Blogs from Malawi, Africa - page 15

Geo: -13.9808, 33.7721Camp Maclear is a World Heritage site located on Lake Malawi. The local name for this location is Chembe and the place we are staying is Chembe Eagle's Nest. In l980, the Lake Malawi National Park was created which was the first freshwater national park in the world. In l984, the area was designated a World Heritage site.The soil evidently is poor for farming and fishing and tourism seem to be the main industry in the village. Our view is quite nice. We have a rock outcropping in front of us and we can watch the fishing boats going back and forth from the village. The fishermen use both the dugout and the motorboat. Chembe Eagle's Nest also does the billing process where you pay at the end of your stay. Since we are ... read more

Entering Zambia Once the immigration formalities were completed, it was clearly visible on entry into Zambia that it was more developed than Malawi. I came to the conclusion of this in a matter of minutes. As we passed through the Eastern Province of Zambia, which is the most deprived region of this country - we saw signs, good roads and decent sound infrastructure - all of the school children we saw had identical uniforms too. This certainly isn't the case in Malawi. On arrival into Chipata, the town boasted various supermarket chains and banks, plus many other amenities. For a small town, it was quite developed, perhaps not surprising though given it's isolation from the rest of Zambia. One other noticeable difference was the number of cars on the road, in Malawi you got used to ... read more

Eventless food My food in Malawi does feed me so basically it makes the job, but there is not so much I enjoy in it. I have the feeling that eat exactly the same things all the time but that’s not completely right, living on the campus of the school where I work gives me 3 options. First option I can get the school food, which is prepared for the students three times a day. The other teachers eat at their home on the campus and the other employees of the school eat their own food. So far after 2 months here I never managed to be awake on time for the breakfast so I can’t say much about it, I just heard it was porridge during the week and bread on the week-end. Then, for ... read more

Arrivée au Malawi - il y a bientôt deux mois Henry le directeur de l’école où je vais travailler m’a obtenu un visa, mais malheureusement avec entrée sur le territoire à l’aéroport. Ceci m’oblige à payer un billet d’avion qui coute autant pour un vol de deux heures que pour aller au bout du monde. Je m’étais réjouis de traverser le Mozambique et le Zimbabwe en bus et avait réglé toutes les formalités et suis donc un peu dégoûté de prendre l’avion, mais au final je suis heureux de rejoindre le Malawi. Le directeur de l’école vient m’accueillir à l’aéroport. Nous nous saluons de manière très chaleureuse, il est mort de rire car je ne ressemble absolument pas à la photo qu’il avait en sa possession. Nous sortons du minuscule aéroport de la capitale Lilongwe et ... read more

Hello again. Very sorry for the delay. I think it's been almost two months since I last wrote a blog so I will try sum up the past few weeks as concise as possible. Over the past few weeks I have continued to teach at the school as well as being involved in the other projects on site. We had a special treat at the school when two travellers said they would perform their musical instruments for us. The instruments were a banjo and a flute, they played a range of irish and balkan music which was brilliant. The kids loved it and spent most of the lesson dancing on the tables. It was not only something different but very fun too and it exposes them to different music from around the world which is important. ... read more