MARTIN'S BLOG

Mixing travel with work in Likuni could not have been more fruitful than our recent excursion into northern Malawi. After a gruelingly cramped seven hour bus journey, finishing with sways through the bright pines and lush green prairies, we disembarked (an honest term for getting off a bus in Malawi) into the busy streets of Mzuzu. After a few turn of streets, Marta pointed out a stand offering fried skewered mice, still with ample fur, long thin tails and recognizable denture, all to the calming down of a ravenous appetite we had cultured. We ended up quenching our thirsts for cerveza (which has done all but diminish whilst in Malawi) in a shady garden where we met with ‘Freedom`, a local teacher that had previously been in contact with Oscar. There we made plans to visit his home, a one room shack overlooking field and cattle, and his school, reached by a half hour drive through typically Northern timber forests and formed of half-finished buildings with absolutely no resources that can lead to a worthwhile education. We stayed one night at the pleasingly cosy backpackers ‘Mzoozoozoo lodge’, which we all agree, with the meager one sheet duvet, the deceptively high altitude and a naïve arrangement of night wear, remains one of our most freezing sleeping experience. Upon arrival at the school the following morning, it became clear how much our presence meant for them as we were greeted with a celebration of song and dance, an arranged meeting with the village chief, a community of elders and a horde of kids. After taking Freedom´s details and promising to bring funds for fundamental and basic needs – finishing the buildings, buying exercise books and the creation of a rudimentary library - we left to head for the shores of Nkhata Bay. With the drive only just surpassed by the enchantingly beautiful succession of bays that draw the coastline of this surprisingly untouched region, we arrived to the quaint lakeside bungalows that had been waiting for us. After spending hours indulging the scenery – leaving the Martas tanned and Jorge Spain-red, listing the number of places we´d like to make ours and a bar outing leaving Nacho and I with no memory of the according-to-segun-Marta ‘very eventful’ night, we had to leave this paradisiac outing behind and come back to our beloved Lilongwe.

The thought of leaving Malawi, the people we have worked with and the compañeros gives me much to ponder. The first reality came when Nacho and I decided to take a stroll through the surrounding ´barrio´, Chinsapo, the feeling of finding oneself in an entirely different world hitting harder, one face after another. The immediately ensuing visit to Senga Bay, its unforeseen surroundings and the extraordinary kindness of the local people, left me somewhat unprepared for the visit to the orphanage, our hearty hotel breakfast going down uneasy after Margaret telling us that famine would ravage across Malawi in the coming months, and, that what the orphanage currently provides still leaves these ‘niños menores de ocho años` hungry. My closest relation with Malawi has come through its people, and namely, ´Alfred´ and ´Chief´ -  the latter of which, upon contraction of Malaria, decided to keep on working until finally obliged to take a least a day off,  brushing it all off with the same warm smile encountered in all Malawi.

It is now only a few days before I leave and I am coming back from the chaotic ´chabola´, a few hundred thousand inhabited, where we have finally managed to meet with the families of our painter friends in their iron sheet dwelling. I write this to say thank you, to the people that have contributed to the project, to the people I have enjoyed living with and to the people of Malawi that have taught me far more than I could have had imagined. Outside the colossal personal enrichment experience this has been, it must be followed with the same energy once back in Europe so that we can assist (with comparatively low sums) the projects of development we have encountered.

Zikomo Kwambiri.

Martin