We started off and had a fairly comfortable ride to Lilongwe, meeting Pastor Nkosi at the AXA office and walking to the hotel he had found for us the day before. Unfortunately, this is where we started to get a little worried about our trip. We knew it was going to be a little expensive to travel, but when we arrived at the hotel, we were flabbergasted by the price. We had explicitly asked for them to find us cheap lodging since it was just for a night, but we ended up paying double what we paid on our last visit to Lilongwe!
Now, to be fair to Pastor Nkosi, he was just looking out for our well-being. In the past few weeks, there have been riots between some of the street vendors and the police, causing some areas in Lilongwe to be unsafe. The day we arrived in Lilongwe, there had been riots bad enough to close some schools and that was where the cheaper lodgings were; so Pastor Nkosi found the safest and closest place to the Bus depot in order to save us the cost of a taxi in the morning.
We got settled in our rooms, went and bought our tickets to Lusaka, Zambia for the next morning (the bus left at 5am so it would be another early morning) and then had the afternoon to walk around Lilongwe for a bit. We did enjoy that part of our day because we were familiar with the area from our previous visit a few months ago. We went into a couple of shops to get some snacks for the long bus ride and had a good dinner and dessert (Mango/Papaya smoothie!). On our way to one of the shops, a random man was walking by and said to us, “You were on the bus from Blantyre.” We nodded our heads yes and he said, “Me too!” then asked us how we traveled and where we were going, etc. It was a really random conversation and threw us both off a little bit to be recognized in Lilongwe (though we know we do stick out a little more than others J).
As we were looking for a place to eat – we had seen a sign that said ‘Macdaudy’s’ and the font was similar to McDonald’s so we wanted to check it out – we asked a young girl if we were close to where the restaurant was. It turns out it was farther than we thought, so we started to leave, but Ellen (at least that’s what we think she said her name was; she could have said Erin though because their Ls & Rs get mixed up sometimes) wanted to talk with us some more. At first, we were glad to chat with her because we enjoyed getting to know the locals and she seemed really sweet. Then she asked us to pay for her school fees because her father was sick and they didn’t have money. Ugh! You would think we would be used to this by now, but Kayla and I both still get a little frustrated whenever this happens.
After that incident, we got our food and headed back to our hotel for the evening. We had a wonderful surprise after dinner because Anthony called and was in the lobby to meet us! We weren’t sure if we would be able to see any of the youth leaders since we were only in town for the one night, so we were glad to get to talk with Anthony for a little bit. The electricity had gone out, so the hotel gave us a candle to use in the lobby and placed one in our room as well. The surprise got even better when Monica and Edith arrived to visit with us too! J Edith had sent us a message earlier in the day saying she probably wouldn’t make it and Monica told us she would try, so we weren’t really expecting to see either one of them. It was such a blessing to see all of them and it definitely lifted my spirits and mood to talk with them for a while.
Another random incident that occurred while we were visiting with our friends; apparently, the police had to use some tear gas nearby and the hotel staff had to work quickly to close the lobby doors so that none of the gas came into the hotel. Thankfully, we had already shut our windows because it had rained earlier so our room was okay. This incident also underscored our thankfulness for being in a safe place, even if it cost a lot more than we had expected.
Our last frustration in Lilongwe came with our early morning wake up (4am) and finding electricity had gone out again. We packed up our things in the dark, double checking that we had everything from the room, then headed off to the bus station. We had one of the security guards from the hotel escorting us, which was nice since the sun was just coming up and it was still pretty dark outside. We got our bags loaded onto the bus, found some seats and got ready for the long ride to Lusaka…
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.