Matty's Malawi Diary - Part 1

As the plane touched down in Johannesburg, the start of an amazing trip began. 24 hours before I was about 9400km away back in Yorkshire. But now I was in Johannesburg, South Africa.
A taxi ride to Manchester Airport then the short flight to London set me on my way. Then I relaxed in the BA First Class Lounge before leaving to catch my overnight plane to Johannesburg.

At about 11:30 I got on to my plane to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. The flight took about 12 hours to get to Lilongwe. When we arrived we drove into Lilongwe (some 20km from the airport) as we drove, I saw ripe watermelons and tomatoes, as well as raw carcass of goat on sale by then side of the roads. In the distance the scrubland stretch on for miles, but you could also see small villages, full of houses made out of mud. When we arrived in Lilongwe we got dropped off at the place where I was staying and then had a early night as I was very tired.

Then next morning I left at around 6:30am because today I was heading off to Kasungu, which was the capital of the district, also named Kasungu.

I was visiting Malawi because my Mum’s work (The Health Foundation) was on a visit there to see how their work on a project that aims to reduce maternal deaths in Malawi was developing. The project, (called MaiKhanda, meaning Mother and Baby in the Chichewa, the second language of Malawi) runs in Lilongwe, Kasungu and Salima, a town near Lake Malawi.

Matty