A week ago, Annette and I played our own version of the Probability Game up near Livingstonia. In case you’re not sure, probability games are probability games bet on the odds of a guess landing in your favour.
Obvious examples of this are the coin toss, the dice roll and from an old cartoon of Calvin and Hobbes (don’t ask why I remember this!) the peanut butter on toast test (to see how often it lands peanut butter side down). Probability games
Our version went something like this:
So we’re stuck in a little village about a 1/2 hour walk outside of Livingstonia. A lovely little place that would be nice to stay in for a few days, only that Annette and I both need to get back. We got dropped off which means our transportation left us there with a “good luck”-esque farewell. Our options, which mounted as the day got on were:
• Walk to Livingstonia and try to get a ride in an Ambulance or university vehicle (we tried this… the hospital chief wasn’t having any of it).
• Walk to Linvingstonia and try to find a ride in the back of a truck.
• Walk from Livingstonia to Chilumba (estimates for walking ranged anywhere from 3 hours to a day), maybe hope to catch a ride in the back of a truck on the way there.
• Walk to the waterfall (about an hour) and hope that there were some tourists passing through that day.
From any of these places, we could try to go Chilumba-Mzuzu, Chilumba-Lilongwe, Livingstonia-Rumpi-Mzuzu, etc, etc…
Essentially, as the day wore on, more possibilities presented themselves until we were quite overwhelmed. If someone had told me “You have to go to Chilumba. That’s all there is to it!” Then I could have done so. But with this many options, this many bets on where would be a passing truck/tourist/NGO/ambulance…
What happened?
Well exactly what you might expect. All that guessing and thinking was useless since we got up the next morning, walked half way to Livingstonia, found a flat bed truck and got on. We got dropped off in Rumpi, found the next mini-bus to Mzuzu, made it to Mzuzu, and I got on the next big bus to Lilongwe and made my way there!
Reality trumps the probability game.
Annette sitting on a bag of maize on the back of a truck
A very empty mini-bus
OOh, the probability game. My favourite. The instant I signed on to your blog I thought “hey, what a nice theme”. THen I read that you were trying to pick a theme, I say: this one.
I hope things are going well in the UK (expectations and all!!)! Thanks again for the visit.
Talk soon
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