24th August:
Woke up at 5am again and couldn't get back to sleep :( I walked into the centre of Blantyre and before I even got to the end of the street i was bombarded with "taxi?" "hello beautiful" "where are you from?"
As I walked down the main road I walked past a homeless man I had seen yesterday on my way here. I had given him my big blue hoody that I'd bought to climb Mulanje and didn't need anymore and he was so grateful. Then this morning he was wearing the hoody!! Nearly brought a tear to my eye when he kept thanking me and shaking my hand!
In town I bought some last minute things before leaving the country, including a Bawo board so I can play back in London!
I then got escorted back by a man in a suit called Prince who seemed nice and thankfully didn't try anything.
When I got back to Doogles I found out my flight has been delayed a couple hours so I had a bit longer to chill in the sun.
My taxi driver was lovely, although incredibly questioning, and I lied about a couple things just to avoid the typical discussions about religion and boyfriends etc. He was asking if there were people in London who didnt believe in God and I said there were, trying so hard to play along with my made up story of being a devout Catholic. He even asked me where my rosary beads were! When he dropped me off he got someone to take a few photos of us before he left. Haha!
I still had about 10,000 kw left that I would use a fraction of to buy a bit of food and water at the airport. But there wasn't any point in my converting the rest back into pounds cause it would've equaled about a fiver. Instead, I trundled down the road with my backpacks and kwacha in hand and found the nearest group of people I could. These happened to be apple sellers on the side of the road who hardly spoke any English. I wandered up to them greeting them in Chichewa and handed them each a 1000kw note. They were a bit shocked and confused at first, thinking I was trying to but something, but then I tried explaining I didn't need the money when I flew home to England and they understood and they all came and hugged me. It's true: giving feels much better than receiving! Best feeling ever! So off I went to the airport, the ladies shouting "zikomo" at me, happy with how I spent my last moment in Malawi.
After I went through security a man came up to me holding my newly bought Bawo board. He asked how much I bought it for and where I'd bought it. He then said I needed to get a document to say it's been checked for pests, because I was technically exporting a wood carving. He then eventually got to the point that I had to pay him 5000kw to get this document so I could bring it with me. I acted completely shocked, saying that I didn't have any money with me cause I give the last of it to the locals down the road. (I actually still have $20 but I wasn't going to tell him that! I have him my sob story, asking him if I couldn't take it with me if I didn't have any money an eventually he gave in and let me go. I've had a lot of crap being a young girl travelling alone but this is definitely one of the big perks :D
Before leaving the country I wanted to use up my remaining 4,000kw and managed to buy a big bottle of gin, pineapple juice and a bottle water.. all you need in life really...!
On the flight there was a movie, which exceeded my expectations of Ethiopian Air - Eddie the Eagle, good movie!
When I got to Addis Ababa that evening I spent a good half an hour wandering around every single seat of the airport trying to find somewhere to park my bum for the next 7 hours.... Eventually I found a sunbed type seat and fell asleep, using my chitenje as a duvet. Sadly I woke up after only an hour's nap still absolutely shattered, regretting my 5am start this morning...! I went to go grab some late dinner to pass the next few hours, but they still passed at a snails pace. I managed to get another hour of sleep in, but woke up to my alarm set at 2am for my 2:40 boarding time.
No comments:
Post a Comment