Watch Your Step!

Every Year the District of Karonga floods. The roads and markets are swamped. People continue to trudge through the mess because its just another day of the rainy season here. Bicycles send up plumes of spray as the cyclists power through the water. People hop from a concrete curb, to a wooden plank, to a brick, trying to avoid the lake of water. In unavoidable circumstance they merely remove their sandals, hike up their clothes and slog through. The government has installed large trenches on the sides of most roads in the places where flooding is known to be worst. These trenches are normally filled with questionable water, murky fluid, trash and a bit of *cough you can guess.

This day the water filled the trenches and the roads so they looked seamless. Luckily Adam and I knew about the trenches. We remain largely unfazed. Our hiking boots are water proof and high enough that we are safe from the water. We walk slowly through the muddy brown water to avoid holes. Adam and I part ways to do separate errands and agree to rondevous in front of the bus depot. My brief excursion was uneventful, but Adam however, was not so lucky.

In mid-step across a trench, an unwary biker nudged Adam at the exactly wrong moment. In a classic hit -and-run scenario the biker speeds off. However Adam was mid-step. In order to maintain balance he needs to put his foot down...Off balance, Adam, His large pack towering over him inhibiting agility, the only way to go, is down the trench.

Instantly he is waist deep in questionable water. It smells foul and now he is drenched. All the Malawian spectators point and laugh.

Wet, angry and embarrassed, Adam approaches me, dripping. I can't help but laugh even though his phone's friend and my camera was in his pocket. Luckily(Months later) it still works. (well except that their is sand in the lens and so it wont open) Luckily I had just gotten a second camera.

Adam goes and changes in the restaurant bathroom. Next we wait in the sweltering mid-day heat for a hitch down south. Adam has his shoes tied to the back of his pack and has to spend the next few days in flip fops. A woman on the side of the road offers to sell us bananas.
"Buy Bananas!"
They are green and rather unappealing. We politely decline. The she points to me and then the baby strapped to her back.
"Have baby", wrapped an no doubt adorable, I have to decline this offer as well.