Frank in Africa ‘08

hey hey nice people who read my blog,

sooo It’s been a while since my update, but this will be a good and long post, lets start with some good news, I’ve been feeling a lot better, my stomach still hurts at times, but not nearly as much as before, I’m now suspecting the bottled water we’re drinking, it has 20mg of Chloride in it per liter, and well, that’s not good for you. I didn’t end up going to the hospital, and I’m still taking my malaria pills (only 8 of them to go!!)) do not worry =).

Yesterday we had a day off, and so we decided to go to the Malawi Lake! basically the entire east side of the country is a giant fresh water lake. but it was a 3 hour drive to a nice spot according to some local rapper… 

I got up at 5:30 in the morning, we were leaving early so we’d have a full day at the lake, I was tired but excited. After waiting for the taxi for 30 minutes or so, and witnessing the african wake up ritual (women carrying baskets of water on top of their heads, and men running around arranging stuff, the taxi arrived… the trip was amazing, lots of nature, Mountains/Hills (which looked extra cool because of the low hanging clouds), Baobab trees, Birds, Monkeys etc. after about 3 hours we had to stop because the bridge was broken and they were repairing it, we had to go back to the nearest town and take a different road, this ended up being a small dirt road, which was amazing, I saw a lot of little huts where people lived, lots of excited kids waving at the car, and a lot of women protecting their harvest (corn) by guarding the fields. after 6 hours we finally arrived at or destination… big monkey lodge if I remember the name correctly. It was right at the lake and owned by a british guy, the food was good but expensive, the view was amazing.

After having some lunch (I had a vegetable curry with rice, and a coke in case you’re wondering) it was time to swim, the water was crystal clear, there were little fishes swimming, and the sand was almost fully made out of crystals, but all small pieces turned into smooth round pebbles by the water. so I swam, and took a walk down the beach, the locals actually lived there, it wasn’t some tourist place with just white people, there were a lot of children doing the dishes or getting soaped up by their mothers, all the kids were excited to see us, and after saying “hello” “fine” “and you” about 1000 times I swam some more… after that I just relaxed, enjoyed the view and just relaxed…

at 5 we had dinner because we had to be on our way again before dark, luckily the bridge had been fixed and it took us 5 hours to get back to the lodge we’re staying at. The place was pretty empty when we got there, which was strange since the place is filled with dirty old white people and young black girls each night, guess on sunday they all take the day off…

It was a great way to spend one of our last days, and I really needed it.

Malawi has been great, the nature is stunning and the people are really friendly, its strange to see that people who have so little are so happy, that might also be a problem though, to be honest, the people here simply aren’t efficient enough to turn this place into a strong economy, too many people are doing the same things and non of them seem to really care about it, thats why everything is going so slow… but hey, thats just me thinking with my crazy western standards…

now it’s time for me to go pack my bag, I finished my book about Namibia and I can’t wait to go…

check out the pics: http://www.simplygiz.com/files/Afrika/25feb/

Frank

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hey hey,

today I spend most of the day trying to fix my laptop, Blaxtar finally got his bag yesterday, it got lost somehow, and it took them 7 days or so to find it…I got my 100GB Hard Drive and some DVDs from college with software, a wrongly burned leopard DVD sorta spoiled it all, right now I’m copying beers hard drive onto my computer, which will take another 6 hours before I’ll find out if it works.

I’ve been a little sick the last 2 days, my stomach hurts really bad after I take the malaria pill or eat a meal, last night I had a fever and I was shaking a little, today I’m feeling much better but Jelle knows people here who own a hospital and I might go there for a malaria test on sunday…scary stuff…

today we moved to a different lodge, this one has internet so it’s a lot better for us, easy to upload stuff etc etc… the place is nicer 2, more peaceful, fruit trees and weird wooden statues in the bushes…

