Meeting people in Lilongwe

My new Malawian Sister Sophie
Meeting people in town
When I left the Wildlife center I caught a minibus back to the center of town and then took another bus to Crossroads a shopping center on the northwest side of town. I needed some cash and Crossroads has two banks with ATMs that are never very busy – on Saturday mornings the ones at the banks in the center of the city have lines 30-40 people long. I also thought there was free wireless at the coffee house there but I was wrong – it was just a hot spot for a paid wireless and the store that sold the minutes was closed. I decided to try a burger – bad decision it was awful. There was a white couple sitting across the way from me – the woman smiled at me and we started talking. They are from England but having been living in South Africa for many years. They are moving to Malawi permanently on Tuesday to open a supermarket owned by a large South African company. They said they didn’t know a soul except a few business people and that their experience was similar to mine in approaching other English people in Malawi – they were ignored. I think the store they are opening will be a big asset since they will have a butcher shop with high quality meat and the store will be open 8-8 M-Sun. {Here in Lilongwe all the big stores close at 6 on weekdays and 1 on Sundays. The little mom and pop stores and the open markets like the Caphiri market near me stay open very late but carry mostly produce, dried fish, and goat or pig that has been hanging all day). We exchanged phone numbers and emails so I expect I will be in touch with them again.
I left Crossroad and walked back down the hill to the center of town and stopped to sit in the shade and have a Coke at the?food court?. There I met my new Malawi sister. An older woman dressed in a beautiful red traditional dress and head wrap began talking to me as I sat there. For some reason age came up and I said something about being older but she said she was 67 and then we discovered we were both nurses. Sophie Makwangwala studied nursing in Berlin in 1964 and came back to Malawi as one of the first German trained nurses. She went back to Germany again in the 1980s and got a specialty certificate in dermatology and now works at the dermatology clinic at Kamuzu Central Hospital. She invited me to her house telling me I could walk from my office because it was just down the street behind the hospital. Of course she knew Regina. When I returned home Regina commented, “Oh my, that woman can talk!”
On the way home on the minibus the men were testing my Chichewa and teaching me new words. I think they enjoy laughing at my pronunciation! A young journalism student who lives not far from me kept me company as the driver and his side kick tried to overfill the bus. By the time she and I got off = there were still 14 people on the bus and a number of really large packages. Because this bus goes all the way to Bunda (30km more), they really like to have to have it