If you aren’t good at, or are in any way averse to, shaking hands then perhaps Africa isn’t for you. If you have a fear of regular and repeated hand contact with complete strangers, stay clear. It’s not only the plentiful quantity; the sheer number of handshake variations can lead to confusion and an awkward beginning. Like dancing, if you don’t know the moves, you’ll end up uncoordinatedly fumbling and fondling rather than achieving the desired, well timed embrace.
I feel for you lowly, unworldly handshakers so I’ve taken the self-important liberty of putting together a list of the most common handshakes you’re likely to run into when travelling in the so-called “Dark Continent”. Aside from the usual Grab-and-Shake, the below variations are commonplace, and although they are of varying difficulty, can be combined in a variety of combinations. If you’re a computer game-player, perhaps it would help to think of it as a “combo” of smaller handshakes, resulting in a more effective, killer, finishing-move handshake! POW: FRIENDS NOW!
The Slapper (Starting move, Difficulty – 6/10): Out first move is very common in Africa, and not uncommon in the western world, so you’ll be able to practice this one before you go. Lift your arm high, grin wildly and bring it down with force into your partner’s outstretched hand. If your partner is the one initiating the shake (as is most likely the case), just present your hand as a landing pad. Once the hands make contact, what happens next is anyone’s guess (see below for possible options).
The Switcheroo (Regular shake, Difficulty – 6/10): This is also extremely common in Africa, and not unheard of in the western world. The hand position is switched between the two positions as shown below. An extension of this one is known as The Continued Switcheroo, whereby the switch is continued back and forth over and over until one person decides it’s over. Much like kissing cheeks in France, the number can be confusing. Just go with the flow.
The Wrist Shake (Casual shake, Difficulty – 4/10): Is your right hand full? Have you been chopping raw meat? Or do you just not like touching hands? Then just limply present your wrist and let your partner hold onto that. It’s the handshake equivalent of “whassup?” instead of “Nice to meet you!” but don’t let the young-person-speak put you off! If a quick, relaxed greeting is what you’re looking for, this is for you!
The Elbow-Hold (Formal shake, Difficulty – 4/10): This is the exact opposite to the Wrist Shake, and is used to show respect. If you are meeting an elder or someone in a position of authority, and want to say: “I am not worthy of your presence”, then this is it. Hold your right elbow with your left hand as you shake and lower your head and upper body a little.
The Muffled Clap (Formal flourish, Difficulty – 6/10): This is culturally similar to the Elbow-Hold. Cup your hands and hold them horizontal, lightly clapping them together a few times before and after the shake, lowering your head and upper body slightly. This one is slightly trickier only because it’s hard to get the clap/shake timing right.
The Reverator (Advanced formal shake, Difficulty – 8/10): Combine the Elbow-Hold and the Muffled Clap to really kiss some arse. Advanced suck-ups only!
The Clicker (Finisher, Difficulty – 9/10): This is a tricky one – I’m still yet to pull this finishing move off successfully. After the switcheroo, get your hands in the position shown at the bottom of the picture above and click your fingers around the thumb of your partner’s hand as he does the same. It’s tricky to get proper clicking traction with another person’s thumb in the way, let alone to coordinate the click but you achieve ultimate Cool if you do this one right.
The Thumb Slip (Finisher, Difficulty – 7/10):You might be pulled into this one to finish off. Interlock hands, hooking fingers, and press the pad of your thumb against your partner’s. Press and slide your thumbs past each other to achieve this conclusion. No click sound is required, but a big smile and perhaps a familiar pat on your partner’s right shoulder with your left hand would be not out of place.
The Continued Hold (Finisher, Difficulty – 2/10 [physical], 8/10 [psychological]): Don’t be alarmed if, after the shake, your partner doesn’t let go, or transfers your hand to his or her other hand and begins to hold hands with you. They’re not necessarily hitting on you: it’s just affectionate. Try to relax and smile. It’ll all be over soon... well perhaps not soon, but eventually.
