Visit Every City

Tuesday, April 19th, 2022

Sitting on the edge of the veranda just after the sun is up you can see the tops of hills and mountains on the other side of the city. Blantyre and its neighborhoods are filled with hills which can make the a difficult drive on unpaved roads. But it also makes for a beautiful city. I sat for a while and finished writing a blog entry for the previous day while the young men prepared for school, the cleaner and the guard began their duties, Carol was already busy running her household, the cats moved around and watched the birds fly by, Dan took his dogs for a hike on a nearby hill, the mother hen watched over her chicks, and Matt caught some extra sleep (too much coffee the afternoon before).

Still caring for his household while his wife was away spending time with her mourning relatives, Gracious had gotten a late start picking Matt and I up. None of the tasks we had to accomplish in the morning were enjoyable, but all were necessary. The first task was getting cash from an ATM to pay for the tests Matt and I would need to leave Malawi. The tests ended up being twice as expensive as I had originally anticipated but thankfully we were able to get what we needed. In the past I’ve had some difficulties just getting cash out, especially if there’s no electricity or if the networks are not connecting the machines properly.

With cash in hand headed to Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH, aka Queens) where we had difficulty finding a parking space. The hospital was busy as people with various tasks and ailments came and went. There were several large white tents outside across from the main hospital building where it seemed people were heading to so we went there as well. An important looking man with a pen and papers seated at a table directing people told us we were in the wrong place. We first needed to pay for our tests. The line for payment took the majority of our time. Thankfully Gracious us a parent man. He was a forester in his previous line of work and has worked all across Malawi with many different people and in many different situations. Each experience in life has the potential to prepare each of us for the work God gives us to do.

The paperwork and process for our tests (once the payment was made) were relatively quick and painless. The results would hopefully be in by the end of the following day. Before heading back to the house we had to head to the regional office for ESCOM, the power company in Malawi. Their constant goal is to provide “Power All Day Every Day” to all of Malawi. At one point the public complained of false promises so they changed it to “Towards Power All Day Every Day” but have since reverted to the original as a statement of their commitment to Malawians. Hopefully one day the company will be able to work out the kinks and avoid load shedding, blackouts, and brownouts in the future. That would go a long way towards the progress of the entire nation.

We finished what we needed to do in the morning so Gracious dropped us off and headed to attend a funeral with Loney. Dan, Matt, and I headed off through the streets of Blantyre. Dan drove us through the crowded streets in and around several public markets in the area. We stopped somewhere along Market Street in Limbe where all kinds of sellers of all kinds of goods lay out their mobile shops on blankets, tarps, and chitenje along the streets, having to move when a vehicle comes to park and shop. We met Anthony, a friend of Dan’s, who helped us find a chitenje shop. He also sent a young man with us up a new building (parts of it are still being completed) so we could get a view of the market below and some more of the beautiful landscape surrounding the city. The building, which will hopefully be filled with shop owners and sellers, is currently called Pacific Towers. We essentially took an urban hike up several flights of stairs to get a better view of the city. That was our warm up for later.

After leaving Market Street we headed to the Museum of Malawi. I didn’t manage to get too many photos of the interior of the museum because we were told there were no photos. When we arrived the lights were off so it would have been difficult to take any good photos of the place. Thankfully there were also things to see outside, relics of life and industry in Blantyre’s past. On our way to see the museum we drove by a school with a familiar name: “Young Ambassadors Private Primary Schools.” From what I gathered, this school is still being operated by a certain church organization that many UCG members were once affiliated with. It’s a sad piece of our history which can only be set straight by the return of Jesus Christ.

The museum was small but enjoyable. While seeing some of the heavy machinery outside, we happened upon a group of men shooting a television advertisement for their herbal supplement shop that operates nearby. We chatted with them briefly and then headed on to another unique spot. Not far from the busy markets there are some more modern shopping areas full of foreign grocery and hotel chains. One hotel that really stands out from the landscape both near and far is the Golden Peacock Hotel. The parking lot was almost completely empty but I’m told that people sometimes rent the facilities there for large events. On the opposite end of the hotel entrance there is a mall attached to the building. There’s an elevator in the mall that can take you between floors. The Taimei Mall is proudly stocked with all sorts of practical and impractical goods made in China. We explored a few of the items there and ended up walking out with only a few Malawian made sodas.

After getting back to the house and having a late lunch, the three of us decided to hike the hill that is just across the road from UCG. We walked down the dusty road past houses and plots of land and came to the southern side of the hill. At the bottom of the hill there is an area that has been excavated, the dirt being used for the construction of the road a couple of years ago. There were some men and women in this quarry burning tires to heat giant boulders to make them soft enough to break down into various grades of gravel to be sold to contractors and homeowners. We said a few greetings and then headed up a rugged trail just behind the quarry. In Malawi people plant maize almost anywhere there is soil. Scattered over the sides of the hill were rows of maize which we had to carefully walk through as not to ruin someone’s crops. The terrain was rocky and dust, but also filled with bushes, trees, and flowers. We reached top with relative ease and took some time to enjoy the panoramic view of the surrounding area. From the top we could easily spot the roof of the church hall, Pacific Towers on Market Street, the Golden Peacock Hotel, and many of the surrounding mountains.

After our hike we rested, chatted, watched birds, and hung out with Ollie the cat. We had plans to take the family out for dinner to hopefully give Carol a well deserved break. We decided to head to Crossroads Mall where we knew we could find something for everyone. Chicken and chips always sounds good so we had to choose between Chicken Inn or Galito’s. To make sure there would be no leavening in our food we opted for Galito’s Flame Grilled Chicken. We weren’t disappointed with the quality of food nor with the level of spice in the variety of sauces they brought to the table.

After dinner we were all sitting around talking about all sorts of things: dogs, NYC, Malawi, the Feast of Tabernacles. At one point Matt mentioned an arcade game featuring the famous Jelly which was created by one of the UCG Home Office employees. Some of the guys hasn’t experienced an arcade growing up. It just so happened that there was an arcade in the mall which was still open. We headed up there where Dan beat me at a round of air hockey, there was a three-way tie at bumper cars, and Dan wasn’t able to win a stuffed animal for Carol because the crane machines are probably rigged.

We ended the night with a drive through some historic parts of Blantyre before heading home. Before going to sleep I had a chance to video chat with Lena for a while. Talking with her always gives me confidence to carry on no matter what I’m doing or where I’m going. I’m grateful that, even though she’s not with me on this trip, I know she’s thinking of me and praying for me.

– Lewis VanAusdle