Pictures and thoughts of Malawi

We’ve just returned from spending 12 days in Malawi. Most of the time we were in Lilongwe, the capital city. It has almost 1,000,000 people, but it doesn’t seem like it. It was designed in areas with lots of open spaces and cornfields in between the areas. So it feels like you are in Illinois part of the time and then a shopping mall appears and a few buildings. There are no high rises or apartment buildings. Everyone seems to have a brick house (bricks are very abundant) and a yard. Traffic is not bad, even during rush hour, unless you get caught waiting for the presidential motorcade to pass by. It is very different than Maputo!


One day we went out with our friends who used to live in Maputo, Jon and Margaret. They took us to the crafts market and we started negotiating as the prices are cheaper than Maputo and they had some unique items. At one point Steve came over and told me that Jon was getting the price of 500 for the item that I was bargaining over. He said it in Portuguese and immediately several of the guys crowded around said, “Oh, I’m from Inhambane and I’m from Maputo.” So much for trying to be sly. At one point I was on my own and I said I’d have to consult with my husband. So I called him across the way “Steve.” Well, then everyone started calling him Steve and acted like they’d known him forever!

They also took us to a lovely garden area surrounding some restaurants and shops. Here are some of the flowers.


My week was filled with traveling to a village, Ntchisi, one hour away to do a MED training. It was intense as I found out that very few of the villagers spoke or understood English. That was a surprise to me as I thought most Malawians knew English as a second language. Apparently they do not teach English in the schools until the higher grades plus this village was isolated until they recently blacktopped the road.


Steve went out to Ntchisi a couple of days, one to help with the training and another to supervise construction of a chicken house along with a team from Minnesota. The rest of his week was spent in the office and consulting with the WR agriculture and trade people.


We lost track of how many coffin making shops we saw—at least 20 along the roads. Sad to say, it is a booming area for business.

We spent our 30th anniversary at Lake Malawi which was basically deserted except for the locals. It is a beautiful place, although it is sad that the lake is so contaminated with bilharzias and other runoff. It doesn’t stop the locals from bathing, washing their clothes and swimming in the lake.



Baobob fruit sales

There were many baobab trees along the way and fruit alongside the road. This is what cream of tartar is made from but we’re not so fond of eating it as it is dry and powdery. I was trying to take a picture of some guys along the road selling the fruit, but they all jumped up and came to my window.



Here’s one man’s solution to getting his tilapia home from the lake—tie it to your mirrors (on both sides)! That way it stays cool and doesn’t stink up the car.


The mountains everywhere are beautiful and sometimes it felt as if we were in Puerto Rico. Then other times when we saw the women in their “capulanas” with their babies on their backs and the thatched roofs it seemed we were still in Mozambique.


Back in Mozambique we saw this guy with his lovely bouquet of carrots.


In a store window we saw contrasts between old technology and new—a charcoal heated iron with an air conditioner and DVD player.



With that we’ll end our travelogue of Malawi!