So there are the main types! But knowing the types is only half the battle! You need to know which one you’re going to be doing, and there’s no rulebook for that! So I’ve done the next best thing and made a flowchart! YESSSSS! (click on it to see the full size version!)
I apologise in advance for the lack of photos in this blog. They were stolen with my camera, and despite my safety measure of always keeping one photo (see below) on my cameras, they were never returned.
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We paid our bill at Mango Drift Backpackers and waited for the Ilala ferry, our ride back to mainland Malawi, to arrive. It was already three hours late and our new best friend Josh, the diving instructor, told us that we would see the ship on the horizon at least an hour and a half before it got to the island. And then it would be another couple of hours before the ship was loaded and ready to go again. So we just relaxed and enjoyed our bonus beach time, soaking up the orange afternoon sun one last time. The word finally came for us to make a move so we packed up our stuff and rushed along the beach and up the slope to where the car was parked in a school playground. Despite the time (after 9pm) it was oddly full of children. The kindergarten nightshift swarmed us, hugging goodbye and wishing us safe journeys as we loaded into the vehicle. Tiny black hands wagged, barely visible in the darkness as we drove off along dirt track towards the ferry.
The ‘port’ was chaos. Hundreds of people waited for the ferry and hundreds more were just there to observe the bi-weekly spectacle. The huge cluster of writhing locals jostled in circles, trying to find the head of the nonexistent queue. We didn’t need to take part because we had contacts and bypassed the chaos by catching a lift with a boat-owning friend of Josh’s. The dinghy cruised out into the darkness among several other barely visible, moonlit boats packed with locals and their precious rice and maize cargo. Ahead, the Ferry loomed, bobbling gently on the almost invisible line between black air and blacker lake, like a ghost ship. Some dry ice wouldn’t have gone astray.As we got closer, however, we could see that it was anything but abandoned. We hadn’t left anarchy behind us on the shore! The real bedlam was here on the water. Several boats already hugged the ferry’s side and locals, all at once, loaded and offloaded from both sides with fervour. There was no system, no rules, and no guidance so the only way to get through the messy every-man-for-himself free-for-all was with force. I felt sorry for the ferry, not just because it was so overused and so mistreated, but because the locals didn’t take time to say thanks. They ravaged the poor vessel’s undefended belly, interested only in using it for their own means. And it just floated there, involuntarily consenting with a ripple-driven nod.
Imagine this, but full of people at night. Use your imagination, people! My photos were stolen!
We quickly realised the lower deck was not going to be an option. The trip from Likoma to Nkhata Bay is the most direct route between the island and mainland Malawi, and therefore the most popular. There didn’t seem to be a legal limit to the number of people allowed onboard, but there was a physical one and the lower deck was already coming close. It was going to be near-impossible to find a spot of floor large enough to sit on, let alone sleep so our only remaining option was, despite our limited funds, to find some way of paying for first class. Prostitution is always an option in these circumstances, and although Les was willing to (literally) take one for the team, another option presented itself. A fellow tourist overheard our plight and without prompting offered to lend us the money we needed. He was unbelievably relaxed about handing over his cash to complete strangers, and I felt terrible about taking advantage, but we weren’t about to turn down our second-to-last resort.
It was two in the morning before the boat’s engine finally jerked into motion. We settled down on our bedding (it cost just a couple of dollars to rent a mattress on the top deck) and prepared for bed. I carefully placed my baggage close by, tied it all up, and slipped my small backpack of valuables snugly under the food bag and on top of my big rucksack, next to my head. I inserted my earphones, and drifted off to the slumber-inducing blend of diesel engine drone and Martha Wainright.
