Bula, Vwaza and the Black Missionaries

I normally write these blogs in the wee small hours in the Temwa compound in Mzuzu (our home and my office).   This time I'm sitting in Njaya Lodge in Nkhata Bay overlooking the beautiful deep blue Lake and looking across to where it meets the light blue of the sky on the horizon. It’s unlikely I’ll complete the blog here – we are in the middle of the normal Sunday electricity load shedding by ESCOM (Electricity Supply Commission of Malawi) and my lap top has less than one hour charge left.   No doubt, I will be finishing it in the wee small hours when we get back to Mzuzu!

View from Njaya Lodge where I started writing this blog

Last weekend was full on.  On Saturday, Temwa had organised a fair in Bula (one hour along the dirt track road from Mzuzu to Usisya) to celebrate the Early Grade Literacy programme which provides help for children in local schools to improve their literacy levels.  It is one of a number of Temwa projects to support education in Nkhata Bay North.  Others include bursaries for children to go on to secondary education – education is only free in Malawi up to the end of primary level – and sponsorship for a small number of school leavers to go to teacher training college – with a commitment from them to teach for five years post-qualification in the Nktata Bay North area.  

We had planned to leave at 6.30am but this had been put back to 8.30am the evening before.   A vehicle hiccup – the Temwa car’s brakes had failed going down the hill outside the Temwa compound (a good job the same thing had not happened going down the steep and windy road to the Lake at Usisya earlier in the week!) – meant we hung around until a minibus arrived to take us there at about 11.30am.

Our arrival at the fair was impressive.   The Temwa Programmes Manager, Emmanuel, who was guest of honour, and the chair of the local Area Development Committee (ADC), Ivor, were in the minibus. A large group of children carrying tree branches and singing ‘you are welcome’ accompanied our minibus into the village.  

Our arrival at Bula

There was a wide range of activity at the event: children read poems, recited the alphabet, and performed songs in traditional dress; the Temwa peer educators performed a play which had a central message of allowing children to go to school rather than keeping them off school  to work in the fields; there was some traditional dancing by local villagers with a number of the audience – including the elderly Group Village Head – joining in; there was prize giving for success in competitions organised as part of the Early Grade Literacy programme;  and there were  a lot of speeches (mainly in Tumbuka but with one of the local teachers helpfully translating for us).   A particularly inspiring speech was one by a local nurse, who had grown up in the area, talking about the perseverance required to achieve her ambition of becoming a nurse and returning to work in Bula.

Dyana, the Temwa Education Project Officer and lead organiser of the Bula event

Children performing dressed as Ngoni tribes people

Local women led a traditional dance accompanied by drums

Because of our late arrival, the entertainment/speeches didn't start until around 12.30pm and they went on for almost three hours.  Many of the children and adults had travelled from villages which can be a long way from Bula, getting up at dawn and walking for two or three hours.   Despite this, and the sometimes quite long speeches, the crowd remained attentive and appreciative throughout.  The commitment to improvement through education is strong – despite the challenges of walking long distances, hunger, and the need for children to help families eke out a living.   One of the telling points made by Ivor, the ADC chair, was how to ensure that there are locally sustainable ways of feeding children whilst at school.  People have not enough food for themselves (or, if they do, they need to be able to sell any surplus to generate income) and therefore cannot contribute their own products... but they might be willing to put time into maintaining plots near schools for growing cassava and other foodstuffs if land could be reserved for this purpose.  (There’s more detail of the event on the Temwa website which is at http://temwa.org/learning-to-read-and-write-in-northern-malawi/.)

