Back To the Warm Heart of Africa

Yesterday, I arrived back in Malawi. I’ll be here for two months so I thought I’d resurrect this blog. I expect to be pretty busy so I can’t promise too much writing but I’ll do my best.

Some initial observations in the first 12 hours: Nothing’s really changed. People are still very friendly and excited to talk to an American whether they have ulterior motives or not. In a country of now over 16 million people (and rising quickly) everyone still seems to know everyone. The driver in my cab ride from the airport grew up in Mitundu, the community I used to work in. This was surprising because I ran into him in Blantyre (a couple hundred kilometers away from Mitundu), and he knew all the people I worked with. The same family is still running the country. When I left at the end of 2011, Bingu wa Mutharika was president. He passed a few months after that. Depending on who you ask, this was going to be a fresh change for the country. Well, glossing over a lot of the details, four years later his little brother is now in power, and the new boss is the same as the old boss. On sunny days during the rainy season, you can still see forever. Packs of skinny, dirty, adolescent boys in ragged clothes still roam the city streets begging for money, getting especially vocal towards foreigners. It’s still a big seen when I go jogging in the morning. This time of year the weather is still much better than the Upper Midwest.

I’m off to Chikwawa today. A year ago, devastating floods displaced many of the people living there and destroyed much of the local infrastructure. I’m interested to talk to people about the situation one year on. I don’t expect to hear much good news, but maybe I’ll be surprised. This place is full of surprises.