Blantyre! Blantyre!

So I have been absent on posting on my blog for a while because I went to Blantyre the week before last week. And last week the internet by my house wasn't working and I wasn't able to get to the internet cafe before it got dark. So as I was saying, I was in Blantyre. And I loved it. Blantyre was beautiful. It reminded me of home a bit. There was a shopping mall. For the whole weekend I ate only burgers, pizza and chicken wings. There was lots of American style fast food places. All the girls dressed like they were from the west (i.e. lots of people were wearing jeans, layered shirts and tights with the short skirts.). there were tons of different cultures in blantyre. It was just so refreshing. In Lilongwe people seem more reserved, a lot of women don't usually wear pants never mind jeans unless they are young girls or teenagers. But in Blantyre every one wears jeans. I went to a restaurant to eat one day in Blantyre, it was called Blue Savannah. I was speaking to some women and told them that at my work place the women are not allowed to wear pants. They seemed pretty annoyed by that. "Why's that?" they asked me. I told them I didn't know. They proceeded to talk about how they thought pants looked more professional then skirts. I laughed I couldn't imagine hearing people say that in Lilongwe. Even the night clubs in Blantyre seemed very much like the west as well. There were two floors, VIP seats and there was a huge assortment of drinks specifically my favourite one of all...SMIRNOFF ICE. It was heaven.
one thing to note is that although Blantyre is Malawi's commercial capital when I told people I was living in Lilongwe they would often say to me, "eh, lilongwe is where the money is?" I would laugh because I sure didn't see it. Many people in Lilongwe seem to be struggling. It doesn't seem like there is a lot of opportunity to find work in Lilongwe. There are people often on the street begging for alms, some live under Lilongwe bridge, while some of the street kids live in the sewage drains, and others make their living off of scavaging through garbage dumps.
But perhaps they are speaking about the large tobacco estates in Mchinji and in the other districts or the fact that now all the government buildings are in Lilongwe or that the cost of living is higher in Lilongwe.

As I am summarizing this trip two weeks later it's hard to remember all the details so I am trying to summarize as fast as possible since I am being clocked at the internet cafe. But while I was in Blantyre I was able to meet up with other colleagues from Canada who are part of the same NGO. It was definitely refreshing to speak to people who could understand what I was fully saying and who didn't always ask me to repeat myself. They understood my turns of phrases and little jokes that Canadians would understand. I will definitely be back in Blantyre. Enjoy a few picks from the city that my Canadian colleague described as being like LA. Me, although Blantyre was definitely impressive, I would describe it as being more like a Kingston, Ontario or a Waterloo, Ontario type of city. It definitely wasn't LA. Anywayz sorry for the sloppy post but please check out the picks. Click on the pic below.

Here's some background on Blantyre:

Blantyre is named after the town in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, where the explorer David Livingstone was born. Livingstone's missionary endeavours saw the establishment of the St Michael's and All Angels church. The church dates from 1891 and was famously built by a team of local workmen with no knowledge of architecture of building techniques.[1]. Urban development began in the colonial era with the arrival of missionaries, traders, and administrators and was further stimulated by the construction of the railway.[2] In 1956 it was merged with its sister city, Limbe, to form one city. As Malawi's main economic and financial hub, the city plays host to an international trade fair every year which takes place during the month of May. The event seeks to showcase the best of Malawian commerce, industry, agriculture and information technology and opened under a theme of “Building Productivity Capacity to Achieve Export Competitiveness” in 2007.[3] Blantyre is also home to the Malawi Stock Exchange located on Victoria avenue, the heart of the city. It opened its doors in November 1996 and operates under the Capital Market Development Act 1990 and the Companies Act 1984. Prior to the listing of the first company, the major activities that were being undertaken were the provision of a facility for secondary market trading in Government of Malawi bonds namely, Treasury Bills and Local Registered Stocks.-- (wikipedia)

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