On the prairie - Vwaza Marsh guide Nathan (suitably armed!), AFID volunteer Julie, driver Newton, Temwa micro-finance manager, Maria, and Liz

The Saturday trip to Bula was followed by an early start on Sunday to visit the Vwaza game reserve.  The Malawi tourist industry is relatively small and, if people visit game reserves, it’s mainly the more accessible ones in the south.  Luckily we are already in the inaccessible north and so it was a  relatively easy drive to get to Vwaza (two hours from Mzuzu – north along the A1 to Rumphi and then an hour or so along a dirt track west to the reserve which lies on the border with Zambia).   We hadn't come to Africa with any burning desire to go to a game reserve but visiting Vwaza was a special experience.  There were hardly any other visitors there so we had the place largely to ourselves apart from the animals and birds.  The main attraction for the animals, particularly during the dry season, is Lake Kazuni - although lake is a bit of a misnomer at this time of year, more a watering hole.  The most impressive were the hippos, with large numbers wallowing in the water and making loud grunting noises.  We were accompanied by a ranger with a gun and were able to get quite close – apparently more people get killed by hippos than any other wild animal but they are only dangerous if you get between them and water.  More worrying – and frightening – was being peered at through the trees by a herd of buffaloes; the ranger made it abundantly clear that getting out of the car was not an option!  The range of animals and birds sharing the space was incredible - apart from the hippos and buffaloes, warthogs, baboons, monkeys, at least four different types of antelope, guinea fowl (a humble kind of bird to find in such a wild place!), marabou stork and so on.  Elephants often come down to the lake in the dry season but the rains of two weeks ago meant they had been staying away -  the only evidence we saw  was the huge prints in the ground around the watering hole and the dried up dung.   

Hippos up close

The buffaloes kept a close eye on us

Kudus were my favourites of the antelopes we saw - look at those ears!

A family of warthogs

It's hot here - well into the 30s every day (apart from the two days of storms we had) - and the idea of going out after we came back from Vwaza was not very appealing; we were hot and sweaty and I, for one, just wanted a shower and a bit of kip but...the Black Missionaries, one of Malawi's top bands, were in town and playing at the Mzuzu Lodge.   We could hear the music across the valley and decided we couldn't miss it...so the shower was followed by a taxi trip to Mzuzu Lodge.  I don't often go to gigs but, after this one, I could be persuaded to go to more.  The Black Missionaries and their support band were great performers; the location was brilliant - Mzuzu Lodge has large open spaces with good views over the rolling Mzuzu hills; the crowd was just having fun.  There were stalls selling various 'rasta' products and I paid 1,500 kwachas (£1.80) for a 'Blacks' (the nick name for the Black Missionaries) hat.   We stayed there until the band sung their last song at 10pm so I didn't get my kip!

The Black Missionaries were great performers

Me and my hat...

So here we are - or were (I am now once again  in the office finishing this in the wee small hours) - back at Njaya Lodge in Nkhata Bay.  I had a good balance between refreshing dips in the Lake, a visit with Dixon (who works at Njaya Lodge) to a very hot and sweaty football bar, an early start to see my fourth dawn/sunrise at the Lake (followed by a welcome return to bed), some lovely butter fish straight out of the Lake, and a fair amount of 'kipping' which I needed after the previous weekend.

Sun-rise over the Lake...again!!

The double screen at the Sports Bar in Nkhata Bay.  You can't get a proper sense of the heat of the place from the photo.

We have sorted out our plans for the Christmas break -  Livingstonia, with wonderful views of the Lake, for Christmas itself, and Likoma, an island on Lake Malawi close to Mozambique, for New Year. We also have plans to go back to Njaya Lodge for an overnight stay before Christmas.  And Liz is hatching a plan to take a January break in Zanzibar with her friend Jackie.  So we won't be short of things to do... 

Usisya (at last!)

In my first week in Malawi I went to Kasasire in the uplands area of Nkhata Bay North  for a 'sensitisation' (awareness raising) meeting on the Nkhata Bay Natural Way (NBNW) project. Last week Liz and I joined Temwa project staff for the follow up 'verification' process in the lakeside area around Usisya.