I’ll post some pictures soon, I promise…

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hey hey visitors of my site (350 unique visitors and counting), how are you people doing…?!lots has been happening since my last post, my last post ended with me saying I was gonna climb this mountain, which I did, I could type 3 blogposts about just that trip, but I really don’t have the time or energy for that, so you’ll have to do with the short version of the story for now… me and Beer decided to take the day off and climb the mountain, we had hoped for some sort of path to the top, we were wrong, after about 15 mins of climbing (following a rainwater drainage pipe) we came across 2 young african girls wearing slippers/sandals who were on their way down, which made me feel like some sort of tourist wearing my leather boots, we asked them if there was a path, they said no. after following the pipe line for another 10 minutes or so, and avoiding huge bumble bees (red with black) we heard a lot of water, there was some sort of water storage and filtering plant halfway up the hill, there was a little man made path next to the fence which ran up hill for about 20 minutes, after that there were no more paths, so we started climbing, after a few minutes beer yelled “Ants”, he wasn’t wearing any socks and was getting eaten alive by these ants that bite and dont let go, Beer had to go back and I decided to keep going by myself (which as everybody knows isn’t a smart idea) so I pulled up my socks all the way to my knees and started climbing, after about 30 minutes the spiked bushes and trees turned into white rocks, boulders, really big ones, and it started to get really steep, but I decided to keep going, the view was already amazing and I could see the top. I took lots of pics of the view and these strange blue reflective bugs that were everywhere… I reached the top, which was a total vertical piece of rock that was to high to climb, and drank my water before going back…going uphill was the easy part, downhill was terrible, I ended up with lots of scratches and wounds on my arms and legs from the plants, I even fell and almost broke my leg, but the adrenaline was flowing and I felt great, on my way down I heard water, and I figured it was the water plant we came across on the way to the top, but it ended up being a waterfall/river which was awesome. there was a lot of water coming down, lots of strange birds with white tails and mushrooms, it was such an unexpected and awesome sight that my wounds stopped hurting and everything was great… I made it home before dark, satisfied but tired.not much else happened in Zomba, just the usual walking to the internet hotspot and back, and working on the webisodes. there was an open air concert of Blaxtar (the dutch hip hop artist) and Gosple (the malawi hip hop artist) and it made it verry clear to me that people arent ready for hip hop yet, they didn’t care, there was no excitement and we (the white people) seemed like a better circus attraction…after a week of Zomba we took a busride back to Blantyre (where we landed, the capital) it was a bumpy ride, and the rappers were singing the whole time, not just hip hop, also other stuff, some of my requests were awesome, seeing Blaxtar do a Methodman impression was crazy…Yesterday we checkin into this new hotel place, its basically a construction sight, they promised us silence but well… this is africa, after finally getting a room and unpacking I tried to hang my mosquito net but I couldnt get the lil screw to grip the ceiling, so I asked for a hammer, after 10 minutes this guy came back with this rock he had picked up somewhere and handed it to me, the hammer didnt really work, but its 1 of those little experiences I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life…no pics today…they still need to be sorted… 

Tags: Malawi by Frank
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Another day at tasty bites, we’ve finally finished webisode 4 and Beer is currently trying to upload it with 1kb/sec and is swearing at the world…I think people are getting a little stressed, that’s why we’ve decided to go climb a hill as soon as we’re done with this, to connect with mother nature, Beer want to take a taxi to the top and just check out the view, but I just wanna walk through nature… we’ll see… I’ve been a little sick, having to go to the toilet 5 times a day, I don’t know if it’s the food or the Malaria pills, Malaria pills make you lose more hair than usual, which I noticed last night, I think that after 2 and a half weeks of taking pills we are all starting to experience some physical and mental problems, people are having really strange dreams which somehow continue when they wake up, which results in some funny moments.  The country is so beautiful, Beautiful green trees and flowering plants, dark orange sand, rocky mountains and perfect blue sky, it’s like constantly being in a zoo where you can touch everything and you can get as close as you dare to, yesterday I wondered if this monkey was gonna pee on me because it was sitting about a meter above my head, it didn’t but if it would have it would have still been awesome, the people are amazing too, women carrying around babies on their backs and a large container with peanuts on their head at the same time, there are also guys constantly mowing lawns by hand (with large knives) I don’t really understand why, my guess would be to keep black/green mambas away.  I haven’t really had a conversation with a local yet because they don’t speak english, they just answer everything with “yes yes” and smile, but have no clue what you’re talking about, which causes problems, especially when you’re asking for directions. Today Blaxtar arrives with my Hard Drive! thanks people of Grrr for helping me out. lets hope I’ll be able to fix my computer, so I can be more productive and get back to a regular blog updating. Chapter 2 of the tour starts tomorrow…Check out the pics!!! 

Tags: Malawi by Frank
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Today we left Dar es Salaam - Tanzania, I’m happy to leave somehow, I got kinda tired of the city life there, to much noise and polution. we left at 7:30 in the morning, took a taxi to the airport and checked in, it all took really long because there was a lack of organisation at the airport, there was no structure, they had to check my bag because it had 2 external hard drives in it, but jeroens bag, which also had 2 HDDs didnt get checked. Everybody made it through the bag check eventually and we were late, but the plane wasnt even there yet…

The flight itself was fine, I slept for a bit and they gave us breakfast, scrambled eggs with a lil sausage and some fried potatoes. when we landed I knew it was gonna be a totally different place than Dar es Salaam, it’s so green here because its the rain season, and its all so peaceful and beautiful. After a long drive from Blantyre to Zomba we checked into the hotel, we have 4 small lodges I guess the word is, me and Beer share 1, and next to us are the other 2 guys (Jelle and Jeroen) the women are up hill slightly, which is great because they talk too much.

