On Likoma Island

The published schedule said the ferry trip from Nkhata Bay to Likoma would take five hours. That would put me ashore at some unnamed point at one o’clock Tuesday morning. Mango Drift, where I’d be staying for the next four and a half days, was about a forty-five minute trek somewhere across the island from here. It didn’t seem prudent to be stumbling clueless around this strange place at 0100 hours. Hence my relief to have arrived on African time, as I’d hoped we would. It was 5 a.m.! Though we’d arrived late, we landed just in time for the change of command ceremony. The dark blues of night surrendered to pastel mauves, yellows, and pinks. In the distance across a twenty-five mile stretch of calm lake, the sun inched its way from behind the hills of Mozambique. The new day was warming quickly.
A trio of South African brothers, a couple of Brits, and I were all relieved to hear that Mango Drift had sent a launch to taxi us around the bottom half of the island to our west side digs.

At Mango Drift I was pointed to a bamboo hut with three wood-shuttered windows sans screens or panes, a bed with a mosquito net and single bare light bulb dangling overhead, and a wooden door with no lock or key. I soon found myself curiously peering down into the knee-high tower of the eighteen-inch square cement security box intended for storing valuables (for which one had to supply one’s own lock). I was bewildered to see either an enormous spider or the spindliest crab ever. It turned out to be a “spider crab!” Likoma is purported to have a crime rate of zero, so there’s little need for either the lock the box or the spider crab to guard its contents.

Likoma is a great place to unwind. I alternated between days chilling on the beach reading and cooling off in the clear blue water and exploring the island. On New Year’s Eve day, young men beached their dhow at Mango Drift and unloaded firewood they’d brought over from Mozambique. It would fuel the bonfire we’d build at Mango Drift that night. Seven miles east one can see Chizimulu, Likoma’s sister island, rising proudly from the lake.

I set out to explore Likoma, hiking past humungous baobab trees, up and over rocky hills, and along a dirt path into and through local villages. By now, I’m accustomed to the scads of curious children who try outrunning each other to greet a fair-skinned muzungu. I greet them and shake hands with some brave ones. We all exchange smiles. My footpath cuts right through villagers’ “yards” and I find myself ducking beneath clotheslines to avoid getting tangled in laundry dancing in the breeze. As the hills sloped downward I finally came to a stand of tall shade trees and oddly enough, eyed what looked like a gothic window. “Could this be some pious Malawian’s home?” I wondered. It turned out to be my destination, St. Peter’s Cathedral, aptly named for the apostle who fished. Completed in 1905, European Anglicans built this massive structure using only local labor and materials, including Likoma red mud-clay bricks. Those Anglicans are said to have been the driving force behind the 100% literacy rate Likoma once enjoyed. After touring St. Peter’s, which is still active today, I made my way through the small town of Chipyela. Like many roads on Likoma, the road through Chipyela leads to the waters of Lake Malawi, across which Mozambique looms in the distance. Here too, piled on the beach, are mounds of firewood. Likomans would cherish the luxury of using it to usher in a new year with a bonfire.