golddog - I'm going to come visit you (well, visit my gajillion relatives and other friends in Denver, but you are included in the latter) when I get back, looking forward to exchanging more travel notes and telling stories in person.
So for anyone wondering what the interior of the ferry was like:
that was the regular seating area.
I had decided beforehand to spring for the first class section, which was about double the price (about $30USD) iirc. That didn't stop me from having a visitor who slept under my seat:
but it did provide a little more room. Here is the row of seats ahead of mine (that's my backpack next to the window seat where I was sitting) occupied by a couple of loleuros:
not the "chilembwe first class" sign taped to the wall. The crowded area from the previous photo is ahead and to the right, for perspective. I took this one after a lot of people had gotten off at an earlier stop so that's why the seats in the upper right are no longer jam packed.
Dude who was just a little too old to be in the club decided to sit with me, I suppose to keep an eye on me so I didn't blow his cover:
he's making avocado sandwiches there. He handed them out to the euros and got pretty mad when I declined. I told him to give mine to a local girl instead, who had been hovering around near us and was eyeing each sandwich with clear hunger. He said no and gave it to one of the euro girls instead. It was loleurogirl's second one. He did this right in front of the local girl. I don't know how much English she spoke, but I had motioned toward her as well when he tried to give me mine, so I know she knew what was going on. The look in her eyes when he gave it to loleurogirl instead was heartbreaking. Not that I still vividly remember that and am now back on lifetilt just recalling it or anything like that.
I ended up pulling a candy bar out of my bag and giving it to her, and the needle flipped to the side of the dial instantly. As mentioned before, it doesn't take much to make someone happy when they have literal nothing.
The loleurogirl started to give me a speech later about how I shouldn't give food out because it encourages dependence/begging, etc. I was in no mood for that bull**** and let her have it. She shut up pretty fast. I totally get the aid dependency argument, but this was a hungry six year old little girl wearing rags who hadn't asked for anything and wasn't bothering us in any way, not some random "local artist" dude pestering us and refusing to take no for an answer, or a large scale donation to a community. There's a difference. Giving a little food to one hungry kid is not encouraging aid dependency.