Driving to Zomba
June 24, 2009
We left Lilongwe at 8:30 for our long drive to Zomba by dark. Stopping at Dedza Pottery for an early lunch and shopping is always a highlight of that trip. But near the pottery shop is another treat – Dedza Art Shop. Here three brothers have turned recycling and art into a family endeavor. The sales shop is several yards from the entrance to the pottery shop. There, one brother sells the products of the others.
Henry Ngamba is the paper maker from which journals, stationery, and cards are made. Recently, he moved part of his production some distance away to access a better supply of water. Henry demonstrated how he makes paper from all kinds of recycled materials – cement bags, various print sources, elephant manure, banana leaves, etc. His brother, Patrick Ngamba is a fine artist, who has several paintings on display in the Art Shop, run by the third brother. All in all, the recycled, paper making process has always been something the students have enjoyed.
We continued south to Lizulu, a large open market town on the Mozambique border, where students enjoyed shopping on the Mozambique side and then stepping back across the road into Malawi. The vast array of neatly stacked red tomatoes, green peppers and peas in large flat baskets, carrots that bloom like a orange corsage when held tightly by the tops in an eager hand, colorful cloth draped along fences and on the ground, oxen with their empty carts waiting patiently for day’s end and the return home, freshly butchered goat meat on display with head, hooves, and entrails alongside and quickly covered with flies – all these images and more will make indelible memories of Malawian marketplaces.
But in the bus we stop briefly just south of Lizulu at Mankhokwe Village, which is a large traditional village that sits below the road. From the roadside, the village stretches out like a panoramic scene, its houses close together on both ends and a large central, community area in the middle. Almost every building is round with plastered gray walls and thatched roofs.
We resume our drive against time to arrive in Zomba by dark. The terrain has changed from high plains near Lilongwe, to rugged mountains near Dedza, to the mountains that line the portion of The Rift, which is the Zomba Plateau. The sun sets into the mountains before we reach Zomba, where we will begin our life at Annie’s Lodge for the next three weeks.
