"Malawi, Warm Heart of Africa"

Village in Malawi

Village behind tall grasses at the side of the road....always the beautiful clouds here!

Land of Contrasts - Here is the view from the 7th floor of  the Golden Peacock Hotel, where we stayed in Lilongwe - A Modern City.   Interesting combination, Chinese owned hotel, decorated with a combination of Chinese and African.  It was very tastefully done.  My favorite hotel of the trip.

A busy street in Lilongwe, mostly people walk everywhere.

Blurry shot of a loaded bike.

Typical way to carry the groceries.

Cell tower in the distance, man loading bike with melons or squash to sell....nice corn field.  Notice the women wear a wrap skirt called a chitenga.  They are worn very often and can be used to carry babies or other things on the back, or as a head cover in a storm....very nice article of clothing.  When worn as a wrap they always have something on underneath, allowing the versatility.

"Here is an ox-cart...oh how slow, it's pulled by an ox of course you know!"

Scenic view from exclusive property by the river!

I liked this little guys truck or train, he pulled it along with a string....I paid his Dad to allow me to take the picture.  Made from milk jugs and caps for wheels.  He was handling it carefully.

Bruce and Baobab tree.  Notice the road, one lane in each direction, not much shoulder, usually there are people walking or on bikes, as close to the edge as they can get or sometimes just in the lane.  Also there are herds of goats, and oxen and pigs sometimes crossing.  We were also delighted to see baboons and monkeys.  There was one hyena, but he was dead with a large crowd of Africans gathered around the kill.  Often there were large trucks stopped in the Lane with mechanical problems.  There was usually a crowd of young boys watching the repairs.  They warn you of the hazard by laying branches in the road before the stop.  The road trip took two days to get there, as you can imagine, we did not go at high speed.   The joy is in the journey!

District Presidency over all of Malawi and Branch Presidents in back, Blantyre.  Second Counselor in the Presidency, on the right is Edward Matale.  He is also National Public Affairs director for Malawi and a very effective one.  He guided us from Lilongwe to Blantyre, helped us find gas, arranged meetings with opinion leaders and Radio and TV station managers.

National Public Affairs Committee in Blantyre at training.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints meetinghouse in Blantyre.

Owner and editor of Fairlane Magazine, Marie Chikuni with Pres. Edward Matale, National Public Affairs Director of Malawi.  Marie is a good friend to the Church and has published several pages about the Church, straightening out misconceptions and showing values of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

We enjoyed a road trip to Malawi last week.  Here are some random pictures we took along the way.  Most of rural Malawi has the traditional round huts with thatched roofs.  There was village after village along the road like that.  All along the way were people walking or riding their bikes or traveling by ox cart.  This is the way they have lived traditionally, but even in the cities in Malawi, there are more people walking because of the shortage of gas they are experiencing currently. (Hard on a country who is so into tourism....hence the title "Warm Heart of Africa".....the people are nice and very friendly.)  When a gas station is able to get gas, there will be a line for many blocks of cars waiting to fill up.  The missionaries in Malawi spread the word about stations that have gas and hurry to get in the front of the line. 

The people in Malawi mostly speak Chichewa.   They are taught in school in Chichewa until they are older.  English is taught like any other subject.  The government uses English as the official language.   But many places, like in the church in Lilongwe, there are few English speakers.  There is a translation of the Bible into Chichewa but it is not very good, leaving out some verses, like the one about Jesus being baptized by immersion.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has not yet translated the Book of Mormon into Chichewa so it is amazing that people there do as well as they do.  In Blantyre, where Elder Nelson recently dedicated the Land of Malawi for missionary work, there are more English speakers.  It is a larger city, even though it is not the capitol, and there are more church members there.

We loved the country and the people of Malawi!