A new era

I hope I’m able to say it now, that I’m not tempting fate. But no, I can’t help it, it has to come out: we’ve bought our new lodge! We still need to sort out the last details with the government, but we now have a contract with the current owner of Ntchisi Forest Lodge.

Signing the agreement was a rather ‘African’ experience. After five months of negotiating (and waiting!), we met with the owner at another lodge by Lake Malawi and were seated in a cozy little grove of lemon trees with views over the lake in beautiful hand-carved chief’s chairs (a specialty of Malawi), and surrounded by noisy and curious – and increasingly daring (scarily so, considering the size of their canines) – baboons, who seemed quite interested in the negotiations taking place below them.

Even more social was the resident pet vervet monkey, who evidently aspired to become a lawyer as he tried to govern the proceedings. While the rest of us could finally begin to relax and feel satisfied with reaching an agreement, the vervet got so excited about the contract we were about to sign that he jumped onto the laptop and nearly deleted the whole thing! A bit too interfering for my liking, that monkey.

But, though it’s still hard to believe, we are now lodge owners! We officially take over Ntchisi Forest Lodge in October but will be spending a fair bit of time there in the meantime, starting renovations (which are sorely needed), replacing the roof and building a new house for ourselves, amongst other bits and bobs that need doing. And of course we’ll be doing trail clearing in the forest to create walking and mountain biking tracks. Oh, what a drag! (sense the sarcasm there?)

And so all the uncertainty and frustration comes to an end. Well, that is probably incredibly naïve, but at least we’ll now be faced with a different set of challenges, such as the green mambas we’ll find when removing the old roof, the termite-infested wood that most likely carries the building, and the bureaucracy involved in getting the final details settled about the necessary permits and licences to operate the lodge. But all that seems like a laugh now that we’ve got our lodge; it’s the fun bit ahead now.

An evening's entertainment!

I started reading a book on African insects. Apparently the praying mantis is called the ‘hottentot god’ in South Africa – both names derive from the way it lifts its front legs when it rests, as in an attitude of prayer. And then, of course, the female eats its mate, sometimes biting the head off and munching it even as copulation is in progress. Quite an interesting little fella. There are lots of them here, and I have grown quite fond of them. Not only because they are beneficial insects, some types eating caterpillars and others mosquitoes, but also because I had a particularly entertaining night with one of them recently.

I guess we all find ways of entertaining ourselves at the absence of TV, and on this particular night, there was a very large green praying mantis in the ceiling, which we observed hunting for a while near the ceiling light while we were having dinner on the verandah. There were also lots of little flies of some kind, and they were generally very slow, not reacting much if you touched them. So we pierced one of them with a toothpick and fed it to the mantis. This may be cruel, but it was very exciting when the mantis grabbed the toothpick with its two front legs and held it there until it had gnawed off the fly.

Now, I know you’re not supposed to feed animals in the wild; but somehow I feel a lot of these types of rules don’t apply to insects. Anyway, the mantis must have been very happy because this process was so entertaining that we carried on feeding it for quite a while. And indeed, it was there again the next night, our newly tamed pet and entertainer.

Impatience

It has been difficult sometimes, all the waiting. Here we are, in the middle of Africa, with no job, no home, and no idea about whether we will ever find the lodge we want to buy and be able to change our lives. Yet I am having a brilliant time. I had no idea it was possible to be so unstressed and so impatient at the same time. And here, of course, impatience is an illegitimate emotion. Not allowed.

It has been such a steep learning curve, both learning how things work and how to adapt to the culture here, the pace of life. The latter has probably been, still is, the most difficult - and also the most healthy.

Every now and then I still want to strangle somebody because they’re so bloody inefficient. And then, when my blood has stopped boiling, I realize how bloody inefficient my tantrums are, especially here where they seem to have no effect on people whatsoever, other than producing a certain amount of tutting.

There are no estate agents, no ‘for sale’ signs, lots of good and bad advice from other lodge owners. Now we just ring people up and ask ‘do you want to sell?’ and then it’s the waiting game. Waiting waiting waiting, full of uncertainty, not daring to hope, not being able to stop dreaming.

I think I have planned every little detail of our lodge by now, from the type of carrots in the kitchen garden, to the flavour of the muffins on the breakfast table, all we still need is an actual lodge. I'm getting better at controlling my lack of patience. But I do hope we will find somewhere soon!