Lilongwe

Today was yet another interesting day. I set out this morning to track down the leader of one of the Traditional Healer's Associations whose home village is 2 hours from Lilongwe, Kasungu, and he doesn't have a phone. When we arrived in Kasungu, we discovered that the gentleman was in Lilongwe, so we turned around and went back. I did eventually manage to track down the gentleman and with my driver as translator, we had a good meeting and he invited me to a meeting of the herbalists in his association tomorrow. He also invited me to go back to Kasungu to see one of their botanical gardens.

Not all was wasted on the trip to Kasungu as it's always nice to get out of the city into rural areas and see what's really going on. It's tobacco harvest season in Malawi right now, and the road between Kasungu and the auction houses in Lilongwe were filled with people transporting their precious crop by bicycle, oxen cart, pickup truck, and semi. The size of the bales is about the size of a bale of hay, so you can imagine the challenge of riding 150 km with that on the back of the bicycle. I even saw one oxen cart that got overturned on the way.

People in this area are lucky though. The rainy season ended weeks early in most of Malawi, which means that I have had nice weather for my trip, but it also means that the maize crop has completely failed in many areas so there will be hunger again this year in Malawi. More incentive to work hard and try to get some income generating activities up and running as soon as possible.

It was great to have such a positive reception in my first meeting, especially given the results of my next meeting. The herbalist and leader of the umbrella Traditional Healer�s Association met me without the standard greetings and told me that he had heard that we were in Malawi doing research on medicinal plants and that he was ready to give us a fine for operating without first visiting the Ministry of Health and then visiting himself. He was the first obese Malawian that I have ever seen, and I think the fact that none of his subordinate Herbal Associations had mentioned his name, might be an indication of some other issues. That said, while it does appear that he may be a certain type of African bureaucrat who likes to throw obstacles in your path, I will do as he asks, but will not hold my breath.

I got back to the hotel in time to spend a couple of hours by the pool catching some rays (slathered with sunblock) and at dinner I discovered that I now get a heavy buzz off one beer, after a month of almost no alcohol. Cheap date!