This past weekend we officially launched the Embassy Scuba Club with our first trip to Cape Maclear on Lake Malawi! I’d love to take credit, but my husband was the driving force behind this one. He researched dive shops and then partnered with the Community Liaison Officer (my soon-to-be job!) to advertise it within the community and book the lodging.
We had a strong turnout – 3 families and 3 singles (15 people in all). The group gelled really well, diving during the day and board gaming late into the night. The kids were all around the same age too, so that worked well.
As is often the case in the third world, there were a few inconveniences. The first had to do with the air conditioner. Here’s what happened. It’s hot here, about 95 F. We had purposely selected a place that had air conditioners but what we didn’t count on is that with the Malawian government only providing power for about 4-6 hours per day, the hotel’s generator wasn’t able to fill the gaps. Yup, you guessed it. The power went out right around bedtime at 10 PM and came back on at about 5 AM. Usually, this wouldn’t be a big deal, but did I mention that it was SWELTERING??
Our room had no windows, so we couldn’t get a breeze unless we threw open the door (hello malarial mosquitoes). We opted to sweat it out – literally. Stripped down to nothing, dripping sweat all night long. It was so uncomfortable at times that sleeping was pointless. So yeah, the night, not so great. BUT, we made up for it by having a grand old time in the day.
The other frustration was the vendors. They were RELENTLESS. No matter how many times I said no thank you they just kept coming back. It was much more aggressive than vendors I’ve dealt with in the past and their tactics left me feeling quite jaded about Malawians (even though all my other experiences have been delightful). It would play out like this:
Sweet village girl: “Here Nia, here’s a shell necklace I made for you (ties necklace on Nia’s neck).
Nia: “Look, Mom. Isn’t it pretty? That was so nice of her.”
Sweet village girl: “That’ll be 3000 kwacha please.”
Or a 10-15 year old would come and sit by me on the beach and start up a conversation. We’d be having this lovely chat and just when I’m feeling all warm and fuzzy about making a local connection – bam – by the way, I’m on a soccer team and my team needs uniforms. Can you pay for them? I can’t tell you how disheartening to see 10-15 year olds soliciting for money. SIGH.
We eventually started avoiding the beach altogether, which was too bad. Since we weren’t on the beach anymore, they relocated to the border of the resort and continued shouting at us to come look at their products. It was very exhausting and hard to ignore.
I couldn’t help thinking of the irony in the situation – they’re trying so hard to extract money from visitors but the impact is that no visitors will return and they’ll lose their clientele altogether.
The kids though – they were sweet as could be. Nia was like the pied piper with this whole gaggle of kids following her shouting her name. :) Suffice to say, she loved it. They also collected a whole crap-ton of seashells for her, which was wonderful.
In case you want to get a sense of what the SCUBA diving was like, here’s a little video that Nick made:
Frustrations and all, I’m glad we went. In our foreign service stint we haven’t done a lot of group travel and it’s one thing I want to maximize while we’re here. I felt like we got off to a great start and really got to know some wonderful new people. Hopefully we can get even more to join us next time!
