“There’s nothing on the top but a bucket and a mop, and an illustrated book about birds…”

Zomba was eventful: very relaxed, but at the same time depressing and at one point profoundly terrifying.

The Zomba plateau is one of the major tourist attractions in Malawi. It’s beautiful, with an incredible view from the top, even when overcast, as you can see. The plateau itself is actually a raised forest of sorts, being covered in thick foliage, which makes it a great and unusual bird-watching site (and indeed, my first visit was the only time I’ve seen a Turaco). Unfortunately, the pace of deforestation in Zomba is absolutely mind-boggling. Without exaggeration, if you drive up to the plateau at 8:00am and then down again at 4:00pm, as we did more than once, you can actually see the difference in tree cover. There are apparently no restrictions on logging there, and with property rights unassigned, the result is deforestation at a rate that will soon wipe out the economic potential of the area, both in terms of natural resources and as a centre of tourism.

While that was depressing, terror came on the drive back to Lilongwe. We’d just stopped to buy some vegetables by the side of the road, pausing to chase off a shameless teenager trying to nick our hubcaps, when, travelling at about 80km/h (as you do in Malawi), we rounded a corner to find that a couple of inattentive children had let their cattle wander into the middle of the road. Snowball, who was driving, slammed on the brakes and spun the car around. As we skidded to the side, the car filled with the smoke of burning rubber from the tyres and my life flashed before my eyes, with highlights including Phastard Wednesday winning the Island School Six-a-Side Football Competition, lunch at Oriental Condor in Oxford and AC/DC at Wembley Arena. All this reminiscing was brought to a halt by the realisation that Snowball had actually saved us with a piece of driving worthy of Michael Schumacher. Thankful that I hadn’t eaten my last hamburger, I resolved to stop my constant teasing of her and to tone down my criticism of her taste in music. This nonsense lasted about five minutes, roughly the length of one of those mind-numbing Coldplay ballads she loves so much.

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I’m once again rambling with a time lag this week, because my internet at home conked out. This time, though, not even my phone is working. A fair proportion of Lilongwe have had their phone lines killed by some bugger who’s gone and stolen a bunch of wires from Malawi Telecom. One wonders what the black market rate for used telephone wire is…

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I’m still trying to work out how to actually ensure that people come to meetings here. I know its possible; last week I attended a meeting at which around 30-40 people from around Malawi turned up. Meanwhile, the strategy paper I’ve been working on has suffered from mixed attendances at key meetings, though we’ve tried every method of invitation delivery bar carrier pigeon. Today, I used e-mail, hard copy (hand delivered), fax and telephone invitations. I’ll let you know how it works out.