themymble

On the road to Lilongwe we met a witch doctor selling ‘SEXPOWDER — Doctor physician approved’ with a metal sign. The sign showed a lady who had been pregnant too long — the powder had helped her give birth to a big baby wearing trousers and a jumper. Wayne said he would have tried it ‘but then I saw the spoon.’ We asked how long it would take to work: ‘Depends on how good your blood is,’ was the mysterious reply.

Later we were stopped by the tetse fly man. His job is to make sure vehicles don’t bring tetse flies on to his patch. Tetse flies are little buggers — they steal your blood with a painful sting and they spread sleeping sickness. We learned all about them in Serengeti — they fly into the back of the truck causing an ecstasy of slapping and jumping and shouting and waving. The tetse fly man was wearing a blue shirt — blue and dark colours attract tetse flies. First he checked the sun visors in the cab in case Wayne and Anne had any concealed there; then he waved his net around. We invited him into the back, but he wasn’t interested. Probably because we weren’t swearing and slapping each other with newspapers.