Back to Blighty...

An interesting news story that you may have heard about in the last month is the case of two guys in Malawi who were sentenced by Malawi’s courts to 14 years imprisonment for being gay. They were subsequently pardoned by the president after immense pressure by the international donor community , human rights groups and, ultimately, Ban Ki-moon, the UN General Secretary. Now, as someone that grew up in a reasonably liberal society I certainly don’t agree with the conviction, but there are so many ironic aspects to this story, on both sides, that I feel they are worthy of mention.

First, the fact that the British government were getting involved, warning that aid to Malawi would be restricted if the laws of the country were not changed, when the law that was used to convict the two guys was a British law dating back to the colonial days...we forget that it’s not so long ago that you could go to prison in the UK for being openly gay... Next, is the fact that men share a very close relationship with other men in Malawi due, in part, to the ‘separation’ of men and women (a womans place is still very much in the home) – most bars and clubs that you go to are frequented only by men and a few prostitutes – when you look on the dancefloor you see a lot of men dancing very closely together, hugging and holding hands. If you took a snap-shut you would think you were in a gay club, and yet, if you question any of the men what they thought about the gay conviction, 99% would support it and claim that homosexuality is a disease from America/the West. They will claim that it goes against their culture, indeed, against African culture – an imported disease/idea from the West...and yet I feel that the root cause of a lot of the homophobic attitudes actually come from the West, via Christian bible teaching. Malawi, like many other African countries, is bursting with ‘missionaries’, particularly evangelical churches from America – strict conservatives who empathise the ‘one man – one woman’ relationship and that homosexuality is wrong. Almost all Malawians go to church and really follow and believe what is preached – no questions asked. [having said that, the ‘one man – one woman’ idea doesn’t seem to have taken hold that much...!]. Finally, after all the noise that human rights groups around the world were making, telling the two convicted gays to stand up for their beliefs and condemning the Malawian government for its actions, one of the recently released ‘gays’ has promptly married a woman ‘pleasuring her up to 4 times a night’ according to the national newspaper here... So, it seems, he wasn’t gay after all...maybe he was just after his 15 minutes in the spotlight...or maybe he was given a pill in prison to cure him of his ‘disease’...?!?!?

A few amusing ‘only in Africa’ moments from the last 4 months:

Squash matches being temporarily interrupted by bats...then birds...and finally cockroaches on the court..!

Golf matches being temporarily interrupted by monkeys running across the green...!

Getting stopped by police, reprimanded for not having my driving license on me...then entering into a 20 minute discussion about why I am not married, and that I need to hurry up and get a wife...apparently not being married at my age was worse than violating traffic laws..

Getting stopped by the police, again, and charged £20 for an insurance sticker falling off my windscreen...until eventually negotiating a £4 bribe after a 40 minute stand-off...

Taking a road trip with a Malawian friend in a car that had recently returned from being repaired after a fairly serious accident...the airbag in the steering wheel and dash-board having been ‘stiched’ together...the windscreen wiper lever missing, promptly starts raining and having to operate the wipers by holding two pieces of exposed wire together to make a connection (and several sparks)...noticing a knocking noise getting progressively worse, until I pulled over in the middle of nowhere in the dark and rain to find that the mechanic who had ‘fixed’ the car after the accident hadn’t tightened the wheel nuts correctly – the wheel was almost hanging off!...then discovering there were no tools in the car – ...waiting an hour for my friends brother to turn up with some tools, only for him to forget the tools and have to go back to get them..!

Sitting in a restaurant and watching as slowly, very slowly, the waitress wipes the left-over food on the table directly into your lap...ordering food in restaurants and not getting it...ordering food in restaurants and not getting what you ordered...

Complete and utter apathy from anyone delivering a ‘service’...even when you are going to pay them for this service and the service is to do exactly what they are paid to do anyway...

...but that’s Africa and I love it!

So, back I head to Blighty, after another incredible 4 months in another beautiful country. This time I really would like to settle back in London for a while, to earn some money (almost 24 months without earning a bean now!), to re-forge friendships and put into practice the lessons and experience I have gained over the last 2 years of adventures. Signing off.