And then they got into the car!

 Only one side of the road was paved for the first part of our journey to Ludzi School for girls. The Malawian government is working to make the main thoroughfare a four-lane road and the work is only half done. This week marks the start of the rainy season, so the locals are not optimistic that it will be finished any time soon.

The Ludzi school was about 3 hours away from our hotel. We drove through the city of Lilongwe and

continued on through the countryside. If you have ever read the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books, this was the place where you'd have seen Mma Precious Ramotsw walking with her cassava water bottle. The dirt, the earth is red and jewel-toned. The trees are green and unobstructed by any building, and the landscape goes on and on until it runs into the blue of the sky, the contrasting colors are not so much breathtaking as meditative. They are muted somehow and create a beauty I've not breathed in before. It looks exactly as I expected, in alignment with many books I've read that take place in Africa, but in person, it's different. 

There are people everywhere. Walking, riding bikes, motorbikes, cars. There are cows. There are goats. And everyone uses the road. There are no stop signs, no stoplights, and they drive on the left side of the road. It's very disorienting at the start. And it's totally chaotic. But no one honks and everyone somehow seems to get where they are going.

I will post later about the people I have seen along the road, but today, I want to tell you about the police presence. There are police stops about every 60 miles. Drivers must slow down, either be waved through or stop and show the officer their driver's license, and for us, we were waived through each time. 

Early in the day, one of my colleagues and I returned to the airport to pick up the form we needed from the officials there. As we left the airport to meet the others for lunch, we passed a police officer in the middle of the road-- he looked like he was directing traffic. Dumisani (my coworker) pulled over and told me that the officer had signaled for us to move to the side of the road. He had barely slowed down when the cop got into the back seat along with his partner. It was the wackiest thing, I am telling you. So we drove them down the road for about eight minutes or so, and they got out. Apparently, it's normal for the police to catch a ride from whomever they want whenever they want. Dumisani was not phased; he barely offered a shrug about the whole thing. I, on the other hand, was completely befuddled.

We are heading out now to go to a market and then having lunch with the event coordinators who we are collaborating with on our event this Tuesday. It should be a fun day!

The side that is not paved is bumpy like the start of a ride that bounces you around the inside of the car