I left Belgium on Friday night, flew through the night to Addis Abababa and, after a short and slightly stressful stopover ( Addis’ small airport is probably Africa’s busiest hub) flew on to Lilongwe. Arriving at midday I was happy to find Remy from Kasungu Elephants Foundation waiting for me outside the terminal. I had slept throughout the long flight so I was well rested, happy to be back in Malawi and ready to catch up on news while we drove to Kusumula Permaculture Institute, my home for the next two weeks.
Kusumula is on the outskirts of Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital city, not far from the president’s palace. There are still remains of the natural woodland that once covered the land here , and the institute has added to this with more tree plantings and fruit trees to create a perfect living landscape where people, nature and farming work together. The moment we pulled in to the parking area I could see we had made a good choice by starting our project with a course here. This looked just as I imagined our project might in some years time.
Remy took off back to town and I settled in,had a shower and went for a walk with one of the team. There were birds everywhere! Hoopoes and Scimitarbills, Waxbills and Twinspots, Barbets, Mousebirds, Sunbirds, Boubous, Tchagras …. Not only is this good news for me as a birdwatcher, it is a vindication of my argument that Permaculture is a powerful tool for boosting biodiversity; there are so many birds of so many species here, it’s really amazing.
The grounds are full of nice corners and different habitats. There are vegetable gardens, a cereal field (intercropped with nitrogen-fixing trees and crops), a nursery, greenhouses, a pen for pigs and chickens and – of course – compost toilets all over the place!
Next day Remy picks me and we go to a nice garden restaurant were Charles meets us. Its our first team meeting since June when I left Malawi and we get up to date on the state of play. Charles and Remy have done good work preparing the ground in Kasungu and we are ready to go. We now have two weeks to learn as much as possible at Kusumula in the Permaculture Design training. After that we will go straight to Kasungu and start sharing what we learn and implementing it with the people in M’ndaka village. We go over this and that point, practicalities etc. I think we are on the right path, this is a good team, stress is minimal and so far it’s smooth sailing.
Back at Kusumula I watch birds ( I have 2 new species already – Lesser Honeyguide and Green-winged Pytillia) and enjoy a delicious dinner of Tilapia fish from Lake Malawi and home-grown vegetables. Tomorrow morning we start the Permaculture course.
