no.stupid.answers

Hey there! How’s going? Feel like learning about speeds of dugout canoes on Lake Malawi today from Jim? I knew you did!

What’s the average speed of a dugout canoe on Lake Malawi?

As many of you know, I was in Africa for several months this year including several weeks in Malawi, almost all of which were spent on the shores of beautiful Lake Malawi. Almost immediately upon arrival I was intrigued by the very question asked by a clearly intelligent WikiAnswers participant, as noted above. Immediately I began to devise experiments to determine the average speed of the canoes.

I thought the best way to discover the answer to this perplexing riddle was to be in the water itself next to the canoes. However, almost from the beginning things began to go horribly wrong. Unknowingly, I swam into the sacred nesting grounds of a group of hippos. Hippos don’t eat meat, but they will crush you to death if they feel threatened and are responsible for more human deaths in Africa than lions, tigers, polar bears, penguins, bald eagles, and raccoons combined!

Before I knew what was happening, I was fighting off a pack of hippos armed with waterproof guns and huge powerful jaws that kill a man with one bite. Fortunately, I made it past the few hippos, but soon thereafter I encountered my next challenge: overly chlorinated water.

My eyes began to burn like the fires of a fiery-hot hell. Someone thought it would be a good idea to try to chlorinate this part of Lake Malawi and accidentally spilled 2 million metric tons of chlorine into this one part of the lake. Ironically, this accident is what led me to solve the great riddle of the dugout canoe speed. Seeing that I was in excruciating pain, a fisherman paddled over to me and put me in his canoe. He paddled me back to shore and took me to the local clinic for treatment. On the way I asked him what the average speed of a dugout canoe was and he kindly responded: ten kilometers per hour.

I want to wish our Jewish readers out there a happy new year and to all my friends in Malawi and the rest of you, have a great October.

Yours truly,

Jim

Ever since Jim returned from his journey through Africa, he has shared with me many of his tales of wild travels and high adventures.

But, c’mon, we all know what that’s like so I thought we should share one of the highlights of his months touring Africa: his discovery of his favorite person of all time (plus, it  has something to do with chocolate). So prepare for a mouth-watering, yet friendly, WikiAnswers Wednesday:

Who is your favorite person of all time?

Mr. Chocolate is my favorite person of all time. He’s a kind, gentle old man living in Nkahta Bay, Malawi. His real name is Finlayson Nyirenda, but everyone calls him Mr. Chocolate because each night he sells chocolate bars to the tourists at one of the hostels in the town called Mayoka Village.

He got started in this enterprise several years ago on the advice of an Israeli tourist, and hasn’t looked back since. So each night he meticulously lays out his chocolate bars in a very particular order that only he knows, sits next to the table in his designated chair, and promptly dozes off. You have to nudge him when you want some chocolate for him to wake up, and he immediately does with a huge smile on his face and a nice laugh. The chocolate is not cheap, especially for local standards, but you can’t help but want to give him your money.

I highly recommend engaging him in a conversation about the area, since he has lived for 74 years, well beyond the average life expectancy in Malawi. His family is related to all the chiefs in the area, and he has been a key part in the history of the town during his lifetime.

I came to Nkhata Bay intending to stay for a couple of days, but ended up staying for two weeks in Nkhata Bay, in large part, because I couldn’t bear to leave Mr. Chocolate. His infectious smile, gentle and friendly nature, and giant purple hat have put him at the number one spot on my all time favorite people list.

~ Jim