Malawi
This diary talks a great deal about the cyclists and from time to time tells you about the exploits of Jonny our one-man camera crew but as so often happens with these things the least glamorous and rarely mentioned part of the operation also happens to be the most important, our back up vehicle. Jono, luckily for us, is an experienced overland driver and makes up for our somewhat dubious buying decision by devoting himself to keeping our ageing, breakdown-prone landrover going at least as fast as the cyclists and for this we are exceedingly grateful.
Wednesday 8th October
Amazingly we have reached some civilisation, and some computers, in a rank, sweaty town called Tete, which is 2 days cycle from Malawi. We have kind of been looking forward to it because we organised to have an afternoon off, but it has been described to us by various people as a ''sweltering hole" and an ''overgrown junction''. Both of these things seem pretty accurate, and as the hottest place in Mozambique, it is also the worst for making wounds go septic...but I won’t talk too much about that.
Monday night we stayed at our fourth hospital of the trip -this time it was on the floor of the ''Laboratorio"- just next to the ''Parasites and Microbiology'' room! In these tiny rural town there is often no other option, and as petrol is costing is us a fortune at the moment, we don't have much money to spend on hotels.
Yesterday was a perfect example of the ups and downs of this trip. We woke up after 3/4 hours of sweaty, mosquito filled sleep on the floor of a testing lab and ate our cereals with powdered milk, while the temperature was already at 30 degrees by 8am. The road we had to start the day on was the first proper dirt track of the trip, which at times was like cycling on sandy corrugated iron, and at other times like a sand-pit with rocks. People stared us from their spot in the shade thinking: ''Where on earth are these crazy Muzungus going?" Luke warm, plasticy, chlorine water and tinned beans and tuna were taken for lunch in 40 degrees...on days like these feeling genuine coldness becomes an impossible dream!
The afternoon, however, made everything seem worthwhile. As the sun came down and the breeze picked up we cycled through some beautiful hills, surrounded by bright red sands and green trees. The people also come to the side of the road when it cools, and a huge gaggle of women were singing and dancing us along through one village! Everybody seemed as glad as we were that the day had cooled.
Tomorrow we head towards Lake Malawi, which we’ve heard so much about - only 4 days now!
Thursday 9th October
Jonny's return from Maputo brings with it some very exciting new angles for the trip. We arrived in Cape Town with a fairly good idea of what we had planned for the documentary - we would try and create three main aspects: the cycling, the group and the issue of modern slavery in the countries through which we pass. There have been plenty of arguments and amazing moments within the group to keep the Big Brother audiences happy (Rob and I are hopeful that the public's general hatred of public school boys might be softened after watching us sweat and pedal for so long!), and the response from the people of South Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique and Malawi has been so enthusiastic to give an idea on film of what we have experienced so far. On top of this, the diversity of landscape and standards of living has started to give us a perspective of Africa that you might not get if you flew passed in a car. The slavery angle however, had until Maputo been relatively hard to come by.
Modern slavery is an issue that has only just started to be addressed in Southern Africa, and this makes our investigations exciting and awful at the same time. Mozambique's most harrowing legacy of modern slavery is the number of child soldiers, who were taken from their families as recruits for the civil war. 15 years on, these people are still suffering the terrible mental and emotional consequences of being exposed to such violence and cruelty at such a young age. Today, thousands of slaves are trafficked abroad from Mozambique, but the numbers are uncertain and the extent poorly researched. Most appallingly for us was hearing of the number of children that are bought or taken by Western Europeans, to be forced into prostitution or paedophile rings.
Although Rob, Becks and I all have to concentrate on the cycling, we are starting to realise that if we are to make the most of our work for Anti-Slavery we need to give these issues as much time as possible while we are here.
Friday 10th October
Road sufaces have become a big part of our lives. When we return we will have spent so many hours examining tarmac we are sure to be experts! In Mozambique the roads have been very unpredictable, varying from ideal to almost uncyclable. In a country which is the 16th poorest in the world, but undergoing a lot of development work, this is not surprising. The road we have been on for the last few days is being resurfaced but everything seems to have gone wrong. The American money being used to pay the South Africa construction company seems to have got lost underneath someone's desk, and so the SA company has pulled out half way through, leaving steaming tarmac, miles of diversions, and very little new road! At one point the diversion took us onto a road that was just one big pothole, that would have been difficult to get through in a Monster Truck. At one point it was so bad Becks came off her bike going up hill, which is almost impossible on normal roads! (Cuts and bruises, Mr and Mrs Gowland, but nothing serious I promise!)
Saturday 11th October
Malawi
Three countries down, eleven more to go! Crossing into Malawi was a big moment for us, as we have cycled pretty quickly through Mozambique, which has been stunning and immensely friendly, but also very hot, with a 1,000 mile long headwind and very poor roads. It was also very telling of how easy shopping is there when Rob, Becks and I stopped for a drink in the middle of nowhere only to find a shop with gin, combs and nuts!
We got off to a very good start in Malawi. After being warned by so many not to change money on the border we found ourselves with no choice. Expecting to be fiddled, we found that we had to tell them what we thought the exchange rate was and them trusting us completely (of course we gave them a very fair rate!)
When we arrived in Lilongwe, we realised how run down we had become after cycling 130 to 170km a day through Mozambique. Rob has come down with tonsillitis, Becks looks like a bit of a ghost and none of my cuts have healed since my crash a full three weeks ago. We have made huge efforts to eat endlessly and go to bed very early, but I think the strain has been a bit too much, and we know that we need to stay here until we feel healthy again. This is made easier because there are a few days worth of leads that we can follow concerning human trafficking in Malawi.
Malawi is a country with a very long history of trade in people, yet as in Mozambique, organisations such as UNESCO and the IOM are only just starting to release reports and extend their investigations. We have an appointment with an UNESCO worker tomorrow morning in the city centre, who has told us about the recent attention that the slave trade is getting. We are looking forward to getting stuck into some work interviewing and researching...not least because we can pretend we don't have to get back on our bikes!
We have been shown kindness and hospitality by so many people in the last few days, and moved from hospital to school to church without having to pay for somewhere to camp. Although most of these people don't have the Internet and probably won’t see this, we couldn't do the trip without their help, and we are very grateful. We would particularly like to thank Helen Large, who gave us a free night in her backpackers. Strangely enough she had read about Rob in the 'Gloucester and Wiltshire Standard' when she was visiting England and tried to get in touch with us...but then spotted us in Chimoio. Also, Jon and Stephanie Roux, a missionary couple from South Africa, who gave us food, beds and warm showers when we needed them most.