And All Things Nice

OK, I know I've been rubbish at kepping this up to date. My excuses are: expensive / slow internet connections, laziness, and just having too much darned fun!

Where was I? Zanzibar. After a day of deep sea fishing which involved catching no fish but lots of throwing up on the rocky seas (not by me), we drove through Tanzania to get to Lake Malawi, which has great beaches and is more like a sea than a lake. Did a lot of intense chilling, and became a bit of a pro at volleyball (well, I managed to keep the ball in a few times).

The highlight for me was a great bit of haggling. We stopped at a small roadside market, and although I had very little money I fell in love with a beatiful carved table, with backgammon inlaid on one side and bao (a popular African game) on the other. He wanted 8500 Kwecha (about 35 quid - a similar table would cost about 100 in John Lewis), I didn't have enough, and the games began. After a long tete-a-tete I finally got it for about £10, plus my watch. I'd got the watch for free so it didn't bother me that much, but I keep looking at my wrist now and never know the time! Funnily enough, it hasn't seemed to affect my punctuality much...

Having bought a Bao table, I had to learn to play, under the tutelage of the stall keeper who called himself 'Sugar and Spice'. He taught me three versions: the girls' game, the boys' game and the mans' game (in order of difficulty). I was well chuffed as I beat him at the boys' and mens' games! Sugar & Spice's story was interesting - he was 19, and made enough money working the tourist market during the holidays to go to boarding school. At $60 a term, most children in Malawi can't afford this - the average income is $170 per year. He was saving hard to go to college to be a journalist - at 200 quid a year.

Anyway, onto Zambia... Which deserves a whole new post...