Usisya is a two and a bit hour drive from Mzuzu across rough and treacherous dirt track roads (with the only feasible alternative a 45 minutes hair raising drive to Nkhata Bay followed by a three hour boat journey north up Lake Malawi).  We had planned to leave in the early afternoon on Monday but ended up leaving just before sunset. Driving in the dark makes the roads more dangerous but the pitch black meant we were hardly conscious of the dangers we faced.  Mind you, we were pretty physically wrecked by the combined effect of bumps in the road and limited suspension on our 4 by 4.

Benson and Efrina on the Temwa boat planning meetings at Sanga

The Temwa boat picked us up from Usisya Lodge, where we were staying, at  6.30am the following morning.  Temwa was running 'verification' meetings in four separate lakeside villages (Buwa, Mtawa, Sanga and Thotomsinghe), with Temwa staff allocated to each.    We joined  project manager, Benson, and field officer, Efrina, for the meeting at Sanga.

Our first meeting was with the Village Natural Resource Management Committee (VNMRC) at a tree nursery in a secluded hilly spot next to a small pond.  Preventing and reversing deforestation is a key part of the NBNW project (Outcome 2).  The purpose of this meeting was to check how many of the tree seedlings had germinated.  After introductions, the group set about the business of counting each type of seedling to establish germination success.  Overall, they found that 3,660 of the 5,000 seedlings had germinated - broadly in line with the expected germination rate of 70%.  They also checked germination for the 9 separate tree seedling varieties.

The Sanga VNRMC plan the count of germinated seedlings

The meeting was adjourned and we reconvened under a mango tree on the beach. Following the 'sensitisation' meetings, village meetings had been convened at which local chiefs had nominated people to take on volunteer roles as Community Extension Volunteer (the lead co-ordinator for the NBNW project in each village or group of villages) and Lead Farmers or to participate in farming activities (Outcome 1) or income generating activities (Outcome 3). The 'verification' process involved Benson and Efrina meeting the nominees individually to confirm they understood what was involved and the level of commitment that would be expected, as well as verifying personal details.

'Sensitisation' and 'verification' are part of an on-going process. NBNW is a four year project during which farmers will be trained in new farming techniques, trees will be planted, local people will be trained in forestry related business activities and effective business management, and community ownership of natural resource management will be strengthened.   The four year duration of the project provides certainty of funding and time for outcomes to be monitored and assessed.

'Verification' in the shade of a mango tree

The Sanga restaurant where we had lunch: a number of the participants in the earlier 'verification' meeting came in to thank Benson and Efrina for being given the opportunity to participate in NBNW

Usipa being dried in the sun in Sanga.  Drying nets like these were in every village along the Lake shore. 

Coming back, Liz and I got off the boat at Usisya beach and walked through the village.  There were more farm animals than we had seen anywhere else in Malawi - pigs foraging on the beach, chickens feeding off rotting mangoes, tethered goats going nowhere!  There were cassava fields that had expanded over footpaths and roads.  There were endless mango trees.  And there were children who were excited to see 'mzungus' (white people) and desperate to get their photos taken.

Children in Usisya pose for the camera

Pigs forage on Usisya beach

Usisya Lodge is much more basic than Njaya Lodge (the Nkhata Bay lodge we stayed in). The eating area is an open tented structure built around a mango tree trunk.  Our beach cabin had a sand floor, no electricity and no running water - the compost toilet and shower were a 50 metre walk away.  But the situation and views are even more spectacular than our apartment at Njaya Lodge. Wonderful sunrises (I witnessed them both mornings we were there).  The lights from the fishing canoes at night and the sounds and sight of fishermen coming back at dawn with their catches of usipa.  The birds sitting on the rocks.   The variety of trees and bushes.  The pure silver sand and clear water.

