The President, chips and Toyota Carina

If you'll excuse the length of this entry, here are some of the things that have happened over the past few days:

I've been tasked with buying our car. After much debate we have decided that it is just not feasible to sink every penny we have into a 4x4 & or two smaller cars. The roads are pretty bad (though not as bad as the driving!) but are generally passable with a good car. So we've plumped for a Toyota Carina and will either borrow or hire a 4x4 for those trips that we really need to. The car market is mad here and it is costing just the wrong side of £4k to get a 14 year old re-conditioned Carina on the road! If we're careful we should get most of that back, but blast the collapse of the pound!

Anyway, a guy Andrew knows through MM (Philip) has been great helping me with the negotiations. On Tuesday I found myself standing in field with about 5 guys negotiating (admittedly rather languidly), calling me 'sister' and pointing out the virtues of the '97 model over the '95 model. Then I had to test drive the car on what we would call 'off road' with two of them in the back giving me tips like 'you need to lift your left foot to make it go'. Yes, thank you. Thankfully I wasn't having to negotiate, just stood there trying to look uninterested but still ask sensible questions like “what size engine is it?”. Turns out “does it have airbags?” is not a sensible question.

Then we get to money. I've learnt the virtue of patience when trying various Malawian banks to get a bank account opened for Andrew and withdrawing the requisite MK 800,000 on my visa card. I've spent about a day queuing, filling in forms, getting forms signed and stamped (Malawians seem to have a zeal for receipts and stamping and signing things in triplicate). The transaction was completed in the back of someone's Honda in a bank car park with three guys brought in to act as witnesses to the 'contract' I wrote on a scrap of paper I had in my handbag. This seems to be how it is done here and looking at what some of the other ex-pats have paid for cars, I think we've got a good deal.

On the way to seal the deal Philip and I were stopped at a road block because the President (Dr. Bingu wa Mutharika) was driving past. We were giving a nun a lift to the market (as you do) and whilst we were waiting about 150 kids streamed out of a school and surrounded the car jumping up and down, shouting and singing Bingu's name – they were so excited and their energy was completely infectious. Found myself welling up and waving at him too as he drove past leaning out a window of his massive blacked out hummer. I don't know much about his politics but he seemed pretty popular at that point.

We are now the proud owners of a gangster style greeny gold Toyota. Hurray! But here is a final thought: I'm not that bothered by the kids that beg for money, happily telling them to get away and go to school, but was shocked by the desperation with which a teenage boy was banging on my car window as I was trying to drive away from the bank. I was on the phone and was trying to ignore him but the pleading got so intense and desperate I opened my window and said 'what'? He pointed at the tiny amount of chips in a container A had left in the passenger footwell. He had clearly spotted them when I was in the bank and waited for hours for me to come out to get them. Intensely desperate for a handful of left over chips – I really have no idea...

Fx