Les 12 travaux d’Asterix

Change of plans, instead of Rumphi, I ended up in Karonga, in the north of the country, by Lake Malawi, 45 km from the border of Tanzania. We decided to change the research project to investigate on the existing bylaws in villages regarding the waterpoints and their effect on the money raised for the repairs.

Karonga is the district where Duncan use to live for the last year before he moved to Mzuzu. I’m staying with his “family” in a village by the lake, just a few kilometers from the town of Karonga (that’s where I am right now to use internet). I’ll be going all over the district on a dirt bike with Patrick, my translater, friend and also, on the side a prince of a tribe here! haha, how cool is that. He is a carpenter and past rastaman, he must be about my age.

I’ll tell you all about my life in a village as there is a myriad of things to say (sleeping on the ground, leaking roof, bucket shower, learning to speak chetumbuka and cooking nsima, church on Sunday…), but I’ll do that on my next post. For now, I really want to share something else: my trip from Mzuzu to here and also, how to get a learner’s motorcycle licence.

Keep in mind that all this happened in one day…

On Thursday morning, I woke up in Zolazola, a slum of Mzuzu, at Duncan’s. We left from there to go get my learner’s motorcycle licence. It felt like being part of my favorite cartoon Asterix et les 12 travaux. For those of you who might know what I’m talking about, think about “la maison qui rend fou” challenge. Something that would normally be taking 15 mins, took over three hours, the priviledge of being white and Duncan’s collar shirt to get through. Here are the multiple steps to go through:

1. Fill out the form in room 1 (8:45am)
2. Bring the form to room 3 to pass the test with the senior examinator. But this includes 1.5 hours of waiting in a not so clear line up…apparently, the principle of the line up is inexistant here. So everyone just goes in when they fell like it, but it took me a while to understand how it works and who to go see. Anyway, I finally made my way to the examinator, but he didn’t want me to pass the test as I don’t have my working visa yet, nor a letter from my organization to explain why I need a licence now. So Duncan stepped in and pretended to be my supervisor (thank you collar shirt). We had to meet the big boss and explain the situation in order for me to pass the 5mins test and get a form saying that I passed.
3. Bring the form to room 2 to get another form to bring tp the teller to pay the application fees.
4. The tellers gives you a receipt that needs to be brought back to the lady in room 2 for her to print you a form.
5. Then you have to go to room for to get your picture taken. It was 12:15 at this pint and it’s unbreakable lunch time until 1 or 2pm. We needed to go to a meeting and then be at the minibus station for 2pm.so we had to force the process using the white priviledge and once again, the collar shirt. We convinced a guy to take my picture, my finger prints and then print my licence. Apparently I have bad quality pinkies and they had to adjust the scanner to my pale skin tone! haha.
6. You need to bring the licence to room 2 fro them to put it in the computer, go figure, they just printed it! But anyway, they give you another form.
7. Then you need  to bring this new form to the woman in room 3, who will give you a form to bring to the teller to ge pay your licence fees.
8. Guess what now? the teller gave me a form for the lady in room 3 and there it is, a print of my official learner’s licence…
9. Now that I have the licence, I need to learn how to drive the motorcycle (dirt bike)though, and that on the opposite side of the road.

Mission accomplised, I got my licence. Now we have to rush to a meeting and up on (or squeeze in) the minibus for a four hour ride on windy roads to Karonga with chickens, fishng gears, luggages and a ton of people. About 30mins from Karonga, we ran out of fuel. There is a fuel shortage in Malawi due to their fixed money in the floating market. Plus most people don’t have a ton of money to get fuel even when there is no shortage in the city! Anyway, the closest place to grt fuel is far and the driver ups on a bike to get there. At least an hour after, it’s dark and we decide to hitchhike instead of waiting. Another minibus stopped and picked us up. As soon as we arrived in Karonga at the bus depot, an unstoppable thunderstorm started. Since the village is not reachable by taxi and the bike taxi don’t want to ride the muddy path in the storm, we decided to stay at a cheap and dodgy guest house for the night.

That was day one…it’s now way more peaceful, but not easier. I’ll tell you in my post next weekend. My access to internet is really restrein and I need to be in a cafe for to get it, that is, when they don’t have an electricity outage.

Bye for now my dear readers, thanks for following me

Ge