The Beach Boys

On the day i left Monkey Bay it seemed everyone else did too. There was a funeral in nearby Cape McClear and the ute i climbed into was so full there was no room to hold on. As we turned the corners even the locals squealed. 20km later, i stepped off petrified.

While walking down the beach that afternoon, friendly locals abound, and i wasn't far before a group of boys invited me to the bar for a beer. Malawi, like the rest of Africa, has great local beers. They have a Carlsberg Brewery, and another brand, Kuche Kuche, whose slogan once translated reads "Drink till sunrise", promoting its relatively low alcohol levels. The locals tend to drink Chibuku, which come packaged in a milk carton, and needs to be shaken before each sip to carbonate it. Its rather foul....

Soon the boys from Monkey bay turned up at the bar. Leylo, who had walked me to the hostel a few days early in Monkey Bay, lived in Cape McClear and invited me for dinner. I agreed, and later on we walked though the markets buying fish, tomatoes and onions. Leylo sang and danced for all the store owners, obviously well known in his little town. We dropped the food off at his Mum's house, who would prepare it.
"Does she mind cooking for everyone?" I asked, testing Leylo's realisation of the male dominated society.
"No" he says, "Ive been away, she missed me and wants to cook for me". I laughed.
"Yeah, my Mum would do the same" I said.

As our food was cooking we headed to another bar a few blocks down. It seemed that halfway through this beer Leylo lost it, he was completely drunk within a few minutes. He slammed his beer down on the concrete table, it broke and spilt all over my lap.
"Leylo, go home, and have some dinner, and im going back to my lodge." I said "Thanks for your invite tonight, ill see you tomorrow." I wandered off down the road with Leylo following me the whole way, asking why and denying he'd spilt anything. The next day he meet me in the street and sheepishly apologized for his behaviour.

In the mornings in Cape McClear i made an effort to walk to the markets and buy my breakfast from one of the local stalls, rather than the hostel. One morning two young girls about 8 years old meet me on the path to the market about a kilometre down the beach.
"Excuse me Mother, where are you going" they asked. (Mother and sister are used as generic terms for a woman). I told them to the markets.
"Would you mind if we held your hand while you walked?" They said. They both took a hand each and laughed and giggled, whispering in the local language the whole way. When i reached the markets both girls hugged my knees and ran off smiling. "Thank you!" They called.

The lodge i was staying at was a sleepy small hostel with a few volunteers who worked in the local area, and a couple of lazy travellers. I meet an older German man who was travelling with his son, around my age. He had been to Africa before, in the 70's he and a friend had tried to drive from Germany to Cape Town in a Volkswagen Beetle. They had come through Morocco and across West Africa. At the border of Zaire (now DRC) they waited for weeks for visas. Eventually they had to give up and they sold the car. A week later there passports arrived, visas included, but it was too late and instead they had to return home.
"All my life i have dreamt of the shores of Lake Malawi" laughed the man as he looked across to the islands in the bay. "I have three children. I promised all of them that when they graduate school i will take each of them to Africa." His son was trip number two, Malawi and Zambia. His eldest daughter had requested a trip to Madagascar a few years earlier, his youngest was planning an ambitious rafting trip down the Niger River in a few years time.

I took lunch in a local restaurant. The restaurants in Malawi are lovely. The walls are painted with colourful messages welcoming all, and the waiter will fuss over your tea like they have never made it before. The menu is mostly the same, fish with rice or Nysima, a stiff maize porridge you eat with your hands (known in other countries of Africa as Ugali or Posho). But i began to suspect they never even brought the ingredients for your meal until you ordered. It often took two hours to prepare a meal despite the fact the restaurant was empty. When it finally arrived it didn't disappointed, and i was glad nobody was around to see me struggle without cutlery.

Back at the hostel, i ran into the German man again. He told me of his wonderful afternoon. He told me at first he didn't move for hours, but then he moved to a chair on the beach. Now he's thinking of moving to the hammock. He may even order a coffee. I agreed it was just to easy to do nothing except enjoy the peaceful surroundings. "A few more days and I might not bother getting up, just sleep all day" I said. He smiled and said he’s looking forward to that point.

Despite Cape McClear's reputation as a backpacker hangout where you can do nothing for weeks on end, after a few days the village boys drove me crazy and i couldn't wait to leave. It wasn't their attempts to sell me jewellery or batiks, in the end it was simply there continual presence. Most of them knew my name, either being the boys i had met at the pub or friends who had been introduced to me since. They would catch me on the street, follow me around, desperate for anything to fill in there days with. Despite there unfaultable English, i couldn't hold a conversation with them, we had nothing in common to talk about past a basic introduction. I could ask them what they planned for the day but the answer was always nothing.


They would quiz me for information about Australia, something which i gave out reluctantly and sparingly. They asked me what jobs my family had, and when i told them my sister was studying, she wants to make movies, they responded saying how great my country must be, you can do anything you want. After that i couldn't really explain that it wasn't that simple, that Tess was never guaranteed to do that, and she might never make any money from it, but explaining to boys who had the choice of being a fisherman, or not being a fisherman it didn't translate. There was of course a lot of truth to what they were saying, we were given more opportunities. I found it hard work.

It was such a shame. All the beach boys i met were all intelligent, well spoken, young, fit boys with nothing to do all day. Universities and corporate companies would have snapped up the same class of young men born in Australia within weeks of graduating. In Malawi, despite how well they had done at school, if they had no one to sponsor them, they would never attend university and jobs don’t exist. Charismatic salesmen, alongside the suitcase full of useless jewellery they sold me, the guys scrounged a living from tourists, running guided walks, taking trips in friends fishing boats, and getting there sisters to cook traditional dinner on the beach for groups. Unfortunately, the number of beach boys outnumbered the tourists, even in the warmer months.

I crawled through the bush to the most remote point of the Cape, careful no one was following me, desperate for some quiet time on the beach alone. There were no lodge or huts in the area, just bush and the occasional fisherman passing by, calling out and flexing their muscles for my camera. It didn't take long, it was about 20 minutes before i was joined by Frankson and a couple of his mates who politely bought up the chance to have a look at there jewellery. Other Australians had told Frankson that we couldn't take seeds home, which most of the jewellery contained, so he had made some pieces out of wire that were Australian customs safe!

After his friends left Frankson stay behind to chat. I told him that it bothered me that there were so many beach boys, and that there businesses seemed unsustainable given the few tourists around. He said in the past there was more, and of course fewer boys selling their goods, but these days it was hard, and he maybe only sold a few pieces a week.

After leaving school Frankson had attended University in Blantye, supported by his brother, a fisherman, who had look after him since his parents died when he was young. When his brother lost his job, Frankson had no money to continue his education and had to come home.
"When i came here i had nothing to do, and all the time i had to ask my brother for money. He showed me how to make jewellery, and now when i sell some i can take money back for his children."

I asked about women our age. He said this is a problem in Malawi too. When women mature they often have children very quickly and stop their education. But, I said, if they see that the men their age cant get jobs then getting married and having children may seem about the nicest path available. No, said Frankson, Malawi has gender equality, the problem is we are not educated. Education is the key, i have none and therefore i must sell jewellery.

To me it seemed despite what education they had, Malawi’s future creative class were wasting away in the sun on the shores of the lake. As a land locked country in Africa, the barriers to establishing industries in the country were high, and therefore not many past the American Tobacco Company had bothered. I thought about it for a long time, but I didn't come up with any answers.

I left the Cape early the next morning, the first bus out, with no time to say goodbye.