Skip to main content

From the Warm Heart of Africa, with Love

Time in Malawi went by so fast, I was surprised when my 8-month stay came to an end, abruptly, as if by surprise. While there, I completely fell in love with the country, its people really.

I found Malawians to be very hospitable, open and unassuming. The people I interacted with were genuine about their lives, their country and what they held dear. Though Blantyre, the commercial hub of the country is a small city, it is a melting point of many tribes; the Ngonis, Chewas, Tumbuka, Yao and so on.



Some "quick facts" about Malawi:

The majority of the people speak Chichewa, a bantu language akin to Swahili. In fact Chichewa shares a lot of words with Swahili such as mbuzi, (n)sima, madzi (water) etc. It was very easy for me to pick up what the people were saying, I could easily relate some words and phrases. Some people bear some interesting names like Mbuzi (goat) among others.

The country has a beautiful landscape; hilly, mountainous, waterfalls and great sweeps of natural growth, as beautiful as any I had ever seen. The friends I made confirmed that Malawi has many high mountains, including Mount Mulanje, a mountain they said was the third highest in Africa. My attempts to dissuade them led to some of them calling their primary school geography teachers to inquire on the veracity of my statements. This led nowhere, and I left with a resigned look at my Google search results page.
At the foot of Mount Mulanje, I forget the name of the town; spot one "Swahili" word


The people on the roads were mostly polite and patient; Blantyre has minimal honking on the roads. People wait their turn and give way as appropriate. I found this quite a blissful experience, in contrast to the rowdy nature of Nairobi roads.

Even though the people are quiet and peaceful on the roads, they love to drink their Carlsberg, party, do a braai and generally have a good time. In fact, one of my friends who happens to be a Ngoni swore by beer, chasing women, dancing to Afro music(Nigerian, Zambian and South African) and eating meat. Apparently these represent the 4 pillars of the Ngoni community.
The aptly named Zitherepano, which means "It ends here" in Mangochi


Malawians swear by a fish called Malawian Chambo. Apparently, it is not considered a complete trip to Malawi if you have not visited the lakeside town of Mangochi and eaten chambo. While on tour, we discovered a new specialty of chambo with chambo i.e. 2 split fish crisp-fried to perfection. Again, there was chambo with 2 legs, a story for another day. 

Beautiful smile on the shores of Lake Malawi in Mangochi, where the famous chambo comes from


Malawi is a beautiful country I intend to visit again, with enough time to explore the many hidden gems of the country.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Opportunities and challenges presented by the AfCFTA

President Kenyatta joined other African heads of state on March 21 in signing the #AfCFTA. What does this mean for Kenya? It means that Kenya's goods and services could have a broader market to sell to. It also means that locally made goods and services will face increased competition from similar products in the African market, especially if other countries have a comparative advantage. What is the projected net effect of these two sides of trade? Well, it's difficult to predict. It depends on which goods are on the schedule of reduction of tariffs both for other countries and Kenya. Pres. Kenyatta signs the AfCFTA Image courtesy of PSCU   Looking at other similar regional pacts such as North America's #NAFTA or the EU, we can see that trade between countries increases many fold. But as in the case of Mexico which saw the bankrupting of peasant farmers due to cheap corn and other agricultural produce from subsidized American farms, the aggregate effect might be po...

How well-meaning parents ruined us

Growing up, it was common for our parents to encourage us and tell us how we could be anything we wanted in life. "You can do anything you set your mind to do!" They would cheer us on. "Even the president?" We'd ask unconvinced. "Yes, you could even become the richest man in the world!" All this fascinated us. We vowed to ourselves that we'd in fact become people of substance who would be recognized in the entire world for our achievements. We'd ride in super-yachts like Abramovich and the rest of the mega-rich. We would produce life changing inventions, innovating our way to stardom. We'd become the next prodigy in music and sports. All this is well and good, meant to lift our spirits. Assessing our lives however, no matter how much effort we have put in to realize our dreams and visions, they have eluded us. We have become adept at doing other things though: commenting on FB posts, retweets, identifying the hottest political issue...

Look, I am become a diplomat

"You speak very good English, where did you learn?" a person I just met asks. "In Kenya, in school…" I calmly reply. "Wow! You speak English in Kenya?" He continues. "Oh yes, we do …" The conversation goes into how we do (not) live with lions as pets and how I don’t run like "all" other Kenyans they've seen on TV. If you are wondering, this is an actual conversation I have had with persons I have met here in the US. This is not to say every conversation I have had goes this way. On the contrary, in the greater Washington metropolitan area where I live, this is the exception. Any time I have to field questions about Kenya, however, I feel as if the responsibility to represent Kenya and communicate its brand is upon my shoulders. This is despite not getting any training on this aspect of my travel experience. Some other well-meaning people have said, once hearing I am from Kenya, that they visited Uganda, Rwanda, Bots...