Three Weeks In...
It’s now been three weeks since I landed at Kamuzu international airport in Lilongwe, sixteen hours after I made my rushed goodbyes to my family, paid the exorbitant charges for my overweight luggage and boarded the South African airways plane to Johannesburg. Most of that flight, and my connection, was spent desperately boning up on Heavily Indebted Poor Country framework (much appreciated, Matt), so it was only on landing at Malawi that it occurred to me that this is now my home for the foreseeable future.
Fortunately, the panic of the unfamiliar was kept at bay by my fellow Fellow, Paul, who patiently explained the Byzantine political situation, the geography if Lilongwe and introduced me to the language, Chichewa… and just to give me a taste of the familiar, we went to watch England under-perform against Austria in Harry’s Bar.
So, first impressions? What little I’ve seen of the country is beautiful, and populated by some of the friendliest people you could hope to meet. People open up to you so much if you make the effort of learning a bit of Chichewa. And if you can talk about mbira (football), you’ll always make friends.
The capital city, Lilongwe, is unlike any city I’ve been to before. It’s organized on South African lines, in discrete areas, with the result that expats and the rich can move from house to house, or house to work without ever seeing the very real poverty that exists within it. This, and the way in which it is split into three discrete areas to discourage mass mobilization, is a legacy of the dictatorship years under Hastings ‘Kamuzu’ Banda, from which Malawi only emerged in the mid-90s.
… Of course what its emerged into seems to be a mad jumble of factional politics, but more on that, and my first impressions of the economics and civil service, next week.
Fortunately, the panic of the unfamiliar was kept at bay by my fellow Fellow, Paul, who patiently explained the Byzantine political situation, the geography if Lilongwe and introduced me to the language, Chichewa… and just to give me a taste of the familiar, we went to watch England under-perform against Austria in Harry’s Bar.
So, first impressions? What little I’ve seen of the country is beautiful, and populated by some of the friendliest people you could hope to meet. People open up to you so much if you make the effort of learning a bit of Chichewa. And if you can talk about mbira (football), you’ll always make friends.
The capital city, Lilongwe, is unlike any city I’ve been to before. It’s organized on South African lines, in discrete areas, with the result that expats and the rich can move from house to house, or house to work without ever seeing the very real poverty that exists within it. This, and the way in which it is split into three discrete areas to discourage mass mobilization, is a legacy of the dictatorship years under Hastings ‘Kamuzu’ Banda, from which Malawi only emerged in the mid-90s.
… Of course what its emerged into seems to be a mad jumble of factional politics, but more on that, and my first impressions of the economics and civil service, next week.
posted by the Maradona of Malawi at 10:12 PM
