Welcome to Lilongwe
on Me Talk Pretty One Day (Malawi), 22/Sep/2008 07:19, 34 days ago
Elegant, charming, full of beauty… during my first two weeks in Lilongwe I have found the city to be none of these. And I’m sure the locals are thinking the same of me, given that my clothes are covered in the dust of the tropics and my razor has yet to find its way out of the suitcase. For the first time in my life I’m turning heads as I walk down the street, and I can’t quite figure out if it’s because of my dishevelled appearance in what is, essentially, a very conservative and formal town, or if it’s simply because I’m a white man in central Africa. Either way, people will get used to the sight for Malawi’s capital is to be my home for the next year.Lilongwe itself is a difficult city to describe, not least because it really isn’t a city at all but two towns from very different eras surrounded and enveloped by numerous suburbs and villages. Old Town is the name given to the older part of town, where life, like the name, is straightforward, obvious and simple. I thought of describing this part of Lilongwe as vibrant, because that is what it felt like at first, but I soon realised that it was only the state of traffic that made it seem so. It can be chaotic on the roads, where the existence of the pedestrian is a precarious one, but life elsewhere is generally conducted at a relaxed and sedate pace. One of my first experiences of Old Town was walking into a foreign exchange bureau to find the attendant asleep at the counter. After a detailed briefing from someone who has lived here a while, the scene wasn’t surprising. What is surprising, however, is how much noise you can make opening your wallet when you really need to.Lying to the south of the city, Old Town is home to fields of summer maize, a perpetual traffic jam that is so reliable it should be included on the map, and the country’s largest market, which is cut, like Old Town itself, perfectly in two by the Lilongwe River. Ramshackle footbridges rise from the overgrown banks to span the river at a frightening height, giving a great view of the market traders happily washing both their goods and themselves in the warm waterbelow. These bridges are only for those people who are too lazy to walk around and use the main road bridge, and who can bear not only the dangers of the decrepit and unsteady footbridge but the risk of seeing a naked market trader below. The market itself is surprisingly well-organised with an area of rustic stalls dedicated to fresh and not-so-fresh produce, an area that is home to a small mountain range of donated clothing, and a fly-infested area where people sell fish all day under the hot African sun.To the north you will find Capital City, Old Town’s younger, more fashionable but no more imaginatively named counterpart. It seems to have been planned as a complete contrast to Old Town, which I doubt was planned at all but just sort of happened. This area of Lilongwe is the highly-westernized home of the Malawian Government and a swarm of multinational corporations and international charities that must feel right at home amongst the modern European architecture and the classic American road layout.There is little reason to visit Capital City beyond the desire simply to escape the dust and detritus of Old Town. Those who do venture into this part of Lilongwe find a town that is well-organised and efficient, clean, quiet and totally devoid of culture. In short, they find Africa’s answer to Milton Keynes.Surrounding Capital City on two sides and separating it from Old Town is a large nature sanctuary. The only clue to its existence is the sight of the occasional dead monkey in tree-lined Kenyatta Road which runs through the sanctuary and links the two parts of town. The location of such a reserve within the centre of what is Malawi’s capital and second largest city is one of those eccentricities which, though not providing much in the way of elegance, charm or beauty, at least provides some unusual character.So after my first weeks in the city of Lilongwe I have learnt a few things about this strange and beguiling place: market traders and charlatans abound in the dirty south; civil servants and businessmen inhabit the bland north; and hyenas and monkeys thrive in the wild centre. And the locals have learnt that through all these places, there roams a rather scruffy-looking man with an unkempt beard and white skin, just trying to find his way around his new home.