Finally In Malawi
Traveling through Tanzania, the border, and into a remote compound.
— 6 min read
Table of Contents
Leaving Dar es Salem
Breakfast ran from 6:30am to 8am and I had a feeling that we would be traveling for a long while. I ate with Bryce, Drew, and Moi. I ate a lot. To the point that I was feeling bloated.
We had to stay an extra day in the hotel because our flight got canceled. We left for the airport at 9am. There were 2 security check ins kind of like TSA: one at the entrance and one towards the terminals. I got stopped at the second terminal because of a suspected tape that I had.
I just kind of stood around waiting for the lady, but after a while I think she just kinda forgot me. So I just walked away.
We were waiting a little over an hour so I got to watch an episode of a show I was watching.
This plane ride was by far better than the last one. It only lasted about an hour. We were traveling to Mbeya, Tanzania to get a little closer to the Malawi border.
Traveling On Bus
We left the airport and met up with our drivers: Clement and Ryan. I got a fist bump from Clement, very sociable guy.
Since there were two drivers, all the students and Claire, one of the nursing faculty, joined us on the bus. The rest of the faculty went to the van.
It was around 2:30pm by this point.
I got to take a lot of pictures look below.
The streets were bustling and there were so many people out and about. I felt like the population density might have been bigger here in this location than in the U.S.
There was this one time we had stopped to get some water and a group of women hurriedly surrounded our bus. They were trying to sell us a bunch of vegetables and fruits. The excited and fascinated looks on their faces as they lasered us with their eyes was kind of funny, but at the same time nerve wracking. Some tried to sell us carrots, watermelon, and I think cabbage.
I thought it was pretty crazy.
We stopped another time at an Tanzanian immigration office to do more paperwork. I didn't really know what the purpose of that was, but I just followed the faculty and the group.
Supposedly, we were barely on schedule and I heard from faculty that something was about to close in 10 minutes. Maybe the road to the border was about to be closed for the night. It was like 5:30pm.
We had been traveling for a long while.
Then, we made it to the Malawi border and had to do more paperwork at the border office nearby. It was getting dark soon since sunrises start at 6am and sunsets at 6pm.
I think we were all tired by this point. At the office, I gave my broken glasses to Martin for it to be fixed saying that he would hand it to Ryan, one of the drivers. My impression of him, from what I've been told, is that he is kind of like a middleman—the guy you talk to if you want anything done.
Not like a translator or like that since everyone here, surprisingly, spoke English albeit with a noticeable accent.
Going past the border, we drove down and past Karonga and ultimately we arrived at our location.
It was like 8pm at this time and so far we had been traveling by bus for like 6 hours. For the most part, it was a pretty smooth ride, but near the end it got very bumpy. The roads were deteriorating.
I fell asleep I think two times. The first because I felt sleepy, and the second because I freaking exhausted. Mostly everyone was snoozing by this point.
Arriving at the Walled compound
Finally, we arrived at our designated location. It was walled off and the entire compound spanned about like 4-5 football fields, about that amount of square footage.
It was like super dark. There were some lights here and there. The ground was dusty, gravely, and literally dirt so it was a whole thing of moving our luggage. Near the end of the walls lined a couple of buildings which had rock walkways to get to which our luggage was most excited to roll on.
We got to our rooms, unpacked our stuff, and made our way to the opposite side of the compound after the faculty told us to meet their for dinner.
It was like 9pm and we were all hungry. There was this buffet type setup where you just take what you want. We had roasted chicken, fried rice, fried potatoes, and several vegebles.
At the beginning, there was also this hot and spicy soup. I kind of regret not getting more. It was really good and spicy.
After that, we got the password to the Starlink and for a moment had internet access. But it seems like, as we made our way back to our rooms, only the opposite side had wifi access.
I had some data, but it was on 3G. Never would I have thought that I would be at a point where wifi and internet access was so inaccessible and so low quality. This has made me more conscious and considerate towards low internet speeds.
From now on, when I do web development, I will try my best to accommodate below 5G connections. This website (rin.dev) has been built in consideration of low internet speeds. It loads a little bit slower of course, but on a 3G network, it's not too bad.
And then we crashed and burned at our beds.
