Out of Africa

A year has gone by so fast. The time has come for me to write my final post and sign off from Malawi. I’m set to fly home on Thursday back to the rain and cold, roast lamb dinners, exotic caffeinated drinks and of course my family and partner.

Through trips to the lake, climbing mount Mulanje, braving the voyage to Likoma and hopefully improving the professional lives of some of my local colleagues Malawi has left its mark. There will be many people and places that I miss and I have made some really great new friends that I’m sure to keep in touch with back home.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Malawi and would recommend the experience to anyone, work has been incredibly frustrating at times and there have been moments where I’ve missed home very much but Malawi is a truly beautiful country, the people are very welcoming and I can’t help but feel sad for the hard lives they face every day.

Malawi has so much unrealised potential in agriculture, tourism and manufacturing; if only they could stand on their own without donors and sweep aside the corruption that plagues institutions then maybe they could begin to tap it and truly flourish.

Right now donors are tackling the symptoms of a dysfunctional country; training nurses, building schools. If instead they focused on the fundamentals of building a stable economy so that Malawians could make money, start paying taxes and ultimately survive without the need for foreign aid then maybe Malawi could begin to unlock its full potential.

Donors focus on the projects they do partly because they are easy to sell to you as individuals; buy a mosquito net for a child, send a child to school, help prevent HIV. These sorts of projects look great on posters and provoke the generosity of the general public. It’s much trickier for them to get you excited about helping a Malawian start their own business or facilitate the creation of co-operatives and regulatory bodies.

My message to you as individuals would be to try and look at the bigger picture, as emotive as the symptoms can be try and think about what will help countries like Malawi in the longer term. Support micro financing projects and policy level interventions over quick fixes and bandaid solutions.    

Above all, come to Malawi! The easiest (and most enjoyable) way you can help is by visiting yourself, spend money in the local economy and enjoy all the wonderful sights and activities that Africa has to offer. Malawi is a very safe country, easy to navigate and has everything from relaxing lakeshore beaches to soaring mountain ranges and fascinating safari reserves.

Thank you for all your support, I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it and I hope to see all of you very soon!