I woke up with a start and sat bolt upright, removing my now mute earphones and checked my watch: 5:15am. I didn’t feel like listening to more music so, despite my dazed state, I carefully wrapped my earphones around my iPod in the time-honoured manner and went to put them in my backpack with my other expensive stuff. Now: where had I put it? I was sure it was right next to me, between the food bag and my large backpack. But it wasn’t. As the haze of drowsiness thinned, I became more than sure: my bag wasn’t where I had left it. It had been stolen. Somehow, though, as I looked around for it under heavy lids, all I could think was “this is interesting” as if I had come across a scientific anomaly that needed explaining. The previous week on Likoma, where the backpackers had famously never had anything stolen, had turned me naive and the concept of thievery now seemed as incomprehensible to me as a manage-a-trois to a nun. I only began to grasp the gravity of the situation as I stirred Les to tell her. The more I thought about it, the more valuable things I realised were now gone: my favourite camera... and my wallet... and my phone... and my credit cards... and my external hard drive...
oh, and... MY EFFING PASSPORTS!
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK! (Sorry kids!)
Strangely, we weren’t moving. We were anchored at a ‘port’ and from the deck I could make out a torch-lit mess of boats conveying people back-and-forth between ferry and land, one of them almost certainly transporting my stolen possessions. Les and I quickly found the captain at the bar and hurriedly explained. He was helpful in his own, sluggish, relaxed and possibly-drunk manner, summoned the entire crew and together they discussed the culprit’s likely whereabouts. As they approached the conclusion that the thief was, in all probability, already off the boat, a junior staff member approached, holding something: my passport pouch. He had found it in the toilet on the level below, still containing everything except the money. The thief, bless his dark grey heart, had recognised importance of my passports and had taken the effort to leave them behind and had even left the one credit card that I kept with them.
The captain said that, although he thought that the “bad man” was probably no longer on the boat, they were going to take the theft very seriously. Sure enough, when we finally pulled up to the wharf, there were policemen waiting. The passengers sardined in the corridors, pushing towards the only exit, but no one moved. From where I stood, I could see over the edge that the police were searching every single person before they left the boat. Not a single person was getting through unchecked. It was going to take hours. I figured they could do with someone to tell them what the stolen stuff looked like, so instead of waiting to make it through the bottleneck, I clambered over the railing and descended from the ferry’s second level to the jetty where the police realised that I must be the victim and quizzed me. I told them what they needed to know and then was instructed to sit and wait. So, as the police painstakingly searched every bag, I just watched.
Hours passed as the boat gradually vacated its increasingly irritated contents. The boat staff took advantage of the occasion to check people’s tickets, and as tempers rose, officials shoved and grabbed at people who tried to skip the checkpoint. One man, caught without a ticket, tried to make a run for it, but the ship’s captain stopped him. The stowaway took exception to being manhandled and fists flew, mostly arriving on target. The captain returned punches, hitting him in the face, and had his shirt ripped nearly in half before the police stepped in to help detain the stowaway. I dared hope that this shifty character was the one I had been looking for, but the search turned up no stolen goods. He was just a freeloader. The search continued.
A man leapt down from the second deck without any of the officials noticing and dashed past me. I had become resigned to failure, so it took me a few seconds to realise that this behaviour was suspicious. I sprang into action, sprinting after him. He was a young guy and had pace but my adrenaline levels only increased as I imagined more and more possible conclusions to this confrontation. I cut and dodged through the crowd, trying to gain ground and the gap between us slowly shrank. After several hundred metres I was close enough and screamed in my best Chichewa: “IWE!” (translation: “YOU!”*). I was surprised at the power of my own voice! The word came out of my mouth with what felt like the depth and volume of a seven-foot black guy and the man stopped and turned. I almost lost my nerve and turned to run away but he only looked surprised. I, puffing and panting, asked to look in his bag and he graciously agreed, saying “I am only running because I am going to be late for my bus!” There was nothing in the satchel, so I apologised and we shook hands before he rushed off again. Yet another red-herring.
