Back in Malawi

The flight from Jo’burg was totally rammed – there seemed to be a party of musicians from the US, who took up most of the seats – but the plane was new and had been designed with plenty of legroom. Arriving at Blantyre was amusing as the plane literally parked up outside the tiny terminal building…I don’t suppose anyone would call the place a major international hub. There was a big crowd of nurses and nuns waiting to greet the musicians and instantly I was reminded of why I fell in love with this country in the first place. Row upon row of dark, smiling faces, exuding an unmistakable air of welcome in this, the ‘Warm Heart of Africa’. Baggage handlers, immigration officers, customs officials – everybody I met – greeted me warmly and enquired of my well-being. It certainly didn’t feel like politeness – they looked me in the eye and smiled when I replied that I was well, thank you…Malawi doesn’t go through the motions – she genuinely seems to care.
The taxi ride to town was pricey but I wasn’t so bothered as I sat back and watched the villages rolling by. Some of my memories of Malawi seem accurate – the simple mud-brick huts with thatched roofs; small children leaning on great, long sugar-canes like portable sweet shops; the blue, blue sky and the inselbergs cropping up out of the plains. Other memories seem out of kilter: Was Malawi really this green? Was so much of the road really tarmac and in such good condition? Obviously some things will have changed in twelve years but I think it’s safe to assume that my abiding memories of dusty, orange plains and bumpy, unmettled roads probably stuck because of their contrast to Europe in a 16-year-old’s eyes – not necessarily because they were the norm in this country of varied landscapes and constantly changing sceneries.
I arrived at the Open Arms Infants Home and was surprised at the scale of the place. I knew that Neville and Rosemarie Bevis had been at the reins for over 5 years and that they’d become adept at gaining sponsors and enticing volunteers – but I was still surprised at the extent of the site and the number of buildings situated therein. Meeting Neville again for the first time in 12 years (for those who don’t know, Neville was a teacher at my former school and had been one of five staff that had escorted a party of 12 students on my first trip to Malawi in 1993) was very funny – particularly because I hadn’t e-mailed him for a month or so. I stood on the veranda as he peered up at me quizzically and in the end I had to prompt him with my name. The last time he’d seen me, I was at the end of a stubborn, non-growing stage of my teens (I actually grew 2-3 inches during those 3 weeks in Malawi – like some kind of weird human sunflower) and I’d yet to acquire the muscle-bulk of adulthood. From 5’8” and 12stone to 6’4” and 16stone is a big difference – not to mention the hair-loss, beard growth and much-mangled nose ;-). It turned out he’d just been at the airport, dropping some people off and we both kicked ourselves for not thinking to e-mail or call as my visit approached. For my part, I knew Neville was having something of an annus horribilis with both his youngest daughter (meningitis) and his wife (cancer) having been seriously ill. Rosemarie’s illness had sent her back to the UK and, consequently, Neville had been short-handed at Open Arms. I hadn’t wanted to make a nuisance of myself with Neville’s hands full and, for his part, the extra running around hadn’t really left him time for remembering exactly who was coming when.- nor, for that matter, to devise any programme of activities for me. Neville explained all this as he gave me a tour of the home. While he showed me around the main house with its dormitories, kitchen, office, play area and feeding rooms, he explained that we would probably have to hunt for things for me to do. We strolled down the gardens, past the chicken sheds (at full capacity, capable of paying for 6 of the salaries of the 45-strong staff at the home) and inspected the vegetable garden, where – as much as possible – they grow the food for the kitchen. Neville pointed out that there was always plenty to be done in the grounds and that some of the window frames were due for painting and I readily agreed to turn my hand to anything useful. We wandered back up the hill to Harrogate House (funded by donations by people from my home town) and here I met some of the older children, including Wilson who had been at Open Arms the longest out of any of the kids. Neville explained that they didn’t want these children to become institutionalised as it was never the intention for Open Arms to become an orphanage. They had purchased a house on the outskirts of the city to act as a foster home for children like Wilson who didn’t have a family to go back to. Most of the children at Open Arms (many orphaned by AIDS) are returned to their families once they are old enough and well enough not to require constant care and attention. Many of the children are HIV-positive and are on retro-viral medication. Others arrive at the home severely malnourished and it’s a full time job for Mrs. Phiri, the matron, and her team of carers to nurse them back to health. The many volunteers who come to Open Arms spend their days feeding and playing with the babies and it’s their invaluable help that means the children get the extra affection and attention that they miss from their families. Neville introduced me to the current batch of four volunteers: Patty and her daughter, Becca and her best friend, Adrienne were from Colorado, USA and Caroline was from The Netherlands. The three Americans were staying at the volunteers house, whose windows I’d just signed up to paint and Caroline was staying at the Kebula Lodge Guesthouse, where Neville was about to take me to find a room. Neville had invited me to join them all for dinner so I said my goodbyes and went about getting settled into my new abode at Kebula.
The view from the terrace across the valley to the local peak, Mt. Soche, was beautiful and unmistakably African and I sat there, blissfully watching the sun go down, pleased to be back in Malawi after all this time.
We ate at a café next to the home run my a Senegalese guy called Maky. The food was delicious and – even better – free, as Maky had invited us as a treat. I vowed to make use of his excellent establishment during my stay in Blantyre – if only for snacks and coffee and the occasional lunch because, unfortunately, Maky’s was normally only a daytime enterprise. I even found myself signing up for a jazz/soul gig at the French Cultural Centre on the Friday evening, which Maky was selling tickets to.
Back at Kebula, I had some time to think about my plans for Malawi. I didn’t want to be a spare wheel at the home and the one project that Neville had mentioned that sounded like I could get my teeth into, was still a couple of weeks off. It struck me that I could make a short tour of Malawi’s southern sights (Blantyre being in the south) and come back in time to help put in the foundations of a new feeding station in one of the outlying villages. The feeding station was also to be a primary school – with the idea that parents would be more likely to send their children to school if there was the chance of a free meal as well. My old school, Ashville College, was due to send out its 7th party of students and staff (mine and Neville’s being the 1st) with money for the feeding station. For the first few days of their trip they’d be helping with the building of the feeding station and it was in preparation for their visit that we’d be putting the foundations in. I was very tired after my trip from Singapore, via Jo’burg and fell asleep pretty soon after my head hit the pillow, dreaming about my plans for the final 2 months of my trip.