After unpacking we went to the city centre, which somehow reminded me of an old Western movie, old looking scructure with the paint coming of, and the hand painted sign, it’s great, but not a place I can photograph I think, since we’re the only white people here and it’s clear that we’re a circus act to the locals… we visited a small market which was crazy, and after that had dinner (beef curry), at this place called “tasty bites”, it was ok.

I didn’t sleep much because Beer had an allergic reaction to all the dust, and he kept me awake most of the night with all his disgusting sounds ruining the nice sounds of the stream nearby…

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Sooo, I’m sitting here on my bed, I just got home from the internet cafe, finally some peace and quiet, I think Beer is taking a shower and the other people are still away or sitting on the balcony. I miss being alone from time to time, I know that sounds strange but having some time to yourself to get your head sorted isn’t just something that’s nice sometimes, it’s something I need, maybe it’s because I’m used to being on my own and doing everything my way and by my own scedule.

I got to talk to Will today for a few minutes and it somewhat made me miss home, not “home” the location, or the feeling of being home, just the few hours a day I have at home just for me. There’s non of that over here right now, things are really chaotic and there are always people talking, ahhh peace and quiet is over now, beer just walked in and is gonna start packing his bag for malawi… I guess I should do the same after I’m done writing this…

lets go back a few days and write something about everything I experienced, I have no clue about my last “real” post, it’s been a lot harder to write since my laptop died, I basically type it in a few minutes and quickly upload some pictures… I hope Blaxtar (the dutch rapper who’ll come to ) will bring me a harddrive (I mailed him today).

The studio…after the workshops the rappers went to the studio for 3 days, and I went there the last day to take some pics, I had never been in a music studio before, not that this would really qulify I think… basically there were 2 couches, a table with water bottles and crisps, a desk with a computer and a chair, and a small recording booth. The results of the recordings were pretty cool, even though I’m sick of hearing those songs (because we edit the video to the music) I was impressed that they could make songs that quickly, I always figured it took days, but Prinz pi told me he does it in a few hours back home…

The video shoot… we shot the video at the school across from the kaya guesthouse, which we’re staying at. it was great to see a real african school and how simplistic everything was, they had these really cool drawings on the wall, some about science some about math. the first part of the video shoot I didnt like, it was too forced and I felt bad for the kids, it just felt wrong to me that a bunch of white guys wth cameras were telling these poor black kids what to do, they werent getting paid, or didn’t get any rewards at all…all I kept thinking was, just turn up the volume and let the kids dance and party with the rappers, which happened later on and made me feel a little better, we also donated 2 footballs to the school which is something I guess. it was a special experience though, and I’m glad I was there, even with those mixed feelings…

today was the day after the video shoot, and we caught up on some work, mostly some of the image galleries. we didn’t really get to edit because the video guys didnt load the movie onto the external hard drives for us. Theres still some friction there, but its to little to really get into a discussion about, even though it does build up.

Things will be different in Malawi, we’ll all have seperate rooms, and I’m hoping for easy internet access, but I’m not expecting it.

Tomorrow is Beers birthday, and We’ll be going to a small iland I think and hang out for most of the afternoon, some much needed rest, maybe I’ll take a walk on my own or something to clean my head…

yea not much else to talk about, I better start packing and do some laundry…mannn I still hate laundry…

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hey hey peoples…

how are you all doing?! great! I’m ok too, even though Im stressed out a little and ready to go to another country…

yesterday we filmed a vieoclip at a school, which was….chaos… they were really excited, but certain shots we took just seemed wrong to me… I became friends with the lil boy who lives next to the guesthouse we’re staying at, “friends” might be a big word, he likes my legs, my shoes and my hair, and he has a lot of energy, check the pic I took of him…

http://www.simplygiz.com/files/Afrika/9feb/jochie.jpg

Today prinz Pi left and signed my laptop before he left… its not with a water proof maker but some sort of graffiti paint marker, which means it’ll start to come off soon…

http://www.simplygiz.com/files/Afrika/9feb/junglebook.jpg

not much else has been going on, lots of work on the site, image galleries and webisodes…keep checking the virus free site… and sign the damn petition! thanks!

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