Friendly People
The people we have met have been extraordinarily friendly. Many a time we have been the only white faces in view but we have never felt threatened or even ill at ease. Even in among a group of twenty something guys there is no feeling of any threat. Quite the reverse most people want to chat. It may be the prelude to a sales pitch, but a polite No means they either move away of just carry on the conversation anyway.
Once we got past Vic Falls, and started driving through all the villages of Zambia and Malawi loads of kids just want to wave to see if they can elicit a wave back from us, which invariably brings on a beaming smile. Many adults would also respond to wave and even some male adolescents!
We’ve lost count of how many police check points we’ve had to stop at. Everyone starts with a “Hello how are you”. Some just ask where you are going, others want to see car docs. All are amazingly polite and friendly. Many exchange another couple of sentences chat before wishing us well, or safe journey or welcome to their country. Not one has been officious, rude or looking for anything untoward. We’ve met countless people on checkouts, front desks etc. Again they all wear that big African smile, have the same politeness and friendliness and actually look pleased and happy to have a job. UK might be a bit of a culture shock when we get back!
There have literally only been three exceptions to the friendly rule in our first 7 weeks.
Vic Falls – Bea took picture of Col in front of 10 foot tall carving of Didier Drogba. The guy in the shop asked for money for the photo and was a bit cranky.
Tanzania border crossing – Mr Car Minder demanding a second lump of money for his stickers. The only real attempt at a scam.
Livingstonia Church – Col took photo of the bell and a local warden jumped out of nowhere to tell him he needed to ask permission before taking photos. When we pointed out there were no signs, he made the mistake of telling us that people in our country always ask permission before taking photos of inanimate objects. He’s clearly not been to London! Just an odd attitude that left a bad taste The bell is an amusing story in itself. The Scots had set up this mission in the late 1800’s built a church of local bricks and put a lovely stained glass window in it. They commissioned a bell from Scotland and had it shipped out, but dropped it when it got to site, which of course means it won’t ring. In now stands on a pedestal 100m from the church
Moz Update – At our first police check point in Mozambique, this enormous cop standing at our window asked if we were ok, where we were going etc., then said do you have anything to drink? Sorry don’t understand. Maybe some water? We showed him a half empty bottle of water we had in the cab. He laughed a huge deep African belly laugh and then waved us through. That was his way of asking for a bribe. Inadvertently we had defused the situation perfectly! He wasn’t in any way threatening and explains what the gate man at Botswana/Zimbabwe border meant when he said do you have anything to drink (we thought that question was some kind of customs check at the time.) So far that is our only encounters with anyone asking for bribes. All very low key.