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Lake
Malawi
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| Lake
Malawi has always attracted more than its share of reminiscent
travellers.
From the time of the Victorian missionaries and traders, whose little
steamers ploughed its waters in the cause of christianity and hard cash,
the accounts of visitors to the Lake are distinguished by an attempt to
pin down an essential mysteriousness, part of its unchanging quality which
has always managed to elude final definition. |
The Lake at Sunset
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The
area encompasses the Nankumba Peninsula and also various of the offshore
islands. This is the magnificent Cape Maclear where the scenery is
magnificent and where a succession of sandy bays are interspersed with
hills and rocky outcrops which rise steeply from crystal clear waters.
From Makanjira on the cast coast a lonely Arab dhow sets out on its
periodic trip towards Salima, the last of a whole race of dhows which in
the 19th century, linked the pre-colonial interior with the ivory and
slave markets of the Indian Ocean.
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Nature has endowed Lake Malawi with the
richest variety of tropical fish of any freshwater lake in the world. Up
to 500 species of cichlids are unique to these waters. Fresh lake Chambo
is a famous and delicious Malawi dish. In 1980 an area of the southern
part of this huge inland sea which is Africa's third largest lake, was
proclaimed the world's first Marine World Heritage Site in a Rift Lake.
The
cries of fish eagles, fishermen in dugouts silhouetted against the evening
skies, and the warm, sleepy atmosphere, make it impossible not to relax.
The Lakeshore is an excellent place for doing nothing but absorbing
Malawi’s warmth and beauty.
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Malawi Cichlids
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For centuries European explorers had speculated
about the existence of a great lake in Central Africa. Returning
travellers in the 17th and 18th centuries offered descriptions of the lake
they had heard about with some even claiming to have seen it.
Cartographers such as de L'lsle and d'Anville began to produce maps with
the shape and position fairly accurately portrayed.
 On
a visit to Mozambique in 1856 David Livingstone visited
Tete where he met Candido Cardosa. Cardosa claimed to have visited the
lake ten years earlier and promptly drew a sketch map of it which
Livingstone annotated.
After his original plan to explore a way up the
Zambezi River was thwarted by the Kebrabasa Rapids, Livingstone began a
journey of exploration up the Shire River to Lake Nyasa. Although he was
certainly not the first European to gaze upon the Lake, it was he who
exposed its presence to the rest of the world and claimed the honour of
its 'discovery'. He described it as 'a lake of stars' in reference to its
glittering surface. In true Livingstone style his diaries detail his
observations of the Lake and its people. His notes embraced the length and
breadth of the Lake the coastline, boats and fishing, trade,
slavery and climate.
He saw the evidence that thousands of slaves were
being transported over the Lake each year to be sold in the slave markets
of East Africa. He reasoned that a gunboat on Lake Nyasa and an
alternative trade to that in human beings, together with Christianity,
would put an end to the slave trade. His plea for missionaries to bring
Christianity to Central Africa was answered and the history of Malawi took
a change in direction.
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The lakeshore craftsmen are very inventive.
Stands of hats, row after row of them in a vast variety of shapes and
styles, compete with rows of toys also made from basket work but with
ingenious detail - car bonnets that open, helicopters with rotors that
turn and Land Rovers with spare wheels. Baskets of great variety provide
an overwhelming choice while skilled wood carvers produce prized artifacts
which will always conjure up happy memories of time spent at the Lake.
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Traditional Dugout
Fishing
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| Today tons of dried utaka and matemba
provide a staple diet for villages far into the interior. Traditional
village fishing techniques include seine-netting, ring netting, gill
netting and traps. Many canoes are still used but plank boats are favoured
when affordable, because they can carry bigger loads. Some of the huge
harvest is preserved by sun drying but mostly it is smoked in the lakeside
villages. |
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Watching
the graceful dip and swoop of a passing dugout canoe, or perhaps walking
along a beach to find thousands of fish drying on wooden trestles, it is
tempting to make lie romantic assumption that here is a way of life as
timeless as the beauty of the Lake. In fact, the dugout canoes have seen a
transformation in the fishing industry which has made them part of an
active contemporary economy. The arrival of the bicycle started the fish
on their way to the markets of Blantyre and Zomba.
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Traditional Fishing
Village on the shores of the Lake
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| Much employment is generated, not only for those who fish, but
also for those who build and repair boats, make nets and travel long
distances to sell the shining harvest of the Lake... |
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