The last person was finally checked and released but I was left empty-handed. The police and the boat staff had done everything they could, but to no avail. I sighed, finally accepting that it was gone. Gav and I followed one of the policemen to his office to make an official police report with the friendly policeman and Les went a different direction – to try and find an internet cafe to get my stolen credit cards cancelled. Emailing my parents to get the card cancelled was her only option because the internet wasn’t fast enough for Skype, but due to a miscommunication Mum and Dad cancelled the wrong card: the only one that hadn’t been stolen. And to make matters worse, Les’s mum, when she received Les’s email the next day, also became confused, saw the words “credit card”, “stolen”, and “cancel” and immediately cancelled Les’s MasterCard.
We laughed about it later, as we finished off the day with a few beers at the backpackers (see below). I went to bed in a surprisingly good mood, high on the sheer comedy of the day’s events. Not quite happy to have spent so much on the entertainment, but realising that it was now out of my usually control-freakish hands.
*Although “iwe” This translates directly as “you”, and might seem rude to us, it’s a commonly used method of getting someone’s attention, sort of like “excuse me”.
Because Gavin and were the only two people doing the PADI course (Les already had her certification and the only other two people at the resort weren’t interested), we were told we could do the theory at our own pace. We just needed to watch some DVDs, do some revision tests and then once that was all done, sit the final theoretical exam before moving onto the practical part. I’m proud to say that we finished all the theory in one day, and aced the exam in the afternoon with the two highest scores that our instructor Josh had ever seen (we both got almost 100%!=D ). Then, over the following three days, we did two shallow water dives and four deeper water dives and finished the practical section of the course. We celebrated our achievement with a compulsory PADI high-five, as observed on many occasions during the highly cringe-worthy PADI instructional videos.
Diving for the first time was a weird feeling. The slow-motion three-dimensionality; the Darth Vader breathing; the glowing, silvery surface above: a liquid mirror with all the beauty of mercury but none of the poisoning. One of the first things I noticed was that, due to refraction in the mask, I would turn through what I thought was 360 degrees, but not find myself facing the same direction as when I started. I would need to turn a bit more. It felt like there were more like 450 degrees rather than 360 in a circle, which really screws with your orientation. Another odd phenomenon was that your weightlessness depends on how much air is in your lungs. Imagine if, when you breathed in on land, your body started to float away. Taking a deep breath would be a necessary part of every slam dunk and people who breathe heavily in their sleep would have to put bars on their windows! What a crazy world it would be! =D
In case you are interested, there are some differences between diving in the ocean and diving in lakes. Because we were diving 500m above sea level (something most divers never do), we had to ascend to the surface more slowly than at sea level. Also, the freshwater meant less buoyancy, so if you adorned your “normal” weights and jumped in, you could just sink if you weren’t careful!
Les joined us on the final day for our final two dives and we explored some of Josh’s favourite spots together. Lake Malawi has more fish species than any other lake in the world, so we got to see a wide variety. My favourite was the mouthbrooding Cichlid: the mother stays with its school of children and when it senses danger, sucks the entire school into its cavernous mouth. Here’s a video, but it’s not as cool as the ones we saw. They would, in an instant, make the entire school disappear.
When we weren’t diving, we swam or relaxed on the beach but, oddly, the whole place never seemed real. There was something fake, or Truman Show-esque about the whole thing. The water would ceaselessly taunt the shore with little laps, like water splashing against the edge of a bathtub, but never rise or lower. The thick haze over the lake would dim and tint the sun to a deep orange long before it had reached the horizon.
All throughout the day, mysterious clouds would hover low over the lake. It looked like thick smoke, refusing to disperse but it was so far out over the water that it couldn’t have come from a fire. Josh kindly shed some light on the mystery: they were insects. Thick clouds, containing millions of Nkhungu* swarm over the lake once a month – at the time of full moon. They have been known to swarm villages in the evening, attracted by the light. But it isn’t all bad: they are extremely high in protein and a key part of locals’ diet. The flies are collected using massive nets, squashed into “cakes” and left to dry in the sun. Then they are stored in this dried “cake” form until needed for cooking.
