.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it actually starts soon!
I was so exhausted when the weekend came, I just wanted to stay in Mzuzu, but the entire house was heading to Kande Beach and I didn't want to miss that, so I decided to go with them.
We hired a driver to take us there for MK10,000, but we had to pay 12,000 on the way back.  The beach there is lovely.  Lots of sand and waves in the water. The dorm rooms were quite nice too.  It was a bit pricey for my liking, running at about $10 per night for the dorm rooms.  The beers were MK300 and the food at the cafe was terrible and quite expensive.  Our friend Bjorn managed to talk to a local guy who offered to make us traditional Malawian cuisine for lunch and dinner on the Saturday for MK600 each.  It was rice, beans, rape (rapini), eggs and at dinner we added a tomato soup.  We stole some Nali from the Restaurant at the resort, but we brought it back when we were done.
We mostly just laid around the beach and I got extremely burnt on my back! On the Sunday, I just slept in and made my way down to the beach to hang out before we made out way back.
We woke up this morning thinking the Teacher strike was still on, but it wasn't so we thought we had class, but it turns out that some of the students had decided to strike, so no one showed up to any of the classes.  Who know how long this will continue for.  A couple days, a week? We'll see.


EmJ