day 3

Followed by small children who parrot “give me money, give me money, give me _______” (fill in the blank with anything you might have—pen, candy, umbrella, etc). they even asked for my small umbrella when they were walking with a large nice golf umbrella…really!? To Kande Beach which turns out to be where many, many, many overlanders stop. (overlanders-big trucks that drive the length of Africa on tours, aka loud mzungus just passing through) as we walked in we saw a big group of them being taken on a village tour- a cultural experience that is scripted and paid for. We met Cheeseontoast (not sure on the spelling but that is what he said). When you tell them that you live in Nkhoma they usually don’t try to sell you whatever it is they are selling quite as hard. When you say you’re from _______(overseas) they will tell you “their story” and try to get you on the village tour or to buy the crafts, etc. it works very well being from Nkhoma. walking in we also met a girl who talked until her turn off and then asked when we would come to her home to see how she lived. You don’t have to pay to have cultural experiences…you just have to get off the bus really. (sorry if that sounds kind of jaded and down on tours that I’m sure are good for the people who are on them). Tent city when we got there. 4 overlanders already there and 2 more arrived after we did. Each truck holds about 15 people I think. Set up camp, went for a swim, sat in a hammock, fought the urge to yell mzungu when a white person walked by (which the kids around here didn’t do as they are so used to all the people coming through-unlike the rest of the country). A walk on the beach before dinner where I started talking to a fisherman who was pulling in a net (I think). They boat out way far, drop the net and then come back to shore and pull in hand over hand the net full of small fish. He asked if we wanted to see and I told him we’d be back. Kept walking for a bit and then turned around. It still wasn’t in but he said it would only take a few minutes…I forgot about African minutes. We waited and waited and had a nice chat with the man and his son and another man and his three kids. Good conversation until the second man then asked for money because he does no work. We had to get back so we could get dinner before the restaurant closed so we left without seeing the elusive net full of fish. Had dinner with 3 people who had been on an overland tour and were back working at an orphanage in the area for a month. Very nice mom, daughter and husband. We got to swap travel and transport horror stories. (we then ran into them again in Nkhata Bay)