So next time you find yourself with a surplus of dried Nkhungu cakes (we’ve all been there), and nothing else for dinner, here’s a handy recipe:
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Ingredients:
-1 cake of dried Lake Fly;
-1 tomato, chopped;
-1 onion, chopped;
-A pinch of salt;
-1 cup ground nuts, fried and pounded;
-A little oil.
Preparation:
1.Break the cake of lake fly into pieces and boil in a little salted water until soft.
We caught a bus from Lilongwe toMonkey Bayat the southern tip of Lake Malawi*, the third largest lake in Africa and the eighth largest in the world. With a surface area of approximately 29,600 square kilometres**, it submerges a fifth of its host country and stretches along nearly ¾ of the elongated nation’s eastern border with Tanzania and Mozambique, making the term “landlocked” seem ludicrously inapplicable (see the map below . Thanks, http://www.snash.org/ ). Monkey Bay is the southern starting point for the MV Ilala ferry’s week-long return journey north and then south again along the length of the country’s vast saline-free sea. The ancient ferry, named Ilala after the legendary David Livingstone’s initial burial place in Zambia, has its own legendary history. It was constructed in Scotstoun, near Glasgow, Scotland in 1949 and shipped in pieces to Mozambique where it was transported by rail and road to the lake. In June 1951, it was finally launched on the lake, just two months after my father was himself ‘natally launched’ in Kilmarnock, just 40km from the Scotstoun shipyard. And just like dad, the ferry still runs, despite the occasional breakdown and associated maintenance.
Once-a-week, the steamer is filled to the brim with locals wanting, largely, to transport goods to and from Likoma, a Malawian island located inside Mozambican territory (although there is constant dispute over the boundaries). This was where we were headed, too. We bought second-class tickets, which meant we had to stay on the lower decks with all the locals... which turned out to be surprisingly comfortable. The boat wasn’t full straight away (that happened later as the boat picked up more people) so we each claimed a bench-seat and when the day ended, slept a reasonably comfortable night’s sleep, entwined in our most valuable baggage. I woke up early the next morning with King George the 9th (have I ever referred to my Canon G9 by name before?) in my armpit, Tinks under my head and spooning Lenny (my Canon DSLR) and my passports and money.
There were a few stops along the way, but they were never for very long. On one occasion we exited the boat to find some food as quickly as possible and hoped that we might even stumble across an ATM. We had very little money and were relying on being able to pay at the hostel on Likoma using a credit card so any opportunity to get money as a backup plan would have been welcomed. But the ‘town’ didn’t contain a single brick building, or any powerlines for that matter – quite different to my optimistic view of a bustling town with supermarkets, traffic lights and an ATM on each corner. Disappointed, but unsurprised, we wandered around and gathered some basic food from the market as locals stared and laughed at our foreignness. A cow lethargically crossed the road in front of us, encouraged by repeated heavy WHACKS. The small boy holding the big stick stared at us with the exact same look of extreme interest and total engagement that an Australian child might save only for Pixar movies. We looked at each other, mere metres apart, for a few seconds before I broke the face-off with a wave and a smile. He dropped the stick that he had been using on the battered bovine and his hand, like a coiled spring, shot up from his side. As if unconscious and independent of him, his arm shook wildly above his head, releasing the pent up energy that had been building as we had stared at one another. It shot back and forth with such force that his whole body wobbled as well, almost causing the lad to lose his balance. The cow had wandered away, but he didn’t care: he no longer knew who, or where, or when, he was. But he knew WHY: his purpose was to wave at us to the absolute best of his abilities, and he wasn’t about to let himself down.
This is what I imagine went on in his head: “Oh! Cool! Mzungus! What should I do? Should I say hi? I bet they don’t speak Chichewa though, and my English is limited to and ‘how are you?’ and ‘I’m fine!’ Oh crap, I always do this: I get all nervous and freeze up. And now they’re looking at me. SHITSHITSHIT! Pull yourself together, Acceptance***! Do SOMETHING! ... OH! He’s waving at me! My purpose on this earth is suddenly so clear! I should drop anything I’m holding and wave back with all the strength I can muster! And I’ll keep waving until either he ends it, or I die of fatigue.”