Sunrise in Usisya

Fisherman and bird at dawn

Our cabin at Usisya Lodge

I went in to see the Temwa compound in Usisya on the Wednesday morning.   This is where the first Temwa project got off the ground in 2003, with the building of a community centre; it now also includes a library and a demonstration garden.  Links to the outside world are poor. I was getting only limited telephone connection and there is no internet connection.  There is also no kitchen and the only running water was in the demonstration garden.  The temperature, which is much higher at the Lake than in Mzuzu, made working conditions practically unbearable.  These difficulties, together with the fact that the Nkhata Bay North area is very large with many parts of the upland areas not easily accessible from Usisya, helped me understand why Temwa's administrative centre is in Mzuzu.

The Temwa run community library at Usisya

Our trip back on the Wednesday afternoon gave us a chance to see views that we had missed on the way down - looking down to the Lake from the road high above it, the rolling hills and deep valleys with villages dotted around, the beautiful colours in the sky as we travelled west toward Mzuzu at sunset.

Back in Mzuzu, Liz is finding her time taken up by the Crisis Nursery, where she spends two or three hours most days, and by helping out at the Marymount junior school where she has been going into classes to help children with their music skills.  On Thursday evening,  Danny Kalima, a Malawian singer song-writer, was playing at the Macondo.  The storms of last week have gone and it was a beautiful evening to sit out in the hill-top surroundings of the Macondo and listen in the candle-light (the power was down) to his lively mix of African and soul music.

In my last blog, I said we planned to go back to Nkhata Bay this weekend.  Our unplanned trip to Usisya meant we didn't go - two visits to the Lake in a week in sweltering heat was going to be too much for us!  Our weekend has however been eventful and I will be reporting on it in my next blog...

Malawian life

I've now been in Malawi over a month and am starting to form some impressions of Malawian life. Of course these might change as I stay here longer but I thought I would set some of these down.

The first, which I referred to in one of my early blogs, is the friendliness of the Malawian people - the 'warm heart of Africa'.  The warm welcoming handshake and smiles I got when I arrived.  The children shouting out 'how are you?' to which I respond 'very well, how are you?', and they giggle between themselves (there's none of the 'don't talk to strangers' concern for children).  The welcome we receive from locals when we go to events in the communities Temwa serves.   The generally willing acceptance of people when you want to take their picture - a woman in the lush valley near where we live, a tailor mending the zip of Liz's waterproof, men firing bricks in Nhkata Bay, the children in Bigha playing with their trucks (although I made a mistake of taking a photo in the Swahili market without asking permission and got a negative reaction from at least one stall holder, so a lesson for me!).  

Woman in the fields - it was getting dark so she came closer for me to get a better shot

Tailor wasn't able to replace the zip so didn't want to charge for the stitching job he did

Then there is a real and infectious sense of humour. Laughing a lot is part of this - James and Halord always in fits of giggles; the repartee and laughter  whilst watching football matches at Red Chile. There is the dry humour of Wellington talking about what he is planning for his Sunday sermon as lay preacher at the Zion Christian Church; or UK volunteers being given Tumbukan or other local identities - I am now Musopole from Kameme in Chitipa District (the very north of Malawi near the Zambian border) and Liz is nya Kaunda from Nkhata Bay (so, of course, much more local than me!). There is also humour in adversity - for example, when our vehicle broke down and we were stuck well into the evening on my field trip to Kasasire; or when we were having difficulty getting our new generator installed and Jericho, the Micro-Finance project officer who was doubling up as an electrician, saying 'ESCOM [Electricity Supply Commission of Malawi] operatives are working tirelessly to get you electricity' every time he went past our desks.

The new generator...

...and its connection to one of our sockets!

