Week in Malawi: Part One

Sunday, March 13th

I’ve been in the Lusaka Hotel for the past two weeks. It describes its vision as “to restore the hotel to be the leading city centre hotel in Lusaka.” This statement is prominently written on the service directory that sits on the desk in my room, a dimly lit, pink painted rectangle with a rather lumpy twin bed and a mosquito net that once upon a time, before being covered in dust and dirt, was probably white. I keep reading it while I brush my teeth each night and after three days at the hotel, I put the service directory in the corner, flipped upside down so that I don’t have to continue reading the “vision.” It depresses me. The hotel is a long way from leading anything, and I consider telling the staff that a good place to start on their long journey to become a leading hotel would be to install a real shower. As it stands, I’ve been “showering” each morning by squatting down in a pink tub and holding a stupid hose above my head.





For all its shortcomings though, the hotel has been an alright place to spend the last two weeks while working in Lusaka. It’s a good location for business downtown, and the staff is exceptionally nice and most, at this point, greet me by name. Amon, one of the servers in the hotel restaurant where I’ve had breakfast each morning, knows it’s my last morning. When he brings the bill over, he wishes me a good journey, tells me to friend him on Facebook, and says, “I’ll miss you, David” which is actually kind of cute despite it coming from a 28 year old man.

All the taxi drivers outside of the hotel know me as well. I’ve scattered my business around through the two weeks, picking up rides here and there with a number of different drivers. Throughout the two weeks, they’ve all been vying for my eventual trip to the airport since they can make a better amount on the long trip than the short trips I’ve been making around town. I’ve decided to go with Richard who is about my age, exceptionally skinny, listens to decent music, and offers something none of the other drivers can: a twin brother. We’ve enjoyed this common characteristic the last two weeks, and this morning, he’s waiting for me outside the hotel. We leave for the airport around 9am.

The flight to Lilongwe, Malawi is about 2 hours, an easy trip on Kenya Airways. I get to Lilongwe around noon. Customs is very easy, not even requiring a visa, and I manage to change some American Dollars into Malawi Kwacha before grabbing a taxi into the city’s Old Town where I’ll be staying at the Kiboko Town Hotel. During the ride into the city I notice that the road feels more rural than urban. There are none of the giant billboards advertising cell phone networks, Coke, and Samgsung, that dot the highways into Nairobi and Lusaka. Instead the road offers giant rolling hills of corn and mountains in the distance, all of which make a really pretty drive into town. After a twenty minute drive, the driver says that we’ve entered Old Town, and I almost respond by asking “where?” There’s nothing really around besides a medium sized shopping complex and two or three banks. With little traffic and very few people out in the streets, a striking contrast from the crazy streets of Lusaka, Lilongwe strikes me as a very sleepy, small town rather than a capital city.

After checking into the hotel, I take off on foot to find some lunch and mostly find that everything is closed. I end up finding a place about a five minute walk from my hotel and after eating, I return to my hotel to do what everyone else seems to be doing on this lazy Sunday. Lilongwe has greeted me with a giant yawn, so I waste the afternoon with a long nap.