As the boat pulled away from the harbor, we ventured away from our dingy lower deck and up onto the top, first-class deck to hang out in the sun. It was a very different scene: the only locals were clearly the wealthier and more educated class, and the rest were backpackers (the most we had seen since Vilankulo, in Mozambique). The day passed lazily: we rested in the sun, read books, chatted idle backpacker-chatter and waited for the island to arrive from across the endless ripples. It was hard to tell if we were actually moving, but the engine hummed so I could only assume we were making some kind of progress. Three months in Africa had granted me with an ability I like to call schedule-indifference, so I pushed impatience aside and chose to savour the anticipation instead.
At four in the afternoon, nearly 30 cabin-fevered hours after leaving Monkey Bay, patience finally paid off. Unlike Monkey Bay, nearly all the stops on the Ilala’s route are without a port, so we had to nautically downgrade to a lifeboat to get to shore. We tourists were unloaded first and, on the shore, were immediately greeted by the woman from Mango Drift Backpackers, our home for the next week, until the boat returned to the island. The four backpackers (an English guy, too) bundled into her huge, archaic 4WD and set off. Twenty minutes of bouncing along a dirt track, crashing through foliage and waving to cheerful locals brought us to the west side of the island, where we parked in a dusty schoolyard full of huggy, playful children and unloaded our luggage. We walked the last part, through the pint-sized crowd, down a sandy slope among local huts and along the golden, sundrenched shore. The friendly English couple running the backpackers (also diving instructors) showed us around the rooms, the menu, and the bar and despite the fact that we were clearly in paradise, the prices were reasonable! And to top it off, they were able to take credit card payment as a bulk payment at the end to pay for everything: food, accommodation, beer, and the PADI diving course that Gavin and I had now decided we wanted to do.
* Also known as Lake Nyasa, Lake Nyassa, Lake Niassa, and in Mozambique, Lago Niassa. They never can agree on a spelling for anything in these colonial angliphonafied countries.
** Bonus fact: Lake Malawi is almost the size of Belgium!
*** We actually met a kid called Acceptance. I somehow don’t think his parents named him that because he was a planned pregnancy.
I recently travelled through Africa with two friends, and have been writing about it on my online blog. I have now reached the point in my narrative where I and my two travel companions stay in Lilongwe, your capital city (sorry – obviously you know the name of your own capital city) for two nights. The problem is this: we actually didn’t do much while there, so I’m not sure what to say! I don’t want to unfairly condemn the city, because it seemed nice enough, but I don’t want to recommend it as a place to visit either! You see my predicament?
1. Do I discuss the accommodation at length? No, it was all pretty normal and uneventful.
2. Do I talk about the activities we occupied out time with? No, other than a tardy visit to the famous Lilongwe tobacco trading floors (we were too late to see anything interesting), we didn’t do much other than catch up on emails.
3. Do I discuss the cuisine? No, because the most interesting food things that happened are: me treating myself to steak; and ordering “a pot of coffee” at Annie’s Coffee Shop and Restaurant only to be served instant coffee! The resulting argument with the manager about what constitutes “a pot of coffee” was most frustrating! He and I both knew that he didn’t have a “system” into which the order had been irreversibly placed.
What should I do, Malawi? I am going to just leave it as a blank spot in the blog, or perhaps insert a sentence to say that I visited, omitting any further details? Unless you are able to provide me with something interesting, I fear that I will be forced to just omit an entire city!
Your cooperation in the resolution of this issue would be appreciated.
Regards,
Liam D Walls
P.S. Pass my regards and respects onto your upmost peak, Mt Mulange.
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I sent that letter on the 6th of September, but never received a reply. Since Malawi could not find the minimal time required to respond to my letter I have no option but to omit Lilongwe altogether. Actually, here's one pic: of trucks loaded with bails of tobacco for the tobacco floors...
Tune in to the next episode to find out what happens at Lake Malawi.
