ribbing of man who calls him "white man"
Malawi was where he served as a PCV and got the clap, apparently
he wants to spend his 60th b-day teaching at his old school
vows never to ride small buses again (299)
pg 300: potholes are speed bumps - but on good roads, they speed - vans are overstuffed (301)
pg 306: realizes his "teaching gift" to Malawi "was nothing special." like the charity vehicles he passed
pg 310: Theroux complains about the rain and an African says that's because he's a Westerner; Africans love the rain - Theroux decides: "This seemed to me a pretty fair assessment of cultural difference." - funny
pg 311: meets a long time aid worker - Theroux asks her what will happen when she leaves: "They'll just die," she says. Perhaps this is the core chapter...
pg 315: "What went wrong here?' - "In other countries I was a detached observer, but absurd as it seemed, I took the Malawian situation personally."
- this is the chapter where he feels the most, puts forth the most emotion - perhaps why I was annoyed with the read at other times: he's just a passerby, little attachment, just an observer (but can a travel writer do otherwise? Thubron didn't get emotional much either, but his book was good. Perhaps it was his interest in the people, the culture, the history - he felt a need to understand and the reader could tell. Theroux did have a sort of bond with the continent, too, though he showed it by being, well, a wiener
met with ambassador - he did not like Theroux's passionate jabs
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