The Warm Heart of Africa. Kevin M. Denny
at nine. I tagged along. The D.C. was a distinguished looking man, thin, dressed in a somewhat threadbare suit, at one time clearly expensive, tailored on Seville Row while on home leave. He wore an ascot rather than a necktie and rose from his desk graciously to meet us at the midpoint of his spacious office.
"Welcome. I understand you got introduced to the night life last night," he said, giving every indication that he did not ascend to the rank of District Commissioner without learning the importance of an intelligence network. "The chaps sure do enjoy their cups when they are traveling on a government voucher," he laughed sagaciously.
It was shortly before noon. Tim and Marilyn‘s furniture had been unloaded and we said goodbye, with Tim still looking as if he needed to be put out of his pain. I was now the only passenger in the cab and insisted that Ali and his wife join me. "No, Madam, it is much better for us here," he said from his perch on his bedding sack. His wife, a woman much younger than he, was shy to the point of coyness and gave no indication she could ever expect to be involved in a decision as momentous as this. All my supplication failed, "The Memsab must ride in the cab, not good for Ali," he explained. Several miles beyond Zomba, the plateau behind us now, we began to descend the escarpment. There was a panoramic view of the alluvial plain below. The forests began to dwindle. A scattering of palm trees appeared as we reached the bottom of the escarpment. It had become hot, tropically hot.
“Memsab, we must stop here and wait for the ferry," the driver explained, pulling up behind a line of cars and lorries. "Maybe, the Memsab wants something to drink?" he asked pointing to a small shop resting atop a slope. It was hot and my head still pulsated. I hadn't eaten since breakfast and it was now two o'clock. Jordan explained that Fort Johnston was still almost two hours away and we might have a long wait for the ferry.
The shopkeeper was an Indian, comfortable with travelers of all types who found their way to his riverside monopoly. "Memsab, you look very hot. Do you want something to drink?"
A quick scan of the meager offerings on his shelf made it appear unlikely that he would have anything safe to eat. "I have Coca," he says proudly. "Only place you can get. I have brother in Rhodesia who brings me every month."
Never before in my life had the thought of a Coke been more tantalizing.
My head throbbed and I felt shaky.
"I have cold one here," he said reaching under the counter to extract a green bottle of Coca Cola from a tub, covered by rags soiled with the grime of eons of enterprise. "I get ice from fisheries. Here. Very cold. You try," he said, wiping the bottle with an only slightly less rancid cloth than the one he used to cover his cooler.
"Where are you going, Madam?"
"To Fort Johnston," I responded, after draining half the bottle in a single swig.
"On ulendo, Madam?" he asked.
“No, I am going to live there.”
"Oh very good place, Madam. Too much fish!"
I accepted the offer of another Coke. The ferry could be seen from our lookout as it approached the far side of the river. "Look down there, Madam," he said, pointing to the river's edge on the far side, to the right of the ferry landing. "Hippos, Madam. This morning you can see a whole family, I think." At this point, I was able to see what looked like a boulder in the water a few yards from the reedy riverbank. A hippo stuck up its head for air and then submerged again...a stationary dark hump breaking the flow of the swift moving river. Soon, I was able to make out the entire family, including the smallest calf, hovering near her mother at the shoreline.
Africa was before me.
"Memsab, you look hungry. You must have a somosa. Very good. My wife makes fresh every day."
He held a plate, covered by a dainty circle of mesh, with small beads decorating the edges. The beads, with their weight, dangled over the edges of the plate, insuring the integrity of its hygienic seal. He lifted the cover and several flies escaped. He swatted them away with his free hand, "Memsab, you must try. Very good, very safe."
I succumbed. The somosa was delicious. I finished two more of the spicy Indian pastries, watching the hippos frolic as we awaited the return of the ferry.
There was no room for us on the next crossing. I found a flat stone by the river and leaned back, letting my face enjoy the full heat of the equatorial sun for the first time. Soon a swarm of boys from a nearby village surrounded me, giggling and dancing around me in their many-times patched shorts, finding me a far greater curiosity than the hippo across the river.
As we crossed the swift-moving Shire on the barge-like ferry, with its noisy diesel engine and steel cable preventing its down-river drift, Jordan spoke, "Hippo can be very dangerous. Good in water but very dangerous when they come on land. Steps on gardens and kill many peoples."
Twenty minutes further up the road, beyond a cluster of mud huts, I spotted the lake. I felt as excited as Livingstone must have been when he first "discovered" it in 1859.
"No. No." Jordan explained, "That is not the lake. That is just the small one. The lake is still coming."
We then passed through a stretch of deserted land. Jordan told me it flooded too often to build houses but that it was a good place for cows to graze in the dry season. It had a prehistoric feel. With a little imagination one could picture Australopithecans, walking upright for the first time, carrying stones in their now freed-up but still in adroit hands, while lions lurked behind the acacia trees and leopards roamed the foothills, fire yet to have been invented.
Once again, villages appeared. The clamor of a vehicle moving down the road, a plume of dust trailing, sent the ubiquitous hordes of children into fits of jumping and screaming. Once they spotted me riding in the cab, the inevitable chant began. "Mzungu!....Mzungu!....Mzungu!" There was no escaping it. I looked at my pale skin, speckled pink from the sun. I was the Mzungu.
Abruptly the dirt road gave way to asphalt. "We are here, Madam. This is Fort Johnston," Jordan explained. Large flamboyant trees canopied the road into town. The prehistoric look of Africa had disappeared. Jordan stopped the lorry at the only crossroad. Ahead was the swiftly moving river with mountains beyond. An impressive brick landmark lay ahead---Victoria Clock Tower---an intact monument to "Pax Africana". Several old cannons adorned the riverbank, a reminder that peace came with guns as well as with bibles to this land ravaged by the slave trade for decades before the arrival of the white man.
The town's post office was on the right with the District Commissioner's office on the left. An askari snapped to attention upon the arrival of a Government lorry: "Bwana Marsden not here now. Office is closed. You can find him at the cloob. He is waiting for you," he said with another stiff salute as we turned to leave.
"Jordan, what is the cloob?" I asked
"It is where the bwanas go for drink after work. It is just near." Obviously Jordon knew my new town as well as he had known Zomba. He led me to a building nestled behind the post office. He stopped short at the brick wall surrounding the building and its cracking and decaying tennis court. I approached and read on the discretely lettered sign: The Nyasa Yacht and Gymkhana Club. Beneath it, in still more distinguished gold lettering, was added, "Founded in 1881.”
I was greeted at the door by the inevitable starched and khakied guard with a faded red fez, who saluted, clicking his heels. I didn't know whether I was supposed to return the salute but was impressed with the clicking of his heels and straightness of his military posture. "I am trying to find the District Commissioner," I explained.
"Just follow that way," he said, directing me through the door he guarded so faithfully.
I edged through the entranceway, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. "I am looking for the District Commissioner," I explained once again, this time to those who might inhabit the dark oasis. As my eyes began to accommodate, I could make out a figure approaching. "Oh, and you must be Miss Jarrett," he said, adding, "We were hoping to see you yesterday," in a tone that made me begin to wonder whether I had broken etiquette by not calling ahead.
I tried to explain, "Well, you see I had to spend the night in Zomba because