# A Farewell to Malawi: The Lake I

### The first instalment of a retrospective look at nine months in 'the Warm Heart of Africa' and a voyage on the cerulean gem at the core of it all – now available in self-read audio format...!

A final journey on the lake, a three-day crossing in the peeling, insect-ridden cabins of the MV Ilala, this colonial relic that I know will forever fascinate me and live long in the memory. Whatever happens next, wherever, with whomever, for whatever reason, I have an inescapable sense that the last however many months, the culmination of my ‘long 20s’, have been some of the most important in my life.

If I were to pinpoint just one of the redeeming features of what will be a year-long African interlude, it would be Malawi’s landscape, its scarcely believable variety, a topography so fantastic and fabulous (both adjectives maintaining their archaic meanings), the vistas’ ability to make one gasp. Sat at the heart of it all is Lake Malawi with [its impossible hues](https://open.substack.com/pub/zebbakersmith/p/letters-from-the-lake-amid-calm-and?r=43f2cx&selection=c2910a8f-e2ae-4ff4-b88c-6d08635fd684&utm_campaign=post-share-selection&utm_medium=web&aspectRatio=instagram&textColor=%23ffffff&bgImage=true) that I need not describe again.

When I turn my back on its shores next week, it will remain epic in its vastness, there in its entirety to strike awe and wonder into me the next time – I remember one particular tangent on _[Dodge The Question](https://open.spotify.com/show/0SOmYd1QuJWcYtAnIypIoQ?si=f4c0c01c12264537)_, the Frome Town FC podcast we continue to make work despite the distance, when my co-host [Steve](https://substack.com/@stevemccarthyauthor) and I worked out it was nearly 2,000 times larger than Lake Windermere. But just its presence – 560 km from top to bottom spanning two-thirds of the country – has been some source of fascination and comfort. I know, and have done so since that first visit, that I will savour its beauty, the rough and calm of its surface, how it extrapolates the effect of the slopes and shores that its waves pound and lap.

To travel on it via the MV Ilala, from its northernmost terminus in Chilumba to its southern endpoint at Monkey Bay, seems the most sentimental farewell, the only fitting way to do it in this prolonged and unexpected procession out of the country. And near enough a month after its 75th birthday, from what I can work out too.

A steep ride down the mountain to the shore at dusk begins the journey home to the UK, counterintuitively southward and eerie in the silence as the biker saves on fuel. The ferry, legendary for its lateness, delivers. The two of us wait together for a few hours, sipping on warm beer, the power just back as we wander in. Watching the locals play pool for money, I befriend Chimwemwe, a pig farmer who proves to be some of the best and frankest conversation I’ve had in Malawi, his outlining of plans to head to South Africa interrupted by a drunk 16-year-old in an LA Rams’ fleece demanding I buy him a beer. A portside kip, leant against the wall of ‘Shed 1’ precedes boarding, a joy in comparison to December’s attempt.

The cabin is basic, cockroaches scuttling on the floor and up the rivets, but the mattress is comfortable and the fan works. I fall asleep at once and shock myself when I wake up to the light and that pleasant rocking motion. ‘Just an hour after we were scheduled,’ says the sage and softly spoken captain, Harold Chigona, when we meet up on the sunny deck.

Swapping the planks beside the boxes labelled ‘LIFE JACKETS’ for the cool of the cabin, the day passes, neither long nor short. Beneath the peaks, it reveals the places I had wanted to visit, Zulunkhuni River Lodge and its famed waterfall trekking, while left in its wake are the locations where I had spent time back in December, Usisya Beach Eco-Lodge, months ago when once I thought I could still stick at it out here. In between bouts of work, I think of Herco and the evenings spent in the company of those who did and continue to do so, as the vessel arrives at the now-familiar Nkhata Bay and the clouds blush overhead.

It is chips and more chips, with fish, chicken or beef on rotation, a beer to accompany. Harold and I sit together once again, talking of Kasungu, his hometown and the district where I have been working. Encouraging me between bites of _chambo_, he tells me of an Australian couple who had travelled through a year or two before, the lady’s book on cycling the continent having been published recently. I find my now-accustomed spot and write for an hour or two. Not for anybody, not for a job nor an application, but for myself, in the dark while energy levels sap around the bar.

* * *

_My first voyage on Lake Malawi - please check this out:_

[**Letters from The Lake: Waiting for the MV Ilala**](https://substack.com/home/post/p-182783731)

From a frenetic jetty in Nkhata Bay to a dawn crossing of Lake Malawi, necessity and adventure blur aboard a colonial ferry that still binds the country together.

* * *

More of the same follows after a night spent in the Chief Officer’s cabin – while he was on duty, I must add. Booking late, I have to shuffle my bags between cabins on consecutive nights. I hardly notice our nocturnal drop-off at Chizumulu before waking up in the harbour of Likoma. These two island exclaves of Malawi lie a handful of miles from the coast of northern Mozambique, the ongoing war in that region absent from the sparsely populated villages I can see on the shore. It is hours before we will move again, the crucial role that the vessel plays coming to the fore as people and buckets of fish are hauled up the splintery ladders on board and all sorts of provisions bob in ungainly boats over to the shore. This is a working boat after all, my crossing of the lake for pleasure a rarity among the Malawians who rely on its route to move goods and cargo.

Likoma itself has an Anglican cathedral, one of the biggest in Africa, one left behind from the days of the British and Germans fighting off Portuguese and Arab slavers. I would be keen to disembark and wander, but I must wait until I am shown my most recent cabin, shared with another friendly face among the boat staff, Peter, happily describing himself as a ‘seafarer’, working all hours, popping in for the occasional kip.

Seven hours after mooring, we are back underway, the first-class walkways as packed as they have been, mothers and children spilling over all available space. Careful not to tread on limbs, it is a constant process of feeding, either from breast or Tupperware, while the husbands and fathers mill about the bar on the top deck. It is doing a roaring trade, the music switching from worship songs to reggae (or ‘cottage’ music as they call it) as the intoxication levels and noise soar in the afternoon heat.

I fiddle away at another job application – enthusiasm levels ebb and flow as the boat heads south-west to Nkhotakota and the fan wafts warm air towards the berth. Sleep overcomes ambition, though it is uncomfortable and fitful, always aware of the conversation outside the window. The glow of sunset upon the waters is sublime when I emerge, that abundant, heady wine-dark quality visible on the surface again as dusk soon takes control of the scene. And to think, ten days ago, I was just a few kilometres over there travelling north up the lake road, berating its appalling condition on my passage north.

In the distance I can make out Mount Chipata, a comely peak within the nearby Wildlife Reserve that I would often gaze at and wonder about on my walks or runs around the school’s perimeter. It already feels long ago, many miles and days since but I’ve yet to come to terms with it, to forge the narrative of how I feel about those eight months, the decision I made to leave. That will come, of course – these things have a habit of doing so later on.

* * *

_December’s lakeside stay - please check this out:_

[**Letters from The Lake: Amid Calm and Storm**](https://zebbakersmith.substack.com/p/letters-from-the-lake-amid-calm-and)

Usisya promised and delivered stillness: swims, long meals, and days without number. Leaving it meant trusting a wooden dinghy, a teenaged captain, and lightning on Lake Malawi.