The influence of religion is huge. Everyone I have met and talked to professes themselves to be a practising Christian.  And Malawians take their religion seriously.   Meetings at work or in the field start and end with a prayer.  Sunday services start at 7am to 7.30am in the morning and go on for three hours or more - and you can often hear singing coming from churches on other days.  There is a huge number of different Christian sects - CCAP (the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian) seems to be the closest to what might be considered an established Christian church, largely as a  result of Scottish missionaries' role in spreading Christian beliefs in this part of Africa. But others include Seventh Day Adventists, Pentecostalists, Zion Christian Church of Africa, Jehovah's Witnesses, Ethiopianist churches (which developed in the late nineteenth century and tried to reconcile Christian beliefs with traditional customs and beliefs) and so on.  According to Wikipedia, 85% of the population hold Christian beliefs, with most of these Protestant but a sizeable minority (about 20% of the total population) being Catholic.  The remaining 15% of the population is mainly Muslim and we have on occasions woken up to hear the sound of the call to prayer before sunrise wafting up the valley.  Liz went to the Mzuzu Catholic church service on Sunday morning and said the church was packed.   The service started at 7am but luckily was over by 9am - Catholics have a bit more of a set formula than Protestants and I presume that keeps services short!

The degree of adversity people face is very large.  High infant mortality, low overall life expectancy, low levels of paid employment, low income, poor infrastructure, unpredictable weather events (late and heavy rains last December led to extreme flooding and destruction of crops) and so on.  But people also find ways of coping and as a result there is very little public evidence of absolute poverty (hardly any begging) and a generally positive (or could be considered fatalist!) outlook on life in Malawi as reflected in a comment to me by a woman in a shared taxi that things may be bad but 'at least we don't have war or ebola'.

People seem to cope and seek to address the problems they face. The local industry/self-sufficiency I witnessed in Nkhata Bay last week - people firing bricks to make houses, mending their nets so they can catch - and sell - fish, making carvings and other artefacts that can be sold to tourists.  The extraordinary array of vegetables, pulses, fish and other products sold in Mzuzu main market.  The wonderfully tended plots and the range and impressiveness of vegetables and fruit people grow for themselves. The local Mzuzu products - honey, coffee, tea, and Nali (a top range spicy relish). The colourful Chitenge (a kind of sarong that women wear wrapped around their waist, particularly in rural areas, and is also used to carry babies on women's backs and as a head cushion to allow heavy objects to be carried on women's heads) for sale in the Swahili market.  The commitment to develop new skills to create additional sources of income (for example, James, the watchman, is learning tailoring and has made a very fine shirt for Tom, one of the other volunteers, and will be making one for me from Chitenge material I bought at the Swahili market).  The ingenuity and application people show in dealing with difficult issues - whether mending broken down engines or wiring up electric generators.    The  way in which I witnessed in Kasasire and Liz witnessed in Bigha local people engage with the issues they face and seek to address them as communities.

The well tended plots at the bottom of 'our' valley

Greham brought two of these huge home grown cabbages into the office

Vegetables at Mzuzu market

Some local products - the Nali relish is particularly good

And, whilst local newspaper headlines generally focus on issues that people commonly associate with poor governance - back-biting between political parties, corruption, poorly managed government projects and so on - there is some evidence of things changing for the better.   At a national Malawian level, for example, whilst child mortality is very high - according to UNICEF, in 2013 the under one mortality rate was  44 per 1,000 live births and the under five rate was 68 per 1,000 live births (more than 10 times the child mortality rates in the UK) - this compares with much higher rates in 1990 - 143 and 245 respectively.  And the way that Temwa and other local organisations try to support the development of sustainable communities in hard to reach areas like Nkhata Bay North should mean on-going progress in local people's quality of life.

The rains arrived!!!

Getting back to life in Mzuzu....  The rains came earlier this year than last.  There was a heavy downpour and thunder and lighting that seemed to last through the night on Tuesday.  The rain and wind - mixed with a low lying mist - lasted throughout Wednesday and into Thursday.  Julie, the AFID volunteer who is working for SPRODETA, arrived on Wednesday and it certainly seemed the case that she had brought the Scottish weather with her from Aberdeen.  We're back to sunny hot weather now but we can expect more of a mix (which is certainly good for crops in Malawi so long as the weather does not get too severe).  Power cuts are still very regular - at least two last week which lasted most of the day (it felt quite spooky being in Shoprite, the local upmarket supermarket, and suddenly finding yourself in the pitch black).  I've been starting work on Temwa's 2016 budget and also developing our procurement policy (standard fare for me).  Temwa has been in a period of intensive training and upskilling of staff, including financial management training carried out by Charles, the Finance and Administration manager, and  motor-cycle training so all project and field officers can get out into the field on motor-bikes when cars aren't available or can't navigate the roads.   Liz has been helping out at the Mzuzu Crisis Nursery which is close by and looking at what else she can do when she is here.

