Saturday 17 October 2015

Reflections on Malawi

Malawi has been like a holiday within a holiday.  The country has huge variety from the: highlands of Nyika; beachlife around Lake Malawi; wildlife of the National Parks; lushness of the tea plantations through to the hustle and bustle of city life in Blantyre and Lilongwe.  Malawi is one of the world’s poorest countries, and the poverty of families has been quite overwhelming at times, but the people of Malawi have been amazingly open and wonderfully friendly throughout the country.  Deforestation across Malawi is ubiquitous and the continuing pressure for wood to enable house building (brick making) and cooking will continue to drive this.  We did see some small attempts to set up managed forestation and replanting programmes, such as at Ripple Africa – hopefully these will be taken up nationally. Education is also a major focus for the country – the government has stated that all children must be educated at primary level.  Currently, however, there are not the teachers and resources to enable this to happen, and the result is children arriving at school to class sizes way over one hundred. Despite the country’s problems we would definitely recommend anyone wanting to come to Southern Africa to visit Malawi – we have absolutely loved it here. 

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