Born and raised in New Zealand, all I heard about Africa was from World Vision advertising and news stories about wars, crime, and business men hunting lions. Malawi lived up to absolutely none of this so I thought I would share my first impressions of the Warm Heart of Africa.
Getting to Malawi was difficult. We had come from Christchurch, New Zealand and travelled for 50 hours through 5 different airports in 4 different countries to make it here. I was disorientated from the jetlag and extremely nervous about meeting Modecai’s family for the first time so while part of me could not wait to get off the plane, another part wanted the plane to turn around and go back to Johannesburg. I forced myself to move through the small cabin and step off the plane into the warm Blantyre sun at Chileka airport. The first impression I had of Malawi was the heat. Going from literal freezing weather in Christchurch to high 20s and bright sunshine gave me whiplash (and heatstroke). But we had made it. This was Malawi. More specifically, it was Blantyre, a city of almost one million people but an airport smaller than my local supermarket back home. Although we were on an international flight, there was no sky bridge connecting the plane to the airport, we had to use the stairs to climb down onto the single runway.
Modecai’s parents met us just off the runway, his mum dancing with excitement at seeing him for the first time since before the pandemic 3 years ago. I immediately forgot the rehearsed greeting that I had been practicing for the past 50 hours as his mum hugged me and his dad shook my hand. The combination of my nerves and jetlag made me feel like I was moving through mud. I had to remind myself to breathe and try to act normal. Smile. Say hello. Don’t panic about forgetting the Chichewa greeting, English is fine. Walk inside. Keep smiling! They are talking to me, so nod. Smile. I wouldn’t recommend meeting future in-laws for the first time right after consecutive 10+ hour flights.
Entry into the country was certainly the smoothest part of the entire travel experience, I got to sit in a nice, quiet, air conditioned room while a porter handled my luggage collection and visa application. It was a very different (easier) experience compared to the stopovers in Brisbane, Dubai, Durban, and Johannesburg. I couldn’t believe the difference in how strict border security measures were anywhere we went compared to New Zealand and Australia, I kept waiting for the bags to be scanned for forbidden fruit and vegetables but a signature on the visa application and $50 later and we were free to go.
I was finally here and I kept waiting for it to feel different somehow. Before we left New Zealand, I was given a lot of advice about how to stay safe and how to adapt and how to feel comfortable with being very uncomfortable. I don’t know what I was expecting it to be like and feel like. I think my idea of Malawi was based on a combination of World Vision images of African villages and Modecai’s stories of busy city streets. It was a confusing image.
On the drive from the airport, I was looking out the windows waiting for the moment where I would feel like we were in another country, another continent, another culture, but that feeling didn’t come. I saw ladies casually walking down the road while balancing giant baskets filled with water bottles, fruit, or what looked like a pile of flour on their heads. This was something I kind of thought happened only in movies, but it was really happening. Young children were walking by themselves by a busy road, school bags on their backs. That was definitely not something you would never see in New Zealand.
As we drove, we periodically passed by markets made up of a collection of wooden lean-tos. The people in these stalls were selling a little bit of everything. I caught a glimpse of carved wooden furniture at one stall, piles of clothes and shoes at another, and so many had fresh fruit and vegetables. Coming from a country where fruit and vegetables prices have skyrocketed, it was strange driving past a stall with what would be at least $100 of tomatoes in a New Zealand supermarket just haphazardly stacked up on a mat next to the road. I thought that maybe it was a market day or some kind of special event but no, these stalls were more or less a permanent fixture.
It was also interesting to hear Modecai talk to his mum about what he found strange in his home country now. Something that we both found really disconcerting was the number of motorbikes on the road. This was a new development for Modecai as well because 3 years ago, they were much rarer. Entire families of 3 to 4 people plus a baby would be on a single motorcycle weaving their way through traffic, not a helmet in sight.
Despite the differences between what I would see driving through Christchurch and what I saw driving through Blantyre, there was still never that overwhelming uncomfortable feeling of being somewhere different. I was expecting to feel overwhelmed, or uncomfortable, or some kind of certain feeling that would make it obvious that I was in a totally different place but I didn’t. I decided that I must be too jetlagged to feel the proper feelings yet and that it would come later. I was wrong. I only spent 4 weeks there but the whole time, I never felt uncomfortable in Malawi.