Wednesday woes...

Ah, yes, it finally happened. A not-so-happy day in Malawi. But don't worry, I'm o.k., and it wasn't anything major, just a bit of frustration with making an operator-assisted collect international call to my bank. It appears that no such thing exists here, as either the infrastructure is just not there to support it, or there have been problems with the receivers footin' the bill in the past. So, I need to make this post short, as I need to deal with this issue soon, and due to a power failure, I had to wait until late in the day to get online today.

The primary reason I needed to make this call was to have funds transferred from my "world's local bank" HSBC (my a@*, they are not as accommodating when one is overseas, unless you're in East Asia or Europe, apparently... be forewarned.) The back of my ATM card gives this lovely international number you can call "collect." However, after I found out that it's impossible to call collect from Malawi, I decided to call HSBC (after a fiasco trying to call them yesterday which drained the credits on my cell phone) and see if they'd call me back. After putting me on hold (resulting in loss of more credits), the woman came back on the line to tell me that they are not authorized to make return phone calls internationally. Perhaps they have good reasons, but the point I tried to make to her that collect calls are much more expensive than direct calls was apparently moot. So, after trying to get through on a landline through some staff here and finding the line consistently busy, I resigned myself to using the cellphone, which means going home and buying a billion 50-cent credits from the nice woman accross the road from me, and hoping it'll be enough to complete the transaction.

Why do I need to have this money transferred so urgently, you ask? Well, tomorrow I'm headed to Lilongwe to purchase a car. Once arriving here, I've realized that a car will be a necessity, not only because I'll need to commute almost daily to another college 20 mins. away, but also in order to travel around the area. You see, the only real public transportation is in the form of these so-called "mini-buses," which are really just 10-15 passenger vans, mostly imported from Japan and China, used to transport people between towns, often packed to the gills, and featuring daredevil drivers. If I had to endure this harrowing experience once a week, it might be an adventure. However, the idea of doing so every day is less than appealing, to put it mildly. Not only that, but I'd be faced with about a mile-long walk from the road to the college (Chancellor College in Zomba) each day. Not that I mind walking, but the fact that I'd have time constraints made a car purchase seem like a necessity.

Now, for the GOOD NEWS & BAD NEWS:

The good news is that I can find a reliable, used Japanese car here (Toyota's got a corner on the market here, which is a bonus for me--I'm a newly converted Toyota worshipper) for about $3,000-$5,000, and somehow it doesn't depreciate, so I should be able to sell it at the same price when I leave in June. The bad news is that I basically have to pay with a check from a local bank, and that's where my problem comes in with getting money wired here from my HSBC acct. They did mention some possible transfer through the internet, but I'm not sure how reliable that would be, so I'm trying to get this done, hoping I can make the transaction tomorrow.

Back to some good news. Apparently, the process of getting paperwork done (i.e. title, registration, insurance) is all handled through the dealer, so I don't have to deal with it on my own. The bad news is that I have to wait a good week for all of that to happen, and then pay someone to deliver the car to me (as I live about 4 hrs. drive south of Lilongwe.) Perhaps that'll give me enough time to get the money thing straightened out. So I guess that's some good news.

I'll just end with the good news, and leave it at that. Also, those lookin for the free bottle of gin: I will NOT be posting a new entry tomorrow, as I'll be out of town, and likely will not have internet access, so the offer will be null and void tomorrow (Thursday, Sept. 20). Have a great day!

On a sidenote, I did forget to mention exactly HOW Malawians eat in my last posting. They actually use their hands, scooping up really hot nsima and using it to pick up the other items (meat, vegetables). I'm now doing this part-time (one bite hands, the other bite fork), as usually the stuff is too hot for me to put my wimpy little nerve endings into (I guess here most people don't really have nerve endings in their fingertips), and I'm way too sloppy and just generally can't bring myself to eat non-finger foods with my fingers...well, not yet. I'm sure at some point I'll get the hang of it, as my boyfriend can attest... I'm a bit of a barbarian when it comes to eating. More on that later, hopefully with photo documentation! Bye for now! (Ya ya, I said it would be short... I'm a big fat liar, pants on fire..)