Today was going to be slightly different as the school was closed so many of the students could celebrate the Muslim festival of Eid with their families. The teachers suggested instead that we all meet up and spend the day together at the top of the beautiful Zomba Plateau.
The day began with some retail therapy in our lodge from local traders Miles and Joseph. They had brought us an extensive selection of Malawian carvings and paintings. After we had bought some gifts to bring back home, we collected the teachers from Namadzi CDSS thinking we were heading straight to the Plateau however Mr Makwiti (the deputy head teacher) had other ideas….
We made multiple unplanned stops until the bus was filled with speakers, meat for a braai(barbeque), drinks, sugar cane, people and Mr Makwiti’s infectious laughter. After an hour of detours we were finally on our way and excited to see the views from the Plateau- although not 100% sure how our bus would cope with the steep ascent . However, our unflappable driver Ernest navigated the way with deft skill and a cool demeanour and we made it to the top.
These are the amazing views we saw on our journey up;
When we arrived everyone started to socialise- playing football, volleyball, preparing food and taki
ng group photos.
We had a group lunch and got to try local drink Cocopina – a fizzy coconut pineapple juice which everyone loved. Mr Luwawa had brought us sugar cane and tried to show us how to eat it. It proved a challenge and only a few succeeded in biting through the bark – the rest of us needed help!
After lunch we played more games whilst some of the teachers cooked the meat on the BBQ, it was really tasty!
In return we taught the teachers how to play Dobble and they taught us their traditional game of Bawo. Both games got very intense and competitive however not many of us managed to understand all the rules of Bawo….Dobble is much more straightforward!
Before we left we made sure to get a big group photo to remember the day by.