Football

Predictably everyone here supports Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal. I was Mzuzu’s only Aston Villa fan until this week when a Liverpool fan said she was happy to give up and support Aston Villa instead. We’ll see how far her loyalty extends when she realises that we’re not exactly on a winning streak! Football is a big part of life here. Most minibuses and a lot of cars have team affiliated decoration of some sort and every football shirt for the ‘big 4’ teams that ever got taken to a charity shop is lovingly worn even when the logo has disintegrated long ago. Mzuzu has three teams in the top Malawi league - Moyale (the soldiers); Eagle Strikers (the police) and Jukebox (the err collective set of randoms put together this season by a jukebox company owner). I aligned myself with Moyale seeing as I live close by and play netball there. I have spent 4 Saturdays at Mzuzu Stadium watching the games. It’s slightly different to the Premiership in that the entrance fee is 45p and rather than a Balti pie the mainstay snacks are a bag of groundnuts (5p) or a lollipop (9p). At half time in the local Police v Army derby the referee had an army and police guard stand by him. However this is over dramatic as the behaviour of the Malawi fans is MUCH better than it is in the UK. They might all stand up when there’s an incident but sit down again immediately when the action restarts so everyone can see. There is very little shouting at the ref or shouting at all really. All the fans mix in together and are very laid back. The Manchester United of Malawi are MTL Wanderers – they are based in Blantyre in the South of Malawi but just like Man U and Manchester lots of people support them even though they’ve never visited Blantyre, oh and I suppose they do tend to win things. Their fans were the most gregarious dancing and singing and one of them strangely waving a dictionary for the whole game. Luckily Moyale held them to a 1-1. Transfers take on a different meaning for the Mzuzu teams as unfortunately the police and soldiers could be transferred to a different barracks or station in the country at any time and will have to hope that there is a decent side there to play for.

The Malawian national side is called ‘the Flames’. They had a crucial African cup qualifier against Chad the other week. The country was poised on a Saturday afternoon to watch. I was in the market and wondering why everyone was listening on the radio rather than watching on TV. I learned later that the President had decided to give a speech instead and so MBC (Malawian Broadcasting Corporation) had been obliged to show that rather than the scheduled football. Not a way to win popularity especially when Malawi stormed to a 6-2 victory.

Malawian food

One of the main things people seem to want to know is what did I eat in Malawi. I had little kitchen with two electric hob rings but no oven and no fridge so that plus the power cuts  limited what I could eat.

For breakfast every morning I tended to have porridge or a hot chocolate although when it hit mango season there was the fruit option. Apples are very good and bananas are plentiful but apart from them and the mangoes there was not much more variety fruit wise.

Lunch was monotonous but I am got really used to it. I chose between rice, chips or nsima (the local speciality with the consistency of cross between mashed potato and dough made out of maize and cassava) with beef stew (4 chunks of beef in a sauce); a piece of barbecued chicken or 2 fried eggs (fried to the point where there is no evidence of a yolk ever having been involved). On the side (or as a relish as they call it) it’s coleslaw, shredded chinese leaves or best of all – beans. There are about 5 restaurants with this exact same menu at the same prices to rotate around. There is nice local fish called chambo from Lake Malawi but it was of my price range for lunch every day and as I always ate with my Malawian colleagues I wanted to eat the same as them.

The strange thing is that there really are plenty of food options available. At the beginning of my stay I put this menu down to a lack of variety of food available. Since then I realised how wrong I was. At that particular time there was not much food available due to fuel shortages (more of these later) which meant nobody could get their products to market. In later weeks the markets filled with tomatoes, lettuces, red onions, peas, green peppers, baby aubergines, okra, broccoli, cauliflowers – it’s just that these vegetables  are not embraced by traditional Malawian fare and so are neglected from all menus! It gave me options for the evening though although lack of sauces to eat with the vegetables was holding me back. I took a trip to the big city (Lilongwe – the capital) where I found packet sauces (including the much treasured cheese sauce) and so self-prepared evening meals were brightened. Cheese is not really an option. It is scarce and so expensive. Anything imported is expensive as we have to remember that Malawi is a landlocked country and so transport costs substantially inflate prices. At the weekend I sometimes went crazy and treaedt myself to steak (which is pretty cheap) or a sausage.

Before I arrived in Malawi I was convinced that the Chinese would have infiltrated Mzuzu and that there would be a Chinese restaurant. Alas no on the restaurant front. There are Chinese run shops and lots of Chinese funded construction underway (but currently stalled). However there are two curry joints and one of these doubles up a pizza provider. Then there is the restaurant at the lodge where I lived which does a traditional English menu including lasagne, sausage and mash and fish and chips. They are really the only eating out options and then only as a treat as they cost about 5 times the price of my lunch.

When I first arrived back in the UK I had no appetite as I was overwhelmed by the richness of food in flavour and choice. I have succumbed now though to the temptation of variety but still crave beans.

Mzuzu 'city'

I am now back in the UK. Due to limited reliable internet access I wrote the following blog entries but didn't post them so better late than never..........

Mzuzu is the third largest city in Malawi and the fastest growing. It has a population of 100,000. Now I didn’t really know what to expect but imagined there would be a few multi-storey buildings in a business district and maybe a few western style shops. It wasn’t quite accurate. ‘City’ is really over generous in terms of Mzuzu’s feel. The centre is really quite small and there are only a handful of buildings beyond 2 floors (even then there is an absolute maximum of four floors). This is in part due to there being restrictions in building height due to Mzuzu having a small airport from which planes have recently started flying again. The main road through town is very good but off it are dusty paths and there are many wooden frames of abandoned construction. There are a three branches of South African supermarket ‘Peoples’ and a couple of South African chain PEP (very downmarket there apparently but the height of luxury here) but apart from that it is really all independent general stores with a mix of Malawian, Indian, Chinese and Lebanese ownership. I spent a couple of days in Lilongwe and it felt like a world away from Mzuzu. There are smart restaurants and choices of different international cuisines. There are hotels with swimming pools! (there is not a single pool in Mzuzu) and there are lots of supermarkets and lots of roads.

In the last few days of my stay there was much excitement about town as a new supermarket opened ‘Chipiku’. This was a real advance for Mzuzu and brought a much wider range of products to the town including cheese sauce!