Again I begin a post with Fitta Chipeta. Otherwise known as ‘Fitta the Fixer’. When in Malawi, if there’s a glitch with a gadget, Fitta will get F Man to sort it. If you’d like a live chicken, Fitta knows someone who knows someone whose father’s sister’s neigbour can supply you with a bird. If … More A Lesson with Fitta
A friend in Malawi sent through this short film today. My immediate thoughts were: Strong legs! How many children? (I count ten). Do they do that every day? Where are the masks, and aren’t they very close? What about safety? My friend tells me there is no access to any PPE in the remote trading … More An African Ride to School
“We are eating mangoes now. The picture I have sent is one of our own trees outside our house.“ I wake to messages like this often. They arrive on my phone all the way from Malawi in the middle of the night, at the latest by 5 o’clock, when most Malawians have been up and … More Messages from Malawi
I’ve taken you out to Margret’s Malawian Kitchen, and introduced you to Israel (again) and F Man (briefly). So here now is a fuller idea of why my son and I went to Malawi. (This post can also be found on Empathy Action.) I’m tagging along on my son’s trip (he’s here to gain some … More Malawi Matters
A little bit about my friend, Fazili Gama, shared originally by Empathy Action. Meet Fazili, otherwise known as F Man. He lives in a town called Kasungu in Malawi, and is THE man to go to if you need your phone fixed. He started out young, fixing his teachers’ phones when he needed to pay … More About F Man
I first met Israel in 2016 at a primary school in rural Malawi. I remember introducing him here on this blog, telling of his penchant for my sunglasses and the sparkle in his eye. He was nine years old. I wondered whether I would ever see him again. But when my son and I revisit … More Israel
Jon chops onions, I take photos, and Margret is sensational in yellow. We are in Margret’s kitchen, to the rear of the house she shares with Kenneth, her husband, and their son, Jonathan, in rural Malawi. It’s the end of a fascinating trip (more of which later). Clean pots and pans wait as fires hot … More Margret’s Kitchen
In an attempt to take my life a little more seriously than I habitually do, I make coffee, then grab a pen and a whimsically-covered notebook. I plonk random pieces of fruit next to me for colour and inspiration, and read snippets of this fabulously escapist and informative book (another Oxfam bookshop gem). Funny and … More A Serious Case of Escapism
Last year my naive experiment of growing a luffa plant (in the relative cool of Kent) from a seed shaped in the sunshine of sub-Saharan Africa, came to a leaf-withered, sorry-looking nothing (despite having survived a nasty accident with a bike). I was sad. After receiving a lesson in luffas from Bettie in Malawi, I had planted … More Lovely Luffa
I know this is a reasonably big glass of wine. It is much required. Vino’clock came knocking on my door this evening, with some urgency, after my precious Malawian luffa plant was ridden into at (what appeared to be similar to) supersonic speed by one of my cherubic children on a bike. Recently replanted after its happy … More Luffa plant needs wine
Have Paprika, Will Travel 