Temwa staff receiving training on financial management and personnel policies

Project and field officers on their way to their motor-bike tests

I've also got a confession to make.  For those who thought I had developed superior photographic skills, I should let you know that all the photographs at the Bigha Mobile Testing Clinic event and most of those at the Kasasire Nkhata Bay Natural Way sensitisation event were by Elle, one of the other UK volunteers.  So thanks Elle and apologies for using your photos without crediting you!

Liz and I are hoping to go back to the Lake next weekend (with Julie and Maria, Temwa's micro-finance business manager, who is putting up Julie during her stay).  I'm also hoping to get to Usisya sometime ...it's the centre of our operations in the field and I haven't been there yet...

Bigha, an arrival and Nkhata Bay (at last!)

A previous blog recorded the 'sensitisation' (awareness raising) Nkhata Bay Natural Way (NBNW) event with the local community in Kasasire.  NBNW focuses on Temwa's work to promote sustainable agriculture and forestry.  A key target group for support through NBNW is families affected by HIV/AIDS. It is estimated that 16% of the Nkhata Bay North population aged 15 to 49 have HIV/AIDS and a separate Temwa project, the Mobile Voluntary Testing and Counselling Clinics (MVTC), is aimed at prevention, diagnosis and treatment of HIV/AIDS.

Fishani (right), the project lead, on a motor bike with one of the Peer Educators, encouraging people to be tested.

The MVTC project is led by Fishani, who started with Temwa in a voluntary capacity as a Field Facilitator on the Farmers' Training Support Project, moved on to be a Field Officer, and is now Temwa's Health Project Officer.  Like most of Temwa's field officers and project officers, Fishani is from the Nkhata Bay community and therefore has a real commitment to tackling the issues his community faces (there is an interview with Fishani on the Temwa website which provides more on his background - it's at http://temwa.org/interview-with-fishani/). On Thursday he was coordinating an HIV/AIDS Testing and Counselling (HTC) session in Bigha, on the road to Usysia. Liz, who had arrived on Tuesday, and Elle, a UK volunteer working on Temwa's communications, joined him.

Watching events unfold

The event itself reflected Temwa's multi-faceted approach to addressing HIV/AIDS.  Community ownership of the challenges HIV/AIDS present is core to this and so the mobile clinics are turned into a whole community event aimed at encouraging people to test, educating people about how HIV/AIDS spreads, and addressing issues about the stigma that can be attached to people who are HIV positive.

'Shasha ndne' translates as 'wise up!'

Outside the clinic - 92 people were tested on Thursday

Market day in Bigha

The testing clinic was one of eight carried out over a period of four days, testing a total of  549 people.  Fishani plans the clinics to coincide with market day to maximise the number of people attending and, according to Liz, this together with the Temwa organised events all added up to a festival atmosphere. Peer Educators - young people from the community who have signed up as volunteers and promote understanding of HIV/AIDS issues through plays and other means - going around on motor-bikes with loud hailers encouraging people to get tested.  Temwa tee-shirts with messages about HIV/AIDS on them being handed out.  A food stall where chips are made.  People queueing for the HIV/AIDS test clinics. Children playing with and showing off their home made toys.  A play performed by the Peer Educators involving full audience participation - one scene involved one of the actors chasing another through the audience and around the village streets.  And after dark, a film show with the projector powered by a bicycle generator, with films that were a mixture of drama involving actors from the local community and interviews with local people who had been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.  Throughout both the play and films, there was a huge amount of interaction between Fishani and audience members, with impassioned debate about the issues the play and films raised.

