Belief

After twenty four hours travelling – nine of those spent squashed in the back of a plane with a horde of girls from Mallory Towers on their way to a safari camp in Tanzania – we landed in Malawi around lunchtime on Sunday.
As the plane shuddered to a halt I felt tears starting to gather – not of relief, though I was damn glad to be finally at our destination, but through the sheer joy of being back in this small, landlocked African nation.
Three years ago I knew almost nothing of Malawi, save that its erstwhile President, Dr Hastings Banda, had been educated in Scotland and that Dr David Livingstone had been the first European to travel there.
Six trips, seven if you count this one, later and I feel at home here. I have made precious friendships, learned a few words of the language and am beginning to understand the immense development challenges facing a country, where the majority of its citizens exist on less than a dollar a day.
Since my first visit, I have struggled to understand what made me fall in love with Malawi, for that is exactly what my relationship with this country feels like.
Yes, it has beautiful landscapes – from the cloud covered Mulanje mountain in the south to the stunning northern shores of Lake Malawi, one of Africa’s largest freshwater lakes.
Its citizens have a deserved reputation for being among the friendliest people in sub-Saharan Africa – hence its name, the Warm Heart of Africa. Or Africa for Beginners as some more cynical travel writers have dubbed it.

Spiritual

There is almost a spiritual quality to the place. This has nothing to do with the thousands of churches and mosques that are scattered across the country, often no bigger than a garden shed. Nor the fact that almost everyone believes in God, or Allah.
“What do you believe in, if you don’t believe in God?” a young Malawian journalist once asked me as we discussed our countries relative relationships with faith.
“Nothing,” I said, and she looked at me as if I were mad. Here, belief is as part of life as water, and often more readily available.
I still don’t believe in God, or Allah, or Shiva, or Jehovah, but I think I fell in love with Malawi because it confirmed my faith in the essential goodness of human beings.
I don’t have a rose-tinted view of the country and its people, there are nasty people here – just as there are in Scotland and every other country in the world.
There is nothing romantic about having to walk five miles to get a bucket of dirty water for drinking, or dying from malaria because you don’t have a bed net.
And the development challenges facing this country are immense. So immense that just listing them is almost meaningless.
But here in Malawi the difficulties – and joys - of daily life are shared. Friends look after each other and family bonds are strong, almost unbreakable.
When we landed in Lilongwe on Sunday, our good friend, and Malawi Photographer of the Year 2007, Govati Nyirenda was there to meet us. 

He had got up at 6.00 am that morning and spent nearly five hours on a bus just so he could welcome us back to his country.
His cousin, Kambani, whom we had never met, had left the wedding celebrations of a close friend to drive us to our hotel, and had to be persuaded to accept money for fuel.
And today, another good friend, Peter Potani, the first Malawian I met when I arrived here three years ago, has spent his precious lunch hour searching for a decent car for us to hire.
Peter and Govati and our other friends here have given me much more than the precious gift of friendship.
They have made me believe, not in God, but in life.