Abdulla, Nadia, Osama S, and me –Cori- were still waiting to
know where each of us will be spending the five months of our lodge placement
which is a part of our year course we were doing in South Africa when the news
came that me and Abdulla will be travelling to Malawi to do our placement in
one of the lodges for wilderness company in there.
With the very little I knew about Malawi –indeed in my mind
it was a group of islands in somewhere that I wasn’t sure where exactly- I
started searching the internet for more information about this country and the
surprise came when I found it was a landlocked country with no access to any
sea or oceans which was the complete opposite of what was in my mind.
Republic of Malawi:
Or Nyasland as it was formerly known sets on the south east
part of Africa and bordered by Zambia on the North west, Tanzania to the north
east and Mozambique on the east, south and west.
Even though it is a landlocked country but one fifth of the
total area of the country which is 118,484 Km2 is covered with
water.
Lake Malawi
Malawi is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by one of
the largest lakes on earth, Lake Malawi or Lake Nyassa –the old name-.
Lake Malawi is considered the
southernmost lake in the Grdeat Rift Valley system, the 3rd largest
lake in Africa, the eighth largest lake in the world, the 2nd
deepest lake in Africa and above all it has more fish species than any other
lake on earth.
The Warm Hart of Africa
Maybe it is
not only the wild life, nor the lake, neither the mountains of Malawi that made
it to be the worm hart of Africa but the worm hearted people above all, their
great hospitality and the warm smiles on their faces all the time.
Even with
it’s being one of the world’s least developed and most-densely populated countries (almost 15 million with
128 person/Km2) with more than 80% living in the rural areas with a
low level of education and health care but people are still the greatest
treasure of Malawi.
These was
the information I found about the country but for me the most interesting piece
of information I found was about Mount Mulanje, with its Peak Sapitwa the
second highest peak in the African continent with an elevation of 3000 m with
the mountain itself is globally considered as an Ecologically important area,
not only that but with the many streams that descends from the mountain with
the pools and the waterfalls all makes it sounds a great next adventure to be
done.
I will Start my trip to there today and i will be adding more blogs telling you about the Mountain and the spiritual believes on the mountain which i found so interesting.