Chips made from 'Irish' (the local term for potatoes) are yummy

Children show off their home made trucks

Peer Educators, who sometimes walk up to 36 km to attend events, perform in their play

Lots of people from the village - and surrounding villages - turned out to watch the play

Fishani encourages audience participation during the play

Greham, one of the field officers, powers the projector whilst others watch the film

Liz's journey from London to Mzuzu had been pretty hassle free.   We're used to ten hour car journeys from London to Oban, followed by a five hour boat journey to Castlebay - or seven hours if via Lochboisdale. So a six hour flight to Addis Ababa followed by a four hour flight to Lilongwe followed by a five hour car journey (Thumbiko who had picked me up from Lilongwe picked Liz up from the airport) is not that different - although a four hour wait at Addis Ababa starting at 6am is not everybody's cup of tea.  Liz was feeling bright enough to do the 20 minute walk to the Macondo Camp restaurant which has comfortable outside seating in what feels a very secluded area and lovely Italian food, with meal and drinks for two costing 12,000 kwacha (around £14) - what's not to like?  She's had a pretty full on week what with finding her way around Mzuzu on Wednesday and the trip to Bigha (they left about 1pm and got back about 9pm).  But she wants to make full use of her time whilst she is here. She met Steve and Rose from a Mzuzu based charity, 'Wells for Zoe', on Friday and will be looking into what other opportunities there are this week. So watch this space to find out what she ends up doing.

In the meantime, we got away for our promised trip to Nkhata Bay which lived up to all the hype. Mind you, getting there and back was pretty hair raising.  Shared taxis are the mode of travel and very cheap - 250 kwacha each (30 pence) to get into town and a further 1,300 kwacha each (£1.60) to get the 50 odd km from Mzuzu to Nkhata Bay.  But the taxis are not in brilliant shape; they are overcrowded (on the way back we had 9 adults and a baby in a small 7 seater with Liz and me crushed in the back two seats alongside a third passenger); they travel an average of 60 km per hour along pot-hole filled roads avoiding all sorts of obstacles (stationary lorries, people on bicycles and foot, monkeys - I thought they were dogs at first - hens, cows and so on).

Windscreen of 7 seater we got back from Nkhata Bay (before we set off) - luckily this is the passenger side!

We stayed at Njaya Lodge which is a couple of kilometres out of Nkhata Bay.  We had our own small apartment with views through trees out to the Lake, our own semi private beach, and sight of numerous colourful lizards sun-bathing on the rocks (and the occasional larger monitor lizard scuttling away).  The bar/restaurant is a short walk up the hill and has a wonderful outlook over the Lake, well manicured gardens and great food (fish from the Lake and those yummy chips).  Nkhata Bay faces east across Lake Malawi so there is no sunset - but we decided to get up for sunrise (around 5.30am) and were not disappointed.

View from our apartment at Njaya Lodge

One of many multi-coloured lizards sunbathing on the rocks

Sun rise over Lake Malawi (as witnessed from the balcony of our apartment)

Men firing bricks near Njaya Lodge

The brick kiln

Men mending their fishing nets on Chikale Beach, next to Njaya Lodge

Mangoes ripening on Chikale Beach 

Dixon, who works at Njaya Lodge and took us to watch  Swansea v Arsenal in a backroom at Kaya Papaya restaurant in Nkhata Bay

So I'm back to work this week whilst Liz looks for a suitable volunteering role.  Another AFID (Accounting for International Development) volunteer, Julie Anderson, who will be supporting SPRODETA, an NGO working with small producers, is arriving on Wednesday so we will be helping her to settle in in Mzuzu. We managed to arrange accommodation for her with Maria, the Micro-Finance Business Manager at Temwa, so she will be staying nearby.

More to follow....