It is 11 o’clock on a chilly and wet Saturday morning and Samuel Mailosi, a plastic bag vendor in Malawi’s commercial city, Blantyre, takes cover on the veranda of a Chinese Shop near Portugalia Restaurant.
Weekends are normally the crust of business as that is when most people go around in various shops to get their weekly needs.
The drizzles stop and Mailosi’s face lights up a bit, thinking that maybe the customers will walk out of their houses and come and shop.
Without people coming to shop in town, Mailosi argues, there is no plastic bag business.
“It has been like this since yesterday [Friday]. The rains have been continuous, thereby not giving chance for people to walk out of their houses to shop,†he said in an interview on Friday.
“Even those who drive, they cannot come to town as most of them do not have fuel due to the fuel shortage. It is a double problem,†said Mailosi, clad in a red T-shirt, blue jeans and black sandals.
Minutes later, the downpour resumes and suddenly Mailosi wears the somber face once more.
George Makina, a minibus driver operating between Chilobwe and Blantyre, is not having a good weekend either.
Some three hours after registering his minibus on the waiting list of buses to Chilobwe, his turn does not come. No one wants to travel in the downpour.
Walking into the Blantyre Flea Market, which is usually busy on Fridays and Saturdays, one can only hear music coming from hi-fis in vendors’ stalls with little or no buyers.
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According to the Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services’ website, Tropical Cyclone Funso in the Mozambique Channel was gradually moving eastwards.
The Department said Funso is expected to remain in the Mozambique Channel, bringing unstable moist air from the Indian Ocean into the southern half of Malawi while enhancing Congo Air mass over the northern half of the country.
“Expect torrential rains mainly over the southern half of Malawi that will trigger flooding in flood prone areas,†said the website.
