White People and Their Troubles

Today was Saturday and that meant that everyone was free for the whole day. Darren was taking Brett and his wife, Kat, and Les and his wife, Jackie, to the airport to catch their plane. They will be coming back in February. With Darren already going to Blantyre, Leila decided to take Keiran and I on a minibus to Blantyre to go to the markets. 

We piled into a minibus and rode eight kilometers to a little village. We stayed there for about an hour trying to fill up on passengers. The seats in the minibus were very hard and there were four of us in the back row of the bus, so everything was painful and very tight. The seat right in front of us was really close, so we had to pull our knees up, otherwise we would feel very cramped. It was really painful, so it made quite the experience. 

After managing to get about all fourteen people into the bus, including the driver, we were on the road. After about another fifteen minutes of driving, everyone had to get out of vehicle so it could be searched by some soldiers. I thought it was being searched for any kind of disease, because that is what someone said. So I got all worried, lol, because on the minibus, Leila had told me that I had a skin disease that was making me scratch. I thought it was all the mosquitoes, but she said no. She recognised how all the bumps, less than half an inch round, were popping up and causing me to scratch. So she could tell that these were not created by mosquitoes. 

The skin disease only makes me scratch. It is not a bad one like one that Leila got. That one gave her a huge pain in her finger, and she was wanting to cut off the finger to stop all the pain. She says it was really horrible. Someone else got it in a finger too. It it doesn't only happen to fingers. It can happen to every body part, and the doctor had to cut a chunk out of the woman's finger to stop the pain. It did stop the pain and the finger healed, and the skin grew back into the huge indent in her finger.

Then we piled in again, and we were on the road until it ran out of gas. Thankfully, the driver had a gas container, so he went around to the side and filled it up. We stopped in a little village to drop off passengers and to pick up more. As we waited for the caravan to fill up again, a ton of marketers came to our windows - and only our windows, because they all thought white people were rich and had a lot of money. As I sat there, now even more uncomfortable, all the sellers stuck their hands in my window showing Keiran, Leila, and I their different foods. Eventually, I closed the window on them, so they wouldn't be so close. Lol. 

Back on the road, we managed to actually get going. Lol. During the trip, all the passengers started laughing. The guy in front of me told me that they were laughing at me, because I was hanging my right arm out of the window, and they thought my arm could get ripped off due to the other vehicles passing by very close to our bus. So I pulled in my arm and asked them if it was better to put my head out of the vehicle, and that made them laugh very hard. 'No! You won't have a face left then.' Lol. Malawi is a warm country. HA - PUN. 

This photo below is what the minibus looked like. This is not the exact one, because I accidentally forgot my memory card at home, so I couldn't take any photos. So this photo was taken off of the internet.

Can we fit another passenger in? Always a yes...

We arrived in Blantyre and met up with Darren. "HALLELUJAH!!! THANK GOD! I AM STILL ALIVE!" The vehicle was cold inside and the seats were very comfortable. Canadians will never understand this. We drove to a small burger joint and got our food for lunch. It was so nice to eat some North American type food. I haven't for about nine days. Just kidding, the Emerys feed me North American food every day.

As I ate, I looked around. School girls in their uniforms ate lunch, husbands and wives with their expensive clothes chatted, and overweight Africans walked past. Everyone in Blantyre had a lot of money. Or should I say - Kwatcha. It was like going from 1000 AD to 2015 AD in an hour of driving.

Did you know they are changing BC and AD (Before Christ - After Death [of Christ.]) to BCE and CE (Before Common Era - Common Era.). They are taking Christ of the whole years. Now it is all know as just Common Era.

After lunch, we headed across the street to the market place. Honestly, I have never felt so much peer pressure in my life. All the marketers tapping my shoulders or saying, 'Friend, over here.' They were very persistent about me buying their things. Again, they think white people have so much money, so I might be their profit for the day in their minds. I tried to buy one thing from every marketer.

Eventually, I just walked away from them all. Lol. I got my wood carvings. The marketers tried to sell them to me for about 5000 kwatcha each (1000 kwatcha equals $2.50). Everytime I started bartering at 800 kwatcha and then bought each for the highest of 1400 kwatcha. One guy said a carving was 9000 kwatcha, and I started at 600 kwatcha. He just said, 'Are you serious!?' Lol.

Then we went to the Blantyre market. We went into the supply area first. I saw a Panga Knife and wanted to buy it, but Leila advised me to buy a brand new one. This is what a Panga Knife looks like. I might have to butcher a goat with one soon. I don't know.

How 'bout that for a knife.

We then headed down to the clothing market - my favourite. Lol. All the clothes range from 400 to 12000 kwatcha, but I won't pay anything more than 4000 kwatcha. Keiran needed new shoes, so we stayed in the shoe part the whole time. I looked at all the shoes. But Malawians have small feet, so it is hard to find any shoes that are size 11 and within my price range. In the end I found this nice pair. I walked away from the seller three times, because his price was too high. He wanted 5600 kwatcha for the shoes, but eventually I bought them for 3500 kwatcha. They are amazing shoes. What do you think of them? Post a comment in the comment section. ;)

Stylin'

We got back in the car and headed home. We arrived at 8 PM and ate dinner. I finished the evening with..... (what else ;) ) Then I went to bed. 

Thanks for following my blog ya awesome peeps. Leave a comment in the comment section, and I will get back to you. 

Talk to you later, Austin