Went to Zomba. Zomba is beautiful because of the Ku Chawe mountain and Zomba plateau. The weather is also nice and cool. I love Zomba. Mike Mittawa's (the one I used to go out with) home town is Zomba and many of his relatives still live there. So, I went and stayed with his brother and sister-in-law, Joe and Diane Namkwenye. Joe and Diane took me up to the family cemetary, where Mike was buried. We first stopped at the home of Mike's other brother, Noel, because he lives very near the cemetary area. While the 3 women (the 2 sisters-in-law and me) sat and ate pumpkin, the 2 brothers did an advance trek in to talk with the village chief, to ask permission to go to the cemetary, and also to take the visitor (me) there. I asked Joe quite a bit about this, later on.
I asked him, "Does the land where the family cemetary is, does that land belong to your family?"
He said, "Yes."
I asked, "Then why did we have to ask the chief's persmission to go visit it?"
He said, "We didn't *have* to ask, but it is just respect. The chief presides over all the land in the village, and watches out for it. So, we asked."
Anyway, they are related to the chief, somehow. One time, when Mike was visiting in the U.S., he told my Dad that his uncle was a chief, and that he (Mike) was in line to become chief if he wanted to. But he said he didn't want to because the chief has too much responsibility, people always knocking on your door, night and day. Dad thought this was neat, and from then on kept calling Mike "Prince Mike" because he was nephew to a chief.
So, we 3 women waited for the return of the advance party. While waiting and eating pumpkin, Diane asked Noel's wife (who is the mother to Young Mittawa) about Young Mittawa converting to Muslim. I'd told Diane and Joe that I was surprised to find that he was now a Muslim, but discovered that Diane and Joe didn't know about it. So, when Diane asked Young Mittawa's mother, she acknowledged the conversion by rolling her eyes and saying, "yeesss." So, we spent the rest of our wait discussing Young Mittawa and his 2 wives and 2 homes.
About 20 minutes later, the advance party of Joe and Noel came back and said that the chief had given his o.k. So, we all walked up to the cemetary, which was about 1 km away. I knew 2 1/2 years ago that Mike had died, his daughter told me about it just after it happened. Also, I wasn't even seeing him any more at that time.
Despite that, I was very touched to actually see the grave, so here is a picture of it.Two graves over was buried his sister, Mabel, who Mike and I used to refer to as "crazy Mabel". She really was crazy. One time, Mike's fellow villagers called him and told him to come get his sister, because she was walking down the road, throwing pots and pans off her head. Nonetheless, she was always nice to me when she was in her normal states.
So, we stood around in the cemetary and did a prayer, and I asked if I could take this photo, and then we left.
I spent the night at Joe and Diane's. They had known several days in advance that I was coming, so they'd alerted their son, whom I knew and who was now living in California. So, the son rang from the U.S. that evening and it was nice to talk with him.
--------------------- TODAY ----------------- TOTAL
Cycled -------------- 84 km (51 mi) ----------- 4,541 km (2,844 mi)
Lift ------------------ 0 ----------------------- 2,660 km (1,768 mi)
Total ---------------- 84 km (51 mi) ----------- 7,201 km (4,612 mi)
In Saddle ----------- 6 hours 40 min ----------- 302 hours 55 min
Ascended ----------- 2,421 feet ---------------- 81,059 feet
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